Postcards: Marketing and Invitations

MorningPrint’s postcards fulfill many purposes, depending on the final design. Postcards are used for both business necessities and personal reasons. These postcards come in a range of paper options, including matte, metallic, glossy, texture, thick and thin papers. Depending on the chosen paper, different finishing options are available, such as: embossing, raised ink, foiling, and spot uv. When asked, we can do a folding service for those who want to created a folded postcard. Another special option we can address is that a postcard can be made into a bigger size, however the client will need to be flexible on the type of paper that is used and on the sizing.

Our postcards come in two sizes, 4×6 and 5×7 cards for the following papers:
Standard Coated 14pt/matte
Standard Coated 14pt/glossy
Standard Coated 20 pt/matte
Aquarelle
Nouveau
Heavy Nouveau
Linen
Heavy Linen
Scotland
Heavy Silky Matte
Star Dream
Heavy Star Dream
Vintage Kraft
Opaque White Plastic

Small Business/Company Uses:
The most primary use for our postcards in regards to businesses, is for marketing material. Marketing material can range from anything such as announcements to professional holiday cards. For those businesses which deliver, these postcards are an excellent choice as a Thank You card inside the package. Those in the fashion industry use these postcards to have images of their clothing or styles. Artists use the postcards as an actual postcard with images of their artwork on it. Those in the food industry use images of food on their postcards. These cards are also a good option for corporations who use postcards for sending professional holiday cards and reminders to their clients. Online companies use these postcards to provide extra information for a purchased product.

Personal Uses:
These postcards are also appropriate for personal uses. Some examples include invitations (ranging from wedding invitations to party invitations), thank you cards and holiday cards. In our experience, 4×6 tend to be more popular for RSVP cards and some menu cards. 5×7 postcards tend to be used for either invitations or menu cards or holiday cards.

MorningPrint Products and Services

As a truly customizable printing company, MorningPrint offers a wide range of services and products. We understand it can be difficult to know which product works best for your design. In this article we offer a quick generalized overview of our various products to help guide you to whichever product works best for your design.

Paper Business Cards
Our paper business cards have the most choices of all the papers. Ranging in more than just thickness, we offer textured paper, metallic paper, matte paper and even black paper. We encourage everyone to read about our products before creating your design to choose the best paper for your design. For additional special effect we can add foiling, embossing, raised ink (also known as thermographic printing). Please check
the specific paper to know which finishing options are available.

Texture Papers range in thickness and amount and type of texture. Tant is the thinnest and most textured paper, while Heavy Aquarelle is the thickest paper with a watercolor texture. Read What You Need to Know: Texture Paper to learn more about Tant, Heavy Aquarelle and every textured paper in between.
Metallic Paper such as Heavy Star Dream and Keaykolour Metallic range not just in thickness and the type of shine each paper features. Keaykolour Metallic has two different colors to take into account, the off white paper and then the brilliant frosty
shine. To learn about each metallic paper, read What You Need to Know: Metallic Papers.
Matte Papers include the Nouveau and Heavy Nouveau: The Blank Slate and Sumo Nouveau: The Thickest Paper. The Nouveau family is all made with a creamy and luxorious white true matte paper. These papers are thought of as elegant and are universally liked.

Black Paper is the richest black a design can achieve because it is naturally black. This type of paper only does foiling, no ink printing. To learn more about this specific type of black paper, read Black Paper: The Deepest Black.
Plastic Business Cards
Our plastic business cards are all made of PET plastic, which is an environmentally friendly material. As such, they are quite thin, and flexible. This thinness does not mean these plastics are flimsy. All our plastic business cards are waterproof and durable.

Clear Plastic is like looking through a glass, and every part of your design that has white ink will be clear. We recommend avoiding soft colors and thin fonts as this could create an issue with legibility. We do offer a clear plastic which can print white ink, it is called Clear+White Plastic. To learn more about these two plastics, read Clear Plastic Business Cards.
Opaque White Plastic has a thin layer of white ink to the entire card which is ideal for those with many small, white details. Meanwhile the Frosty Plastic is slightly thicker than the other plastic cards, and can only do foiling, no ink printing.

Silver Plastic Family includes several types of metallic plastic cards. The solid silver plastic card is as reflective as a mirror while other silver plastic cards have sparkling glitter throughout the cards. Read our What You Need to Know: Silver Plastics to learn more. The Gold Plastic Family involves solid gold as well as gold plastic cards with sparkling glitter, both solid and transparent. Read What You Need to Know: the Gold Plastic Family for more details.

