It's no secret that we all really love our pets! According to the 2023-2024 APPA National Pet Owners Survey, 66% of U.S. households own a pet, which equates to 86.9 million households. In 2023, a total of $143.6 billion in sales is projected to be spent on pets in the U.S.
It’s been four years since we attended our last HOW Design Live conference, and we were excited to hear it was in Nashville. A quick refresher, this is one of the top design conferences for creatives and Suttle-Straus sent three members of our Creative team on varying days throughout the week. We had the opportunity to see a variety of sessions by amazing speakers, including the first ever “HOW Women Lead” pre-conference. Here are the top three trends our team wants to share:
You're a new designer, fresh out of school, and you've just been assigned your first print job. Congrats! Now what? Before you rolodex your print production knowledge and excitedly overwhelm yourself with the thought of grommet binding or special UV coatings, revisit some basic considerations for a successful first go.
While this could be as simple as knowing who to contact, to something more specific like proper file setup for print-ready pieces, no detail is too small to overlook. Ease into the process with this broad overview and dig deeper with the resources linked here.
We are now into the summer months, and it is time to revisit the USPS promotions for 2023. Three of the 2023 promotions are already completed or underway, see the original blog: How to Save on Postage - Part 1. The USPS has added a couple of new promotions for the second half of this year, the Reply Mail IMbA Promotion and the Retargeted Mail Promotion to go along with a repeat of the Informed Delivery Promotion.
It's year three of the United States Postal Service's (USPS) 10-Year Plan, and the USPS is raising postage rates for Market Dominated products for the second time this year on July 9th. The increase averages 5.4% across First Class, Marketing Mail, Periodicals, Package Services and Special Services. Flat rate mail, periodicals and packages will have a higher average rate due to the fact they are not meeting the cost associated with delivery. The USPS call these products "under water." The USPS has the authority to add an additional 2% increase above the 5.4% until these products are covering delivery costs. View the entire USPS 10-year plan here.
What's the best way to bind together a marketing piece with multiple pages? Saddle-stitching and perfect binding are the most common methods. Learn the pros and cons for each method below:
Many high schools today outsource their yearbook printing to national yearbook producers. But some local Wisconsin schools choose instead to give their students the opportunity to fully design and manage the local print production of their yearbooks. This allows creative flexibility in design and a hands-on experience of what being a publication designer is really about.
Here are some design ideas for custom printed yearbooks that we have seen at Suttle-Straus while working with local school districts:
The 2023 USPS Promotions Calendar has been published and a few changes to note from previous years. Four of the 2022 promotions are repeating again in 2023. The USPS also has added a couple of new promotions and those are the Reply Mail IMbA Promotion and the Retargeted Mail Promotion. In order to give the mailing industry time to set up the new promotions, those will be done later in 2023.
So you're ready to try a direct mail postcard campaign, but you're unsure how to get started. Follow this guide for designing your first postcard:
It's year 3 of the United States Postal Service's (USPS) 10-Year Plan, and the USPS is raising postage rates for Market Dominated products on January 22, 2023. The increase averages 4.2% across First Class, Marketing Mail, Periodicals, Package Services and Special Services.
