Economical fonts

Searching for a way to cut costs next year? How about switching the default font for your company? By choosing an "economical" font, a company could end up saving money on the amount of ink or toner used by business printing needs or by those business associates who just have to print out their emails.

Which fonts are economical? Glad you asked.

Printer.com has compared fonts with ink or toner use. By switching only the font, Printer.com asserts you could save money. The standard font measured against was the ubiquitous Arial, and it was compared to nine other fonts. Century Gothic came in as the winner with a 31% savings of ink. Here is Printer.com's results chart:

The private cost is based on 25 printed pages a week, and business cost is based on 250 printed pages per week on specific printers. For more information on the study, go to Printer.com's blog post.

For a more visual approach on how much ink a font uses, check out Matthew Robinson's Measuring Type project. Here are the results of his measurements with Garamond using the least amount of ink:

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay switched its default email font from Arial to Century Gothic as part of their plan to go "green." According to the university spokesperson, ink accounts for about 60% of the cost of a printed page, and the university can accumulate savings each time an email is printed. News story source

However, if Century Gothic doesn't appeal to your aesthetic sensibilities, another approach is available. Ecofont has created software that can put holes in any font's letters at 11 point or below. By doing this, less ink is used when printing. Ecofont claims a 25% savings overall, no matter what font you choose. There is even a free sample font, Eco Vera Sans. (Click here for the free download of the sample Ecofont.) Here is an 11 point sample scanned in and enlarged to show texture:

Whichever fonts you end up using in your project, just remember to include them with your file or embed them in your pdf when submitting the project to a print shop! Doing these two things correctly will definitely help save money and time.

Keeping Your Message Out of the Trash

Right next to my neighborhood's mailboxes stands a trash can. It never stands empty for long. I see neighbors pull out the mail from their box, sort through it right then, and then toss most of it into the trash can. That's understandable if their mail is like mine: mostly ads from car dealerships, cable companies, and financial services such as credit card companies. (Although a big difference between those neighbors and me is that I tend to take my mail home, and shred it before tossing it.)

This behavior raised a question in my mind: What will entice people to open an envelope to see the creative and inspiring message you've spent weeks creating, and then spent money on printing and mailing?

In answer to that question, I found a recent study published in the Journal of Marketing Communications, which looks at what factors increase the recipient's intent to open a direct mail envelope. The study looked at what the direct mail envelope message communicated and if it influenced the recipient's intention of opening the envelope.

Out of six types of messages, only three had any significant impact on increasing the intention to open the envelope. These were messages that created a feeling of importance, gratitude (we appreciate your business, thank you), or an anticipation of a non-price incentive.

The other three messages: creating a feeling of urgency (offer expires soon), exclusiveness (special offer), or anticipation of a price incentive (don't pay too much), did not significantly affect the consumers' intent.

The study showed that direct marketers should design marketing pieces as tools "for building relationships with the recipients" instead of transactional oriented factors. Piquing the curiosity of what is inside by using a non-price incentive also increases the chances.

So, when designing a direct mail piece, pay attention not just to the piece, but also to what the envelope is saying to your intended audience. With the right type of envelope message, your piece could make it past the neighborhood mailbox trash can and into my neighbors' homes.

Source: For the report of this study, click here

Saving on Postage

Did you know that over the course of one month an average of 20% of your mailing list becomes outdated? People are moving all the time, and if you want your mailer to reach them, your mailing list will need to be updated and double checked frequently.

Lorraine Press can help! We can run your list through software that compares your addresses with the U.S. Postal Service's master list of mailing addresses, new forwarding addresses, and Zip+4 information. This software can update and correct addresses and add on the ZIP+4 to your list. It also can format the addresses to conform with USPS standards, fix most spelling errors, and find duplicates on your list.

A clean mailing list, organized by U.S. Postal standards will control your returned mail costs, and in most instances, depending on the list itself, will result in substantial postage savings.

This is only one part of the full-service mailing abilities we have here at Lorraine Press. If you have a question about your mailing list, how it should be formatted, or how you can have it updated, email us at info@lorrainepress.com, and we'll be glad to help you save on your next mailing project.

A Favorite Photoshop Trick - Straightening Things Out

When I discovered this Photoshop trick, I was in the middle of scanning in a variety of odd-sized photographs. I was placing them loose on a flatbed scanner, and discovered that getting them exactly straight was a challenge. I didn't want to crop out the crooked edges and lose some of the image, or straighten the photos manually with the Rotate tool. And no, being extra careful when closing the scanner lid wasn't going to solve my problem either.

That's where this cool Photoshop trick came in handy. Behind the Eyedropper tool, in Photoshop CS 3, 4, or 5 (on a Mac or PC), there is a Ruler tool. (Click on the Eyedropper tool and hold down the mouse button, a list of other tools comes up, select the Ruler tool.) Previously, I had disdained this tool, because I could see no use for such an imprecise measuring method. But no longer! And besides, in this trick we are not measuring with it anyway.

Click on the Ruler tool (which lives behind the Eyedropper tool), and your mouse will turn into a crosshair. Position your crosshairs over the start of an edge of the photo, or a horizon in the photo, or any line or edge in the photo you want to be exactly horizontal. Click and hold down the mouse button and drag the mouse along the part of the photo you want to be horizontal. This creates a line. Let go of the mouse button when you reach the end of the photo's line or edge.

Then click on Image (next to File, and Edit), go down to Image Rotation, and then over and down to Arbitrary. A window pops up with a number already filled into the box. Just click "Okay," and in an blink of an eye, your photo has been straightened more quickly and accurately than any manual tweaking could have done it.

Photoshop rotates the photo according to the number in the Arbitrary Rotation box. Photoshop got that number from the ruler tool's measuring the angle between the start and finish points on the line. (This also works for tweaking photos vertically, just drag the Ruler tool down a vertical edge or line.)

See, it's easy and quick, my favorite type of Photoshop trick.

Finding That Special Character

Ever spent time looking for an É, ©, ❏, or ™symbol? Well, here's a short list of where you can find these special characters, and others just like them.

If you are using InDesign (CS 3, 4, or 5, either Mac or PC), you are in luck. The Glyphs palette can save you from fruitlessly searching for an operating system character map. Click Type, then go down to Glyphs. A palette will pop up that shows you all the special characters for your font. It can even sort the characters by category to narrow your search so you can find what you need quickly and easily.

Of course, on a Mac, if you can remember your keyboard shortcuts, (Option +g = ©) you don't have to use a palette at all. But there are a lot of special characters out there, and I know that I don't want to spend my time memorizing all available keystrokes. However, a quick Internet search has always revealed a needed keystroke of a character that is going to be used multiple times in a document. The PC has keyboard strokes for characters. I don't think that they can be called shortcuts, but they are available. (see the PC info below)

Both Mac and PC operating systems also have solutions to finding that esoteric character.

On a Mac, in Finder, click on Edit then go down to Special Characters. A window will open that has characters by categories, and a search feature. Plus, by double clicking the desired character, it will appear where ever you left your cursor.

On a PC, click Start, go to Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, then Character Map. (If you plan on using the Character Map frequently, you should think about putting a shortcut on your desktop!) A window comes up with your characters ready to be copied and pasted into your text. At the bottom of the window, there's a line of type that shows what the keyboard strokes are for a highlighted character, but I prefer the copy-and-paste option.

Options abound! (Especially in the Mac keyboard shortcuts!) So now you can wow all your friends and acquaintances with how quickly you can type even the most tricky or foreign characters no matter which operating system you are on.