Does your company, charity or organisation produce an Annual Report? If so, you’ll be well aware of how much time and effort they take to produce each year and how many people it takes to put them together correctly — from the CEO, Financial Director, Chief Executive and Company Secretary right through to the Marketing Team and probably many others along the way. They also involve important milestones and key dates that need to be met, not least legal deadlines that simply can’t be missed, along with the need to produce printed copies in time for any AGM.
Annual Report Design & Printing Has to be Top Notch
Your report and accounts needs to be accurate, of course, and also extremely well presented. After all it’s pretty much a flagship document that can help with anything from marketing your company, products or services to raising finance and, of course, keeping any shareholders in the loop and happy to continue supporting your organisation. So it needs to look exceptionally good in terms of both design and production.
Exceptional Graphic Designers & Printers
That’s where Southside Print comes in. Not only can our in-house graphic designers help put the design and artwork together in an attractive, informative and professional manner, but we can also ensure that the finished printing does your company, charity or organisation absolute justice. Annual reports need to look exceptional so the design needs to be high quality and the printed finish needs to exude excellence throughout.
Materials & Finishes
Selection of materials needs extra care. Annual reports need to look a million dollars, without costing an arm and a leg, so it’s a fine balance. They also need to reflect your organisation’s profile when it comes to sustainability — should they use recycled paper or card, for example?
Covers need to be thick enough to feel like they’re high value without costing a fortune.
Internal pages could, perhaps, be a little thicker than your average brochure, as this is an important document. However, a lid needs to be kept on that overall budget.
And it doesn’t end there. As this is such a critical document, you need to consider additional finishes and processes. For example, covers could be matt or gloss laminated to enrich the printing and give them attractive finishes as well as protecting them from moisture and wear and tear.
You might also consider spot finishes such as gloss UV varnish (or its digital equivalent) and metallic foil. These can really lift your annual report and accounts out of the ordinary.
Southside Print can, of course, help with all such things — it’s what we excel at and our advice is free.
Production of Additional Documents
Annual reports often require additional documents such as Summary Financial Statements, AGM booklets, Voting papers, newsletter style documents, overprinted envelopes and mass-produced covering letters. Any of these documents, particularly the latter, often benefit from
We’re delighted to be the chosen printer for the lovely team over at Lounge Hair & Beauty Salon in Bermondsey SE16. Onay and the ‘Loungettes’ as they’re informally known, keep our printing presses busy throughout the year and a few examples of recent print jobs include:
1000 appointment cards, printed in full colour on two sides using 340gsm Fedrigoni Splendorgel card;
A5 Christmas Hair Care cards, printed on 200gsm Digital stock, finished with a gloss encapsulation;
500 leaflets, printed in full colour on 250gsm Lumi Silk stock. Finished size: 296 x 100mm (so, similar to A4 divided in half length-wise).
A6 customer detail pads, printed just in black on one side using 100gsm Navigator paper.
These are just a few examples of printing work we produced for the salon. The photos show more …
About Lounge Hair & Beauty Salon
Lounge Hair & Beauty Salon was established in 2000 under the leadership of founding director and senior stylist Onay. The salon serves both ladies and men, offering a myriad of services including cutting, blow-drying, colouring and much more. Staff include L’Oréal trained colour experts who know all the latest trends including Ombré, Balayage, Babylights and Microlights. They are comfortable working with any hair type including fine, coarse, straight, wavy, frizzy or super-curly. They have an exceptional reputation around the Bermondsey area, with lots of repeat customers who come back year after year.
As the name suggests, Lounge Hair & Beauty also offers a beauty treatments courtesy of resident beauty therapist Krystel, who is also an advanced hair stylist. Beauty treatments include conditioning, waxing, eye treatments, Dermalogica facials, micro zone facials and professional customised treatments that apparently provide phenomenal results.
So, Lounge Hair & Beauty can cater for anything from a simple trim to a full make-over for special days like parties and weddings.
The salon boasts 50 Google reviews with an overall score of 4.9 out of 5 — very impressive and a measure of how well they are regarded by their clientèle.
Regular readers may recall our post about Bankside Open Spaces Trust (‘BOST’) back in August 2015. Well, they’ve continued to keep us busy ever since, with a huge variety of different printing requirements, and have even updated their logo and corporate identity in the intervening time. In view of all that, we thought we’d bring things up to date in a new post here on the Southside Print blog.
Printing Examples
Just a few examples of work undertaken for BOST since our original post include:
A full colour mini brochure
Overprinted, branded envelopes, digitally printed in black and white plus tints
Strikingly designed, full colour printed postcards (A6 size)
A4 leaflets/flyers for a lunchtime talk all about Octavia Hill, the founder of The National Trust
70 A5 Christmas cards with envelopes
A variety of different flyers and leaflets
And much more!
Our thanks go out to them for all the lovely printing work and for being such loyal and regular clients — we really appreciate it.
About Bankside Open Spaces Trust
As we outlined before, BOST is an award-winning environmental and volunteering charity that was set up with the primary purpose of creating and improving gardens and parks, along with green and open spaces, in and around the Bankside region. These include 30 or so community gardens where sustainable food is grown for the direct benefit of those living in the social housing nearby. People local to the area may also notice the cheerful planters placed around the neighbourhood by BOST volunteers. By doing all of this, the Bankside area is improved and the community involved in the initiative is brought closer together. It’s a win-win for everyone in SE1.
