Category: Uncategorised

Northside Graphics is Northern Ireland’s largest digital printer with a wealth of experience and expertise in direct mail but historically, colour envelopes were one of the very few products that we have had to outsource to trusted trade partners.

Due to the large demand from customers wanting to use full-colour envelopes for the likes of direct mail campaigns, corporate branded stationery, Freepost/BRE envelopes and more, we have decided that the time is right to produce full-colour envelopes of our own in-house.

Our new full-colour envelopes are available in a range of sizes, including DL, C5 and C4 – all offered in a premium 120gsm peel and seal or a 90gsm machinable. Don’t worry, if you have never ordered full-colour envelopes before, Northside Graphics has got you covered. We offer helpful templates to make the process of setting up your artwork quick, easy and pain-free.

If you are worried about making a large order right away, short print runs are available for full-colour envelopes with a minimum quantity of 100. This way, you can order a small batch to figure out whether they fit your requirements – all whilst saving money. Our customers love the fact that they do not feel pressured into premature bulk orders…. And we’re sure you’ll love it too!

If you have any special requests, such as bleeding off the edge or printing on the reverse and flap, all you have to do is ask. One of our friendly team will work closely with you to ensure that your needs are fulfilled and that you end up with a top-quality product.

Northside Graphics are well-renowned and highly regarded for our excellence in printing since our inception in 1988. As a result, we have developed significant buying power, allowing us to secure discounted postal rates from the likes of Royal Mail if you need us to pack and post out our direct mail campaign.

‘But do I really even need full-colour envelopes?’ we hear you ask. In short: Yes. Did you know that coloured envelopes have a 40% higher success rate when used for direct mail campaigns and are 9 times more likely to be opened than bog-standard, run of the mill envelopes? Customer engagement is an important goal of marketing material. Therefore, if you want to make an impact on your customers and have them listen to what you want to say, then you need full-colour envelopes!

At Northside Graphics, we let you customise your full-colour envelopes so that they work in perfect unison with other business stationery. For example, you can design your envelope in such a way that matches your company letterhead that is to be included inside. What’s more, you can add your company logo or simply use colours that represent your business. A consistent brand experience is crucial for furthering awareness and assuring potential customers that your business is trustworthy and professional.

You may think that an envelope’s sole purpose is to house promotional material but did you know that they can be used as a promotional tool as well? On all of our high-quality and cost-effective full-colour envelopes, we give you the chance to add promotional messages. The content is totally up to you. For example, you may wish to promote an upcoming event, offer a limited-time discount to loyal customers or highlight any new releases. These messages can be placed on multiple places on the envelope – wherever you think is likely to make the biggest impact.

Now that you know everything there is to know about our newly-released, full-colour envelopes, all that’s left for you to do is place an order. For the last 30 years, Northside Graphics has supplied customers in Northern Ireland with a range of the highest quality digital print products, which now includes our full-colour envelopes. To get a quote or find out more about how we can help with your print, give us a call at 028 9022 2111. If you would like to know more about us, to view our full product list or read previous customer reviews, visit our website at NorthsideGraphics.com today.

Today we are taking a look at the process of setting up and submitting artwork for print at Northside Graphics.

Sending print-ready artwork helps speed up the print process for you. And, as the printing experts, we’re always here to help.

In order for us to achieve print perfection, it’s vital that your file is correctly set up and you have checked each box on our list to ensure that your file is print-ready. Below we have created a simple six-step guide for you to follow and make sure that your artwork is correctly prepped and ready to go:

1. Save as “Print Ready PDF”
Save your artwork as a PDF and name it “Print Ready PDF”, which to us means that your work has met our criteria and therefore will not have any problems

2. Size
Make sure that the size of your artwork is in proportion or 100% in size.

3. Images
All images should be saved at a minimum of 300dpi and embedded. Keep in mind that saving low-quality images (e.g. 72dpi or Web Images) to 300dpi will not improve their quality.

4. Fonts
Don’t use a font size smaller than 6pt when designing artwork up to A3 and don’t use a size smaller than 10pt when designing artwork above A3.

5. Bleed
All of your artwork should have a 3mm bleed area around it. You can’t add bleed around your image with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Adobe Photoshop so you must change your document size:

E.g. A4 210mm x 297mm *add bleed* = 216mm x 303mm

6. Borders
You need to create a safe area to set your artwork. This needs to be at least 5mm from the edge of the page if it’s not meant to bleed off.

