Cosmic Rooms Blog

I spent all last week, minus two days where I was out of town, designing my new brochures! Endless of hours have gone into writing my adcopy, learning how to actually create brochures from scratch, finding out which software to use as I had hit limitations on several programs I had, and searching long and hard for a reasonably priced printer who would be able to take what I did and turn it into reality!

If I had to guess, it has taken me well over 100 hours of sitting here staring at the screen in mostly frustration Just like the business cards I redesigned, I wanted something that was way more personalized for me, my website, and my sense of style. I wanted the marketing material I present to reflect a taste of who I am as a person and as an artist. Starscapes®, of course, offer all the cards, brochures, forms, and webpage that one would need to go out and promote this business, however, I’ve never been one to follow the herd nor use their cookie cutter designs, why should I start now?

Life is what you make of it….and so is your business! My new business cards look amazing and since making my brochures, I almost want to tweek them a bit more by adding in a cool looking hubble image but for the time being, the cards are excellent! Let me talk a bit more about these new brochures

The original brochure I had was ok, like I said, I just want it to reflect a more personalized representation of my business, not just promoting Starscapes®. I took the original brochure, a wonderful adcopy written by another SAI years ago that I found in the inner circle artist group that was free to be used, and meshed it all with my own words and my photos to create a piece that is informative, exciting to read, and dazzling to the eyes! This is one of my “talents” as a business associate and friend had commented before. I piece things together and add in my flare to “spice it up”. That’s what I do, I make things pretty

After a week of messing with this brochure, which by the way I knew nothing about designing brochures from scratch, I feel that I have learned one more important thing in the marketing world. I started off with a 3 column layout in a word document and then found myself hitting limitations. With Microsoft Word, I was able to input all of my text and photos and laid them out in the way that I want. I then “imported” the word document into Microsoft Publisher so I can further manipulate it. This was the first time I ever used Publisher so that was a learning experience. With Publisher, I was able to embed a truly beautiful hubble image to the background and extend my page size to the correct trim/bleed for the commercial printer’s specs. This was after lots of trial and error and consulting with a number of people to pick their brains on brochure designing!

Let me take a moment to thank all that tried to help me demystify the tri-fold brochure and mostly to listen to me stress out about it. I’ve chatted up a handful of people, have emailed many printers, and have talked to on the phone with several others about my brochures, this has been a challenge!! It’s no wonder if I look back over my goals list from months and years prior, designing my brochure has never left the list Now that I am a Full Time Starscapes® Artist-Illusionist, I need to overcome this last hurdle in my marketing material.

I also had downloaded a 30 day trial of Adobe Acrobat Pro to help me with my brochure. The only thing I found with that software is that you use it to convert it to PDF format. I didn’t mess with it long enough to figure out how else I can use Acrobat to enhance my brochure. One thing I know is that after installing Publisher and Acrobat, my computer ran really slow and I believe Publisher uses a LOT of my computer’s resources as the screen kept on freezing up….could very well be the humongously large hubble images I was using too in my layout..haha

It was also a headache in finding a printer who would be able to take what I did and actually print it up exactly as I envision it. Two printers who were a bit cheaper in price was NOT able to work with my publisher files. They printed, as most did for full color printing, from graphical images. That’s how my business cards were designed….but a 3.5″x2″ business card in 300dpi is a whole lot different than a 8.5″x11″ tri-fold brochure in 300dpi!!! I was not able to work with a such a LARGE page with the computer specs I have. This is precisely why I started off with a desktop publishing software…besides, it seem to make sense to me to use such a program to create a brochure that was mostly text. There are a lot of things you can do in graphics to make the brochure look nice, but when your piece is more informational and sales related, there is a lot more text than fancy pictures, I felt a desktop publishing program was the right way to go. Frankly, I had no other choice.

It seems that most Commercial Printers had different print specs…my advice is to have an idea of what program you are planning to use to design whatever you are making and then find a printer who would work with those file types first before you spend days like I did creating the layouts. You will be surprised as I did that the piece you have achingly spent days working on is actually not press ready…meaning you will have to redo it all under your chosen printer’s specifications.

It is a hard lesson learned, an entire week of pulling my hair out…not literally of course but I’m sure you can understand the level of frustration I’ve had to endure over an 8.5×11 piece of paper.

Out of a dozen or so of printers I found online in comparison, I chose my top three to inquire for help. Printer #1 offered the best prices by a hairline to Printer #2 (the same company I had my cards printed up by), however #1′s short answers to my questions made me feel like they didn’t care for my business at all. I guess since they are the lowest price around, they can afford to turn people away. Perhaps it’s whomever my email was routed to this time around as I had an elaborate answer to my business card question awhile back that made me want to go with them with my cards next time.

Printer #2′s reply was delayed but they apologized. They offered a more thorough solution to my brochure printing problems but in their email, they mentioned how busy and backed up they are and that my order could experience some delays. I’ve already spent a week designing, I don’t want to spend a month waiting for them to get printed up

The last Printer I emailed was a bit more expensive than the other two, by hundreds for the quantity I am looking to get (3000). Everything was priced extra by options like Aqueous coating, folding, and thicker paper stock….BUT it seems they were the only printer who accepted a lot of different file formats, including Publisher!! It almost seem like they deal mostly with Publisher files as there were extensive information on creating and/or converting your publisher files! They even offered a free file review which the other printers wouldn’t do even after I asked them to take a look. They wanted me to purchase an order first before they would look over my files. I understand that I may not be placing the bigger order, however 3000 brochures is no small coin either!

A Rep from the 3rd printer called me and I talked to her about my files. She answered a lot of my questions and I felt very good about the knowledge they had with working with what I need. Even though they are significantly more expensive, the couple hundred bucks higher in price overall was worth it when you’re comparing companies on a customer service basis. I think good business is about integrity and building trust with its customers, whether they are big ticket buyers or smaller sales…one never knows if a small buyer may end up being a repeat buyer over time.

I should hear back from them today about my new files I had redone to fix some minor issues. Hopefully these ones will be ready for print and I’ll have them in my hot little hands within 2 weeks! I can’t wait!! Once these goes to press, I’ll be free to work on my demos, flyers, letters, presentation folders, and my big sales binder….it’s all getting a facelift for the spring Then I go out and distribute to the right people. I have lots of ideas and with no day job in the way, I have lots of time too

I am ready to create more Staracpes®, call or email me referencing this post, I’ll give you a great deal and exceptional service too!