We make previously unloved spaces beautiful
Some of the green spaces looked after by the Trust include Red Cross Garden, Marlborough Sports Garden, Waterloo Millennium Green and Tate Community Garden. Indeed, some of their green spaces are amongst the very best in Britain, having gained many awards including two Green Flags and two Golds in RHS London in Bloom, a silver in RHS Britain in Bloom, the UNESCO Man and Biosphere award, the MPGA London Spade award and London in Bloom Champion of Champions award.
The charity’s Community Green Champions initiative allows those living in estates around Southwark and Lambeth to grow fruit, vegetables, flowers and plants right outside their own front doors. The Trust encourages people throughout the area – including those without gardens – to take part. Many later go on to have horticultural careers.
Meanwhile, their Future Gardeners ten week course helps the unemployed or those struggling to make a career change get into the horticultural arena and to earn themselves a City & Guilds qualification. Careers advice is also available as are
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/BOST-featured.jpg519820Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2019-01-17 22:08:312019-01-18 10:24:24Printing for Bankside Open Spaces Trust, London SE1
The staff at Southside Print would like to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and the very best for the New Year when it finally arrives. Our thanks go to all those who used our design, artwork,printing and print management services during the course of 2018 — all the work has kept us very busy indeed. So, a very big Thank You to one and all!
Christmas & New Year Opening Times
We close for the Christmas break on Friday 21st December at 3pm, re-opening on Wednesday 2nd January 2019 at 9am. So, if you have anything urgent before we take a break, there is no time to lose and you’ll need to get your orders to us as soon as possible should you need work turned around before Christmas.
In the mean time, please continue to send through any requests for quotations and we’ll attend to those as soon possible, so that you can hit the ground running when the New Year arrives. You can also call 020 7378 6754 to speak with us during opening hours.
Thanks again and every good wish to you for Christmas, the New Year and beyond.
The Southside Print Team, Tabard Street, London SE1.
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Merry-Christmas-featured.jpg743600Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-12-19 17:14:012018-12-19 18:41:54Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!
Never underestimate the power of graphic design. It has the power to either make or break your sales and marketing efforts. Too many people dismiss design as an unnecessary expense but, in reality, it is incredibly important to your bottom line. As such, it deserves an adequate allowance of both time and budget otherwise you risk wasting both those precious commodities entirely. In this post, we’ll explain why skimping on your graphic design budget may represent a fool’s economy. Not convinced? Read on …
Think about it for a moment:what is the single most important thing that world-dominating companies like Apple have at their core? Answer: excellent design. Without that, their products would simply be buried in an ocean that’s littered with hundreds of mediocre products. Excellent design lifts them high above the competition and also makes their products desirable. And once converted, famously few Apple customers ever go back.
It’s the same for printed sales and marketing pieces, adverts and packaging. Looking mediocre is a sure fire way for your promotional efforts to be completely overlooked in the ‘din’ of other mediocre efforts that compete in your marketplace. Excellent design, in contrast, will both attract and entice your potential audience so they notice and desire your product or service, not those of your competitor. Yet so many companies miss this simple opportunity by seeing design as an unnecessary expense rather than the incredibly powerful marketing tool that it is!
Let’s break down the main components of graphic design …
Good Design = Good Communication
Graphic design is about much more than how your sales and marketing pieces look. Good graphic design primarily has great communication at its heart. It’s all very well if your leaflet, brochure, poster or packaging looks attractive, but that’s no good to anyone if they don’t understand, in an instant, what it’s all about and what is on offer. So, one of the first considerations of any good graphic designer is to identify what the core message is and then to communicate that message prominently to the prospective audience. A good graphic designer will also pick out any secondary and subsequent message elements, making sure that each is communicated with the appropriate weighting in the sales or marketing piece. Using this hierarchical approach to the prominence of elements and messages will mean that the prospective customer knows where to look first and thereby learn quickly what is being offered and why.
Good graphic design primarily has great communication at its heart.
Features & Benefits
Once the product or service being offered has been made clear, another job of a good graphic designer is to make sure that the features and benefits of the product or service are also clearly communicated to those taking a closer look. Features are no good alone, of course; the prospect needs to know how those features will benefit them — so don’t forget to include your product or service’s benefits in the printed text.
Looking Good
Then, of course, the printed communication needs to look eye-catching and attractive. The right graphical and typographical styles, photos and/or illustrations need to be presented in such a way that they catch the eye, communicate all the right messages as outlined above, all in a pleasing way. The ‘tone’ of the design also needs to be right. If your product or service is a luxury one, then the design and printed output needs to ooze quality. If your product or service is an inexpensive bargain, then the designer needs to pitch the design just right so that it looks high quality overall but does not look or feel too expensive. This fine balance is all part of the job of a good graphic designer.
Feeling Good
Part of that balance is, of course, the paper, card and print processes used in the final printing. Some printed items look better on textured papers and cards, others work better on uncoated stock and still others might look best on standard paper with, say, a matt lamination. There are many paper options and many finishing options to choose from, so good graphic designers will also be able to advise on what might work best for your particular product or service — and production budget. The optimum result will be a printed item that both looks and feels good, without breaking the bank.