Here at Northside Graphics, we ensure that every time we print, it’s done to the best of our ability. Using our four HP Indigo Digital Presses, it ensures that your artwork is produced exceptionally to the highest quality every time.

To get a quote or find out more about how digital print from Northside Graphics can help you, call us today on 02890 222 111 or visit www.NorthsideGraphics.com

Imagine this: you’ve just sent your book away to be printed, you’re excited to see your finished product… but when you get it back you’re disappointed because it hasn’t printed the way you wanted and it just doesn’t stand up to the high-quality you imagined…

At Northside Graphics, we want to help you avoid this disappointment. We check all our print jobs for errors before printing but to help you get it perfect the first time, we’ve created this ultimate checklist for setting up Perfect Bound Books.

1. Safe Area (Margins) for your Inner Pages
It’s really important that you leave a minimum of 12mm safe area from each inner page. This is done by leaving a 12mm margin from the bound edge on the right-hand side of your left pages, and then another 12mm margin on the left-hand side of your right pages.

2. Submitting your Book
To ensure that your book is bound perfectly, you need to make sure that you are sending it to us in the correct format. We ask that your books be sent as two multipage PDF’s. This includes;

– 1st PDF; Cover File
The four pages you should include in this PDF are;

– Front cover

– Inside front over

– Inside back over

– Back cover

Before you send this away, please make sure that these cover pages are submitted as flat spreads in a 2 page PDF, but sent as one whole PDF document.

Our automated system will tell you what width of your spine will be after you get a quote from us. The spine on the outside covers (front and back) will not be visible, but with the inside covers, it will be visible because this is where the glue will be applied to bind the exterior to the covers.

– 2nd PDF; Inner Files
All of your inner pages should be supplied as one multi-page PDF. The document should run as single pages from the first to last inside page and include any blank pages where you would like them.

There you have it, everything you need to know about setting up your Perfect Bound Books for print.

Here at Northside Graphics, we have perfected the art of print for over 30 years now. With the use of our 4 HP Indigo Presses, we can guarantee you the highest quality of digital print. We’re always on hand to help with any questions or queries you may have when it comes to book printing. For more information, feel free to contact us on 02890 222 111 or email us at [email protected]

If you are interested in ordering some print work from Northside Graphics, we want to help you make sure you get the perfect print, every time.

Sizing is important when it comes to printed marketing materials, so we’ve decided to share some information on the most popular sizes in print. This information should help you familiarise yourself with the different options and choose the best size for your print job.

Popular Sizes
‘A’ sizes are widely used across the UK and will usually range from A0 – A7. The sizes are quite simple to remember if you understand how they are made; for example, if you fold in half (along the width) of an A4, you will get a piece of paper which measures as A5, if you fold A5 you get A6 and so on. Most businesses, including ourselves, use the sizing range below.

Name

Size (in mm)

Example

A0

841 x 1189

Posters, Adhesive Vinyl and PVC banners

A1

594 x 841

Posters, Adhesive Vinyl and PVC banners

A2

420 x 594

Posters, Adhesive Vinyl and PVC banners

A3

297 x 420

Posters and menus

A4

210 x 297

Booklets, brochures, flyers, letterheads and magazines

A5

148 x 210

Booklets, brochures, flyers and leaflets

A6

105 x 148

Flyers, leaflets and postcards

A7

14 x 105

Small, flyers and leaflets and tickets

DL

99 x 210

Booklets, brochures, flyers, leaflets and compliment slips

Business card

85 x 55

90 x 50

90 x 55

Irregular Sizes
You may be thinking “What do I do if the size I’m after isn’t on the table?”.

Don’t worry… print comes in a wide range of irregular sizes in many formats. We also offer square sizing and a variety of sizes when it comes to large dimensions. The table above is simply just the most popular sizes that we are asked for. If your size isn’t listed, you can get in touch for a bespoke quote for the size you would like.

Northside Graphics is known for high-quality digital printing. It’s what we have done since 1988 and it’s what we do best. All of our work is through the use of our 4 HP Indigo Presses which result in high-quality digital print every time.

If you’re interested in working with us, call us on 02980 222 111 or email us at [email protected]

Whether you are a rookie or a veteran when it comes to print, you could be making these very simple artwork mistakes. Below are the top five most common mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Bleed and Crop Marks
Before sending your artwork off, you need to make sure that you have marked down crop and bleed marks.

