Archive for the ‘Branding’ Category

Reflective Security Signs

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

The typical road sign such as warning, informational, and speed signs are manufactured with traffic and engineering grade reflective sheeting. The reflective properties are achieved using beads of glass that will reflective light from any angle. The road signs would be considered the high end of the reflective sign products.

There are two types of plastic security signs, the first a non-reflective, the second, is a reflective security sign. This article will highlight only the reflective security signs.

The reflective security signs are not to be confused with self- luminous materials. Reflective materials require light to illuminate or reflect. These signs are similar to the road signs we all observe while we are driving. The reflective materials used to manufacture a reflective security sign also employ the glass bead to reflective light.

The yard security sign is the best advertisement for the home owner, because the sign communicates to a potential burglar that this house is protected. Since most criminals are opportunistic and will gravitate to the path of least resistance. These home thieves’ will not attempt a B&E because of the security devices in situ in a home. Most burglars’ do not want to be caught they will move on to a home that does not have a security system.

The reflective security sign continues to advertise after dark that a home has a security system. The potential home invader then chooses a home without a security system to burglarize. The reflective security sign increases the security customers’ peace of mind.

There are two schools of thought of how a reflective security sign should be printed. The first idea states, that the sign must be printed with transparent inks, so the entire sign reflects light. This is similar to how road signs are printed; the whole sign reflects when automobile lights illuminate the sign.

The second proposal of how reflective signs should be manufactured. The inks on the sign should be opaque. The areas of the sign without ink will reflect the lights of an automobile.

The background of the sign would be printed, utilizing opaque inks. The letters or words of the sign would be reflective as they are reversed out of the opaque background. The following is an example of this process. If a sign had the imprinted message, HOME SECURED BY ABC SECURITY, only the words, HOME SECURED BY ABC SECURITY, would reflect the illumination of cars lights. The background of the sign at night would be invisible.

Both printing paradigms are valid, and will convey the message desired, by the security company and the home owner.

If I had to choose I would rather have a reflective security sign protecting my home.

Doug Bryant

The Decal Factory – The best decals, signs, labels, posters, stickers and banners in the industry for business and hobby.
Toll Free – (800) 369-5331

Posted in Branding, Customer Service, Decals, Four-Color Process, Promotional Products, Screen Printing, Security Dealer, Security Signs, Small Business | 8 Comments »

Brewing Beer Process Continued

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Brewing beer is an interesting process.  Basically what you are trying to create is an infection in the beer.  I will explain about that later.

The night before brewing, I had to cold steep coffee in other words I had to take my ground coffee add cold water to it and let it sit overnight.  Then the next day we added that coffee mixture to the water.  Because the coffee has certain oils in it, it will actually kill the head of a beer.  So as part of the grain mixture we had to add carapils.  These make the head frothier to counteract the oils in the coffee

You start off with 6 gallons of purified water (which gets boiled off to 5 gallons).  Once you bring the 6 gallons to a boil you start adding the ingredients.  The first thing you have to do is add the barley grains.  You can use wheat but for my brew we used barley.  You use a grain bag which is essentially a mesh bag you use to put the grains in and steep the grains.  Much like you would steep a tea bag in a hot cup of water.  However this cup is 6 gallons.  After the water has cooled down to 170 degrees you put the grains in the bag and you steep them for about 20 minutes.  Basically you are adding the grains for color and flavor only.  You are not extracting sugar from the grains with the steeping (which is called mashing).  The reason you are not extracting the sugars is because I bought a recipe that had an extract in it.  Once you add the extract the mixture is now called the wort.

Once the extract is added then you bring the wort to boil.  Then once the mixture is at a rolling boil you start a timer for 60 minutes and you add the hops.  When you add hops this early in the boil you will not get any of the aroma or the flavor.  These are called the bittering hops.  They add bitterness to the beer.  The reason these are bittering the beer is because all of the boiling you have to do is extracting the alpha acids out of the hops.  Once you add those hops it gets boring because you are just letting the wort boil.

Just before the boil ends I had to add the lactose (which is milk).  I wanted to brew a coffee milk stout so I have to have lactose in there. Now the lactose has to be un-fermentable sugars because I wanted the milk taste in the beer.  I did not want the yeast to eat the lactose sugars.