It’s All a Waste without a CTA
Once all of the above has been considered, then you’re well on your way to ‘converting’ your prospect’s interest into an actual sale. However, there’s one more thing that needs to be included. Remember to
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/graphic-design-featured.jpg519820Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-12-13 15:08:112018-12-13 15:08:11The Value of Great Graphic Design
High quality poster printing is one of the most popular printing services here at Southside Print in London SE1. We use an 8-colour inkjet poster printing process for the majority of poster prints. This accomplishes great detail (up to 2400dpi), offers exceptionally high quality with accurate, saturated colours and a very wide tonal range. The overall impression is impressive and highly professional. Moreover, we can often turn around posters around rapidly, for example on a same day or next day basis. All in all, it’s the perfect solution when you need to grab attention for your product, service, presentation or event — and all at large scale and in double-quick time.
Poster Uses
Posters suit a variety of different marketing and promotional purposes for a range of different businesses and organisations. For example:
Promotional posters are a great way to promote any product, service or event;
CAD drawings can also be output, in exactly the same way, for use by architects, engineers and designers of any kind;
Posters can be used as display graphics, for example during trade shows and in store;
They also lend themselves to window and wall displays;
They’re perfect for marketing gigs, concerts, theatre productions and special events.
We’ve even produced limited edition prints that later become collectors’ items or are sold as promotional merchandise for bands, movies and suchlike.
Print Sizes & Prices
We can print posters in any size up to a maximum of A0. Here’s a little bit more detail:
A4 posters are 297mm x 210mm
A3 posters are 420mm x 297mm
A2 posters are 594mm x 420mm
A1 posters are 841mm x 594mm
A0 posters are 1189mm x 841mm
Your poster doesn’t have to be an exact ‘A’ size though — we can print to any size and proportion so long as it’s no larger than A0.
Our standard poster prints use 200gsm ‘Xerox Photo Satin’ paper. As the name suggests, these have a lovely satin finish, which is a great balance between matt and gloss, with a lovely feel too. The 200gsm weight is also a substantial weight. It’s still classified as paper but is not far off the thickness of thin card, so is robust and oozes quality.
Our poster prints can also be laminated, in either matt or gloss lamination, to any size including A0. We also offer encapsulation, in a gloss finish, up to A1 maximum for those who like the ‘sealed edge’ approach and the extra robustness that encapsulation offers over standard lamination.
Mounting Options
Our posters can be supplied simply as 200gsm paper print-outs or we can mount them to a variety of substrates if preferred. Mounting options include:
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/poster-printing-featured.jpg800698Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-11-30 13:14:142018-11-30 13:14:14Poster Printing in London
‘Perfect binding’ is one of the most popular and impressive ways of binding any kind of printed publication. It has a great look and lends some sophistication to any book, booklet, brochure, annual report, catalogue or magazine. ‘Wiro’ and ‘saddle-stitched’ binding, although both professional and presentable, look a little more basic by comparison. Perfect binding gives a publication more gravitas; a feeling of added value and something that subtly says ‘I am an important document’ without even trying. As such, perfect bound books are far more likely to be kept or handed from person to person. That’s great for your business and marketing goals.
Similar to a ‘soft-back’ or ‘paperback’ book, perfect binding gives a professional finish with a ‘square’ spine, which can be printed on because it’s all part of the one-piece cover. So, you can have full colour graphics and imagery printed continuously from front cover, across the spine and around to the back cover, all without any interruption if you like. Of course, this applies to the addition of special finishes too, like gloss UV varnish, metallic foil and lamination to name just a few.
Tech Spec
At Southside Print in London SE1, we print and perfect bind totally in-house. That means total control over colour and quality, speedy turnarounds and the most competitive pricing. There are just a couple of limitations:
We can perfect bind up to A3 in length or width (so spines as long as 420mm are not a problem — that’s big!).
The spine can be as thick as a staggering 90mm — that allows a huge number of pages in the book and is thicker than many old-style phone directories!
We also use a super-strong new glue. This keeps your pages and covers securely bound — for the long term.
Overnight Success
Our perfect binding service is also available on an overnight basis. So, if you’re in a terrible rush to get important documents and publications printed and perfect bound for the next business day, we can usually help, particularly if you give us a little bit of warning. This is great for annual reports that need to be ready for board meetings and AGM’s, or things like proposals, tenders, pitch documents and other important presentations that could win your company or organisation its next major contract.
Perfect Examples
The photographs show just how impressive perfect bound brochures and books can look …
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Perfect-Binding-featured.jpg600600Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-11-16 13:27:182018-11-16 13:27:18What Makes Perfect Binding So ... Perfect?
Just up the road in Union Street SE1 is the headquarters of United St Saviour’s Charity (‘UStSC’), who recently commissioned Southside Print to produce two A5 landscape booklets. Both were printed in full colour on our digital presses here in Tabard Street. They were printed on 200gsm Lumi Silk paper, a high quality coated stock with a significant thickness to give the booklets substance and a feel of real quality. 100 were produced for one booklet and 500 for the other, suiting our digital printing service perfectly — those modest quantities simply would not have been economically viable using a traditional litho printing service.
