On Press

On Press articles highlight a variety of print design techniques and methods that a premium online printer like Smartpress can help you bring to life on your own project.

They also provide insights into our online printing products, paper stocks and finishing capabilities.

Rectangular Folded Cross: For Year-End (or New Year) Marketing

No matter what business you’re in, you want to end the year (or start it!) with a bang. And the marketing mailer to help you do that? The Rectangular Folded Cross. Memorable and totally customizable, this self-mailer ensures your messaging ends on a high note, from the holiday season to the new year (and beyond). We talked to Foldfactory founder Trish Witkowski about why it’s a favorite, when to use it as a carrier and how to mail it with ease.

Roll End Boxes

Roll End Boxes: Print Your Own Custom Product Packaging

Whether you need custom boxes for retail, kits or gifts, our NEW Roll End Boxes put product packaging front and center. From clean and simple messaging to bold branding inside and out, these roll end tuck top boxes create an opening experience no customer will forget.

Hardcover Book Printing: For Storytelling, Marketing & Memories

We all want to tell our own story. And if it comes with a classic look that’s professional, too, even better. That’s what you get with our NEW Hardcover Books. Whether you’re showcasing artwork or photography in a portfolio, providing a business overview or commemorating personal moments, our hardcover book printing highlights it all. See how we put a modern spin on this traditional storytelling format.

Creative Mailers: How to Stand Out with Traveling Snakes

Direct mail is trending because it works. Really well. But standing out in a mailbox is harder than ever. One way to rise above the junk? Creative mailers like our Traveling Snake. A specialty format ideal for marketing brochures and custom invitations alike, it leads recipients on an interactive journey as each panel is revealed. Check out our chat with Foldfactory founder Trish Witkowski and get her expert design ideas, see why you should personalize print and try her hack for saving on postage.

Foil Book Covers: How to Put Specialty into Your Strategy

A marketing trend that needs no introduction? Foil book covers. With our NEW Foil Perfect Bound Booklets, your campaign lookbooks, product catalogs, graphic novels and photography portfolios stun before they’re even opened. See why upping the flash factor on custom book printing pays off and get insider tips for how to design yours (Custom Quote no longer required).

Introducing Spot Gloss: A Radiant, Reflective Finish

To make your print piece truly special, you need a specialty finish. And our newest addition is spot on. Introducing spot gloss, an embellishment that truly brings the wow factor. Similar to clear foil, spot gloss adds an unexpected shine to your print marketing and customized stationery. The result? An ultra-polished, vibrant look.

Tri-Fold Mailers: How a Pocket Changes Everything

Wouldn’t it be great if mailers did more? (As if engaging with target audiences and communicating crucial information wasn’t enough.) Our Tri-Fold Pocket Mailer delivers your essential marketing assets and then some. See why Foldfactory founder Trish Witkowski says this tri-fold mailer blends more than just form and function for small businesses and organizations of all sizes.

Silver Label Printing: A Shiny New Stock for Products & Packaging

If you’re a business owner or marketer, you know product labels are paramount. And since making a good impression is imperative, we’re introducing a NEW silver stock on our Roll Labels. Whether for corporate retail or a side hustle, silver label printing ensures your products stand out with shine.

Introducing Rose Gold Foil: Add Allure to Print Marketing & More

Ready to have your print projects flash before your eyes? With our NEW rose gold foil, that’s literally going to happen. Its warm pink-copper color adds can’t-miss character to print marketing and personal projects alike. It’s now available on all of our Foil Printing products, plus three NEW ones: Foil Postcards, Foil Brochures and Foil Bookmarks. You asked for them, we delivered.

Tri-Fold with a Twist: The Bold & Dramatic Broadside Reveal Brochure

A brochure is a brochure is a brochure, right? No way! Check out the Broadside Reveal. With a classic tri-fold format, an unusual broadside folding and a surprising horizontal reveal, this designer fold makes its own marketing rules. Foldfactory founder Trish Witkowski tells us all about this creative mailer, how to choose the right imagery and why using variable data makes the ultimate statement.

