USPS Rate Increase Set for January

Other highlights of the new single-piece First-Class Mail pricing, effective Jan. 27, 2013, include:

• Letters (1oz.) – 1-cent increase to 46 cents
• Letters additional ounces – unchanged at 20 cents
• Postcards – 1-cent increase to 33 cents
• Letters to all international destinations (1oz.) - $1.10 (this is a new forever stamp being introduced)

The new postage DRAFT Pricing Files for all mailing and shipping services are available on the Postal Explorer (see the yellow text in the image for easy reference). We will update our Direct Mail Quick Guide in January and release it in one of our weekly email communiqués.

The Super-cool Fold Factory Video: Source - foldfactory.com

Featured: Bidirectional Accordion Fold with Glueless Pocket

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Tips from the Trenches: Build Colors Out of CMYK

Working in CMYK can take much of the guess work out of color, especially with the changes in CS6. When building your documents in Illustrator and InDesign, it is imperative to be working in CMYK instead of RGB.  Use your CPC color chart or a Pantone Solid to Process color book and focus on the process CMYK colors. Your work will stay more consistent and you will avoid many of the surprises that arise from inaccurate color on your final piece.

App-licious App:

Dropbox is a great way to be everywhere at once. It allows you to easily share files with anyone. This tool may also be used on your laptop or desktop, whether you have a smart phone or not.

Interesting Integers: Source – Print in the Mix

55% of digital magazine readers “noted,” or read, a digital ad on their tablet or e-reader.

Almost Famous Quote:

You will suffer one of two pains, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Jim Rohn

 

The NEW CS6 Pantone Library CMYK Builds are Different Resulting in Different Colors:

In CS6, the default Pantone Plus (Solid) color libraries are now based on Lab values instead of CMYK. Therefore, the CMYK builds in CS6 are different from previous versions. Printers are getting different color output from CS6 than they did in CS5.

When converting colors to CMYK, take note of the build you are expecting (i.e. check if it is the same CMYK build as in previous CS versions and that it is the same build across all applications). Otherwise, the blue that you have been using for your logo, for example, will now be a different blue and will not match your previous work (see the color bar above illustrating the relative differences).

Adobe's solution/workaround to fix this: If it is necessary for you to have identical spot colors in CS6 compared with older CS versions, you can replace the Pantone Plus Series with the older Pantone color books. It is also necessary to change the setting of the Spot Color dialog of the CS6 document to use CMYK values from the manufacturer's process books. These two steps make the Pantone spot color uniform across different versions of CS (see Tips from the Trenches) and need to be taken in Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop, or you will experience different colors within your project. The key is to be consistent across all platforms.

 

The Super-cool Fold Factory Video: Source - foldfactory.com

See some crazy creative die cut and fold techniques.

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Tips from the Trenches:

To replace the Pantone Plus Series with the older Pantone color books, as discussed above, please follow these step by step instructions found at http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html.

App-licious App:

RedLaser is a great barcode scanner, shopping assistant and QR code reader. This app allows you to benefit from the explosion of QR codes, which have become an information and marketing tool. As a shopping assistant, it allows you to scan any product and receive pricing information from other retailers in a given area.

Interesting Integers: Source – Print in the Mix

Eight of 10 households (81%) say they either read or scan the advertising mail sent to their homes.

Almost Famous Quote:

The more weakness you discover in yourself, the faster you will develop, and the more self-confident you will be. Sheng Yen

Printing is Still an Industry: Source - Printing Industries of America
Nowadays, when completing web based forms, they will typically ask you what industry you are in. It is rather foreboding to not see “printing” as one of the choices. There isn’t even a choice that is relatively close. However, consider the fact that the printing industry still accounts for about $140 billion per year (2010). The printing industry is defined as Commercial; Form, Label and Tag; Greeting Card; Specialty; Packaging; and Trade Services. The two largest groups are Commercial and Packaging totaling $95 billion and $22 billion respectively.

Over the last decade, some printers have stayed more relevant to their clients by offering more services, as is the case with us at CPC Solutions. Today, the aforementioned sales figures include dollars generated from database management, mailing services, fulfillment, web services, and variable data printing.

The Super-cool Fold Factory Video: Source - foldfactory.com

See some crazy creative die cut and fold techniques.

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Tips from the Trenches:  One of the most common file preparation issues we come across revolve around low resolution images. Resolution is the number of dots per inch (dpi), which directly impacts the detail of an image. Images on your monitor typically appear at 72 dpi in RGB (red, green, blue). For print, we recommend 300 dpi in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) with a minimum of 200 dpi. InDesign will flag low resolution images for you if you use preflight. Preflight is found under Window, click Output, then Preflight. Define your profile to flag anything lower than 300 dpi.

App-licious App:  Are you trying to find that perfect song for your marketing video, but can’t remember the name or its title? Try humming it into SoundHound and it will kickback everything you ever wanted to know. It works even better when listening to the radio.

Interesting Integers: Source - Print in the Mix

Clipped and redeemed coupons directly delivered to the home.

Parents: 31%  

Consumers w/out kids: 23%

Almost Famous Quote:  Old is always older than you are. Ferdinand “Fred” Castex Aerospace lunar module engineer and loving husband (1919 – 1986)

 

As a solutions provider, we embrace all of the tools at our disposal, which include the use of apps. An app we find to be very useful is called Genius Scan. It essentially turns your smart phone into a pocket scanner available for the iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone operating systems.

We have used it to send press sheet samples hot off the press or to demonstrate the different attributes of a final printed piece. Unlike your default camera app, it allows you to crop and correct the perspective of the document seamlessly, and then easily convert it to a PDF, adding multiple pages if needed. It is exportable in a variety of ways including dropbox and email.

We do not derive any revenue from recommending apps, but it does give us warm fuzzies just knowing that we have helped a fellow business warrior.

Enjoy!

We are celebrating the one year anniversary of our weekly email communiqués designed to inform and educate.  

Click the link to view the 81 second CPC Solutions Blog Trailer, which will give you a quick visual of the content available from the past year. The categories and related links are listed below for quick and easy reference. Thank you.