The first booklet was a twelve page publication called “The Value of Small Grants”. It represented a review of the impact of grants issued in South London by both UStSC and Peter Minet Trust.
The second booklet was called “Where to look for grants and funding”. This was a guide to help groups in Southwark find funding for their local activities. The cover of each booklet can be seen above in the main image.
Southside Print also produced 1000 A5 leaflets, which promoted a community open day, along with some A4 leaflets (not shown).
About United St Saviour’s Charity, SE1
United St Saviour’s Charity is based in an attractive period building in Union Street SE1, just a short walk from London Bridge and Borough stations. They focus on uniting people and charitable organisations in north Southwark. Part of this includes the provision of two community grant programmes along with high quality sheltered housing for older people in the area.
Grant Programmes
Their open grant initiatives include the Community Investment Programme for large grants and the Community Engagement Programme for smaller grants. Both aim to strengthen communities in north Southwark, improve the lives of older residents in the area and level the playing field for those who may be experiencing social and economic disadvantage. North Southwark is very much ‘a tale of two Southwarks’ where one part of the population is benefiting from the recent growth and regeneration of the area while others simply struggle to make ends meet. In the last twelve months, the charity has invested £1 million into local projects and activities that are now helping to redress this imbalance.
Sheltered Housing
The sheltered housing element of UStSC’s work takes the form of two schemes; St Saviour’s Court, which provides 53 modern homes in Purley, and Hopton Gardens Almshouses, which provide twenty flats and Grade II period cottages in Hopton Street, SE1. Both schemes include 24 hour support services for the residents. To be eligible, applicants need to have worked in Southwark for at least 3 years before application, they must be 65 or older, have low income and capital and be able to live independently with help from carers if necessary.
The charity is also planning a brand new modern almshouse in Southwark Park Road in Bermondsey. It is currently in preliminary talks with the developer Delancey and architects Witherford Watson Mann and their shared vision for the new building is one of stunning quality and beauty. As well as providing modern, independent sheltered housing for older residents with limited income, the aim is also to
Newsletters are simple and inexpensive to print yet can convey an enormous amount of important information to recipients. This makes them ideal for both ‘internal’ marketing (to keep staff and stakeholders up to date) and external marketing of your products or services to clients and prospects. As such, they constitute a very useful and versatile component of any sales and marketing strategy.
Benefits of Physical Newsletters vs. Electronic
Another key benefit of physical, printed newsletters is that they are easy to pick up and put down at any time. This allows readers to dip in and dip out of articles whenever they like. Compare that to e-newsletters, which tend to be forgotten the moment they’ve been buried in your in box by more recent emails. The traditional newsletter beats electronic versions hands down in this respect.
Printed newsletters are also far more versatile from the distribution perspective. While e-newsletters arrive only at your handheld device or desktop computer, physical newsletters can find themselves in front of their target audience in a much wider variety of ways. They can be handed out, mailed through the post, left on coffee tables, offered to visitors via company foyers, reception desks and waiting rooms, handed out with other sales and marketing literature like brochures and price lists, used as inserts in other publications and distributions — and so on. Physical newsletters also require no Wi-Fi or data signal to work, so can be perused pretty much anywhere, any time. Try doing all that with an electronic e-newsletter — it’s simply not possible!
Add-ons
Physical, printed newsletters also lend themselves to additional add-ons. These include things like tear-off order forms that people might find useful if they want to order your products or services and those can even come with pressure-sensitive glue and postage pre-applied. All that needs to be done after filling in the form is for the page to be folded so it sticks together in a kind of pre-built envelope, ready to post. Other add-ons include coupons for special offers or voucher codes that the customer can use in-store or via a website. Another great thing to build into a printed newsletter is an element that the recipient might find useful to keep, for example an integral poster, calendar of events or table of key dates for the year ahead. That’ll be a useful reminder of your brand, product or service, all year round.
Newsletter Sizes & Formats
The most cost-effective sizing recommended for newsletter printing is to use one of the ‘A’ sizes. For example, A4 is the most common one used in the UK commercial world. However, A5 and A3 are also feasible while still making the very most out of standard sheet sizes available to printers like us. It goes without saying, though, that there are many other options including square newsletters, triple-page ‘roll fold’ newsletters and so on.
We can, of course, also fold newsletters in half so they’re easier and cheaper to post out, particularly if they don’t contain too many pages and are on paper that’s thin enough to fold when there are multiple pages. It’s a fine balance, though; as one wouldn’t want to make the pages too thin, otherwise you’d start to see what we call ‘show through’ i.e. the ghost of the reverse side of the printed page slightly showing through to the front face that’s being read. There are a great variety of paper thicknesses, weights and finishes to choose from, though, so just ask us about the options.
Paper Finish
At Southside Print we offer a very wide range of different paper stocks for your printed newsletters. We have
Just along the road from Southside Print is Tabard Barbers. One of our nearest SE1 clients, they’ve been keeping us busy recently with quite a few different printing jobs — and very smart they look too. These include:
5000 full colour, digitally printed student ‘information’ cards. These can be thought of as both flyers and postcards depending upon your point of view. Their purpose is to publicise the special offers available to students during a period between September and the end of November 2018. They were printed on 350gsm card-weight material, sized at A6 in a landscape format and were printed to both sides.