Tuck Boxes: Print Custom Product Packaging for Retail & Branding

Whether we’re talking about retail products or personalized gifts, the presentation is key. Create one customers and recipients won’t forget with NEW Tuck Boxes. Perfect for small business owners, resellers and creatives alike, these custom product boxes give your branding the spotlight and turn opening a package into a true experience. Explore our custom sizes and finishes for playing cards, cosmetics, candles and more.

The Shape of Success: An Accordion Fold Comes Full Circle

How’s your print marketing strategy shaping up? Is it all sharp lines and rectangles? Think outside that traditional box with the Circular Accordion. Its round design gives your creative assets unexpected visual impact, whether they’re product pamphlets, service brochures or custom invitations. We chatted with Foldfactory founder Trish Witkowski about why it’ll have you running circles around your competition.

Custom Holiday Cards: Send Strategic Season’s Greetings

‘Tis the season for holiday cards, but ‘tis not the season for those cards to have generic messages and dull designs. With custom Cards and Greeting Cards, plus matching envelopes or flashy foil features, online printing with Smartpress is a present in and of itself. For small businesses and corporations, nonprofits or your own family and friends, send your glad tidings with a personalized touch… and stand out in the sea of holiday mail.

Postcard Marketing: Creative Ideas to Convert & Connect

Once simply a mode of quick communication, Postcards are now a marketing necessity. For small businesses, nonprofits and everything in between, custom postcards put a modern spin on package inserts, menus, direct mail and more. Go beyond the greeting and see how postcards prove it’s not the size of the print piece, but what you do with it that counts. (Hint: Jump to the end for some Postcard Design tips and tricks.)

Coupon Mailers: How Direct Mail Advertising Still Works

While direct mail coupons may sound like a thing of the past, they’re actually the way forward. From small businesses to big retailers, coupon advertising gets your brand into the hands of new and established customers alike. We talked to Foldfactory founder Trish Witkowski about our Coupon Mailers (“They invite interaction!”) and how they deliver not just discounts, but also details and dividends.

Decked Out: Flashcard Printing for Learning & Fun

What’s a must-have school supply used by educators across the board? The classic deck of flashcards, of course. Helping students learn everything from letters and languages to mathematics and chemistry, they also make great memorization tools when used as trivia cards and matching games. With Smartpress, you can customize yours with personal artwork and innovative topics that span every subject imaginable.

Leave Your Mark: How to Print Labels for Products and Packaging

With products and packaging, the label says it all. From shape and size to color and content, custom product labels do more than sell - they tell your brand story. Whether you’re designing labels for wine and beer bottles, handmade soaps and candles, baking mixes or jams in mason jars, label printing with Smartpress gives you options to capitalize on opportunity. 

Market with Metal: 5 Reasons to Print Aluminum Signs

When it comes to signage, you want a message that lasts. Whether for branding, directions or safety, custom Aluminum Signs ensure just that - and look good doing it. For indoor or outdoor use, these durable metal signs add a vintage patina or modern flair to your business in any shape and size.

Restaurant Menus: 6 Print Ideas for Dine-in & Take-out

As more restaurants open up, expand their services and offer indoor dining again, one thing’s for sure: menu printing is more essential than ever. From dining in to taking out, brunch to happy hour, your restaurant menus need to do a lot with a little. So we’ve compiled the top features (and design ideas) for our six types of custom menus that can coordinate with your space and strategy and help get you back to normal. 

Stepped Accordion Fold: Create Enviable Marketing Brochures

Brochures, advertisements, pamphlets... Whatever you call them, your marketing assets say a lot about your products and services. But they also need to reflect the professionalism of your company. A designer product from Foldfactory, the Stepped Accordion does both with panels that zig and zag as they tell your story. Add an edge to your collateral by following our design tips and learn why Foldfactory founder Trish Witkowski loves this fold.

Magnetic Marketing: 5 Ways to Print Magnets & Attract Attention

While custom magnets obviously make great refrigerator decorations, they’re also essential marketing tools. Whether you hand them out at trade shows, include them in multi-piece marketing packages or offer them as promotional giveaways, we have FIVE types of magnets to ensure your message stays put. And the best part? You can customize yours in any shape and size, with no predetermined parameters. How’s that for a strategy that sticks?

