Printspiration

Smartpress customers create brilliant print every single day. Here you’ll find a curated collection of their work, showcasing the very best designs and online printing projects at Smartpress.

The articles feature detailed photography and comments from our clients about getting creative with print, how to customize print to meet marketing goals and why print is a strategic staple in our digital world.

Power Play: How Print Drives a Hockey Brand’s Marketing Strategy

Power Play: How Print Drives a Hockey Brand’s Marketing Strategy

How do you appeal to both your target audience and potential customers? That’s the fundamental question when it comes to marketing. For a brand like HOCKEYAK, specializing in hockey apparel and bags for teams and recreational players, marketing is all about realistic, inviting imagery blended with a brand voice that’s specific and informative. And it’s all delivered with a wink (‘cause when a yak is your mascot, it’s hard not to sound cheeky).

Exhibition Booth Design Secrets from Adobe MAX 2024

Exhibition Booth Design Secrets from Adobe MAX 2024

To stand out on a crowded convention floor, your exhibition booth design has to be a lot of things: compelling, inviting, persuasive, memorable - the list goes on. Luckily, with help from a premium printer like Smartpress, your booth can be all those things and more. With personalized products, custom options and print nerds here to help, we’ve got the goods to ensure your booth.

Brewing Success: How MoonGoat Coffee Crafted a Business Prospectus

Brewing Success: How MoonGoat Coffee Crafted a Business Prospectus

A business prospectus that presents your brand with a blend of professional and personal is crucial for investors to stay, well, invested. For David Yardley, MoonGoat Coffee’s president of operations, that meant “communicating our vision, growth and strategic direction [with] sophistication and approachability.” See how perfect bound booklets ensured the brand’s message went down smooth.

Educational Booklets: How School Yard Rap Inspires Students with Print

Educational Booklets: How School Yard Rap Inspires Students with Print

For School Yard Rap’s Brandon “Griot B” Brown, educational booklets are both essential teaching resources and eye-openers to broader cultural narratives. Creating custom coloring books and study guides for learners of all ages, Brown’s goal is “to merge the music with the message, the education with the entertainment.” See how he leveraged booklet printing to do that and more.

Lookbook Design: How Michael Malul Created Luxurious Success

Lookbook Design: How Michael Malul Created Luxurious Success

What makes an effective lookbook design? While the elements may be simple, it’s anything but simple to pull it off. Memorable and metric-boosting lookbooks should represent your brand well with seriously high-quality photography and just enough specs to make the sale. See how fragrance brand Michael Malul’s more-show, less-tell strategy created a scent of success (and then some).

Workplace Design: How We’re Telling Our Story Through Signage

Workplace Design: How We’re Telling Our Story Through Signage

Where you work has a big effect on how you work. To create a modern workplace design, we went beyond office art with stock photos to a totally custom timeline wall. The goal was to tell the Smartpress story, show off our premium print capabilities to clients and visitors and instill an even bigger sense of pride in each other and what we work for each day. Here’s how we did it with our various signage products (and how you can do the same).

Soap Opera: How Print Catalogs Tell Pacha Soap Co.’s Story

Soap Opera: How Print Catalogs Tell Pacha Soap Co.’s Story

Developing a product catalog strategy can be a messy business. But find the right one, and it’s lather, rinse, repeat. With an of-the-moment mission and seriously satisfying imagery, Pacha Soap Co. washes away the competition. See how they pair print catalogs with other print assets to create a marketing clean sweep.

Event Printing: How AUDL Scored Big with a Print Marketing Suite

Event Printing: How AUDL Scored Big with a Print Marketing Suite

The American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) and event printing? They go together like a backhand grip and a good pull. “Signage and environmental graphics are the driving force,” explained Daniel Cohen, AUDL’s director of marketing. “They’re the first impression fans get and set the tone for the experience.” See how Cohen played on with an entire suite of innovative print marketing materials.

Wall Calendars: How a Photographer Built a Big Bird Business

Wall Calendars: How a Photographer Built a Big Bird Business

When you think of wall calendars, images of floral landscapes or coastal lighthouses immediately come to mind. But chickens? Posing with their owners dressed to match? See how photographer Danielle Brock thinks outside the coop and honors these duos with humor on every page of her Chicken Daddies Saddle Stitch Calendars. (Oh, and cat lovers? She’s got one for you, too!)

