Business Cards to die for

Business card with die cut designed for a client

Business cards are a great marketing tool and in many cases your first contact with an old client or a potential client. For this reason when we design your business card at Pulp Graphic Design, we design it with longevity and overall impact in mind, since many of them find a home in Rolodexes, card folders, wallets and purses of your prospects and customers.

Let it stand out
One of the key features of a successful business card is its ability to stand out. Considering that nine out of 10 business cards are the traditional rectangular shape and 90×50mm, a creative die cut business card is a great way to stand apart from the competition.

A die cut business cards provide an endless opportunity for creativity and will leave a lasting impression on your prospects. Here are a few ways to use die cut business cards to get the word out about your business and keep your company at the forefront of your prospects’ minds:

Choose the best shape. Business card shapes can range from simple to complex and can be created to match any type of business. For example, if you want to promote a window business, you can create a business card with the windows cut out. Or a bakery could create a long john doughnut with a bite cut out of it.

Maximize your real estate. Remember to use the back side of your business card for special offers, a call to action, appointment reminders, upcoming events or promotions. Printing on the back side adds minimal expense, yet is a great way to maximize your investment.

Select quality paper. If your card is too thin, it will be flimsy and appear unprofessional, and if it is too thick, it won’t fit into wallets. A glossy finish will accent vivid images, while a subtle matte finish will add richness and depth to your colors.

Print in volume. If you plan to distribute 5,000 business cards throughout the next year, order them in one order instead of multiple smaller batches to save money on a volume discount.

Die cut business cards are the marketing materials which will help you develop and strengthen your image, as well as widen your relations whether in society or in business. Your customers and prospects will not only hold on to your card, but they’ll also likely show it off to their colleagues or friends, increasing the marketing value of your business card exponentially.

If you’re looking for other unique ways that you can grab attention with business cards, we can help you develop a business card that stands apart from the crowd. For more info visit www.pulpdesign.co.za

Add a Photo to your Marketing

Next time you are thinking of graphics to include on your marketing materials, web site, and business card, don’t overlook the marketing impact of adding your photo. Since people buy from people, they are often curious about who they are buying products and services from. A professional photo adds a personal touch when communicating with your audience.

Here are a few tips when taking your next business photo: 

• Have your photo taken professionally. Request various poses – standing, sitting, head shots, full length, etc. You may even want to try two or three outfits ranging styles and colors. 
• Wear appropriate clothing to connect with your audience. If you’re a gymnastics coach who works with teenagers, the image you portray will be different than if you work with lawyers or doctors. 
• Be sure you are well groomed before your photo shoot – comb your hair, shave, check your teeth, iron your clothes, straighten your tie, etc. If you need a haircut, have it done one or two weeks before your photo session. 
• Consider using props or having your photo taken on site at your business (such as a contractor wearing a hard hat on a project site). 
• Review a contact sheet of various options and choose the best poses for your uses. Request to purchase your photo(s) on a CD with the rights to use it as you wish.

While it may not be appropriate to include your photo on every marketing piece you create, it adds a personal touch to your business cards and helps prospects and customers connect a face with your name and remember who you are.

If you’d like help designing printed marketing materials that feature your photo, e-mail or call us today. We have a variety of ideas on how you can effectively market with your photo. Visit us at www.pulpdesign.co.za for more info.

From experience to opportunity

Aldous Huxley once wrote, “Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.” Huxley’s own experience included a battle with illness at 16, which left him nearly blind for the next two years. Despite his diminished eyesight, his vision for the future remained strong. Huxley continued his studies and learned Braille. His condition kept him out of the service during World War I and changed his outlook on life. Once considering a career in science, Huxley decided instead to pursue writing.

Here’s the way I see it: Like Aldous Huxley, we all face challenges in life. What we do with those challenges determines not only the outcome for the situation itself but also our outlook on life in general. At Pulp Graphic Design, we look at challenges as opportunities. Each challenge provides a chance to improve our skills, hone our craft, and make a great impression. So the next time you find yourself facing a tough design printing challenge, give us a call. We want to help you succeed. The current economic situation really offers a huge challenge for many of us, at Pulp Graphic Design we have take this challenge and came up with a few great cost-saving ideas from your company.