Die Cuts

Die Cuts are the most customizable form of printing. We offer templates for over 50 shapes. Some of our standard shapes include circles, ovals, houses, and dog bones. However, if the client wishes to create their own custom shape, we can do this as well. These shapes are automatically printed on the Standard Coated 14pt Matte, but you can choose any type of paper you like for our Die Cuts. Doing so, will alter the price, but it is possible. If a paper that is compatible with Raised Ink is chosen, we are able to add this finishing option to your order as well. Finishing options offered with the Standard Coated 14pt Matte include foiling, embossing and spot uv. If you wish to learn more about our Die Cuts, please read Die Cuts: The Most Customizable Cards.

Stickers

Stickers come in several types of options, such as Uncoated, Coated, Silver, and Durable. These types of stickers come with individual characteristics. For example, Coated Stickers had a bright shine and some slight durability against any type of wear and tear. Uncoated stickers are made with matte paper, meaning no shine. We also offer a Strong Adhesive Sticker which includes an extra strong glue. These same types of stickers can be used in our standard, as well as custom shapes. All stickers are able to offer foiling. MorningPrint also offers metal stickers, in both gold and silver. A highly customizable sticker, pricing must be done through our printing team. Read our article, Stickers to learn more about all of these options.

Postcards

Made from the some of the same papers as our paper business cards and come in two sizes, 4×6 and 5×7. A folding line is possible on these postcards. Also, custom sizing can be possible, but you must speak with our printing team to check the possibility of your design as well as for a quote. Other finishing options such as foiling, embossing and raised ink are also possible depending on the chosen paper. Postcards can be used as invitations, holiday cards, and business supplies.

What You Need to Know: Texture Paper

MorningPrint offers three different types of textured paper: Aquarelle, Tant and Scotland. In general textured papers are best suited for very colorful designs. All our textured papers are true matte papers, but appear to have a saturated color appearance.

Aquarelle

Our textured paper have an additional benefit which may be useful to our clients. MorningPrint requires a 300 dpi on all design files for the best printing results. For those clients who have little design experience and only have a file with a low dpi, we recommend choosing a textured paper. By choosing a textured paper, a client in this tough situation can dramatically lower the risk of having a poor or blurry print job.

Aquarelle with Glossy Gold Foiling

Aquarelle has the most superficial and extensive double sided watercolor paper texture. This leads to a natural, more romantic feel to the paper. It’s texture is excellent for designs with soft feeling colors. Aquarelle is also the thickest of the textured papers and comes in two sizes. The thicker of the two sizes is called Heavy Aquarelle. Aquarelle is also the only one of the three textured papers that comes in our postcard sizes. This paper would be a popular choice for artwork or paper for a special event.

Tant with Raised Ink

Tant is the thinnest paper but the most intense texture. It’s texture has a sort of shape to it, looking very similar to the shape of a leopard’s spots. The reverse side is flat, with no texture. The result, is a paper that can have the most saturated coloring, despite being a matte paper. Adding color will emphasize the natural texture of this paper. For this type of paper, we would recommend using a simplistic design and incorporate certain areas with Raised Ink.

Scotland with Embossing

Scotland is a happy middle ground between Aquarelle and Tant. It has very visible texture, that is deep and fine. The pattern of it’s texture has a distinct shape, resembling the same pattern created when sponging paint on walls. It is spread out and on both sides of Scotland. Texture allows it to absorb/reflect color well. There is a clear difference in how well this texture absorbs color compared to other matte papers. However, it is ability to absorb color is less saturated than that of the other two textured paper families.

The texture for both Scotland and Tant is strong and can compete with other design elements. It is best to avoid an extensive amount of foiling as it will compete against the texture for attention. Both these papers show their best if they are used with embossing or raised ink. Aquarelle is a soft textured enough to show any finishing option very well, including foiling.

Scotland with Raised Ink

Stickers

There are many uses for customized stickers, ranging from labels, letter seals, promotions, and even weddings. Foiling is possible for all our stickers except metal stickers. MorningPrint offers a wide variety of sticker stocks and it is important to learn about each one to know which one is right for you.

A full list of all our stocks can be found on our website under the section ‘Premium Stickers’.

Coated Sticker & Uncoated Stickers

Uncoated Sticker– There is no coating on this sticker and there is no shine to it. When you rub your fingers against the sticker, you will feel some resistance.

Coated Sticker– This particular stock has a laminated coating that gives a high shine. Due to the protective coating, is tear resistant.

Durable & Strong Adhesive
Durable Sticker: It is made of Yupo paper (Read our blog about Yupo paper here). As such, it is the most durable of any sticker, being both tear proof and waterproof. If you need a sticker that can withstand strong elements, this is the sticker you need.

Strong Adhesive Sticker: A common misconception is that the strong adhesive sticker is the same as the durable sticker. This is not the case. Strong Adhesive means it has the strongest glue of any of our stickers, but the actual paper is same as our uncoated stock. This particular sticker will be best suited for packaging and labeling.

