Your Printing Guide to Different Printing Needs

Book Printing – How Do Different Industries Use Books in Their Marketing?

Custom book printing amplifies messaging and reaches across many industries with lookbooks, playbills, employee handbooks, and more. Your choice in book printing and binding may be someone’s first detailed impression of your work, whether it is a comic book or marketing catalog. What the client holds in their hand is what brings them to action. Is it sleek and stackable, or does it need to be easily marked up and accessed for training purposes?

In this article, the first of our six-part series on custom book printing services, we’ll show you how different industries utilize custom book printing to get their message into the right hands. With Bestype, you have the support of a comprehensive in-house team for custom book printing that loves the written word, supports the arts and culture of NYC, and understands the power of book printing and binding

HOW TO PRINT A BOOK FOR MARKETING?

You must be wondering, so let us fill you in on the first steps. We’ve got you! When you reach out to Bestype, we will do an initial consultation and custom quote for your book to determine everything you need to meet your marketing and promotion goals. How many different types of books are there? As many as there are visions, and Bestype knows how to make yours come to life.

LOOKBOOK PRINTING AND BINDING

Lookbooks are used by the fashion and product design industries to show the color, craftsmanship, and attention to detail in their creations. Leveraging boldness in color and elegance through lookbooks and collateral marketing promotions can make a new collection soar into popularity.

Product design, whether accessories, furniture, lighting, or home goods, also calls for a custom layout that communicates the quality and tonality of the products offered. Soho is the heart of creation. Bestype is surrounded by the best of the best in home design and art. We see the powerful marketing presence a well-done lookbook provides. Since we are also in your neighborhood, many of our book printing services clients feel the creativity in the air and have the reassurance to touch and see their vision at the proof stage before it’s sent off to print.

QUICK TURN-AROUNDS FOR PLAYBILLS AND GALLERY CATALOGS

These books are in high demand in NYC; they announce corner shows and Broadway blockbusters. Many shows have last-minute updates to performers or venue changes and need a reprint. When the show must go on, many of Broadway’s best, along with creative professionals in the theater and entertainment industry, choose to work with Bestype to ensure it does.

We also create gallery catalogs for art openings, museums, or pop-up exhibits to gain traction and social promotion. Gallery catalogs highlight high-level attention to layout and design. These books also require deadline precision. Since everything Bestype prints is under one roof, shipping deadlines and turn-around times are less stressful. When we opened in 1978, we were printing graphics for students, and we have continued serving the creative ever since, on time and on budget.

HOW TO PRINT A ZINE?

Zines are traditionally a small batch of creativity that shares music, art, culture, or expression outside of the mainstream. The form itself is a growing expression, and we at Bestype love them. Zines are a way to have a voice heard and shared, bold and brash or minimal and sparse. They can be poetic or ironic. They can be mixed media. Whatever you
can dream up, Bestype can get your unique zine out to the world while maintaining the intimacy of your personal touch and vision.

CUSTOM BOOK PRINTING FOR BUSINESS

Let’s not forget about Wall Street. Bestype prints the annual reports for financial service firms and not-for-profit services alike. Both are part of the culture and passion of NYC. Both need to share with their stakeholders how they are making their goals a reality.

For businesses of 100+ employees across countless industries, we run in-house prints of employee handbooks. These books work to share resources, training, and brand building. Event planners utilize them to promote business conferences, trade shows, or exhibits — Bestype is your in-house one-stop printing team to give your events maximum impact and get people talking through custom book printing and other marketing services.

CALL BESTYPE FOR CUSTOM BOOK PRINTING

Whether for the love of art or the need for promotion — or both — your book deserves the best. With Bestype, you have a print shop with the full in-house capability for book printing and binding with a top-of-the-line team of professionals to see you through the whole process, from idea to holding your zine or catalog in your hand.

You have a one-of-a-kind design, and we have an exceptional team who loves to see you succeed. Contact Bestype today for a quote on your next custom book printing project, and bring that vision to life. In our following article, we’ll show you all the ins and outs of custom booklet printing.

Best Printing Services – Your Guide to Creating a Custom Print Project

Design choices and printing services are endless — and that’s a good thing. Unlike online vendors with a limited drop-down list of suggestions, Bestype has a team of printing professionals with ideas and industry technology to make any custom print project stand out and garner the attention and traction it deserves. Catalog printing, booklet printing, and poster printing are all opportunities to showcase your art and your brand in the vibrant creative world of NYC.