Full colour, digitally printed loyalty cards for use by their customers. One version was for men and another for women. They were printed the size of standard credit cards, a size that’s convenient to store in one’s wallet, purse or pocket. One side was left uncoated so it can be rubber stamped each time the customer in question receives a hair cut or treatment of some kind, the idea being that they receive a free cut or treatment once they’ve filled the card with 9 stamps (the tenth being free). The other side was ‘soft touch’ laminated so that the cards feel good, look attractive and are protected from wear, tear and moisture. They were designed and artworked by a local design company based in Borough SE1.
Loyalty cards are a great marketing tool for businesses such as hair salons, barbers and cafés. They quietly encourage repeat business from customers and this loyalty means more profit for those businesses using them. And, because the customer benefits too once they’ve filled their card, it’s a win-win for everyone.
A full colour, digitally printed poster (shown below, right). This was sized at A1, so utilised our large format inkjet printing service. It was mounted to Foam-X, so it was both light weight and rigid.
About Tabard Barbers
Tabard Barbers one of our closest neighbours, being just along the road from Southside Print at 13 Tabard Street, from which they took their name. These days, as being a men’s barber, Tabard is a women’s hair salon which offers outstandingly good value compared to other hair salons in the area, under the fantastic management of the very talented Cece. At Tabard, it’s the full package; you will receive a warm welcome and complimentary refreshments along with “the very best hair styling, grooming and treatments in town” as it says on their website. Men’s grooming services include anything from a buzz cut to a beard trim while ladies’ services include a professional wash, cut and blow dry, hair ups, highlights, comprehensive colouring, bleaching and various treatments. Discounts are also available for students and children up to the age of 14 (see their site for details).
Tabard had an impressive ‘designer’ make-over in recent years and now skilfully combines ultra-modern interior design with historical details like exposed brickwork and stripped floorboards. Indeed, the building’s basement still contains the ancient ovens, which survived from a time when the building was used as a bakery long ago. These were discovered during renovations.
The salon and barbers is now one of the oldest family-run businesses in SE1 and Southwark. It has been in Tabard Street for nearly forty years, having been passed down the generations to the current owner, Dasos Anastasis.
Printing & Design for Annual Reports
/in Annual reports, Borough, Digital printing, Graphic design, Graphic designers, London Bridge, Printers, Printing, Printing services, SE1, South London, Southwark /by MarkDoes your company, charity or organisation produce an Annual Report? If so, you’ll be well aware of how much time and effort they take to produce each year and how many people it takes to put them together correctly — from the CEO, Financial Director, Chief Executive and Company Secretary right through to the Marketing Team and probably many others along the way. They also involve important milestones and key dates that need to be met, not least legal deadlines that simply can’t be missed, along with the need to produce printed copies in time for any AGM.
Your report and accounts needs to be accurate, of course, and also extremely well presented. After all it’s pretty much a flagship document that can help with anything from marketing your company, products or services to raising finance and, of course, keeping any shareholders in the loop and happy to continue supporting your organisation. So it needs to look exceptionally good in terms of both design and production.
Exceptional Graphic Designers & Printers
That’s where Southside Print comes in. Not only can our in-house graphic designers help put the design and artwork together in an attractive, informative and professional manner, but we can also ensure that the finished printing does your company, charity or organisation absolute justice. Annual reports need to look exceptional so the design needs to be high quality and the printed finish needs to exude excellence throughout.
Materials & Finishes
Southside Print can, of course, help with all such things — it’s what we excel at and our advice is free.
Production of Additional Documents
Annual reports often require additional documents such as Summary Financial Statements, AGM booklets, Voting papers, newsletter style documents, overprinted envelopes and mass-produced covering letters. Any of these documents, particularly the latter, often benefit from
Printing for Lounge Hair & Beauty Salon, Bermondsey SE16
/in Appointment cards, Bermondsey, Case studies, Encapsulation, Hair Care cards, Leaflets, London, Pads, Posters, Printers, Printing, Printing facilities, Printing services, Salons, SE1, SE16 /by MarkWe’re delighted to be the chosen printer for the lovely team over at Lounge Hair & Beauty Salon in Bermondsey SE16. Onay and the ‘Loungettes’ as they’re informally known, keep our printing presses busy throughout the year and a few examples of recent print jobs include:
These are just a few examples of printing work we produced for the salon. The photos show more …
About Lounge Hair & Beauty Salon
As the name suggests, Lounge Hair & Beauty also offers a beauty treatments courtesy of resident beauty therapist Krystel, who is also an advanced hair stylist. Beauty treatments include conditioning, waxing, eye treatments, Dermalogica facials, micro zone facials and professional customised treatments that apparently provide phenomenal results.
So, Lounge Hair & Beauty can cater for anything from a simple trim to a full make-over for special days like parties and weddings.
The salon boasts 50 Google reviews with an overall score of 4.9 out of 5 — very impressive and a measure of how well they are regarded by their clientèle.
Lounge Hair & Beauty Salon can
Printing for Bankside Open Spaces Trust, London SE1
/in Case studies, Envelopes, Flyers, Leaflets, London, Postcards, Printers, Printing, Printing services, SE1, Southwark /by MarkRegular readers may recall our post about Bankside Open Spaces Trust (‘BOST’) back in August 2015. Well, they’ve continued to keep us busy ever since, with a huge variety of different printing requirements, and have even updated their logo and corporate identity in the intervening time. In view of all that, we thought we’d bring things up to date in a new post here on the Southside Print blog.
