In the spirit of a new beginning, many of us have likely crafted resolutions for the year ahead. Instead of setting rigid goals, let's focus on intentions — the guiding principles that shape our actions. Let our intentions be the compass that directs us towards a fulfilling and purposeful year!
]]>Below is a care guideline:
Fabric material and printed graphics can be machine washed in cold on a gentle cycle, with mild soap and cold water, with no bleach.
Lay flat or hang on a frame to dry.
DO NOT IRON
It is inevitable that wrinkle or fold lines may appear but they are not permanent. A hand-held clothes steamer is a helpful tool in this case.
We hope your enjoy our tips and we wish all of you have a successful tradeshow and event!
]]>Here are some of our suggestions on how you can maximize your impact with some of these products:
With all types of bases available, find the right one for your application. Flags are attention grabbing and act as powerful advertising tools. Lots of sizes available and our limited quantity promotion gets you a free waterbase for use in locations where ground stakes are not ideal.
This double-sided frame lets you install two posters on each side with ease. Replace the posters whenever needed using the snap-frame and make it outdoor ready with the base that can hold either water or sand. For patios, it is a great option for displaying your menu or specials in a contact-free way.
Available in two sizes (10ft and 20ft), provide shelter from the elements for your patrons for a more enjoyable patio experience. Custom brand your tent to make it double as advertising.
Still lost about the outdoor displays we have? Contact us and our knowledgeable staff will provide suggestions on what is best for you. Also check out our collection of Outdoor Displays to browse our other outdoor product offerings.
]]>With sales events like Black Friday and Boxing Day coming up, you’re going to find yourself fighting tooth and nail in the noisy online environment to stand out. To make a difference and jump out to people while they’re shopping for everything else. With social medias ability to let anyone advertise, and make them more noticeable by simply paying a few extra dollars, how do you get an edge? How do you stand out to consumers, grab their attention and bring them in for sales?
By including the tried and true method of print signage. Advertise your sales without having to compete with the overwhelming amount of online bombardment that people run into day after day. Advertise everything! From current sales to future sales to specific products. Print signage is the perfect way to get your message out there.
With products for every budget like our standard x-stand for those just testing the waters or just starting out, or our metal flat base sign holder for people with larger budgets or those wishing to make a more sophisticated impression we have something that fits everyone’s signage needs. We can help you get ahead of the curve.
So when creating you market plan, remember to include print signage. Bring people in off the street, or from the halls of the mall to your fine establishment. Beat the online buzz. Be different, be bold.
]]>Ever realize why your images are turning out gross and pixelated? The answer is resolution.
But first off, a small tangent.
Being Canadian is just a bit weird because we pride ourselves in using the metric system for most things, but our print industry continues to use the imperial system. We pretend to be better than the Americans with their weird measurement systems but we use letter size (8.5” x 11”) paper, and we measure paper weight using the basic weight system.
So therefore, we measure resolution using DPI or PPI, but what does that even mean?
First off, while we use the terms interchangeably, they don’t actually mean the same thing. DPI stands for dots per inch, and is typically used for print applications. On the other hand, PPI stands for pixels per inch and is used when talking about screen based graphics.
Why all these dots and pixels? Well basically, everything you see is made of tiny little dots. All printed material is just tiny dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black that are so small that your brain makes the illusion of seeing a much wider range of colours. On screens, pixels of red, green and blue are used to do the same thing.
DPI is just a measurement of how many of those tiny dots are in an inch. The greater the number, the higher the resolution. However, a higher resolution also results in a larger file size, which means that the printing industry standard of 300 dpi, just isn’t realistic for wide-format printing. For most of our artwork guidelines, we recommend a minimum resolution of 150 dpi.
On screens (ie. Websites, social media), the guideline is typically 72ppi, and sticking to this will make sure that your images are crisp but also a small enough file size to be loaded faster.
What do we mean when we say your image isn’t high resolution enough? Think about the pixels that make up your image. There’s only so many of them so when you go to make the image bigger, a program has to go in and make the best guess about how to make it bigger. This doesn’t work very well and at this point, it’s probably just a better idea to choose to use a different photo, preferably from a stock photo site and not taken off the internet. Since web images are optimized to load quickly, they often lack the resolution needed to be printed at large sizes.
If the issue is your logo, see if you have a vector version of your logo. Vector files are not limited by resolution problems and can be scaled infinitely.