Pure Class: Building a Premium Real Estate Print Marketing Strategy

Builders, developers, and architectural firms recognize the sheer importance of showcasing your company’s work in a high-end manner. A proven staple in the real estate industry, print marketing gives potential clients and partners a glimpse into your skills - and thus should reflect the same care and professionalism with which you conduct your business.

Luxury to the Letter: Introducing Foil Cards & Invitations

Whether it’s a simple greeting or for an extravagant event, your correspondence needs to captivate. With our Foil Cards and Foil Invitations, it’s easy to step away from the digital and into the dazzling. Design custom cards and do your invitation printing in gold, silver or holographic foil and let these stationery staples add beautiful bling to business communications and personal messages.

Hello, Shine: Introducing Foil Greeting Cards

Opening your mailbox to find a greeting card is a rare occurrence in our digital world. It’s a personal touch that goes above and beyond standard expectations. So make it extra special with our Foil Greeting Cards that put shine into the salutation, whether for friends and family or clients and customers.

Vital Signs: Choosing Custom Signage for Indoor or Outdoor Use

When it comes to marketing your brand, the right sign says it all. Whether you’re promoting new products and services at your locations, embarking on an entire business signage refresh or simply soliciting honks for grads in your front yard, our custom signs spread the word. Check out our indoor and outdoor signage options (along with customer feedback and design tips), and get ready to get noticed.

Pop-up Promotion: 5 Ways to Use Retractable Banners

When you think Retractable Banners, you think event marketing. But with our custom banner printing options like convenient sizes and portability, you’ll also think real estate advertisements, product announcements, visual aids, trade shows and more. In durable, tear-resistant vinyl, our pop-up banners do more than promote. But don’t just take our word for it - read on to hear what five of our customers have to say.

Soft Touch Laminate: A Premium Finish with a Velvet Feel

So much more than a finish, Soft Touch laminate gives your online printing projects a sensory element that’s anything but ordinary. Premium and protective, it enhances print marketing and personal designs with an unexpected feel that yields extraordinary results. Velvety smooth, Soft Touch laminate excites the senses and the sales.

Introducing Metal Prints: Stunningly Detailed, Fine Art Quality Decor

Whether you’re designing a sophisticated atmosphere in your office or decorating your home with memories and moments, custom Metal Prints furnish any space with a high-end look and vibrant, engaging color. Created with durable dye sublimation printing, our aluminum prints bring your favorite photos to life, display your brand in brilliant fashion and showcase artwork with high-resolution clarity like you’ve never seen.

Annual Report Printing: Design Tips for Your Year in Review

The layout of your annual report determines one very important thing: whether someone’s actually going to read it or not. (And if they do read it, will they remember it?) The right design ensures your success stories shine and your statistics aren’t a slog. With binding, finishing and customizing options, Saddle Stitch Booklets turn annual reports into page-turning presentations.

Collated Printing: Top 10 Marketing & Design Ideas

Collated Printing. What is it exactly? Simply put, it’s when you have sheet sets in the same size, shape and stock with unique content on each page that are then printed and stacked in a specific sequential order. Efficient and economical, it’s for marketing manuals and annual reports, custom flashcards and playing cards. Check out our Top 10 printing possibilities for this trending phenomenon.

Custom Branding: Print Labels, Stickers & Decals for Products & Packaging

When it comes to marketing, it’s all about getting your message to stick. And whether that message communicates your entrepreneurial vision or a strategic sell, our custom Labels, Decals and Stickers adhere to any advertising strategy. Print your own for product packaging, seals for envelopes or personalized gifts and ensure your branding doesn’t budge.

Custom Coloring Books: Stress Reliever & Marketing Resource

Coloring books aren’t just for kids anymore. And with Saddle Stitch Booklets, they’re not just for relaxing either. Sure, adult coloring books are an ideal addition to your de-stress toolbox, but they can also be a branding opportunity for your business. As for kids’ coloring books, they can be as educational as they are entertaining. With custom booklets, you can make your own coloring books for just about anything.

