Minnesota Printing and Direct Mail Experts
Just another WordPress.com weblogHighlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Examples of Beautifully Printed Design, #15
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, is creating a library of examples of beautifully printed pieces:
A well-designed, well-printed piece is like a piece of art…and should be appreciated for the art it truly is. This area of my blog is dedicated to the appreciation of great printed design. (If you would like to be featured, or if you know of a deserving design or designer, my contact info is below).
This is the 15th posting in the series and is NOT featuring a design firm this time! This week I would like to share my appreciation and awe of Dept 56′s marketing pieces. Their designs start with beautiful photography and end with strong font choices, and a creative use of layout and color choices. It all comes together well on their website, but even better on the printed piece – THAT is where the feel of the miniature scene comes to life through the imagination of the viewer. Here is an example:
You can’t tell, cuz after all you are viewing this on the web, but the depth of color and the detail that is visible in print far FAR surpasses the web stuff. Don’t get me wrong, they have a great site, too, but IMHO, the web can’t hold up to the emotion and imagination created on the printed piece – for this particular product.
Just my 2 cents worth.
If you are interested in discussing the production creativity we bring to the table, in our consultative, can-do approach, please contact us @ 612.522.7600 or through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com. Also, we welcome your comments to this blog.
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Examples of Beautifully Printed Design
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, is creating a library of examples of beautifully printed pieces:
A well-designed, well-printed piece is like a piece of art…and should be appreciated for the art it truly is. This area of my blog is dedicated to the appreciation of great printed design. (If you would like to be featured, or if you know of a deserving design or designer, my contact info is below).
This is the 14th posting in the series and is featuring another local Minneapolis design firm. We were fortunate to meet them when they contacted us after being referred by a long-time customer – and coincidentally they are located just a few miles from our plant! e10 Strategy + Design focuses not only on the design, but also on the strategy of the market implementation – a great combo. They have lots of great samples, but I think the most remarkable work is under their “identities” tab. As you scroll through their samples, make sure to read the text with the story behind the design creation…that really helps to explain the process behind these beautiful designs:
http://www.e10-inc.com/work.html
Great stuff, eh?
If you are interested in discussing the production creativity we bring to the table, in our consultative, can-do approach, please contact us @ 612.522.7600 or through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com. Also, we welcome your comments to this blog.
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Examples of Beautifully Printed Design
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, is creating a library of examples of beautifully printed pieces:
A well-designed, well-printed piece is like a piece of art…and should be appreciated for the art it truly is. This area of my blog is dedicated to the appreciation of great printed design. (If you would like to be featured, or if you know of a deserving design or designer, my contact info is below).
This is the 13th posting in the series and is featuring a designer who has offices in LA and Minneapolis. I “found” them through twitter yesterday after meeting with a great local designer (Brock Ray…featured as the 12th posting) who tweeted about the 2 great meetings he had – one with us at Highlight and 1 with Brent from YYES. So I checked out the “other” great meeting (who wouldn’t, right?). Oh my gosh…my jaw practically hit the floor when I saw his beautiful work. Followers of this series of blogs know I often site my favorite sample on a designers website, and I just can’t pick! This is some spectacular, very high-end work. Check it out:
See what I mean?!?! I am totally JEALOUS of the printer that got to work on that stuff. Wow!
BTW: Wanna follow Brent from YYES on twitter? He’s @yyesbrent
If you are interested in discussing the production creativity we bring to the table, in our consultative, can-do approach, please contact us @ 612.522.7600 or through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com. Also, we welcome your comments to this blog.
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Examples of Beautifully Printed Design
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, is creating a library of examples of beautifully printed pieces:
A well-designed, well-printed piece is like a piece of art…and should be appreciated for the art it truly is. This area of my blog is dedicated to the appreciation of great printed design. (If you would like to be featured, or if you know of a deserving design or designer, my contact info is below).
This is the 12th posting in the series and is featuring another local designer from the Minneapolis area. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to this designer through a member of my BNI chapter. He had designed some of her identity pieces and she had been mightily impressed…with good reason, I might add. The designer’s name is Brock, of Brock Ray Creative. And while seeming like a youngish guy (I didn’t ask), he has an incredible range of skills! When we met yesterday I had the privilege of getting a walk-through of his portfolio. I could tell right away that he is a lover of his craft and a true artist at heart. An active member of the AIGA, he keeps it fresh, but with the client’s goals in mind. It seems like he is the rare individual that just steps into his customer’s shoes and lives it, but if the customer gives him free range…watch out, that’s when the creative juices really get flowing! And holy cow - I was blown away by his range of work! Huge range creatively: professional business materials, to trade show booths to very “arty” stuff. And huge range in media: print, large scale 3-D (trade show booths), and web. (I have to point out to the non-designers that while it is impressive enough to work WELL in both print and web, to design in large scale is a whole nother skill set!)
Here’s the LINK DIRECTLY TO THE PRINT SAMPLES, but I encourage you to look around at his other work.
This guy rocks…and that’s all I have to say about that.