For more info visit our website at: www.pulpdesign.co.za

Lorem Ipsum

“Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…”

“There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain…”

What is Lorem Ipsum?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Why do we use it?

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like). 

Where does it come from?

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

Where can I get some?

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The published Lorem Ipsum below is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

The standard Lorem Ipsum passage, used since the 1500s

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.”

Section 1.10.32 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum”, written by Cicero in 45 BC

“Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?”

Section 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum”, written by Cicero in 45 BC

“At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat.”

1914 translation by H. Rackham

“But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?”

Clone Tool disappear in Corel

Ever experienced the frustration of wanting to edit a photo with Corel Photo-Paint just to discover that no matter how hard you click to set the clone it wouldn’t work? It is as if the clone tool all of a sudden has lost its functionality from the previous time you worked with it. I love Corel Photo-Paint but this was one of those glitches in the programme that used to drive me nuts when it would happen out of the blue without any pre-warning.

I discovered two possible ways to fix the problem. Personally I prefer the first option, but the second one is also an option, but more violent in the sense that it completely reset Corel Photo-Paint.

Option One: - In Corel Photo-Paint, open a photo you would like to edit and click on the Clone tool to activate it. In the top bar click on Window -> Dockers -> Brush Settings. A sidebar with the settings will open. Right at the top of that side bar stands Stroke Style: with a little box/arrow next to it. Click on that box/arrow and select Reset All.

Option Two:- Close Corel Photo-Paint if it is already open. Now, hold down the F8 key, and start up Photo-Paint in the usual way while keeping the F8 key down. You will be offered an opportunity to reset the programme to its installation defaults, which you should accept.

Trust that you will find these tips useful when using Corel Photo-Paint next time. For more information on our services, vist our website at www.pulpdesign.co.za

Missing an opportunity?

A poor man bought a used book and was flipping through the pages when he stumbled upon an intriguing hand-written note that told about the secret of a magical “touchstone.” The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any metal into pure gold. The story explained that the touchstone was lying amongst thousands of other pebbles that looked alike, but the real stone would feel warm, while other stones are cold.

With nothing to lose, the man packed up his belongings and camped out at the seashore testing pebbles. Instead of picking up the same pebbles numerous times, the man decided to throw the cold pebbles into the sea. He spend days doing this, but none of the pebbles were the touchstone. He would pick up a pebble, feel it was cold, and threw it into the sea. Pick up another cold pebble and throw it into the sea.

After several weeks of touching pebbles, the man picked up a pebble that was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he’d done. He had formed such a habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when he finally came across the special stone, he tossed it away without a second thought.

Here’s the way I see it: Life is full of opportunities that we may miss out on because we become so wrapped up in our normal routine. Next time you are presented with an idea for a new opportunity, slow down and think it over. If you are too quick to throw them away, you could miss out on a real treasure that awaits your future.

If you’d like help creating marketing materials that are sure to warm customers up to your business, let us know! Our creative printed materials can help turn your ideas to gold, visit us at www.pulpdesign.co.za

A drop shadow adds drama

Sometimes as a designer we are faced with a design or layout that just needs that little extra bit to lift it from ordinary to extra-ordinary. Over the sixteen years as designer have have seen so many times how something as simple as a drop shadow can add the extra dimension to your page and lift the design from the doldrums. The drop shadow tool allows you to create the impression that an object or text is floating, adding the wonder of dimension and perspective to your layour or design.

Cool Tip: Type some text in the same colour as your background and then add a drop shadow. Looks nifty and adds some flair to your design! This way you distinguish the text from the background in a creative way.

Here are some thoughts about how to use drop shadows more creatively:

• The drop shadow can be a surprisingly simple means of making an image more interesting.
• A drop shadow can be realistic, or can be presented as a simple, hard-edged gray tone.
• Shadows can darken a mood or convey a look of sunshine.
• Many software programs feature the ability to add a drop shadow to an image.

Use drop shadows to signify:

• Light sources
• Realistic images
• Graphics
• Flat images
• Perspectives
• Darkness
• Light

Hope you enjoy yourself in the process of discovering more creative ways of using a drop shadow. If you need more info, please visit my website at www.pulpdesign.co.za