The Year in Review – The Five Coolest Things I’ve done

Posted on January 21st, 2014 | Tags: Design, Technical, Technology

Another year is over and now the summer holidays have started. Now it is time to relax and not think about business for a couple of weeks. Instead I want to talk about the five coolest things I’ve done over the last year, things that you might not realise that we do. So in no particular order:

Real Estate Just Listed and Just Sold flyers.

We do a lot of specialised printing for real estate agents, and we would like to do more for them. One of the things we do is the Just Listed / Just Sold flyers you may have seen in your mailbox. What makes it different over the normal flyers is that they are targeted small volume runs that have a very tight production time. For one company, they and ourselves have streamlined the process to the point where their agents give them the properties details and photos in the morning, they give us the flyers files in the afternoon and we deliver the finished flyers that evening so the agents can put them in mailboxes the next day. The speed to do what is a complex production process between two companies, I still find amazing. Physical mailbox flyers in the same time that it would take to do targeted email ones – who says print can’t compete with the internet?

Beer Bottle Labels

You might think that it is a simple little beer bottle label but there is a lot of complexity behind it. In fact I think making these labels is so cool that I’ve written an article about it in more detail.

Mass Marketing Mailbox Deliveries

This is something new we have added to the range of services we offer. In an age of electronic junk mail, a well design physical flyer or letter is even more effective. You too can be delivered to thousands of households or businesses in one simple process. Working with you we design the right marketing material, target the right addresses, get it printed and distributed, and even work with you on a follow up process to see how effective it was. We’ve done it for clients, we’ve used it ourselves, and we can do it for you.

Book Binding

Paper books are not dead. While eBooks on tablets are useful, there are times you can’t beat holding a book in your hands. When I first started at Copy Express the only kind of book binding I did was the comb binding in wire or plastic and centre staple bind for quick low cost booklets. From there I’ve added hidden comb binding where the cover wraps around the outside of the comb that it give you a spine you can read on the bookshelf. Recently I’ve been working on edge stapled books with a wrap around cover to make a classic paperback style book and been pleased with the results.

Wedding Invites

Wedding invites are one of those tricky little jobs where the volume is small and have to be printed at the absolutely highest standard. Over the last 12 months we have been given all sorts of sizes, folding options and papers. What I’ve been proud of, is that when we give the finished invites back, everyone has been impressed how great they look. The material, equipment, and skills we have is many times beyond what most people have access to and it shows in the finished product. I know that our customers have been pleased by our work because they come back to us time and again for other work. 

Well that’s just five of the cool things I’ve done over the last year. What is in store for the new one? Who knows, but I’m going to have fun finding out and telling you all about it.