Just a few examples of work undertaken for BOST since our original post include:
Our thanks go out to them for all the lovely printing work and for being such loyal and regular clients — we really appreciate it.
About Bankside Open Spaces Trust
Some of the green spaces looked after by the Trust include Red Cross Garden, Marlborough Sports Garden, Waterloo Millennium Green and Tate Community Garden. Indeed, some of their green spaces are amongst the very best in Britain, having gained many awards including two Green Flags and two Golds in RHS London in Bloom, a silver in RHS Britain in Bloom, the UNESCO Man and Biosphere award, the MPGA London Spade award and London in Bloom Champion of Champions award.
The charity’s Community Green Champions initiative allows those living in estates around Southwark and Lambeth to grow fruit, vegetables, flowers and plants right outside their own front doors. The Trust encourages people throughout the area – including those without gardens – to take part. Many later go on to have horticultural careers.
Meanwhile, their Future Gardeners ten week course helps the unemployed or those struggling to make a career change get into the horticultural arena and to earn themselves a City & Guilds qualification. Careers advice is also available as are
Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!
/in Artwork, Christmas, Graphic design, Graphic designers, London Bridge, Printers, Printing, Printing services /by MarkThe staff at Southside Print would like to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and the very best for the New Year when it finally arrives. Our thanks go to all those who used our design, artwork, printing and print management services during the course of 2018 — all the work has kept us very busy indeed. So, a very big Thank You to one and all!
We close for the Christmas break on Friday 21st December at 3pm, re-opening on Wednesday 2nd January 2019 at 9am. So, if you have anything urgent before we take a break, there is no time to lose and you’ll need to get your orders to us as soon as possible should you need work turned around before Christmas.
Our Online Shop Will be Available 24/7
During our break you can also, of course, order printing online for a whole range of products including business cards, stationery (including letterheads & compliments slips), leaflets, brochures and posters. Click the bold links to take a look at all the options along with our very competitive pricing.
In the mean time, please continue to send through any requests for quotations and we’ll attend to those as soon possible, so that you can hit the ground running when the New Year arrives. You can also call 020 7378 6754 to speak with us during opening hours.
Thanks again and every good wish to you for Christmas, the New Year and beyond.
The Southside Print Team, Tabard Street, London SE1.
The Value of Great Graphic Design
/in Artwork, Borough, Graphic design, Graphic designers, London Bridge, SE1, South London /by MarkNever underestimate the power of graphic design. It has the power to either make or break your sales and marketing efforts. Too many people dismiss design as an unnecessary expense but, in reality, it is incredibly important to your bottom line. As such, it deserves an adequate allowance of both time and budget otherwise you risk wasting both those precious commodities entirely. In this post, we’ll explain why skimping on your graphic design budget may represent a fool’s economy. Not convinced? Read on …
It’s the same for printed sales and marketing pieces, adverts and packaging. Looking mediocre is a sure fire way for your promotional efforts to be completely overlooked in the ‘din’ of other mediocre efforts that compete in your marketplace. Excellent design, in contrast, will both attract and entice your potential audience so they notice and desire your product or service, not those of your competitor. Yet so many companies miss this simple opportunity by seeing design as an unnecessary expense rather than the incredibly powerful marketing tool that it is!
Let’s break down the main components of graphic design …
Good Design = Good Communication
Graphic design is about much more than how your sales and marketing pieces look. Good graphic design primarily has great communication at its heart. It’s all very well if your leaflet, brochure, poster or packaging looks attractive, but that’s no good to anyone if they don’t understand, in an instant, what it’s all about and what is on offer. So, one of the first considerations of any good graphic designer is to identify what the core message is and then to communicate that message prominently to the prospective audience. A good graphic designer will also pick out any secondary and subsequent message elements, making sure that each is communicated with the appropriate weighting in the sales or marketing piece. Using this hierarchical approach to the prominence of elements and messages will mean that the prospective customer knows where to look first and thereby learn quickly what is being offered and why.
Features & Benefits
Once the product or service being offered has been made clear, another job of a good graphic designer is to make sure that the features and benefits of the product or service are also clearly communicated to those taking a closer look. Features are no good alone, of course; the prospect needs to know how those features will benefit them — so don’t forget to include your product or service’s benefits in the printed text.
Looking Good
Then, of course, the printed communication needs to look eye-catching and attractive. The right graphical and typographical styles, photos and/or illustrations need to be presented in such a way that they catch the eye, communicate all the right messages as outlined above, all in a pleasing way. The ‘tone’ of the design also needs to be right. If your product or service is a luxury one, then the design and printed output needs to ooze quality. If your product or service is an inexpensive bargain, then the designer needs to pitch the design just right so that it looks high quality overall but does not look or feel too expensive. This fine balance is all part of the job of a good graphic designer.
Feeling Good
Part of that balance is, of course, the paper, card and print processes used in the final printing. Some printed items look better on textured papers and cards, others work better on uncoated stock and still others might look best on standard paper with, say, a matt lamination. There are many paper options and many finishing options to choose from, so good graphic designers will also be able to advise on what might work best for your particular product or service — and production budget. The optimum result will be a printed item that both looks and feels good, without breaking the bank.
