Optima Graphics Blog

CES – A good start for a good year?

Tim Bonesteel — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:26:47 +0000

Well, now that January is wrapping up, I’ve been thinking a little more about CES. You see, CES is a show I pay attention to for a couple of reasons, but mostly because I use it as part of one of my New Year’s resolutions. My resolution doesn’t have anything to do with attending the show (which I’ve never done) or having Optima print graphics that will be used at the show (although that is wonderful every year when it happens). I’ll tell you what it is in a bit. In the meantime, it’s a show that interests me on many levels: its size, its subject matter, its exhibitors, and most importantly…its statistics.

A couple of interesting numbers came out of CES 2012. For instance, did you know that CES 2012 set personal records for attendance (over 153,000), exhibit space used (over 1.861 million square feet used), and exhibitors (over 3,100). All of this happened at the start of a year that some folks still feel shaky about. However, when you see numbers like that at the first major show of the year, does it give you some confidence? How is your outlook for 2012? Good, bad, or indifferent? Are you calculating the upcoming Mayan 2012 apocalypse in your decision?

I know it charges me up, despite the fact that once again I failed my CES resolution, which I haven’t forgotten to tell you yet. I just haven’t told you yet. Let’s get back to being charged up… Optima has a lot of exciting new products and services right around the corner. Of course, I can’t give away the secrets yet. That’s what our VIP Hospitality Room at Exhibitor is for. If you want to go, we still have free show floor passes HERE, and I do hope to see you there.

In case you were wondering, I use the end of CES as my New Year’s resolution deadline to stop writing out checks with last year’s date (yes, I still use checks). My check to the gas company went out with Jan. 2011 on it, so for me, as true Chicago Cubs fans are known for saying…”there’s always next year.” However, there’s still plenty of time this year to make 2012 great (despite the inevitable Mayan apocalypse on Dec. 21st).

Tim Bonesteel
Account Executive
Optima Graphics
636.680.9259

What do you mean Lighting affects Design?

Tim Toolen — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:41:38 +0000

The light that your designs are viewed by will directly affect the color that the audience perceives, thereby affecting the design itself. There now, that was easy.

Wait…you want more? You can’t just take my word for it? Alright, let’s dive into this.

How lighting affects a printed graphic is one of the most frustrating issues that Exhibit Graphic Designers can run into. How many times have we talked to a customer who is unhappy with a color match, and yet when we look at the same color match, it looks just fine to us?

Even more telling would be when someone holds a backlit graphic up to the window in their office and is unhappy with the color! I’m unashamed to say that the last time that happened to me, I professionally and politely asked my client if it was sunny or overcast that day. The details of the conversation that followed aren’t all that interesting, but the results made for a much happier client when they looked at the graphic properly.

Do me a favor. Take a piece of white paper outside and look at it. Looks white, doesn’t it? Now take that same piece of paper into your office. What color is it now? The bulbs that are installed into the majority of all office buildings, as well as sold for general use, have a very strong, warm cast to them. This warm cast to the light will, in turn, change the perceived color of anything you look at. Including turning that pretty, white piece of paper a bit yellow. Take a look below at a series of three light bulbs, all casting their light on a white ceiling.

Now if two of those bulbs can turn a white ceiling orange and yellow, what are they doing to the printed pieces we are designing? Well, see the third bulb? The one marked 5500 K? That is very, very close to the proper lighting to look at color and graphics by. In fact, look at the bulb specifications that PANTONE recommends and uses:

Source: D50 Simulation
Color Temperature: 5000K
Color Rendering Index: 98
Wattage: 2 x 18
Lamp type: Fluorescent JUST Color Control Daylight 5000
Uses: Daylight for color matching in the graphic arts industry. For reproductions and color proofs. (CIE D50, ANSI PH 2.30, ISO 3664)

“But Tim, not everyone is going to have the perfect lighting for viewing color by in their office, much less in an exhibit hall!” No, unfortunately not. So what’s the solution?

Good customer service and knowledge. Knowledge on how to properly judge color and proof your designs. Knowledge of how lighting affects the colors in your design, and bringing that knowledge to your client so that they can in turn, properly illuminate their exhibit space. Good customer service to patiently explain to a client who may not understand will result in a client who is much happier with their graphics that you created for them, and with you in turn.

Tim Toolen
Graphic Designer
Optima Graphics

Are you lookin’ for trouble?

Keith Simpson — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:35:17 +0000

…BECAUSE WE ARE! During my time here at Optima (a long 7 years in the biz) the word “evolution” comes to mind. When I started here many many moons ago, Tech Support wasn’t HALF as in-depth and detailed as we are now. We were just the pre-flighters, and pre-flighting was what we did.