If you are interested in discussing the production creativity we bring to the table, in our consultative, can-do approach, please contact us @ 612.522.7600 or through our website @ www.highlightprinting.com. Also, we welcome your comments to this blog.
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Printing vs. Computer, which is “Greener”?: International Paper’s Sustainability News
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, offers up some thoughts and data on the effects of paper and printing on the environment:
As America and the world move towards being better stewards of this great planet’s resources (yeah!), we need to make sure we are getting the FACTS about the environmental impact of our decisions. For instance, I have long wondered about the battery-run cars…what is going to happen to all those batteries when theses cars reach the end of their life-span? Yes, they have a smaller carbon footprint while in service, but what kind of resources are being used to create these super batteries and what kind of nastiness are they leaving in their wake? I have no answer for this, but at the very least it makes me want to dig a little deeper into the facts about the REAL environmental impact of my decisions.
I ran across this e-brochure from International Paper this morning about the impact of paper vs. computers on the environment and thought it was very interesting. I encourage you to read it – it is a quick read and you’ll be a more informed consumer/print buyer if you do.
Paper is BY FAR the biggest consumable in the printing industry, therefore by working towards making the growth, harvesting, and production of it greener, it greatly affects the “green-ness” of the industry as a whole. And the paper industry has been making strides for decades towards this goal. As the article says: they plant more trees than they harvest (1.7 million trees a day!), the forests are an important part of our healthy environment, the manufacturing of paper is a fairly “green” process, and at the end of its lifespan, the majority of paper is recycled. Isn’t that what we are supposed to strive for…renewable, re-usable (“Hey, can I see that when you’re done?”), and recyclable?
Want more info? Want to make sure you are using “green” printing methods? Let’s talk!
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Reports “Full Frontal BBQ” Results From Crow River Championship BBQ Challenge, 2009
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, sponsors the BBQ team “Full Frontal BBQ” and presents these results from the “Crow River Championship BBQ Challenge” on July 19th, 2009.
Full Frontal BBQ is a competition BBQ team lead by team captain (and one of Highlight’s owners) Don Bickford.
There are 5 “Championship” level BBQ events in MN:
- MN in May, Austin, MN
- Smokin’ In Steele, Owatonna, MN
- Crow River Challenge, Watertown, MN
- Big Island BBQ, Albert Lea, MN
- SMSU Smokefest, Marshall, MN
The Crow River Challenge is 3 years old and Full Frontal has been there since the inception! Hosted by the Watertown, MN Lions, and our friend and printing & BBQ mentor Mike Crom of Applied Graphics, this one is especially fun for us. While Lisa Bickford (author of this blog, wife of Don Bickford, and co-owner of Highlight) is always on hand to help with the “presentation” component of the competition, friends Scott Krynski and Larry Manoleff have rounded out the team at this event all 3 years. The icing on the cake (or maybe the sauce on the ribs is a more appropriate metaphor??) this year was that our good friend and paper-sales-rep-extraordinaire Dan Jones and his buddy Kent Berg serenaded the team on banjo and guitar during the Friday night chili contest.
Besides a ton-o-fun, the Full Frontal Bbq team took home 2 awards:
- 1st place in brisket – woo-hooo!!!!
- 9th place overall in a field of 39 championship-level competitors
Don’s on a little BBQ contest sebatical for a couple months, but will keep perfecting the craft by bbqing for a few events for friends and organizations we support, including the Edison High School Sports Foundation Alumni Golf Tournament. (He’s a 1980 graduate of Edison – go Tommies!) This fall will include another Highlight Printing “Smokin’ in the Summer” thank-you bbq for clients, possibly a few more competitions, and …????
You can check out Don’s tweets @: http://twitter.com/FullFrontalBbq
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Best Marketing ROI for Business
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, offers up the following advice regarding your marketing dollars:
Anyone who has read my blogs or articles (and knows what business I am in) knows that I, Lisa Bickford, owner of a printing company and lover of all things printed, have a bias towards printed marketing. Shocking, I know. The other thing that readers and clients can attest to is that I am a creative go-getter…aggressively on their side and always on the look-out for new and better ways to help their businesses succeed. So, yes, while I admit to my bias, I have the ability to step away from it for the greater good of my readers and clients.
In the past year or so, I have fully embraced the use of the new “social networking” in marketing my own company, spending hours and hours weekly with twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogging, writing articles for on-line publications, e-newsletters, etc. I have combined those efforts with our mix of direct mail and sales calls. So I come to you from a position of knowledge when I tell you that if you are responsible for increasing sales for your company, and you aren’t using direct mail as part of the mix, you are missing the boat! A recent article to support this:
Online and Offline Marketing Synergy
Everyone knows the “swing back” to printing will happen as the economy recovers a bit, but I would encourage my clients and readers to take advantage of the open playing field that is direct mail right now. I mean, have you looked in your mailbox recently?!?! It’s pretty barren – you have an opportunity to stand out like you haven’t been able to in years! Take advantage of it.