In this fifth article of our five-part series on printing services, we’ll look at why working with a local print shop for printing services will expedite your custom printing project, surpassing your expectations and previous experiences. Bestype serves NYC with style and success across every industry, every time.

HOW TO USE SIZE, DIMENSION, AND ORIENTATION TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

When you work with a custom print shop like Bestype, anything can be customized, from zines to trade show invitations. Why do we place such an emphasis on customization? It helps you stand out.

In a crowded room, a charismatic speaker can pivot from a loud voice because knowing when to soften maintains the crowd’s attention. Why? The unexpected makes an impact. It’s the same with printing services. A simple way to make a huge visual impact is playing with size and dimension, switching things up from the norm creates client curiosity and enthusiasm.

Our in-house team can handle concepts that go big — skyscraper big — or have small details of differentiation, like the ones you find in the daily menu of a patisserie. We can take standard formatting and elongate it, making it long and skinny or reorienting it to landscape. This creative care, say for an invitation, transforms it into a statement piece that is kept rather than discarded.

What if you need custom printing for a brand refresh or product release? Our specialists can help you design a promotional booklet to fit your custom packaging, then carry that brand message through to all of your marketing collateral, from event pieces and poster printing — both indoor and outdoor display — down to floor signage, creating a pop of creative coherence. Your messaging translates and maintains its colors and hues from the customized booklet to the floor square because it runs through the same local print shop.

PAPER TYPES AND OTHER EXCITING CUSTOMIZATIONS

NYC designers and creatives know that paper creates a moment. A texture can invite your audience to lean in and touch, which is a magical moment. With Bestype, our custom printing offers you a wide selection of paper types, including the ability to source custom paper. Your choices are virtually limitless in color, texture, thickness, and variety, such as the translucent pages made of rice paper for invitation overlays and book inserts.

Being a local custom print shop that specializes in custom book printing and binding is another advantage in your corner. Your binding selection (which we can walk you through) creates a statement and can assist functionality. Does it need to pop on an art table or engage individuals in a training session? For the first, we would print with an artquality high gloss, whereas the latter calls for ease and accessibility.

Some of our binding options include:

• Perfect binding
• Saddle-stitch
• Loop saddle-stitch
• Color selection in wire binding: from gold to neon plastic coil

CHOICE AND CREATIVITY

It’s not a coincidence that we are in Soho. We are NYC’s local creative and custom print shop which serves the best and rising in NYC. We are in a neighborhood buzzing with creativity from premier designers, booked-out restaurants, and brilliant artisans and craftsmen. We are not a cookie-cutter shop, but we do love a good cookie.

Online vendors often give you bland options that suit everyone; they focus on what will please the most people. With Bestype, you can be guided by or work with our in-house professionals to make your own bespoke item.

Bestype gathers your vision and presents you with the choices, the wide and varied options, to translate that vision into a physical reality that makes you smile and reaches your audience.

We print comic books, Fashion Week lookbooks, and corporate yearly financial reviews because we serve all of NYC.

CALL US

Having a leading-edge print shop with outstanding customer service around the corner brings many advantages to your business, too. Having in-house production means reducing turn-around time, benefitting from a team experienced in marketing creativity, and experiencing the tangible relief of knowing who is working for and with you – rather than clicking send on an email and just hoping for the best.

Call us to get a quote for your next printing project. Let’s talk about what we can do for you. How we can help your creative visions and custom printing projects add to the collage of beauty that makes up NYC. When you work with neighbors, everyone benefits. In our next series, we’ll take you behind the scenes into the world of books, catalogs, and magazine printing. See you soon.

Magazine Printing – A Content Creator’s Guide to Printing a Magazine

Custom book printing amplifies messaging and reaches across many
industries with lookbooks, playbills, employee handbooks, and more. Your choice in book printing and binding may be someone’s first detailed impression of your work, whether it is a comic book or marketing catalog. What the client holds in their hand is what brings them to action. Is it sleek and stackable, or does it need to be easily marked up and accessed for training purposes?

In this article, the first of our six-part series on custom book printing services, we’ll show you how different industries utilize custom book printing to get their message into the right hands.

With Bestype, you have the support of a comprehensive in-house team for custom book printing that loves the written word, supports the arts and culture of NYC, and understands the power of book printing and binding.

MAGAZINE PRINTING: BIG AND SMALL

Bestype has decades of experience working with print clients ranging from some of the most prominent commercial publishers to independent creators of limited-edition zines. What does that mean for your magazine printing? We have a wide variety of exposure and experience to draw upon. We have helped clients ranging from large conglomerates to fringe poets find the layout and design for their creative and magazine printing needs.