Over the years, I’ve seen some odd things when it comes to customer artwork. Have you ever seen blue turn to green for no reason?

Nowadays, we get so in depth with your artwork, we can almost always find something that might make us say “huh?” The important thing is I’ve got a great team here who can make clear distinctions, bugging you guys only when it’s truly necessary. Ultimately, the goal is a phenomenal final product, and that’s what we’ve come to do best around here.

Our goal is only to continue to evolve by listening to our customers, so I’d like to reach out to you to help make us BETTER. I’d much appreciate it if any of you have a few moments, please reach out to me and tell me what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong, what we’re doing that we should stop, what we’re not doing that we should be, etc. Email or phone call is fine, I’m always available to chat with any and all of our clients. It’s all of you that make us successful, so the least we can do is return the favor!

Keith Simpson
Graphic Support Rep Supervisor
Optima Graphics
636-680-9255

EDPA Pulse Survey

David Brown — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:06:53 +0000

The EDPA Pulse survey is still open. Our apologies to our email subscribers who received a malfunctioning link to the survey. Below you will find Dave’s same message with working links to the survey.

Happy New Year!

In an effort to help generate and share current trends within the industry, the EDPA created the Pulse survey in 2011.

The last survey’s results were shared with us during the annual meeting in December and my take away was, wow, I am glad I am getting to see this information and I wish more people would take the survey to increase the value of the results.

Yesterday, the Pulse survey which looks at Q4 2011 compared to Q3 of 2011 was distributed. Optima, a long standing EDPA member, is supporting the efforts of EDPA in expanding the reach of this industry initiative by inviting you to participate.

You do not have to be a member to take the survey, or even share in the findings. It took me just two minutes and forty-three seconds to complete the survey, so the time commitment is little more than it will take to read this message.

Results are scheduled to be distributed sometime in mid February with a new PULSE survey looking at Q1 of 2012 distributed about two weeks after the quarter ends, This is a never ending cycle to provide us with trending patterns in a timely fashion.

If you would like to view the survey’s results, please head to the association’s website, EDPA.com late in February. If you find what EDPA is doing of greater interest, reach out to Alex Chung. He’ll help with any questions, including how you can become an EDPA member.

Thanks and onward ho,

Dave S. Brown
VP of Sales
Optima Graphics

To take the PULSE Q4 2012 survey click here

Taking Control In The New Year

David Brown — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:56:31 +0000

Happy New Year! First off, I hope everyone had a great holiday season and the New Year looks as promising as ever. I was fortunate enough to take about 10 days off and eagerly came back to work with the realization that I am not ready to retire, I enjoy the camaraderie of the office, and even if I win Powerball, I will keep working. Well, that last one might be debatable if I win the 257 Million big one.

Something that I did notice over my vacation was the amount of information that kept flowing at me. Between LinkedIn groups, Optima Graphics internal news, and broadcast e-mails, I still got 20-30 e-mails a day without trying and I know that I am not alone. We live in an age of information overload and yeah, I know I am not the first person to figure this out, but I did reflect a bit on how can I best filter or control the information that I want to see and that I want to show up in my Inbox. So I spent about an hour on Monday updating my settings and preferences for a few different sources – NY Times, LinkedIn, Delta Airlines, Further, and even my kids hockey team and have noticed a reduction in my morning e-mails.

About six months ago, Optima created an option for each of our Customers (you) to create and control their own profiles and determine what information was important to see when we send out e-mail notifications. I strongly encourage all of you to take a few minutes and follow the link below and go in and update your preferences. If you want to know about updating pricing or specs from our monthly newsletter, sending logistics updates, or marketing a new product – you have the ability to dial in the settings that work best for you. As the head of sales I have heard customers say, I only want to know about X and the profile settings allow you to control that. Again, we are not the first company to cross this bridge, but I started my day Tuesday by looking at how many customers had adjusted their profiles and I thought the number was very low. My conclusion, taking the time to call and get the correct URL to go do this is one more step in your very busy day and it has not been a white hot priority. Well start the year off right, go in and set your profile as you want, and be prepared for some exciting things to come in the near future.

As always thanks for taking the time to read and we all appreciate your business. I look forward to seeing you all at Exhibitor which is only a handful of weeks away.

Dave S. Brown
VP of Sales
Optima Graphics

Moving Your Marketing

D.Leftridge — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:30:03 +0000

I recently did a series titled “6 things to think about when…” The final post of the series was about Mobile Marketing. I hit on some of the high points but wanted to share a few more things from my research and notes on the subject of Mobile Marketing.