And I know just the printer to help you…
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Reports “Full Frontal BBQ” Results From Smokin’ In Steele BBQ Competition, 2009
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, sponsors the BBQ team “Full Frontal BBQ” and presents these results from the “Smokin’ In Steele” BBQ competition on May 27th, 2009.
Full Frontal BBQ is a competition BBQ team lead by team captain (and one of Highlight’s owners) Don Bickford.
There are 5 “Championship” level BBQ events in MN:
- MN in May, Austin, MN
- Smokin’ In Steele, Owatonna, MN
- Crow River Challenge, Watertown, MN
- Big Island BBQ, Albert Lea, MN
- SMSU Smokefest, Marshall, MN
This was the team’s first time at this event and one they are sure to attend again. There was a beautiful tree-shaded grassy common area with BBQ vending, Harmonica lessons for the kids, Garden Tractor pulling contests, and Blues Music…all as a fund raiser for Special Olympics. Don and team took home 3 plaques:
- Lucky Number 13 in chicken
- 4th place in Ribs
- 10th place in Brisket
- 7th place overall in a field of 45 very tough competitors!
Team member Lisa Bickford had this to say, “This was probably my favorite event ever – close to home (but far enough that I could nap on the way, which always starts a trip off right!), friendly people, and it was very well managed. But mostly I appreciated the beautiful park-like setting and that my girls got to catch up with a girl they played with at a competition last year – the daughter of team “Smokin’ Pelletheads”: http://www.smokinpelletheads.com/Home_Page.html
The next competition is the Crow River Challenge in July. Don will keep his BBQ skills sharp in anticipation of that event by cooking a few graduation parties for friends, catering the 5th annual “Smokin’ in the Summer Thank-You BBQ” for Highlight Printing and practice, practice, practice.
You can check out Don’s tweets @: http://twitter.com/FullFrontalBbq
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Reports “Full Frontal BBQ” Results From The Great American BBQ Competition, 2009
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, sponsors the BBQ team “Full Frontal BBQ” and presents these results from the Great American BBQ competition on May 23rd, 2009.
Full Frontal BBQ is a competition BBQ team lead by team captain Don Bickford.
Because of his Grand Champion winnings last season, Don and his team qualified for the Great American BBQ competition that was held this past weekend in Kansas City, KS. This is one of the “biggie” national competitions and we are proud to annouce that Full Frontal BBQ took home 3 ribbons: chicken, pork, and brisket.
Every KCBS (Kansas City BBQ Society) sanctioned BBQ competition includes these 4 categories: chicken, ribs, pork shoulder (commonly called pork butt…don’t ask me why) and beef brisket.
Don had this to say, “Kansas was beautiful, the event was very well managed, and we had great weather. The fun thing about this event in particular is that it was part of a festival and had a carnival with rides that my kids could enjoy. It’s always great to meet other BBQ teams from around the country and to get reacquainted with teams we have met along the way.”
We at Highlight Printing are fortunate enough to have Don cater our client thank-you BBQ’s twice each summer. We call it “Smokin’ In The Summer” and this is our 5th year of hosting these events.
Check out Don’s tweets @: http://twitter.com/FullFrontalBbq
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
Highlight Printing, Minneapolis, MN: Reports “Full Frontal BBQ” Results From MN in May BBQ Competition, 2009
Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, sponsors the BBQ team “Full Frontal BBQ” and presents these results from the “Minnesota in May” BBQ competition on May 16th, 2009.
Full Frontal BBQ is a competition BBQ team lead by team captain Don Bickford.
There are 5 “Championship” level BBQ events in MN:
- MN in May, Austin, MN
- Smokin’ In Steele, Owatonna, MN
- Crow River Challenge, Watertown, MN
- Big Island BBQ, Albert Lea, MN
- SMSU Smokefest, Marshall, MN
MN in May was Full Frontal BBQ’s first KCBS sanctioned Grand Champion win in the 2008 season, and while Don and the team didn’t go home with the Grand Champion trophy this year, they did go home with 2 prizes that are almost as much fun: 2nd place in the “chalk it up to fun” SPAM category (the prize was a pair of glow in the dark boxer shorts, among other things). And Don’s 9 year old daughter, Samantha, took home her first “Kid’s Que” award – 4th place in chicken! Forget printing…the next generation is going to make a living with BBQ! (Oh, and Full Frontal did take home a ribbon in the “pork” category.)
Don had this to say, “Minnesota in May is one of my favorite events – it’s a great way to kick off the BBQ season. There were 71 teams participating this year! The Highlight for me was hearing Samantha’s name called. We had been working for weeks, and she had to cook in the rain…she was a trooper. Since she had recently recovered from having 2 broken arms, her team name was “Broken Bones BBQ”. That’s the thing about BBQ, there is never a shortage of fun!”
We at Highlight Printing are fortunate enough to have Don cater our client thank-you BBQ’s twice each summer. We call it “Smokin’ In The Summer” and this is our 5th year of hosting these events.
Check out Don’s tweets @: http://twitter.com/FullFrontalBbq
The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed. Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80′s. The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution. You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com
This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.