In the past, a company or artist would need to have an audience of thousands to run a print magazine — not anymore! You can run a one-off or a limited edition for an audience of hundreds. You can even start a quarterly publication that is dynamic, affordable, and memorable. Our in-house staff and fleet of printers can accommodate a traditional magazine or a bound journal. We have the creative capabilities and in-house support to help any magazine, big or small, create an impact.

HOW DO CONTENT CREATORS USE MAGAZINE PRINTING?

Here are a few ways Bestype helps bring creative vision to life through print magazine projects:

• Print content marketing
• Comic books and graphic novels
• Literature and poetry journals
• Shopper’s news and coupon books
• Press kits
• Catalogs
• Special event guides
• Newsletters and newspapers
• Music, art, and pop culture zines

WHAT IS ZINE?

A zine is a self-published booklet on anything, and there are no rules! Bestype has worked with zines featuring poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. We’ve seen them for nomadic music followers tracking their favorite bands to poets highlighting the rooted depth of one specific neighborhood. The beauty of the zine is that it breaks convention and opens thecgateway to creativity. It puts the power of messaging and art back into your hands as a creative. Zines can be simple, small batches of art. They can also utilize the dexterity of our print technology and in-house expertise, creating a more refined artistic piece that publishes once or quarterly — remember, there are no rules.

MAGAZINE PRINTING IS A CREATIVE OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE

You might not be publishing a zine, but you or your business can still take a page out of the freedom that a zine inspires. With digital printing increasing the availability and decreasing the cost of magazine printing, there is a converging moment to make a difference in how you present to your audience.

Photographers can create compilations to display their portfolios for future clients. Graphic artists and designers can create a piece that presents their skills in a new context or showcases previous work. Community theaters can create playbills for upcoming shows or a collection of achievements for celebration or funding. Communities form around passion and support what they love. Boroughs or schools can create yearly program booklets to promote events or activities — as can local artists, interests, or businesses. As much as we interact in the online world, it’s what a person can touch and feel that will catch their attention and gain their support.

Catalog Printing 101 – Bestype’s Guide to How Catalogs Are Used in Different Industries

Like print magazines Magazine Printing, catalog printing holds a wealth of opportunities for marketing and relationship building — both in print and digital format. The key to unlocking catalog printing potential is reaching your customers with your unique messaging. Industry professionals leverage catalogs to reach their target audiences and open possibilities, and it’s an invitation that translates across industries. For instance, lookbooks, home goods, fine art, and custom product catalogs all showcase different formatting, and can be exquisitely produced, created, and printed in-house at Bestype with our top-notch NYC catalog printing services.

In this fourth installment of our six-part series on trends in book, catalog, and magazine printing, we’ll show you how catalogs are leveraged in different industries. We’ll highlight the newer trends while sharing the vetted experience that Bestype has acquired in catalog printing for a broad spectrum of industries in both size and outreach. What an apparel business needs for customer-direct communication is not the same as what an artist needs for a retrospective of work or a gallery presentation. Bestype is the premier NYC catalog printing service; while answering a multitude of creative needs, we can collaborate as your in-house catalog printing company. 

HOW TO PRINT A LOOKBOOK?

A lookbook is what the name indicates — an invitation for a fashion designer, shoe, accessory, or apparel company to have a buyer or gallery take a look. In the fashion industry, a lookbook can gain a smaller designer entry into a new buyer or a new season’s line. What does that mean when you’re selecting a catalog printing company to format your lookbook? 

First, at Bestype, it means paying attention to tonality and feel, with wide open space for the imagery to draw attention, rather than crowding the frame with excessive wording. Some traditional lookbooks have a minimalist background, some artfully display a framed background, and others are breaking the mold with avant-garde layouts and website interactivity with customers. Whatever layout features match your vision, our in-house team of professionals will ensure that your catalog printing enhances your creativity.

 With Bestype’s in-house printers, you also have an array of printing styles and papers to elevate the experience of your lookbook without the limited inventory or unpredictability of online printing. Our team can work with your layout design and match it with binding that will echo your nuances and complement the aesthetic with paper and printing choices that will claim the potential buyer’s attention. A lookbook needs to stand out, to speak for itself, and to shine a spotlight that could change the trajectory of your work. We understand that at Bestype.

WHAT ABOUT CATALOG PRINTING SERVICES FOR PRODUCTS?