Once the boil ends things get very fast and interesting.  You have to take the wort off of the burner and you have to put a wort chiller in the wort.  Basically it is a heat transfer system.  It is a very long copper tube that is twisted around and around in a circle and goes in the wort.  You run cold water through it and the cold water cools down the wort, to the point where it is safe to pitch (add) the yeast.  Basically you have to pitch the yeast at a certain temperature.  Too cold and the yeast takes longer to get active.  Too hot and the yeast dies.  You want to infect the wort with the yeast ASAP.  Basically you are infecting the wort with the yeast so that nothing else can infect the wort.

Once the wort is chilled, you transfer it to a car-boy.  A car-boy is a 5 gallon glass bottle.  Up until this point it has been very easy to keep things sanitized because everything that you are working with is at a boil so anything that got in there was killed instantly because it was boiling.  Now that we are no longer boiling it can get infected very easily, and everything must be sanitized.

Once the wort is transferred to the car-boy you pitch the yeast.  What the yeast is going to do is eat all the fermentable sugars and poop alcohol, and fart CO2.  That is how the beer gets its alcohol content.

That is basically how you brew a coffee milk stout.  Or at least it was my observation of the whirlwind of activity in the process of brewing beer

Jason Bryant

www.decalfactory.com

Posted in Banners, Branding, Brewing Beer, Labels, Promotional Products, Screen Printing, Security Signs, Small Business, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Fading of Color Printing

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

What You Did Not Know to Ask

 

First we must set a baseline for the discussion about the fading of color printing. Fading of color is a dilemma common to all industries. The plain truth is all color fades. Products such as carpeting, cars, decals, signs, banners, and a host of other products printed or pigmented with color fade.

The question we need to ask, “How quickly does a products color fade?”  This answer to this inquiry depends on the method of how a product is tinted.

The product that is pigmented implies the product’s color  is imbedded into the substrate. The pigmented product such as carpeting fades very slowly, but the product still fades. The product that is painted such as automobiles also fades gradually, but still fades.

The products that are printed such as decals, banners, signs, and other products exposed to sunlight. The process of printing these products utilizes two methods of printing, digital and screen-printing. The other methods of printing such as, flexography, offset will not be considered. These techniques are exclusively for indoor use.

I will highlight one product line, the plastic security sign. The plastic security sign is printed using the screen-printing method of printing. This technique is extremely fading resistance, but as noted before everything fades.

The question again, “How quickly does a products color fade?” The answer to this query depends on a few factors. The security lawn sign printed correctly will never fade to white. The printed colors will lighten over time, red may morph to an orange, dark blue may lighten.

The factor that lengthens or shortens the fading effect of a security sign is placement. The sign that is mounted facing north will not have significant color modification for five or more years. The security sign that is placed on the southern exposure will see color transformations in shorter durations. The east and west placements also have varying times of color degradation.  

Little known fact

Screen-printing companies test the veracity of their inks, by placing the security sign on a test board facing south. Every month a sign is left on the test board is equivalent to four months of sun exposure.

To conclude plastic security signs will not fade to white. Color changes will occur differently due to sign placement. So the question,” How long will my plastic security sign last”?  The answer is a general between 3-10 years.

The Decal Factory’s first and foremost desire is to make sure our customers are satisfied. When we print your decal, sign, banner, or security sign, we desire to keep printing your products for ever. The company has a long history of servicing our customer for decades. The Decal Factory works for you.  

Doug Bryant

<br><a href=”http://www.decalfactory.com“>The Decal Factory – The best decals, signs, labels, posters, stickers and banners in the industry for business and hobby.</a> <br>Toll Free – (800) 369-5331

Posted in Banners, Branding, Counter Mats, Decals, Four-Color Process, Labels, Screen Printing, Security Signs, water Slide-off Decals | 9 Comments »

Fiduciary Relationships Do They Still Exist?

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

In general as consumers we purchase many various products, and services. Can we rely on the perceived fiduciary relationship as presented in commercials, or by sales people, or is it truly buyer beware.  

We as a society have become very specialized in our chosen expertise. We call the Plummer to fix our broken pipes because they are an expert. We use an accountant to file our taxes, because they are an expert in their field.

This idea of a fiduciary relationship is seen more clearly when you either sell or buy a home. Most of us understand that if you are purchasing a home, you enter into a purchase agreement using your own real estate agent. We would feel uneasy about purchasing a home from the seller’s agent.

The reason we employ our own real estate agent is because by law, they represents you in as fiduciary. Your, purchasing agent looks out for your interest, not the seller’s interest. In real estate by law there is a line of demarcation separating the selling agent from the purchasing agent.