Mobile Marketing 1 – Marketing on or with a mobile device. Ex: Smart phone using short message service (SMS) or text messaging. 2 – Marketing in a moving fashion. Ex: Road show or moving billboards.

Interesting Facts:

- More people use their mobile devices to get on the Internet than other ways.

- Mobile is successful because marketing is now more of a time sensitive
interaction.

A large reason the term Mobile Marketing came about was because in business, like our personal lives, we need to be accessible on multiple channels. Once individuals and businesses settled on the social media portals they wanted to be on and use, the attention went to consumption of the information. This is where Mobile devices came even more into play.

Top 5 things people are doing with their Mobile Devices:

1 – Checking & Sending emails

2 – Looking up directions

3 – Using social media sites

4 – Reading news

5 – Listening to music/podcasts (Source: The 60 Second Marketer)

All Email Marketing should also be planned for Mobile consumption. Pay attention to your layout and design of emails so they can be seen and used correctly on mobile devices. Remember to streamline your content and make links and information obvious to the user. Don’t forget to set your email up to the correct scale for mobile devices.

Check out Anatomy of the Perfect Mobile Email (Source: ColumnFiveMedia) to see and learn more good practices for your next Mobile Email and things to avoid doing.

With any Email Marketing remember to use a good subject line and from line with branding integrated in it. This is very important with the lightning fast world of Mobile Marketing. Keep your message quick and to the point then direct your customer to a website or offline location (or phone number) for more information. Always have a link to viewing the email as a web version in case it does not show correctly on a mobile device. We can only control so much as the sender of emails. An entire other world of email security is on the receiving end.

The numbers are starting to come through that show the need for Mobile Marketing in the businesses world. A great visual of this is Mobile Revolution (Source: ektron).

Don’t forget QR codes. That said, I feel there has been an overload of info and articles about the entire QR code discovery. It is nice to see the ability to design and brand them is happening more but just having one for the sake of it is not that fantastic. The way you utilize the codes are the very important part.

Make sure they work first of all. Give users an incentive for scanning the code. Also, not all devices or readers work the same so make the functionality the most universal you can. If it does not work to link straight to something like a video take users to a landing page or mobile site to use as your connection point. Make the QR code fun…and informative to use.

Mobile Marketing things you need to experience:

- Scan a QR code

- Use Google voice search
(creepy at times but impressive)

- Post (check in) on a location based app

- Use a mobile card app

- Make a review on “Yelp” or another location app

- Scan a bar code to use with Amazon app
(This has saved me a lot of money when shopping.)

- Click on a banner Ad

Mobile Marketing things your company needs to experience:

- Make a Mobile version of your website

- Claim your business name on location-based services
(As important as claiming a .com for your business)

- Research running a mobile paid search and mobile display campaign–

Comment about your experiences with Mobile Marketing. Are their other things you would suggest doing with Mobile Marketing?

Derek Leftridge
Marketing Coordinator
Optima Graphics
About the Author
Derek Leftridge is the Marketing Coordinator at Optima Graphics. He posts on his own blog Optima Leftovers about Social Media, Marketing and Technology. Check out his Social Media for Trade Shows series here. Other posts by Derek

More on EDPA

David Brown — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 23:04:33 +0000

During this past week, I have been reflecting on the three day EDPA conference and something a customer said to me really jumped out as very insightful. His comment was, “I have not attended Access in several years and I had forgotten how everyone lays down their swords and opens up about best business practices and provides each other with advise.” What a powerful statement and in my opinion a great reason to attend this or any EDPA chapter event. There are a number of strong EDPA chapters – Las Vegas, Southeast, Northern Cal… If you are looking for insight and a forum to get business advice from within the industry, EDPA events and the Annual Access meeting really should be on your list of must do’s for next year.

The other item I have been reflecting on is a comment a different customer made. He stated that he did not understand why we mention some of the things we do within our blog. He said, I do not need tips on social media from a graphics company – I need tips on graphics and the things you produce. On one hand he is 100% correct and as I thought about what “graphic” tip to provide next in my blog (do not forget about Lambda Graphics for high profile companies and product shots – high quality requests deserve the highest quality output and sales numbers support this “trend”) I got a call from a customer and unsolicited she said, “I love the fact that you vary your posts and have guest writers – most companies just want to sell a widget”. Well, viva free speech and both customers being right. I am no social media expert, but I do want to see your businesses succeed.

Thanks for your business and please let me know if you have any thoughts / comments.