As we mentioned, printing catalogs for furniture, shoe, or apparel companies are lookbooks by another name; you or your company have designed lamps, crafted a table, created envelope-pushing footwear for the upcoming season, or captured the fashion vision that was once a dream. Your catalog printing needs to capture the quality you have created, so the boutique owner or the Neiman’s buyer says an immediate yes. Investing in a premier catalog can take your business into new territory; however, catalog printing pricing needs to reflect what you will gain in customer interest; in other words, it has to be good.

At Bestype, it’s exceptional. With our in-house printing and binding, we take out the guesswork. You don’t have to hope your buyers’ catalog will turn out well; you’ll know it will. 

If your company needs to provide a fresh look for potential buyers, Bestype has got you covered. We understand that the quality and appearance of your catalog in a potential buyer’s hand move it from prospect to profit. You can trust our in-house team to color confirm your mock-ups, test the accuracy of your digital or offset printing, and ensure excellence in a full spectrum layout quality check before printing your catalog in-house with our fleet of printers. 

In the heart of NYC, serving the fashion, the publication, and the art centers of the world, we understand the integrity demanded in a gallery catalog. Perhaps an artist has researched a dream venue to showcase their work; a gallery catalog is the cornerstone of that potential relationship between artist and art house. It shows the heart and horizon of the artist’s work. It may be the touchstone that passes from the administrative assistant to the gallerist — and from there, opportunities await. 

The artist that is known is revered, and your work deserves recognition. Whether you already have representation and need a gallery catalog to announce your newest collection, or you’re poised to make your entry into the city’s art scene, Bestype has worked with all aspects of the art ecosystem: museums, galleries, auctions, and artists alike. With Bestype as your chosen gallery catalog printing service, we will ensure your art is translated with excellence, bound with accuracy, and color matched to scale. 

Catalog Printing in the Digital Age – Why Are Catalogs Making a Comeback?

The far reach of digital media has expanded our opportunities as creators and consumers. But with that ever-increasing information sharing, there is also an emerging renaissance for what can be felt, flipped, and thumbed through — the print catalog. When it comes to going beyond nondescript lists of inventory to make a compelling presentation of your products, there is a resurgence of appreciation for a print catalog. If you have a product with a story to share, a design layout to captivate, or an offer for more, there is a market upswing in customer purchasing when a print catalog is involved. 

In this fifth installment of our six-part series on book, catalog, and magazine printing, we’ll show you how print catalogs are making a comeback! We’ll highlight the newer options and insights inspiring this market rise in catalog printing while sharing the vetted experience that Bestype has in how to print a catalog. Bestype offers premier catalog printing in NYC, and we are here to serve you and your vision.

HOW DID THE PRINT CATALOG RETURN?

When e-commerce made its mark in the early 2000’s many businesses cut their catalogs, dismissing them as too costly and repositioning their efforts to online marketing. So while the Internet exploded and the opportunity to find everything online grew, actual mail in physical mailboxes dwindled.

Interestingly, the deluge of ads and posts online had the effect of sometimes overwhelming the consumer, and overstuffed inboxes only served to amplify millennials’ appreciation for the once lonely mailbox. 

That appreciation extends to those who enjoy the slower pace of finer things. The Harvard Business Review notes that a catalog has a home life of seven days, much longer than digital marketing. According to Consumerist Archives, 31% of shoppers look through a catalog when they complete their purchase online, and 86% of women from ages 18 – 30 bought an item after looking at it in a catalog. 

Now, imagine the lasting value of a coffee table piece, thick paper, gloss finish, a sturdy spine displaying an array of your latest photography, or a compilation of your high-end woodworking furniture line. It is beautiful in its own right, and (as the studies are showing) it is growing brand loyalty and increased customer sales. 

Just how lucrative can it be for creatives and marketers to design and print a catalog? According to HBR, a lot. As recently noted, the response rates from catalogs have increased by 170% from 2004 to 2018. This is a sustainable opportunity with a high return for your investment. When you get clear on who your product or service is destined to create a solution or an enjoyment for (a leading factor in catalog sales), you can target ideal communities by geography, profession, or even within potential distribution channels through informed and focused marketing and evaluation of current and potential customer data. 

The numbers are clear. Now, let’s talk about how you do it.

HOW TO PRINT A CATALOG OF VALUE?

As with any piece of art, the appreciation of the fine details, the layout, the photographic quality, and professional binding are what will draw the attention of the director, retailer, or sophisticated consumer. The return of the print catalog is a declaration of the finer things, the brand narrative, and the beauty you create for your client. 