Fan the Flame: Keap’s Sustainable Saddle Stitch Booklets

Fan the Flame: Keap’s Sustainable Saddle Stitch Booklets

These days, amidst a constant barrage of noise and chaos, how do you reconnect with yourself and the natural world around you? For the creators of Keap, the answer was simple: candles. But not just any candles - premium candles that are better for the environment. See how they light a fire under their sales with Saddle Stitch Booklets and pour sustainability into each jar.

Hospitality Marketing: How a Vacation Rental Co. Stages with Print

Hospitality Marketing: How a Vacation Rental Co. Stages with Print

It’s nearly Spring Break, and if you're anything like us, you’re in a vacation state of mind. Which is exactly how vacation rental company Frontdesk wants you to feel - along with stress-free and at-home in their short-term rental suites across the U.S. See how they’re packing print into hospitality marketing and how their brand strategy can translate to your business (flip flops not required).

A Novel Idea: How to Self-Publish a Book with Smartpress

A Novel Idea: How to Self-Publish a Book with Smartpress

That novel you’ve dreamed of publishing? Make it a reality with Smartpress! From design to layout to finished product, we put self-publishing in your hands with premium custom book printing. Sound too good to be true? Check out our tips for how to publish your own book and hear what author Jason Heaton says about choosing paper stocks, cover art and marketing your own novel.

The Best Medicine: A Small Business Owner’s Card Printing for a Cause

The Best Medicine: A Small Business Owner’s Card Printing for a Cause

For Jessica Walker, owner of Better + Co., cancer hit close to home and sparked a small business idea. To spread joy and inspiration with Smartpress’ Greeting Cards, Walker mastered the art of card printing, using direct, unabashed messaging and bright, bold colors that not only perk up patients, but also their families, friends and care teams.

Success Story: Printing Custom Stationery Stands out in the Digital World

Success Story: Printing Custom Stationery Stands out in the Digital World

If you’re a small business owner, you know organization, planning and creativity are key. Luckily for Emily Ley, those happen to be her areas of expertise. As an author, social media influencer and the owner of Simplified® by Emily Ley, Ley prints her custom stationery, business essentials and organizational tools to empower women from all walks of life, proving to simplify is to succeed.

Blazing Boundaries: A Retailer’s Effective Print Marketing Strategy

Blazing Boundaries: A Retailer’s Effective Print Marketing Strategy

With the retail industry becoming ever more competitive, how do you blaze your own trail and come out on top? If you’re Nicole Chose, owner and marketing director of The Foursome and Boundary Clothing, you use print to create a new landscape. With direct mail campaigns, storefront signage and personalized engagement, Chose’s print strategy ensures her specialty outdoor activewear store stands out.

Sustainable Business: Moka Origins Activates Social Change with Print

Sustainable Business: Moka Origins Activates Social Change with Print

Coffee, chocolate and a side of social change? That’s what you get with Moka Origins, a bean-to-bar social enterprise with roots running from a sustainable farm in Africa to a roastery and chocolate factory in Pennsylvania. Operations manager, Mark Larson, says to “spread our mission and create awareness around who we are,” print goes hand in hand with producing superior products and making a serious impact.

No Pain, All Gain: Jujimufu’s Print Strategy for Spiral Coil Booklets

No Pain, All Gain: Jujimufu’s Print Strategy for Spiral Coil Booklets

Step foot in any gym and it’s obvious how serious we get about physical health. Jon Call, on the other hand, flips the script on fitness with his own brand of workout, one that’s largely done at home and with humor. Known to over a million Instagram followers as Jujimufu, Call entertains and educates with exercise programs compiled in Spiral Coil Booklets: “I essentially made a career out of something I’d do for free anyway.”

Shredding the Competition: Lookbook Printing with Burton’s Mine77

Shredding the Competition: Lookbook Printing with Burton’s Mine77

Custom lookbooks accomplish crucial goals for your business. They create a visual experience that immerses your client in your product, showcases said product in enticing, persuasive ways and then turns that persuasion into profit. For Kim Smith, Marketing Coordinator at Burton Global, there was one more goal for the Mine77 lookbook: carry on a legacy. It’s a tall order, but one Smith was able to fill with Perfect Bound Books.

