LEARNING CENTER

If you've been keeping up on the midterm elections, you might've noticed that several of the political candidates this year have tried to use humor, in some form or another, in their political ads. From Terry Lynn's “Really” ad to Mitch McConnell's “What Rhymes with Alison Lundergan Grimes?” it seems that serious politicians everywhere have been trying to wisecrack their way into the poll booth. So why have serious politicians professing to have serious stands on serious issues taken such a frivolous approach to campaigning?

The answer is simple, really: the ads are an attempt to humanize the candidate and relate to the constituency. By showing their audience that they're human — that they laugh too, that they like to have fun and poke fun — they're shaking off the image of the power-hungry bureaucrat  who's only interest is self-gain and power, and they're building affinity towards an otherwise dry topic.

“Think Outside the Box” is likely one of the most over-used and cliché marketing terms still in use today. Just hearing someone say it can elicit groans from other marketers and suspicion from prospects, but there is a perfectly valid reason for the excessive popularity of the term. It embodies the idea that to get the most out of your marketing efforts, you need to see the whole picture.

There are many tales and traditions that surround the October 31st holiday of Halloween. These customs and stories have evolved over time until today where — particularly in North America — the holiday has become a huge retail and marketing success. But it was not always this way. The roots of this holiday favorite are steeped in ancient spiritual beliefs and ominous superstition, and although many of the opinions of how Halloween was started are contradictory, we've done our best to make sense of it and highlight some of Halloween's more interesting historical references.

Since the advent of Electronic Mail, enterprising and morally gray entrepreneurs have been using unsolicited email, or SPAM, to play the odds and make a buck. The emails they send range from semi-legitimate to downright illegal, and the unfortunate truth is, there's very little that can be done to stop them.

Today SPAM accounts for 14.5 billion email messages a day, or 45% of all emails. Most of these are advertising (36%), with adult content at a close second place(31.7%). Despite SPAM's reputation, scams and fraud account for only 2.5% of all unsolicited email (75% of which are identity theft scams). Spam blockers help weed out many of the worst offenders, but plenty of SPAM still gets through.

When your job is printed at a commercial printer, one of the biggest decisions you can make that will have a huge impact on the cost and presentation of your book or magazine is binding. Luckily, most printers are very knowledgeable about this subject and usually steer you in the right direction when it comes to choosing a binding method that is appropriate for your job. Nonetheless, it's always a good idea to know what options are available to you and to understand the pros and cons of each method. So get your learning cap on and let's talk about binding!

At Casey Printing, we always try to bring you the best tips, best practices, advice and industry information, but every now and again you need to break it back down to the basic 'how to' tutorial post. So today we're going to go over the basics of how to create a trifold brochure in InDesign. 

Before we get started, download the trifold brochure InDesign template and follow along. You may also want to reference our 10 Pro Tips for designing a brochure that gets results.

I still remember the first time I sent a file to a commercial printer. I was a fledgling designer building my first magazine layout for a professional architecture magazine. I toiled and sweated over that issue, and when I thought it was ready, I couldn't be more proud of my creation. This was the masterpiece that was to kick my career into high gear. Then I sent the files to the printer, and what happened next made me feel like a 1st-year rookie (which I was): The printer rejected the files. Hairline strokes, embedded images, inconsistent margins,  and missing fonts were just a few of the culprits, and I really can't remember all of the rest. The bottom line: Creating flawless press files for your printer can be a technically daunting and difficult task.

Luckily, the software used by both printers and designers has improved greatly in the past decade, and it is much more forgiving. Nonetheless, there are still steps you can take to minimize costly and time-wasting headaches for both you and your printer.

Working as the Creative Director in a print shop like Casey, I have been a first-hand witness to every kind of file submission known to man, from PDF to Publisher, created by every production method, from professional design firm to a friend with a Mac. All of them have one thing in common: best value at the best price. Unfortunately, sometimes “going cheap” can cost you a lot more than you think. So in an effort to uncloak the hidden costs associated with designing on the cheap, I bring you this week's Casey Connect.

The Internet has changed a lot in the last 20 years. From Yahoo! Chat Rooms to Facebook, Dogpile to Google, GeoCities to Wordpress.com, and Yahoo! Photos to Instagram, the World Wide Web has matured at a blazing-fast rate, and this has left some early adopters dust. Many ideals about what made a profitable site in the late 1990's would be considered a cheat sheet for how NOT to build a website today.

Unfortunately, having grown up with these websites ourselves, it can sometimes be difficult to recognize that our website is out of date or not following modern best practices. Trends change all the time, and it's hard to know which ones will yield the best results. So how do we stop ourselves from falling into the pitfalls of out-dated website design?

You may have heard the term “you never get a second chance to make a first impression?” This is especially true for Marketing and Sales, and for many of your prospects your business card is that first impression. So to help assure that you put your best foot forward, I'm going to share some tips that will help give you a competitive edge in the sales “Shark Tank.”