Your print catalog is not an inventory; it is a story. Stories people want to be a part of motivate their actions. Is your landscape a busy city? The countryside? Or a minimalistic shot of your product calculated with light and shadow? Your layout can include quotes, prose, or poetry to accentuate and deepen the brand-based tale. 

Remember, your catalog is a tactile experience, and its design and printing activate the vivid experience of what you are selling — for a fashion line, an apparel pitch, or a luxury destination vacation. People still crave and respond to experience. The average ROI of $1 invested in a mail catalog is between $2 and $4, per AlixPartners. Catalog Printing in the Digital Age – Why Are Catalogs Making a Comeback? 

IPrint catalogs occupy a unique space in the customer journey: they are the in-between experience of not a store, but not just an email either. In an online world, catalog printing brings home the reality of what you offer your client, making your presence a part of your customer’s everyday life.

Custom Magazine Printing – How Local Artists Are Printing Zines as Works of Art 

The resurgence of the print catalog (read more here) is only one notable upswing in custom magazine printing and felt experience. Today we want to share with you the beautiful rise of the zine, and the wave of art that is swelling across many neighborhoods, cities, and communities. These rich, small-batch prints have reinvigorated the quest for beauty in the realm of digital art and print magazines.

Zines are not magazines; they are a movement. In this — our last article of a sixpart series on printing services — we’ll take an in-depth look at the zine art explosion, Custom Magazine Printing – How Local Artists Are Printing Zines as Works of Art which includes the upcoming NY Art Book Fair and how Bestype is proud to serve the artists of the zine community. 

WHAT IS A ZINE?

Essentially, zines are self-published, often small-batched booklets that are not expected to adhere to set rules. In fact, ingenuity is rewarded. They tend to be image rich and even textured in their appearance, meaning they are not aiming to look like they are polished or mainstream. Their individuality is a part of their lure. Their aesthetics are noncommercialized, more bespoke booklets with an avid renaissance. Some zines are poetry collections, samplings of philosophies, cataloging of music bands, or photography

compilations. They are a cross-section of artistic expression and community; the message leads to the form. 

As a creative supporter of the zine from the mid-1980’s on, Bestype has printed hundreds of zines through the decades. With advances in printing technology, we are able to offer a professional, collaborative alternative to copy machine reproduction. Situated in SoHo, we serve both the avant-garde and the quiet presence of an artful zine.

WHO PUBLISHES A ZINE?

Anyone. The essence of a zine is open access to expression, even a DIY approach to sharing creations and impressions, whether a collection of writing, sculpture, photography or mixed media. Some examples of Bestype’s zine content creators are:

• Comic book artists
• Illustrators 
• Photographers 
• Poets 
• Sculptors
• Artists 

And more… maybe you!

There is a subculture to zines that is reciprocally appreciative. Zines give the artist a format to express, and the more niche and artful the publication, the more likely they are to garner collectors. Artists and photographers use zines to share upcoming collections. Gallerists create them to showcase work. Artists are using them as an independent medium and even creating seasonal publications to grow their audience and their reach. 

Are you wondering about the printing cost? Don’t. Bestype offers dexterity for every artist. You can economize on print and paper choices that still exude the value of your art. There are no rules. You can choose economical custom zine printing, or you can make very-high end choices, both with our reliable and supportive team at Bestype. 

It seems that as more and more of the world steers the market online, there is a natural human discovery and appreciation of that which is unique and held, arising in custom zine and magazine printing; there are many following this artistic impulse and the responsiveness is growing. 

THE WORLD OF ART BOOKS

Art book fairs are beloved in NYC culture. If you think about it, NYC is not only the hub of fashion but a beacon for the written word, iconic bookstores, and the impetus of the artist. This makes it the perfect home for the zine. In fact, this year’s annual NYC Art Book Fair (NYABF) is October 13 – 16th, a celebration of art and community and the world that loves books. We are a proud supporter of several artists that will be bringing their work to NYABF, a place where artists sell their zines to collectors. 

This is another element of zine culture: it is a place of great support and artistic expansion. What does that look like? It looks like a wildly successful sculptor, Tom Sachs, with his iconic Shop Chair, also creating his own zines. Sachs highlights the construction points of his pieces, keeping chair joints exposed to ask the question: What is finished or what is unfinished? Sachs is also authoring limited zine collections, with Bestype co-creating his custom magazine printing. The levels of cross-creation and accessible avenues for artistic expression and support are endless and inclusive for your zine audience. People support what they feel connected to, and zines are a creative, affordable way to connect with those who love what you have to share. You’ll never look at magazine printing the same way again.