Dave S. Brown
VP of Sales
Optima Graphics

Trade Show Marketing and Social Media

Admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:00:22 +0000

Guest Post by William Derosa

The ever growing influence of social media marketing has opened up whole new worlds of available initiatives that can be integrated into your trade show marketing, both to increase attendance and engagement, as well as the bottom line. Proper utilization of these platforms and an organized strategy can dramatically increase the overall success of your trade show efforts.

Here are some practical tips to implement immediately for your next show, broken down by social platform:

Facebook
1. Use your Fan page to create an Event! Don’t just post on your Wall that you are exhibiting, this has very little shelf life if your page is active. Creating an Event has many benefits: It is automatically posted to your Wall with a clean look. When someone registers, they get a continual reminder of the Event in their home feed. As well, their friends are notified that are attending, giving you even greater exposure. It is also easily shared among users. Do this a few weeks before the show. Be sure the Event includes a nice image and description including booth number, show info, and any initiatives for giveaway’s (such as scanning a QR code or Twitter contests) to entice them to visit you! A bonus for those utilizing Facebook properly: If you have a personal profile set up correctly to have “lists, you can then use these lists to INVITE people through Facebook as well.

2. Create a Photo Album specific to the Trade show, and label it as the name of the show. This will help you organize pictures over time, and as well, it makes it easy to send people to a specific place on your page to look through pictures by show. In this album, post pics of your display, the staff, the crowd at the show…everything that shows your presence. Be creative!

A video shot from a recent show.

3. Post a reminder a week before the show on your Wall. Be sure to TAG the show in your post if they also have a Facebook presence. This will put a post on THEIR wall as well. Be sure to include your booth number in this post. As well, if you are doing any giveaways or other social initiatives (such as Twitter or QR codes) be sure to include this in the post.

4. At the show, if you can utilize the Facebook video app (and you happen to have a computer with a webcam) shoot a quick “hello” video to announce you are there. We do this at every show, and we get a ton of feedback on it!

Blogs
If you currently have a blog, here is your chance to write the inside story about your trade show presence. Before the show, talk about the preparations you are making. Include any display upgrades (or that NEW display!), some giveaways you are pondering on, or the pains of developing new graphics. After the show, post about the experiences you had during the show as well as after show activities, dinners and more. Blogs are meant to be the unfettered voice of your company, the place where you let your hair down a bit and let people connect on a personal level by reading about your trade show experience. Use pictures and/or video to enhance the experience. Be sure to use outbound links as well to your other platforms (for example, put a link to your Facebook page Event tab to have people register before the show, or to a full photo album on Flikr or Facebook after the show) as these are powerful for SEO.

This was printed on 8x11 sintra and placed in our display area at a recent show we attended.

Twitter
1. Find out what Hashtag and Twitter handle is being used for the show marketing and interactions, and use them in your Tweets. This makes your Tweets available to not only your followers, but anyone following the show.

2. Tweet out during the show to give people a “real time” interaction with you. This brings them into your world, and if some clients or prospects couldn’t come this time, it may entice them to come the next. Don’t overdo it. Five or so relevant Tweets is enough per day. Use pics in a Tweet once in a while to enhance the experience.

3. Use Twitter for part of your giveaways! Asking people to mention you to be entered into a drawing is a simple way to garner more attention and create some more followers.

YouTube
If pictures are worth a thousand words, videos are an encyclopedia set. Aside from the Facebook video post I suggested earlier (which may not feasible for many without a webcam ) you should be utilizing YouTube to create a video compilation for before, during and after if possible. Most smart phones have great video cams now, perfect for YouTube! Video can be a powerful SEO and engagement tool. You could videotape the set up of the display and run it through iMovie or similar to create a time lapse fun video, a member of your team doing a presentation, or just a quick pan of the exhibit hall. Again, this a great chance to be creative!

Flikr
You can use flikr to host all of your pictures. I still suggest putting a photo album on Facebook as users like the simplicity of going to this platform. The reason we add Flikr, is that when photos aretagged properly (such as with the show name) they are now Google searchable. So if someone searches for images for the PPAI show for example in Google, your properly tagged pics may come up, giving you additional exposure. Facebook photos are not found outside of Facebook.

This was printed on a 30x30 coroplast and placed in our display space.We had people scan this QR code to be entered into a Starbuck's card drawing. From this, we were able to gather a lot of info about them, and they are now connected to us.

QR Codes
We love them! QR codes started a couple of years ago with limitations due to the technology available in smart phones. Now, they can do almost anything you wish. Use them to bring people to a specific website, to download .pdf’s, download a vCard, even use to create contests, sweepstakes or drawings!