Key takeaways:
Colours
Colours capture attention. As the first thing people tend to notice, their primary function is to invoke certain emotional responses from your audience. Election signs always use the party colours as the background and they stick to a max of 2 colours. When accompanied by the party logo, it makes it incredibly easy to associate the name on the sign to the appropriate party. Especially with chloroplast signs, this is a pretty good practice to stick to. Keep your colours minimal and resist the urge to make your sign a rainbow.
Fonts
You’ve never seen a script font or a very thin font on an election sign, only a bold, san-serif font. That’s because this ensures that the candidate name is legible and readable even at a distance and if you’re driving past it. Keep the font size large and simple.
Concise
There’s only so much space on your sign and small font sizes just don’t work. While it might be tempting to list out your whole brand’s story on a sign, that’s just not what’s going to make your sign work. You don’t see campaign signs listing platforms on their signs, because that’s not useful. Rather the information they want to take away is the name you should tick next to on the ballot. For you, concise means your brand name, your unique selling proposition and 1-2 ways of contacting you (ie. Phone, website).
Location
This one might be a little less relevant as election signs just show up everywhere but I just wanted to make a point that location matters. Your sign can only work if people see it. This means finding an area of high traffic but considerations include, are you targeting people that’ll drive past or walk past? This is going to influence your font sizes as well as the amount of information they’ll take in.
Taking in account all of the above is what will help you to create an effective chloroplast sign design.
Looking for a printer for your chloroplast signs? Contact us info@elementdisplay.ca here at Element Display to find out more.
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If you're creating a file that will need to be printed, you can set your file up for success just by making a couple of basic adjustments.
The biggest reason why skin tones don't come out the way you think they will is that printing and screens use different colour spaces. You're used to seeing colours on a monitor that uses RGB (red, green, blue) but printed materials use CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black).
Chances are, your skin tones will come out a bit red because your file is using more magenta than yellow. A simple way to fix that is with a simple levels adjustment or curves adjustment.
Want to learn more about how to do that? Check out this tutorial to get some tips about how to prep your skintone filled files for print.
]]>How do I begin to find the words to explain how much I love thee?
As someone with little to no graphic design experience, when it came to creating custom graphics for our social media, I faltered a little. I hate saying it, because I consider myself a highly creative person. But it’s sadly 100% true.
When I began to fall, you know who was there to catch me? Canva.
When I first learned about Canva, I was skeptical at best. “There’s no way there’s a tool that makes it easy for me to design free, custom graphics for our social media! No way!” I would argue. But yes, there was a way.
Canva swooped in. Like George of the Jungle displayed his strength and grace swinging in on a vine, Canva showed me its beauty. Easy to use, painless to navigate, and fun to explore, Canva made creating custom graphics uncomplicated. I found myself swooning over Canva’s ability to create free custom graphics using backgrounds, pictures and clipart they offer for free. I was slowly realizing Canva and I were meant to find one another.
Canva captures my heart with their pre-established templates that allow you to create posts for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. They provide templates for appealing Instagram stories as well, and Twitter headers that will allow you to stand out from the crowd.
Since day one, I have loved Canva. The site makes designing graphics effortless. It creates beautiful, high quality graphics and works for so much more than just social media posts. With templates for letterheads, posters, and brochures it’s got something for everyone to love.
If you haven’t already, I recommend checking out, signing up with, and beginning to use Canva. It’s a terrific resource for smaller companies, start-ups and students alike. With so many options including your own custom sizes – which really helps when creating graphics for LinkedIn, or anything with an odd size Canva might not have preprogrammed – it’s the top choice for creating stunning, vibrant, attention catching graphics for any occasion (did I mention for free?).
The best part is, thanks to its custom sizes options, you can use Canva to create stunning graphics for any product you purchase with us. Such as our ever popular roll up banner found here https://elementdisplay.ca/collections/frontpage/products/standard-roll-up-banner-stand-with-graphic, or for any product we offer. Making it the perfect option for even our customers.
And for all these reasons, I love Canva with all my heart. And now recommend it to anyone who will listen.
This blog post was written by Victoria Buckmaster, administrative assistant at Element Display.
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Rips and tears are a good sign that a banner was printed on the wrong type of material for its intended use. Some cheap banners aren’t even printed on vinyl banner material, instead it might just be a laminated paper, which really isn’t great for roll-up banners as the stand will put it under more tension than it was designed for. Some use very cheap material that just wasn’t designed for longevity. A good roll-up banner can withstand the tension of the spring mechanism of the banner stand even after being used for extended periods of time.