It’s All a Waste without a CTA
Once all of the above has been considered, then you’re well on your way to ‘converting’ your prospect’s interest into an actual sale. However, there’s one more thing that needs to be included. Remember to
Poster Printing in London
/in Borough, Display graphics, Large format printing, London Bridge, Posters, Printers, Printing, Printing services, SE1, South London /by MarkHigh quality poster printing is one of the most popular printing services here at Southside Print in London SE1. We use an 8-colour inkjet poster printing process for the majority of poster prints. This accomplishes great detail (up to 2400dpi), offers exceptionally high quality with accurate, saturated colours and a very wide tonal range. The overall impression is impressive and highly professional. Moreover, we can often turn around posters around rapidly, for example on a same day or next day basis. All in all, it’s the perfect solution when you need to grab attention for your product, service, presentation or event — and all at large scale and in double-quick time.
Poster Uses
Posters suit a variety of different marketing and promotional purposes for a range of different businesses and organisations. For example:
Print Sizes & Prices
We can print posters in any size up to a maximum of A0. Here’s a little bit more detail:
To get an instant idea of pricing, visit our online poster print shop here or simply contact us for non-standard sizes and we’ll be happy to provide quotations without obligation or pressure.
Finishes
Our standard poster prints use 200gsm ‘Xerox Photo Satin’ paper. As the name suggests, these have a lovely satin finish, which is a great balance between matt and gloss, with a lovely feel too. The 200gsm weight is also a substantial weight. It’s still classified as paper but is not far off the thickness of thin card, so is robust and oozes quality.
Our poster prints can also be laminated, in either matt or gloss lamination, to any size including A0. We also offer encapsulation, in a gloss finish, up to A1 maximum for those who like the ‘sealed edge’ approach and the extra robustness that encapsulation offers over standard lamination.
Mounting Options
Our posters can be supplied simply as 200gsm paper print-outs or we can mount them to a variety of substrates if preferred. Mounting options include:
What Makes Perfect Binding So … Perfect?
/in Booklets, Borough, Borough High Street, Brochures, Catalogues, Digital printing, Document Binding, London, London Bridge, Perfect Binding, Printers, Printing, Printing services, SE1 /by Mark‘Perfect binding’ is one of the most popular and impressive ways of binding any kind of printed publication. It has a great look and lends some sophistication to any book, booklet, brochure, annual report, catalogue or magazine. ‘Wiro’ and ‘saddle-stitched’ binding, although both professional and presentable, look a little more basic by comparison. Perfect binding gives a publication more gravitas; a feeling of added value and something that subtly says ‘I am an important document’ without even trying. As such, perfect bound books are far more likely to be kept or handed from person to person. That’s great for your business and marketing goals.
Tech Spec
At Southside Print in London SE1, we print and perfect bind totally in-house. That means total control over colour and quality, speedy turnarounds and the most competitive pricing. There are just a couple of limitations:
We also use a super-strong new glue. This keeps your pages and covers securely bound — for the long term.
Our perfect binding service is also available on an overnight basis. So, if you’re in a terrible rush to get important documents and publications printed and perfect bound for the next business day, we can usually help, particularly if you give us a little bit of warning. This is great for annual reports that need to be ready for board meetings and AGM’s, or things like proposals, tenders, pitch documents and other important presentations that could win your company or organisation its next major contract.
Perfect Examples
The photographs show just how impressive perfect bound brochures and books can look …
Booklet Printing for Inspirational SE1 Charity
/in Booklets, Borough, Brochures, Case studies, Digital printing, London, London Bridge, Printers, Printing, Printing services, SE1, South London /by MarkJust up the road in Union Street SE1 is the headquarters of United St Saviour’s Charity (‘UStSC’), who recently commissioned Southside Print to produce two A5 landscape booklets. Both were printed in full colour on our digital presses here in Tabard Street. They were printed on 200gsm Lumi Silk paper, a high quality coated stock with a significant thickness to give the booklets substance and a feel of real quality. 100 were produced for one booklet and 500 for the other, suiting our digital printing service perfectly — those modest quantities simply would not have been economically viable using a traditional litho printing service.
United St Saviour’s Charity is based in an attractive period building in Union Street SE1, just a short walk from London Bridge and Borough stations. They focus on uniting people and charitable organisations in north Southwark. Part of this includes the provision of two community grant programmes along with high quality sheltered housing for older people in the area.
Grant Programmes
Their open grant initiatives include the Community Investment Programme for large grants and the Community Engagement Programme for smaller grants. Both aim to strengthen communities in north Southwark, improve the lives of older residents in the area and level the playing field for those who may be experiencing social and economic disadvantage. North Southwark is very much ‘a tale of two Southwarks’ where one part of the population is benefiting from the recent growth and regeneration of the area while others simply struggle to make ends meet. In the last twelve months, the charity has invested £1 million into local projects and activities that are now helping to redress this imbalance.