Crop marks are to show where the page should be trimmed once it has been printed and bleed marks are the area that is cut off the page when it’s trimmed to size; therefore if you have any images or graphics on the page that run into the trimmed edge, then you need to include a 3mm bleed to avoid this being cut.

There is always very slight movement when we print, and if your images run only to the crop marks, then a fine white line could appear at the edge of your work.

2. Safe Zone
Guillotines can sometimes cut a little out or inside the line, so it’s important to leave a safety zone to ensure that none of your information or images are cut off.

Generally a 3mm margin around the edge of your work on top of your crop and bleed marks should be enough, however, you might need to leave more if you are producing a book, due to the binding edge.

If you are unsure check the print specification or relevant template on our website before you send it to us.

3. Low-Resolution Images
All images used in print must be in 300dpi and at 100% in size. It’s a common thing to forget to check this because often low-resolution images are used because the high-quality image isn’t available or it hasn’t been approved for the final draft.

Just because the image looks fine on your screen doesn’t always mean that the image will print well. For example, a 72dpi image will be very blurred and pixelated when printed, so make sure you go through every image you have and check the resolution before sending it for print to ensure that crystal clear quality you are after. This same rule goes for text.

4. Use CYMK
This is a common problem that is often overlooked because most images that are captured or downloaded are in RGB mode. The difference between RBG and CYMK are the colour spectrum that they use. If you use RGB you might end up using a colour that isn’t available within the CYMK colour mode and your print will look different than you designed it on your computer.

Before sending artwork to us, ensure that you are using CMYK mode.

5. Fonts and Text
When designing your product on your computer screen, it’s quite difficult to tell how the text will translate on paper; especially when it comes to sizing.

You don’t want to create the perfect artwork, send it to print then find out your text size is too small to read. To avoid this mistake, we recommend that you don’t go anything below 6pt.

If your font is not embedded or outlined, then it may not print correctly. Ensure that your text is outlined or embedded so that they become graphics and don’t appear differently when you receive your printed work.

Northside Graphics is Northern Ireland’s oldest and largest digital printers. Our wide range of products are printed expertly using our four HP Indigo digital presses that produce exceptional high-quality work every single time. We make sure we meet your deadline by using our SmartStream system, which allows us to recognise potential bottlenecks before they even occur.

To get a quote or find out more about how digital print from Northside Graphics can help you, call us today on 02890 222 111 or visit www.NorthsideGraphics.com

We are proud to use only top-of-the-range HP Indigo print presses which offer the highest quality digital print currently available.

Northside Graphics was established in 1988. Today, it’s the oldest digital printing company in Northern Ireland and has grown to be the largest. We offer an extensive product range that makes us the perfect one-stop printing service for business and private customers alike.

We are proud to use only top-of-the-range HP Indigo print presses which offer the highest quality digital print currently available. We have 4 Indigo presses that run 24 hours per day. There are over 3,000 online sites that use HP Indigo Presses and Hewlett Packard has an ongoing performance league across the world to monitor these Indigo Customers!

In the PrintOS Print Beat League, HP Indigo customers are rated in the following way:

Overall performance is aggregated to a single 1-100 Print Beat score, so it’s easy to understand overall production performance and where opportunities lie for improvement.

Excellence in production comes from multiple areas. PrintOS Print Beat tracks performance across five key parameters;

Print volume
System health score
Print volume per run
Maintenance score
Operating efficiency
We were delighted and extremely proud to hear the recent results that Hewlett Packard released. Northside Graphics has been ranked:

– 1st out of 170 sites in the UK

– 2nd out of 1196 sites in Europe, the Middle East and Africa

– 5th out of 3258 sites worldwide

We look forward to continuing to provide high-quality print and remaining in the top spots of the PrintOS Print Beat League.

For nearly 30 years Northside Graphics have supplied Northern Ireland customers with a wide range of high-quality digital print. Our website shows the full range of products and services we supply. You can see what other customers say about us too! To get a quote or find out more about how we can help with your print, call us at 028 9022 2111.

Whether you’re embarking on a major advertising campaign, marketing on a budget or promoting at a one-off exhibition or show, roller banners are a proven and effective tool for getting your message across.

They’re easy, versatile and ready when you are…

Roller banners have many great advantages. As well as being cost effective, they are light, durable and easily erected or retracted on the go! Our roller banners come with a handy carry bag and the stands are easy to store, move and transport to wherever you need them. Your roller banner is always ready to go.