Curled edges happen when the tension on the banner is not applied evenly. This can be caused by poor banner material or a poorly designed/installed top bar (the piece at the top of your banner that attaches to the pole when upright). When not installed properly, you’ll see the top edges of your banner start to droop after time.
If your roll up banner no longer retracts after just a couple of uses, the culprit is usually a bad spring mechanism. There are many ways that the spring mechanism can become damaged, from installing a banner that’s too short that puts too much strain on the banner, to improper installations to internal damage caused by improper handling/packaging of your banner.
Bad colours start with printers that just don’t care. You can learn more about why some printers just can’t print colours accurate from our blog post here about why skin tones are so hard to print.
Your banner shouldn’t lean so far forward or backwards that it is no longer about to stand on it’s own. Because of the weight distribution, your banner should lean back just a couple of degrees for it to be the most stable. A forward leaning banner is at danger of falling over, especially if you plan to use it in an area of high foot traffic such as a retail environment or a trade show.
Here at Element Display, we’ve put a lot of time studying exactly how we can avoid these problems above such as including a padded traveling bag, to our special packaging for every roll up banner. In fact, now in our 8th year of operation, we’re still working hard to make sure our products are the best they can be to make your brand look good. Don’t ruin your brand reputation due to a crappy banner, trust us with your promotional display needs.
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If you've got Photoshop, you can use this .psd file to mockup your standard roll up banner.
To use this mockup, simply find the 'Place Your Design' smart object layer and double click the layer. This will open up a new tab.
Copy your artwork file on top, then save. This will update the smart object.
Go back to the mockup file and the smart object should now have your design on it.
]]>Making a Step-and-Repeat is incredibly easy and with Illustrator's Pattern tool, you can save yourself from a lot of copying and pasting.
1. Set up your document
As with all designing, it's important to be working with the correct document size as changing the size later can result in a lot of extra work.
2. Place the logo you want to use into your document
Place and scale the logo to the approximate size you want it to be and select it.
3. Make it into a Pattern
To find this tool, go to Object > Pattern > Make. The pattern tool panel will pop up, where you'll be able to modify the pattern.
4. Add Spacing and Tile Type
Here you can change how the pattern tiles. Most step-and-repeats will use the 'Brick by Row' option. To add more spacing between the logos, change the width and height.
Here you can also change the number of copies, but this is more for preview purposes and will not affect the end pattern.
Once you're done making the changes, click the 'Done' button in the top left corner.
5. Apply the Pattern
We no longer need the logo in our document. Go ahead and delete this.
Now make a rectangle the size of our artboard. To apply the pattern, go to the Swatches panel and select your pattern.
6. Edit as Necessary
To make any changes to your pattern, just double click on the pattern swatch to return to the Pattern panel.
You're Done!
Using this method, instead of copying and pasting also makes it easier to switch up logos or make edits to spacing later if necessary.
I figured I might as well give them away for others to use.
These are free to use for personal use and come in white or black.
Get Icons Here ]]>
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Check out this video tutorial on how to do that with an online service called Canva!
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When we first started out our e-commerce site, we were originally using OpenCart and while it had its challenges, its biggest pro was that it was free. Almost 7 years into business, we started running into some issues, and it was getting pretty frustrating. Our hosting was unreliable, our site went down often and was vulnerable to hacking. We wasted far too many hours on having to test our site every week to make sure we weren’t being hacked and we changed passwords so often we couldn’t even keep track.
Our SEO was a mess. To be fair, if I was Google, I wouldn’t have ranked our website very high either. Our website was sluggish and not mobile-friendly. All these issues were severely cutting into our profitability. We couldn’t upgrade to newer versions of OpenCart and we were stuck using antiquated software.
We have nothing against OpenCart itself. It enabled us to get started which we are grateful for, and there was a lot of flexibility with what we could do with the software. Starting out, it was the right option for us. Our time with it was good, but we knew we had to move on.
Recently, we switched to Shopify and we are loving it. The biggest thing is that it is far more reliable, and that’s what we needed. No more fighting our hosting provider because our website was down or loaded extremely slowly. And being a Canadian company, we know that we can get support easily.
Instead of hiring a migration service, we decided to start from scratch. This allowed us to filter out products that were no longer relevant and redesign it for the modern age. The Shopify trial allowed us to develop the website until we were ready for launch and we were surprised at how quickly we could get everything running.
Switching to Shopify also helped us with SEO as everything was more mobile-friendlier, our page load times went down, and it has built in SEO features.
Especially as a company that’s been in business for a while, Shopify is great. The fees are more than fair to have a website that just works, and we know that we have the orders to help pay for the fees.