Creative Entrepreneurs: How to Profit from Print Online

Creative Entrepreneurs: How to Profit from Print Online

Specialty. Handmade. Boutique. These are just a few words to describe the work of three creative entrepreneurs’ artisanal prints. Designed with originality and sold online, their products are flying off the proverbial shelves. Whether you’ve got your sights set on big business or starting a side hustle, their industry know-how and insider experience is an invaluable resource you can take to heart and to the bank.

Visual Paradise: Print Perfect Bound Photography Booklets

Visual Paradise: Print Perfect Bound Photography Booklets

Picture this: Hitting the road with nothing but passion in your heart and a camera by your side, capturing breathtaking landscapes and snapping serene vistas. Artist Joshua Rowan doesn’t have to imagine it, he lives it. Wandering the world to locations near and far, Rowan compiles his photography into Perfect Bound Booklets that blend adventure and artistry.

Blooming Business: How Printing Collated Turns Passion into Profit

Blooming Business: How Printing Collated Turns Passion into Profit

At its core, art should make you feel something. And for herbalist, gardener and artist Michelle Wallace, the medium that elicits the emotion is the mandala. Created with foraged flowers and leaves, Wallace’s transient nature mandalas leave a lasting impression - both spiritually for her customers and strategically for her business - with Collated Printing.

Immersive Experience: Lookbook Printing Boosts the Bottom Line

Immersive Experience: Lookbook Printing Boosts the Bottom Line

Your marketing strategy says a lot about your business. For Found Rentals and their product lookbooks, their strategy very clearly inspires design dreams, compels creativity and encourages their clients to escape. The latest edition, a leisurely trek through magical Morocco, stuns with warm-hued, textured photography highlighting the power of small details. Printed on Smartpress’ Perfect Bound Booklets, these lookbooks are driving sales and creating an undeniably immersive experience.

Play at Home: How an Online Business Uses Print for Profit

Play at Home: How an Online Business Uses Print for Profit

If ever there were a time to have a night in, now would be it. But finding fun things to do in your home isn’t always easy, especially when brick-and-mortar stores have limited hours or are closed completely. Turning the at-home experience into an entertaining and educational one is what Melissa Williams, Vice President of Branding for Night In Boxes, knows very well.

Small Poster Printing: A Designer’s Revolutionary Strategy

Small Poster Printing: A Designer’s Revolutionary Strategy

Bringing the past into the present is difficult enough without trying to turn a profit at the same time. But if you’re Larry Stuart, owner, designer and illustrator of The Union Archive, it’s your patriotic duty. He’s giving American history an artistic twist, but instead of using a quill, he’s using print, and in place of parchment, a small army of Small Posters.

Nonprofit Marketing: How Wings for Kids Takes Flight With Print

Nonprofit Marketing: How Wings for Kids Takes Flight With Print

A business isn’t always about selling a product and making a profit. Sometimes it’s about giving back and making a difference. For Liz Mester, Director of Communications and Engagement for Wings for Kids, it’s about equipping “at-risk kids with the skills they need to succeed in school and thrive in life.” She’s in the business of inspiring, facilitating and educating, and she’s using print to fulfill that important mission.

Outlawing the Ordinary: Five Marys Farms’ Perfect Bound Print Strategy

Outlawing the Ordinary: Five Marys Farms’ Perfect Bound Print Strategy

She’s got a business she built from scratch, four daughters with her name and entrepreneurial ambition that's not slowing down any time soon. Who is she? She’s Mary Heffernan, owner and operator of Five Marys Farms, and she’s using Smartpress to get high-quality marketing into the hands of her customers (along with her high-quality meats).

Artistic Expression: Magazine Printing for Community & Coffee Tables

Artistic Expression: Magazine Printing for Community & Coffee Tables

Carving out your own space in the literary landscape isn’t easy. As the founder, creative director, editor and designer of the WATER Literary and Arts Magazine, Megz Tillman-Trufant aims to “provide an outlet for the voices and perspectives of black writers and creators.” And she’s got her sights set on more than just the words.

Rare Talent: Menu Printing With Red Cow

Rare Talent: Menu Printing With Red Cow

Rare Talent: Designing restaurant menus takes specialized skill. Evolving kitchen and bar programs, physical abuse, and aesthetics are all factors that Kallsen Studio & Design navigated seamlessly for Minneapolis tavern, Red Cow. “When you do menus, you’re always weighing options.”