Roller banners boost your sales.

You can display your roller banner in your business or retail premises, at trade shows or events and pretty much anywhere else potential customers are likely to be. Roller banners allow you to promote whatever message, product or service you choose. They are low cost, compared to other forms of marketing, which means you can advertise a new product, one-off special offer or tailor your message for a certain date or event without breaking the bank.

Here are some tips on how to get the best from your roller banner

Naturally, people read top to bottom, left to right. This means you should put your logo and company name at eye level. While with some printed marketing it’s common practice to put your contact details at the bottom, roller banners are a bit different and details could be obscured or go unnoticed when people pass by if they are too far down.
Keep it short and sweet. If there’s too much text, many people won’t bother to read it.
Use only the sharpest, high-resolution images. A low res image might look fine on screen or on your A4 printout but will appear blurred and pixelated in print. Luckily, at Northside Graphics, we only use the highest quality HP Indigo presses, so we can guarantee perfect print on our part!
Use contrasting colours like a black, red or dark blue on white or yellow. Subtlety isn’t best here. Roller banner stands need to fulfil their job of grabbing attention quickly.
Get your message noticed with clear fonts. Everything on your roller banner needs to be easy to read so we recommend avoiding flamboyant or fancy fonts. Go for big, bold and readable.

Choose the perfect roller banner for your business…

Roller banner stands come in many types and sizes. We have 3 models; silver, gold and platinum with prices starting from as little as £39 each. At Northside Graphics we can offer roller banners that are larger than standard. As well as offering our standard width of 800mm, we also offer roller banners that are 1m, 1.2m, 1.5m in our gold model and 2m wide in our platinum model!

Northside Graphics is Northern Ireland’s biggest and oldest digital printer. We’ve been in the industry for over 30 years and our experience enables us to help our customers when it comes to supplying perfect print. For advice or a quote on roller banners, just call 028 9022 2111 and chat to our Belfast-based print team today.

If you’re searching for key information on printed books, you have come to the right place. Northside Graphics have compiled a list of customer FAQs relating to booklet printing, providing concise and informative answers to each in order to give you a better overall understanding of the booklet printing process.

See below our top 10 FAQs about printed books:

What binding type do I need for my printed books?

At Northside Graphics, we offer a total of three binding types for printed books, namely: PUR Perfect Binding, Saddle-Stitch Binding and Wiro Binding. See below for when each binding type is best suited:

1. PUR Perfect Binding
PUR Perfect Binding is typically used for magazines, thicker reports, dissertations and brochures due to the professional finish that it provides on documents from 50 up to 700 printed pages.

2. Saddle-Stitched Binding
Saddle-Stitching is best suited to printed brochures, annual reports, magazines and other booklets, however, it is usually limited to documents up to 48 pages long depending on paper weight used.

3. Wiro Binding
Wiro binding is the ultimate solution to reference material, including recipe booklets, training manuals, business reports, presentations and so much more. It is suitable for documents from 4 to 180 leaves – or 360 printed sides.

Where do I find the correct format for my artwork?
Visit https://northsidegraphics.com/templates/ and navigate to the Report, Brochures And Books Template section to find downloadable documents that provide key information on how to create print-ready PDFs.

What paper and finishes can I choose from?
Northside Graphics offer an extensive collection of papers at a variety of sizes and weights. Choose from premium uncoated, gloss and silk papers for printed booklets. If you want to add that extra wow factor, we also supply a range of luxury papers and laminated finishes for extra strength and durability. Foil blocking and Spot UV options are also available.

How do I supply my artwork?
We ask that you supply 2 PDF files, both for the cover and the inner document. Cover PDFs should be supplied as a spread including the spine. Inner PDFs should include every inner page within the document, making sure that they are in the correct running order.

Are bleed and crop marks essential on my artwork?
As there is a degree of movement on any booklet printing press, we ask that you give us at least 3mm bleed on your artwork. Without any bleed, it may result in white lines after the trimming process has taken place.

Should I adhere to certain margins when designing my book?
In short: Yes. As the cover is fixed to the spine and up to 7mm on the side of the printed book, Northside Graphics recommend that you use a margin of 12mm on the spine side of inner pages in order to provide a 5mm gap from the edge of where your text appears and the spine.

Should I supply desired fonts?
Fonts are typically embedded on Print Ready PDF documents, however, if you supply files in a different format, you may need to supply your desired font to Northside Graphics.