The agent that represents the home seller and the home purchaser must by law inform the purchaser and seller that there is a dual fiduciary. By informing both parties of the dual fiduciary the agent is communicating that the fiduciary relationship is in question.

The captured sales agent for a printing manufacture has a fiduciary relationship to that manufacture. Those agents only sell what that company manufactures, and will not inform you if their products do not fit your need.

The Decal Factory® is not a captured agent of any manufacture. Therefore The Decal Factory® can promote and nurture fiduciary relationships, because we answer only to our customers.

The singular fiduciary relationship is practiced by many printing distributors like The Decal Factory®.

Doug Bryant

<br><a href=”http://www.decalfactory.com“>The Decal Factory – The best decals, signs, labels, posters, stickers and banners in the industry for business and hobby.</a> <br>Toll Free – (800) 369-5331

Posted in Banners, Branding, Counter Mats, Customer Service, Decals, Four-Color Process, Labels, Promotional Products, Security Signs, water Slide-off Decals | 15 Comments »

Flexography Printing Vs Screen-Printing Advantages and Disadvantages

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

Flexography also known as Flexo or roll-to-roll or roll label printing, this method prints labels from a roll of stock to a finished roll of completed labels. Material is loaded onto one end of the Flexo press and the material threaded through the press and each print station. Laminating and cutting stations are set up at the end of the press so completed labels are produced in one pass on the Flexo press. The printing head of a Flexo press is on a cylinder and prints directly, on to the substrate.

The Flexo presses have different printing stations for each color. Some machines have three colors stations some have six color stations. The cost of a Flexography print machine is a function of the number of color stations and the web width; a 3-color press narrow web would cost much less than that of a six or eight color wide web Flexo press.

The Flexo press can have another attachment; that is known as a turn bar. A turn bar is an apparatus that turns the stock over so you can print on the liner without removing the print job from the press. The other styles of printing do not offer this feature, if a print job calls for a coupon on the liner, the screen-printing press operator would remove the stock then reload the stock to print the liner.

The Flexo press also has an in-line cutting station. The labels can be left on the roll or can be individually cut into single units. In the other styles of printing, cutting of the label is accomplished off-line.

The advantage of the Flexo printing is once the machine is set up to print, the press operator would not have to touch the stock again until the completed labels are taken off the press. The other advantage of this method of printing is it is very fast.

Flexography printing is designed for large quantities; because set-ups and make-readies are expensive, thus roll label printing is not a good solution for 500 labels. The normal minimums for this type of printing would be 1,000 labels. Large quantities for this method of printing would be 100,000-millions.

The disadvantage of roll label is not a good solution for small quantities. In addition, the inks used by most roll label manufactures are water based and will fade in direct sun light. 

Flexography printing can print on paper and plastic substrates, and is a great solution for inside applications. This type of printing is used to brand consumer products from salsa to televisions, and warning labels for inside factory machines.

Screen-printing is a very old type of printing invented in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD). This type of printing called silk-screening, because the mesh used to press the ink through was made of silk. The term silk-screening has not been used since the 1960’s. Currently synthetic threads commonly used in the screen printing process; the most popular mesh in general use is made of polyester. Special mesh materials of nylon and stainless steel are available to the screen printer. 

Screen-printing uses a mesh of polyester, which resembles a screen hence the term “screen printing,” the mesh coated with emulsion that is photo-reactive. When this emulsion exposed to light is leaves a stencil imprint of the graphic that is to be printed, each color to be printed has its own screen. 

Screen-printing method because resembles a stencil and forces ink through a screen deposits many times the thickness of ink onto the substrate being printed. Each color has to be printed separately after the first color dries. Since the ink deposited is thicker, the resistance to fading due to sunlight exposure is a benefit. Disadvantage is each color is printed by resetting a new screen for the next color to print.

Table below will explain advantages and disadvantages better than a host of words will.