Silver PET & Hologram

Silver PET Sticker: Good for indoor/outdoor. It has some resilience against water and tearing. If you want this type of plastic card, keep in mind that there is no white ink available on this type of sticker. Whatever you design with the color white will be left unprinted, revealing the silver PET. This particular sticker has high gloss and the color will reflect to the original silver background.

Hologram Sticker: One of our top design experts strongly advise that when it comes to colors, not much is possible. While we strongly recommend to only use black ink on these hologram stickers, we also print one additional color. Due to the narrow color ability we offer, no full image can be printed on this sticker.

Clear & Vintage Kraft

Clear Sticker: Like our clear plastic cards, our clear sticker is completely transparent. It also includes a waterproof matte coating. It is fairly strong, and will not tear. An important note to keep in mind during your design process, is that there is no white ink. Therefore, any white areas in your design will be the original clear sticker stock. If you intend to use the sticker on a surface where the adhering side (glue) will be viewed, then reverse your design so all text and design appear backwards from the front.

Vintage Kraft Sticker: Fairly versatile stock option for your designs. It can carry different types of looks on it. Can carry organic, homemade, antiqued, and even trendy look to it. Please avoid yellow, brown, and pastel tones to prevent your design from looking faded or washed out. There is also no white ink, so any white areas will reveal the original stock underneath.

Shape Stickers

For those who want their stickers in a specific or custom shape, this is the option that you would need. You can pick the type of sticker, which we explained above, that you would want to use with your shape. The available shapes we have are: Square Round Cornered, Rectangle Round Cornered, Circular, Semi-Circle, Oval and Heart. For those who prefer a different shape, you can submit a design to see if it is possible to do a custom shape sticker.

Custom Shape Sticker: MorningPrint is able to cut most custom designs and is only available on Uncoated, Durable, Silver PET and Clear sticker stocks. Our custom shape stickers are digitally printed, meaning we can print the custom shapes in small quantities.

Metal Stickers (Silver & Gold)
We offer printing drawings on metal sheets. The designs best suited for this type of sticker are graphic work or a black and white image. No color images are possible on these types of stickers. These sheets have a strong adhesion and will not easily come off. Detailed, intricate work is best suited for these types of metal stickers. It is excellent for patterns. We do not recommend metal stickers for rough surfaces, fabrics or any areas that may bend, or hold. It is also not advisable to reuse.

 

 

Using Your DIY:POPS

Store them flat and pop them up for parties

DIY:POPS are easy, creative and functional decor pieces. They are perfect for family functions, parties, announcements and weddings. You can create any design you like on our downloadable templates. We used our downloadable templates (with green fold lines and red die cut lines visible) to create a few extra designs and show some different ways you can use our DIY:POPS.
For all production details, please consult our former blog post: Introducing DIY:POPS

SAVE THE DATES

Save the Dates are some of the most special cards you will send in your life. While they help introduce your guests to what your wedding will be like, their most important function is to tell your guests to SAVE THE DATE. That is why Diy:POPS are the perfect solution.
First, because they stand in their own platform, your guests can leave them on a desk or table as a reminder. Secondly, due to their size, they can easily be folded and saved as a souvenir after your wedding date.
They are easy to personalize too. You can fill the center of the card with an engagement photo, and send your guests a photo that essentially comes with it’s own frame. Or do what we did here and create a brand new design. Either way, your Save the Date will be the most memorable card your guests will receive.

MENU CARDS

Using our DIY:POPS for menu cards is one of our favorite concepts here at MorningPrint. Depending on your design and colors, they can be casual enough for a BBQ or special enough for a more formal event, such as a special dinner or a wedding. Due to their assembly process, they will be able to stand up straight on their own and contribute to the look of the table. During the meal, guests can easily unfold them to set them aside or keep them standing near them. If you are having a buffet, you can have menu cards explaining the food offered at each station.

ANNOUNCEMENTS & INVITATIONS

When it comes to big news, we all enjoy finding the best way to announce our joy. We think DIY:POPS would be a great idea for those wanting a unique card to mark their event. These POPS have a smaller size, making it easy to mail them out. They can be used for graduation announcements, baby announcements & showers, and your first house-warming party.

PLACE CARDS

Place cards are another practical use for our POPS. They are small enough to be placed for each individual, without crowding a table, yet they are not so small that they get lost with the rest of the decor. Following a similar idea, they can be used as table markers, for guests to locate where they are meant to be seated.

BONUS: Cupcake custom template, in the theme of: Birthday Parties

Birthday parties are another good occasion to include a POP. Send them as invitations to all your kid’s friends, or leave them out to add to your party decor. You can label the goody bags for the individual kids using our POPS, that way they each have a fun souvenir to remind them of a cool party.

We almost forgot to tell you, that while we offer downloadable templates to design off of, you can also customize your own template, pending approval from our printing team. One of our own design experts created this cupcake to show you an example of a custom template.