Glossy & Glass-like: The Wow Factor of Clear Acrylic Signs

Your business signage begins and ends with a storefront that gets customers in the door, right? Wrong. The way you present your brand, products and services inside and out has a major impact on sales, recognition and ambiance. One key player in your custom signage toolbox? Clear Acrylic Signs. Sophisticated with a glass-like appearance, they create a high-end look for logos, decor, utility placards and more.

Print Plan: Getting Creative with Custom Calendars

Planning for the year ahead is essential for any business owner or marketing professional. And the tool to help accomplish this? A custom calendar. No matter how many devices we have at our disposal, those digital days can’t compare to the real thing. Whether you need to manage fiscal milestones or remember family birthdays, promote personal artistry or boost brand awareness, calendar printing puts time on your side. We’ve compiled some design tips to consider as you create your own custom calendar.

White Ink Printing: A Stunning Design Specialty

When creating a print project, the most challenging part is making your design stand out so customers, target audiences, even friends and family, don’t overlook it or toss it on a pile of similar-looking assets. Fortunately, we have a solution: White ink printing puts a superior spin on business essentials and passion projects alike. It’s a truly compelling specialty and gets your design noticed.

SEG

Silicone Edge Graphics: High-Impact Eye Candy for Office Art & Marketing

Your work environment directly affects your customers, guests and employees. If it’s drab and mundane, productivity and attitude will follow suit. Instead of generic stock photos in traditional frames, create a compelling space that inspires, motivates and excites with SEG Wall Graphics. With custom designs and a simple setup, this high-impact eye candy boosts morale and markets brilliantly.

The Big Reveal: Advertise with the Square Folded Cross

Whether your print projects are for business or pleasure, they have to be memorable. And no matter how much the content sings, if the design doesn’t impress, the message gets lost. Enter the Square Folded Cross. Anything but ordinary, this specialty fold is your new printing secret weapon for sending marketing materials, invitations and so much more.

Next Level Networking: Print Unique Business Cards

Business cards do more than offer your contact information. They’re a prelude that promotes, an appetizer that advertises. And because they’re doing double marketing duty, they need a design that compels customer connections and potential business partnerships. Unique business cards printed at Smartpress do just that.

Engaging Connection: Printing & Sending Custom Invitations

You’re invited. Two very powerful words when it comes to events. Big or small, for work or pleasure, events simply can’t be successful without the people who attend it. And the best way to draw a crowd? Send unique, personalized, hold-in-your-hand invitations. Taking the time and effort to design, detail and print invitations translates to the time and effort your organization takes in caring for its business relationships. (And you thought it was just a card with a date and location on it.)

The Power of Light: Digital Laser Cutting

When it comes to print projects, one of the most eye-catching, stop-them-in-their-tracks design tactics you can employ is die-cutting. It immediately elevates a piece into the echelon of “never seen that before” and spurs the question, “How’d they do this?” With Smartpress, if you create it, we can cut it.

Political Printing: A Campaign’s Most Effective Tool

When it comes to political campaigning, print works. No question about it. Studies show print is still one of the most effective tools in the fundraising and stumping season. Digital marketing will only get you “so far.” You need to be proactive in getting the word out in print.

Church Printing: How Ministries Use Print to Boost Attendance

Smartpress is honored to be the digital printer for hundreds of churches across the nation. Whether you’re a church plant in its fledgling stage or a well-established megachurch, using print allows you to engage with your community and welcome newcomers in a big way. And these same tactics can be translated to businesses and all other organizations. After all, print marketing is about engaging your audience and drawing them in (to check you out).

Custom Signs: 10 Substrates to Intrigue, Inform & Wow

At Smartpress, there’s no shortage of options when it comes to Signage. And we heard you - combing through the gamut of substrates, display options and uses can indeed be a daunting task! So we’ve made your shopping experience much easier - and more informative - by breaking out Signs by type. Oh, and there’s an added perk: now that we’ve categorized Signs, our pricing is better, too!

SEG Printing: The Ultimate Interchangeable Signage Solution

Born in the luxury retail space, silicone edge graphics (SEG) are the ultimate signage solution, transforming everything from intimate restaurants to sports arenas. Featuring a premium fabric print and a simple interchangeable system, SEG is the perfect union of impact and flexibility.