Sheltered Housing
The sheltered housing element of UStSC’s work takes the form of two schemes; St Saviour’s Court, which provides 53 modern homes in Purley, and Hopton Gardens Almshouses, which provide twenty flats and Grade II period cottages in Hopton Street, SE1. Both schemes include 24 hour support services for the residents. To be eligible, applicants need to have worked in Southwark for at least 3 years before application, they must be 65 or older, have low income and capital and be able to live independently with help from carers if necessary.
The charity is also planning a brand new modern almshouse in Southwark Park Road in Bermondsey. It is currently in preliminary talks with the developer Delancey and architects Witherford Watson Mann and their shared vision for the new building is one of stunning quality and beauty. As well as providing modern, independent sheltered housing for older residents with limited income, the aim is also to
The Benefits of Printed Newsletters
/in Borough, London, London Bridge, Newsletters, Printers, Printing, Printing services, SE1 /by MarkNewsletters are simple and inexpensive to print yet can convey an enormous amount of important information to recipients. This makes them ideal for both ‘internal’ marketing (to keep staff and stakeholders up to date) and external marketing of your products or services to clients and prospects. As such, they constitute a very useful and versatile component of any sales and marketing strategy.
Benefits of Physical Newsletters vs. Electronic
Another key benefit of physical, printed newsletters is that they are easy to pick up and put down at any time. This allows readers to dip in and dip out of articles whenever they like. Compare that to e-newsletters, which tend to be forgotten the moment they’ve been buried in your in box by more recent emails. The traditional newsletter beats electronic versions hands down in this respect.
Printed newsletters are also far more versatile from the distribution perspective. While e-newsletters arrive only at your handheld device or desktop computer, physical newsletters can find themselves in front of their target audience in a much wider variety of ways. They can be handed out, mailed through the post, left on coffee tables, offered to visitors via company foyers, reception desks and waiting rooms, handed out with other sales and marketing literature like brochures and price lists, used as inserts in other publications and distributions — and so on. Physical newsletters also require no Wi-Fi or data signal to work, so can be perused pretty much anywhere, any time. Try doing all that with an electronic e-newsletter — it’s simply not possible!
Add-ons
Physical, printed newsletters also lend themselves to additional add-ons. These include things like tear-off order forms that people might find useful if they want to order your products or services and those can even come with pressure-sensitive glue and postage pre-applied. All that needs to be done after filling in the form is for the page to be folded so it sticks together in a kind of pre-built envelope, ready to post. Other add-ons include coupons for special offers or voucher codes that the customer can use in-store or via a website. Another great thing to build into a printed newsletter is an element that the recipient might find useful to keep, for example an integral poster, calendar of events or table of key dates for the year ahead. That’ll be a useful reminder of your brand, product or service, all year round.
The most cost-effective sizing recommended for newsletter printing is to use one of the ‘A’ sizes. For example, A4 is the most common one used in the UK commercial world. However, A5 and A3 are also feasible while still making the very most out of standard sheet sizes available to printers like us. It goes without saying, though, that there are many other options including square newsletters, triple-page ‘roll fold’ newsletters and so on.
We can, of course, also fold newsletters in half so they’re easier and cheaper to post out, particularly if they don’t contain too many pages and are on paper that’s thin enough to fold when there are multiple pages. It’s a fine balance, though; as one wouldn’t want to make the pages too thin, otherwise you’d start to see what we call ‘show through’ i.e. the ghost of the reverse side of the printed page slightly showing through to the front face that’s being read. There are a great variety of paper thicknesses, weights and finishes to choose from, though, so just ask us about the options.
Paper Finish
At Southside Print we offer a very wide range of different paper stocks for your printed newsletters. We have
Printing for Tabard Barbers, Tabard Street, SE1
/in Borough, Case studies, Digital printing, Large format printing, Loyalty cards, Marketing Collateral, Postcards, Posters /by MarkJust along the road from Southside Print is Tabard Barbers. One of our nearest SE1 clients, they’ve been keeping us busy recently with quite a few different printing jobs — and very smart they look too. These include:
Loyalty cards are a great marketing tool for businesses such as hair salons, barbers and cafés. They quietly encourage repeat business from customers and this loyalty means more profit for those businesses using them. And, because the customer benefits too once they’ve filled their card, it’s a win-win for everyone.
About Tabard Barbers
Tabard Barbers one of our closest neighbours, being just along the road from Southside Print at 13 Tabard Street, from which they took their name.
These days, as being a men’s barber, Tabard is a women’s hair salon which offers outstandingly good value compared to other hair salons in the area, under the fantastic management of the very talented Cece. At Tabard, it’s the full package; you will receive a warm welcome and complimentary refreshments along with “the very best hair styling, grooming and treatments in town” as it says on their website. Men’s grooming services include anything from a buzz cut to a beard trim while ladies’ services include a professional wash, cut and blow dry, hair ups, highlights, comprehensive colouring, bleaching and various treatments. Discounts are also available for students and children up to the age of 14 (see their site for details).
Tabard had an impressive ‘designer’ make-over in recent years and now skilfully combines ultra-modern interior design with historical details like exposed brickwork and stripped floorboards. Indeed, the building’s basement still contains the ancient ovens, which survived from a time when the building was used as a bakery long ago. These were discovered during renovations.
The salon and barbers is now one of the oldest family-run businesses in SE1 and Southwark. It has been in Tabard Street for nearly forty years, having been passed down the generations to the current owner, Dasos Anastasis.