Northside Graphics is Northern Ireland’s biggest and oldest digital printer. We’ve been in the industry for 30 years and our experience enables us to help our customers when it comes to supplying perfect print. For advice or a quote on printed books, just call 029 9022 2111 and chat to our Belfast-based print team today.

At Northside Graphics we’re renowned for our stickers and labels. We’ve got lots and lots of them. So many options to choose from, in fact, you may have difficulty choosing which shape, size and style you like most!

When we think of stickers, often we assume they are for children. In actual fact, stickers can be incredibly useful in business. Personalised business labels and stickers are powerful, cost-effective ways to advertise your brand, services or products. Here’s a fresh look at how stickers can enhance your business with their many uses, such as:

Branding for packaging – Use a personalised business label for details like the recipient’s address. You can also place a custom, personalised sticker on the envelope or packaging. Your logo, web address or even slogan will promote your business even before the package is opened.
Free gifts – When you send a product include a well-designed sticker. Everyone loves free stuff. Customers might stick them on their desk phone or on other office or studio equipment. The better the sticker the better the chance of a good location. Then your branding is working for you every day at no cost.
Decorative brand awareness – If you work in an area frequented by customers, place business stickers on the back of your computer monitor, laptop or even chair. Seize all opportunities to drive brand awareness further.
As part of a marketing campaign – The range of sizes available means business stickers really can go anywhere. Use your imagination and get creative. Reinforce your marketing message offline and stay at the forefront of customers minds.

So, whether you are a school teacher that uses reward stickers or you have a business making jams that need labels for jars, we’re sure to have the sticker for you. Choose from round stickers, square stickers and rectangular stickers. There’s a huge range of sizes available from small, kiss-cut stickers that come on A4 sheets right up to self-adhesive posters and graphics that can go as big as you like. We print all our A–sized stickers on quality 170gsm silk or gloss crackback, landscape or portrait to your specification.

Printing thousands each and every day, we can offer the best print quality available using our four top of the range HP Indigo presses for every printing job.

Northside Graphics is Northern Ireland’s biggest and oldest digital printer. We’ve been in the industry for over 30 years and our experience enables us to help our customers when it comes to supplying perfect print. For advice or a quote on stickers and labels, just call 028 9022 2111 and chat to our Belfast-based print team today.

At Northside Graphics, one of our most popular outdoor products has to be our PVC Banners. When it comes to your marketing efforts, PVC banners come with some unique advantages that make them one of the most attention-grabbing and widely used marketing methods around. Here’s why our clients love banner advertising for their businesses; and you will too:

PVC Banners are multi-purpose and extremely versatile

Whether you’re promoting a time-limited offer, advertising an event or building brand awareness, PVC banners grab the attention of passers-by on scaffolding, business premises, roadside fences and more. The possibilities are endless when these large adverts are well placed and highly visible!

PVC Banners are durable and weather-proof

PVC banners (also known as vinyl banners) are lightweight, durable and weather resistant making them perfect for both indoor and outdoor advertising. To make banners dependable and long lasting, we use Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) that is both flexible and solid at the same time.

The most common uses of banners are outdoors, which means the biggest threat to its lifespan is the weather. PVC banners are less prone to tears around the eyelets (than traditional banners), and protect your design against the effects of rain.

Printed on 450gsm RipStop PVC material, our banners are tear resistant and waterproof. Whatever the climate, a PVC banner continues to look great.

PVC Banners are high impact advertising

So far, you’ve seen how banners can be used almost anywhere, even outdoors under harsh weather conditions. But all this would be useless if they didn’t do what they are supposed to – attract attention, inform prospects and convert them into customers.

With the right design, a PVC banner is an efficient and effective way of connecting with people and getting them to listen.

PVC Banners are affordable

Advertising can be expensive and nobody wants to spend more than necessary. One of the best things about a PVC banner is that you get exceptional benefits at an affordable price. Wherever you use them, PVC banners deliver high impact advertising at a remarkably low cost.

With a banner that could last a long time, you can invest just a little in order to see the returns for the foreseeable future. That’s why even the smallest businesses, one-off event promoters, and charities continue to use our banners every single day.

So, whether you are promoting a forthcoming sale event for your business or want a cost-effective high impact way of displaying a message for a personal event, there’s no better way than with PVC banners.

Northside Graphics are one of the UK’s leading PVC banner printers. Call us today on 028 90 222111 for a free quotation or to ask any questions that you may have about our PVC Banner printing today.