Foursquare
Geo-location/mobile marketing continues it’s growth with more and more people on smart phones. Utilizing a platform like Foursquare, exhibitors can set up a location, and ask people to “check in” to enter drawings and connect. Some facilities may inhibit the reception of such location based apps, so best to be sure of the location if you can before you implement a large initiative around it.

We hope these basic tips will help you start or improve your social media marketing integration! Please contact us at 203-491-0306 to discuss specifics, or email us at generalmail@talkingfinger.com. Also, see our very interactive Facebook page filled with tips and tricks and information.
We engage all day and night at FaceBook.com/TalkingFinger

William Derosa
Talking Finger
http://www.facebook.com/TalkingFinger

EDPA 2011 Review

David Brown — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:02:13 +0000

This past week, Optima attended the EDPA Annual Access meeting 11.30 – 12.2.11 in Las Vegas, NV www.edpa.com. Yeah, Las Vegas… and of course everyone really wanted to go to Las Vegas one more time this year. Snide Vegas comments aside, Access was held at the JW Marriott located off the strip and I have to say, it was a really nice hotel and great conference location.

Here are a few high level comments.

Overall, meeting attendance was up over 2010 and with EDPA membership rising a reported 3% over 2010. The Suppliers showcase had a new look and feel with approx. 25 companies exhibiting which is also up over 2010. The overall conference and sessions were focused on International business and specifically, China (doing business with Chinese companies, in China, and when Chinese companies exhibit in the US).

For the past several years, the meeting promoted the Golden Ham Award given out for the best (excruciatingly embarrassing) 60 second commercial. The commercials were put out to pasture and replaced with a Speed Networking session . . . like speed dating, but no one gets their heart broken.

During this one-on-one session, each person/company had 1 minute to give an elevator speech, exchange cards and figure out how we may be able to work together. From this session we met roughly 20 companies, of these companies, 15 were international and 5 were based in the US, and all were exhibit companies. There was international representation from France, Australia, Spain, Germany, Romania, Mexico, Argentina, China, UK, and Greece . . . and this was within just this one hour session! The Speed Networking was a great addition to the EDPA meeting and I hope they’ll continue it moving forward!

More to come soon.

If you think you should have gone – mentally commit to Access 2012 – for a small industry, these industry only networking experiences are invaluable for those that attend.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I look forward to seeing you all next year. If you are not a member of EDPA and are interested, please contact Membership Services Director, Alex Chung at achung@edpa.com. Alex, can get you set up and ready for 2012!

Dave S. Brown
VP of Sales
Optima Graphics

What does it take to be a Graphic Designer?

Tim Toolen — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:36:48 +0000

During various conversations one day with a client of mine about a particularly interesting project, we stumbled across this subject. In fact, I believe the exact question was “So Tim, with all the art you see come through Optima, what do you think it takes to call yourself a designer?”

Wow, there’s a big one. Got a closet full of hats? I ask because as a Designer, you’ll wear a lot of different ones. Customer Service, Technical Support (letting a client know what will and won’t work, working through file and compatibility issues with them), a dash of Sales, and oh right, Design! You’re also responsible for following up with your clients to make sure that not only were they happy, but what you could have done to make them even happier. You need to be knowledgeable with the programs of your respective area of expertise, and you need to be able to sit down and figure it out if you aren’t. A designer has to understand the different printing processes, or web applications (depending, again, on your area of expertise) and be able to accurately schedule, quote, and bill your time accordingly.

A thick skin is essential. You need to be able to take constructive criticism not just by your peers, but have your creative endeavors potentially picked apart by someone who thinks “Photoshop” is a verb.

And no, Photoshop is not a verb, by the way. At least not until Merriam-Webster says it is.

You have to be able to detach yourself from your designs at times. This is your client’s work, they are paying for it, therefore they get what they want. As a paying customer they have the right to tell you redo your design, no matter how good you think it may be. You need to be able to not take things personally and still enjoy your work.

Ultimately, you need to be creative. That may seem a bit cliche, but its true. You can teach anyone how to use a program or draw the human figure, but in the end you have to be creative to make the skills work. My wife is an analyst for a local hospital, extremely intelligent, and a quick learner. She’s told me time and time again that while she has learned the mechanics of mixing yellow and blue to make green, she just can’t translate that into art on a canvas or a computer screen. You can’t fake being creative, either you are, or you aren’t.

What about you? What do you think it takes for someone to call themselves a designer?

Tim Toolen
Graphic Designer
Optima Graphics