                                                                   

Attributes Screen-Printing Flexography Printing
Small Quantities Yes cost effective in quantities of125, 250, 500 Not available under quantities of 1,000
Large Quantities Yes cost effective in quantities to hundreds of thousands or more Yes cost effective in quantities into the millions
Outdoor Only   Designed for outdoor exposure3-7 year life outdoor  Not designed for outdoor useIf used outdoors life limited to months
Indoor Only   Can be used indoors  Designed for indoor use
Fade Resistance to UV Exposure  Very fade resistant to UV light exposure will discolor after years but never fade to white  Not fade resistant to UV light exposure will only last a month in direct sunlight
Pricing  Considered low pricing in terms of years in service promoting brand or disclaimers   Low pricing usually used to label retail products
Set-Up Cost  Low or No set-up cost  High Plate cost
Cutting Die Cost Low cutting Die Cost High Die Cutting Cost
       

 

Obviously there still will be many questions, please free to call or Mr. Decal aka Doug Bryant at dougb@decalfactory.com or (800) 369-5331, to ask your question, because nothing is ever black and white there are exceptions to the standard guide lines.

Call The Decal Factory (800) 369-5331 for more information on your label or decal requirements.

Doug Bryant

<br><a href=”http://www.decalfactory.com“>The Decal Factory – The best decals, signs, labels, posters, stickers and banners in the industry for business and hobby.</a> <br>Toll Free – (800) 369-5331

 

Posted in Branding, Decals, Four-Color Process, Labels, Promotional Products, Security Signs, Small Business | 35 Comments »

Brand Loyalty

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

What is brand loyalty?

Brand loyalty is a quest that is pursued by all sellers of products.  A quest for brand loyalty is filled with many pitfalls and red herrings.  It is an arduous quest that is only matched once the pursuer of said goal is willing to forgo all conventional thinking and practices.

Wikipedia defines brand loyalty as -

Brand loyalty, in marketing, consists of a consumer’s commitment to repurchase or otherwise continue using the brand and can be demonstrated by repeated buying of a product or service or other positive behaviors such as word of mouth advocacy

Those of us that have pursued such goals knows this is the outcome of brand loyalty, however it does not describe the process in which one such goal is achieved..

Brand loyalty is an emotional response to certain environmental, circumstantial, and experiential factors.

Lets take a look at a couple of examples of this.

Heinz ketchup:  Everybody knows what a bottle of Heinz ketchup looks like.  Why?  When is the last time you saw a commercial for Heinz?  Do they blast all available media outlets with commercials about their products?  No.  They have been around so long that everybody knows who they are.  Also people buy Heinz because that is what their parents bought, and their parents, parents bought Heinz also.  Another factor to consider is that there are really only two brands of ketchup available in the U.S.  Heinz and Hunts.  So this type of brand loyalty is two fold: circumstantial, and experiential.  Circumstantial because there are only two brands of ketchup.  Experiential because most likely the buyers parents bought Heinz if they are buying Heinz.

Let’s look at another one.

Macintosh: This one is very interesting because Mac buyers buy because they are compelled to.  A number of factors affect this emotional response, perceived reliability, perceived superiority, and going against the flow.  Mac buyers will argue with anybody that tries to dis-credit Macintosh.  It is almost like a religion, a Mac religion, and the only prerequisite you need is the idea that a Mac is far superior to any PC.  This type of brand loyalty falls under experiential.  This is experiential because of the good experiences the buyer has had with a Mac whether these experiences are perceived or not.

Now the question becomes:  How did these brands achieve this brand loyalty?  It really is simple: Brand recognition.  I was not alive when Heinz first started making ketchup; however I am sure there were many marketing campaigns to get their prospective buyers to just try their product.  Also they did something extremely important; they never changed their label on the bottle.  Have you seen how many different bottles of Heinz ketchup there are?  Even though there are so many different bottles of ketchup the label always looks the same.  They built a brand by being consistent with their labeling.

Mac has had a rocky life if Heinz was the steady grower then Mac is its antithesis.  Mac even got bailed out by none other than Microsoft at one point.  Only in the last decade or so have they started to come into their own.  Why?  Because instead of going head to head with Microsoft (which would be a losing battle) they went in a completely different direction.  They started to make their own way in the electronics world we live in.  Phones, MP3 players, all in one computers, and just recently ipads.  More importantly is that their labeling has been in a constant state of flux.  Now you see why I said they were the antithesis of Heinz.  However if you look closer at their brand you will see something that has not changed.  The apple shape of their logo.  Yes it has been different colors, different shapes, and in different locations, but it has been the apple at all times.  So they too have stuck to their brand.

I think we are starting to see a pattern here.  Basically if you build your brand with the same look and provide examples to your customers why they should choose you with an emotional response then you too will build brand loyalty for your company.

In what ways would you keep your logo consistent while changing your direction to attract new generations of potential buyers?

Posted in Branding | 35 Comments »