*this post is not sponsored by Shopify at all, this is an opinion piece
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Here’s what we’ve learned to mitigate some of these challenges of shipping in Canada:
Canada is a really big country, and your products are going to have to travel quite some distance to reach your customers. Our products are pretty durable and come in a padded bag, but they still can’t stand up to rough handling by themselves. After getting some emails from customers about products delivered damaged, we decided to take action because the costs of producing replacements was starting to pile up. After completing a couple of drop tests, we determined our packaging wasn’t holding up, particularly when dropped on their corners.
Enter, our saviour, bubble wrap and Styrofoam. We solved our issue by adding Styrofoam as well as wrapping products in a layer of bubble wrap prior to shipping. While this adds a bit of extra expense on each product, we’ve actually been saving by not having to send out as many replacement products.
We need to acknowledge that here in Canada, the expected delivery date is basically a myth. Anyone that’s done any online shopping here can tell you that. But we’re a B2B business and it’s important to our clients that they get their banners on time because they’re normally for events or tradeshows. Giving people a date range with a buffer of about 2 days for large items sets up more realistic expectations.
It’s nice being able to rush jobs for clients but being aware of the weather is also important. Knowing that there may be a large storm coming means that you might need to anticipate slightly longer delivery dates.
Our favourite package tracking app has been Parcel. The small fee we pay for the premium subscription is worth it for the functionality. Being able to let customers know that there may be a delay with this package before they even know about it is part of great customer service and lets us anticipate any questions clients may have before they even email us.
Shipping in a country this big and so prone to extreme weather is tough. But hopefully, these tips will be able to help inform your shipping strategy and navigate running an online business here in the Great North.
]]>These are perfect for times where your client just can't pay for resources such as student groups, personal work, etc.
]]>Sometimes it’s really hard to sort through all the free things on the internet. This is my go-to list of websites that provide free high-quality resources that helped me become a better designer over the last 5 years.
We’re living in a world that has a high emphasis on visuals. Simply put, you need photos in order to catch people’s eyes.
For even more great free stock photo sites, check out this article on UK Web Host Review. https://www.ukwebhostreview.com/free-stock-photo-sites
These photo-realistic mockups are a great way of boosting sales of custom goods and even mocking up packaging. Especially with retail goods, it's always a good idea to include photos of the packaged product to boost recognition with your customers.
A custom font makes you look more legitimate and makes just about any template much more unique.
Featured Photo by Georgie Cobbs on Unsplash
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Approving a proof is basically a contract. You should review it just like you would any other contract. Once a proof has been approved, the printer gets busy to start putting ink to paper.
This is why it’s important to thoroughly review your proof. But what exactly should you be looking for?
You should always check for spelling and grammar mistakes. Ensure all names are correct and that all text is grammatically correct. We’d hate to have to reprint over something that could be caught by auto-correct.
Always check that there are no missing elements such as images or text boxes missing from your document. Especially if the file given to the printer was not a .pdf file, the possibility of images or text getting lost in the process is always there. As well, make sure no critical elements such as the logo or text gets cut off.
Beware of images with people on them as well, we’d hate to accidentally cut off someone’s face!
Ensure you’re using the correct and most up-to-date logo and that the design meets the brand standards. Larger companies may have more strict brand standards, so make sure you adhere to them, else you have to reprint.
Make sure that everything on the banner is correct. If promoting an event, make sure details such as the time, date, and location are correct. Make sure you don’t miss out on opportunities by accidentally providing the wrong contact information.
If including a QR code or link, actually use it to make sure you land on the intended website page.
What Not to Check For
Don’t check for pixilation or colour accuracy. Most proofs are purposefully created to be a very small file, so if you zoom in too far, you will see pixilation. As long as your source document is high resolution, you should be good to go. If not, the printer should have caught that in the pre-flight process and let you know that changes need to be made to the file before print.
As for colour accuracy, colour reproduction is a beast, but essentially, that screen you’re using to review that proof is probably going to show inaccurate colours. Colour is influenced many variables like your ambient light, the colour profile of your computer and even the age of the monitor. Unless you colour-calibrate your monitor using a professional spectrophotometer on a regular basis and use monitors designed for colour accuracy, your colours are not going to be accurate enough to compare properly. As well, due to the differences in colour spaces between screens and print, some colour shifting is expected.
Conclusion
In conclusion, approving a proof document is a big deal. Try to get multiple eyes on it to make sure you haven’t missed anything. Mistakes happen, but you can minimize them by being thorough in your review of the proof.
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