When designing a document, you want to have the greatest possible impact on the reader, without spending a lot of money. You want to use design elements that make your document more attractive and allow you to stay within your budget. The following tips can help you produce a pleasing document while keeping costs down.

1. Use screens for a different effect

Even when using only one ink color in a document, you can give the impression that several were used by applying screens. Screens allow you to lighten the color of the ink. Insty-Prints can help you add screens to the boxes, lines, text and graphics to give the impression of a second color without the cost of a second ink. Screens can also add interest to pages that do not have photographs or illustrations.

2. Tell Insty-Prints how you plan to use the printed pieces

When designing a document that will be put through a laser printer, consider the fact that some inks will actually melt under the heat of the laser printer. Your printer can make you aware of ink types and colors that work well on documents to be printed on a laser printer. This will avoid delays and disappointments.

3. Those beautiful bleeds

Bleeds are graphic elements, such as lines and graphics, that run off the side of the printed page. They will usually add to the cost, but they can add an attractive graphic element to your design. To create the bleed, the printer runs the document on a larger sheet of paper, making extra cuts on the finished sheet to create the effect.

4. Use care with a second color

Using more than one color in your design can make your document more attractive. You can use color as an organizing element. Different colors can compartmentalize your document, leading the reader through the document or drawing attention to certain sections.

When you use two or more colors, avoid allowing colors to touch. If they touch, a printer has to use a technique known as "trapping" so no space will appear between the colors, exposing the paper color underneath. Trapping will add to the cost of your project.

Also, be careful with multi-color images. Any graphic image with two or more colors will have to be separated by color to print properly. To keep costs down, be sure to supply a graphic image that has already been separated.

5. Don't do your own layout

People often think they will save money by laying out print jobs themselves. Unless the job is a simple one-page, single-sided document, a person usually isn't aware of the printing requirements to do the job right.

For instance, a simple layout is two pages printed on one sheet. To look good in print, the columns on each side of the page should be the same width so the front and back of the page will align correctly. If drilling, folding or other bindery is required, proper placement of white space is critical. Page numbers, headers and footers must be positioned properly on each page so they align accurately.

Other layouts become more complex. Unless you are trained for layout, let Insty-Prints do the job. It will often cost less for us to start from scratch rather than rework a bad layout.

6. Use a standard ink color

Using colored ink can be an inexpensive way to give your document greater impact. The right color can help reflect the message you are communicating. Bright colors indicate excitement; subdued colors add dignity.

There are millions of colors to choose from and a printer can recreate almost any color, but at a cost. To save money, select one of our standard inks. If you need a special color, Insty-Prints can match it by mixing inks together.

7. Choose the right paper

The most inexpensive way to add color to your document on a short run is to use colored paper. Your printer has hundreds of samples of paper from which to choose. Paper color can enhance the design and get your document read without adding a lot of cost. For longer runs, a colored ink on white paper may be a less expensive choice. We can price it both ways for you.

The weight and texture of the paper can also have an effect on the cost. Different finishes project different messages to the reader. The weight will affect how the document is folded and can be critical when mailing a piece. Your Insty-Prints printing professional can help you select the right paper for your piece by balancing its purpose and your budget.

8. Full color offset printing or color copies?

Printing a document in full color on the press can be expensive in small quantities. Consider producing your full-color documents on a color laser printer. The print quality today is excellent and gives you the flexibility to buy just the number of copies you need. You can produce a smaller number of copies to test your document before you make the investment in color printing produced on a press; you just might find that good, full-color output is more than satisfactory for the job.

9. Know the U.S. postal regulations

Your document can only be valuable when you get it into the reader's hands. The U.S. Postal Service has rules and regulations about the size and weight of a printed piece. If you design a piece that doesn't meet the specifications, it can be expensive to distribute or even impossible to mail. Carefully check with the U.S. Postal Service before you finalize a piece that will be mailed to ensure it meets current USPS regulations before you give your final instructions to Insty-Prints for printing.

10. Use preprinted blanks

Some documents have color elements that do not change. For instance, a newsletter may have a flag and masthead that remain constant. The banner stays the same while the stories change each month. A business card might have a multi-colored logo that remains the same while the name, address and telephone number change on each card.

To lower your costs, consider preprinting blanks. Insty-Prints can produce a larger quantity, i.e. a 12 month supply, with the colored information that stays constant. This results in a longer run and a lower per piece cost.

11. Be careful with "customer-supplied" paper

One of the myths of printing is that supplying your own paper results in lower costs. Unless the paper is stored and handled properly, it can cause problems. If you are providing paper, you will want to check with us and bring your paper in for us to look at to make sure it will run smoothly in our presses and digital printers.  Customer paper problems sometimes cause a project to cost more than it would if Insty-Prints supplied the proper paper.

12. Be aware of sheet sizes

Not every document is designed to fill an entire sheet of paper. You may be able to get several smaller pieces on one page. This can save money if you properly position the designs on the page. Placing two documents on one sheet reduces the number of sheets by half. Although you are charged for additional cutting, the cost is less. Insty-Prints can help you with positioning the image on the sheet.