Maximize value, don’t just minimize cost.
Posted by Rick Sader on June 20, 2011 at 9:05 amWhenever the first question from a potential new client is “How much would it cost for ___?”, I know this project isn’t going anywhere. Why? First, Lone Eagle isn’t the cheapest shop. From Day One it’s been that way by design. I’ve always positioned Lone Eagle to be more of a Nordstrom than a Kmart, i.e., providing premium-quality product & service and charging accordingly. Second, I’ve found that the more discerning clients are always more interested in finding the right materials that would provide the best results for their project and then inquiring about the cost.
An example from my personal life has nothing to do with graphics; it’s about shoes. Whenever I’ve needed a new pair of running shoes, I’ve tended to look for the model that gives the best performance and then look for the best price. First I would look for the best fit, support, comfort, traction, durability, etc. Then, and only then, was it time to look for the best price for that specific model. Sure, I end up paying more for top-quality shoes. But in the long run, I know they’ll perform really well, they won’t cause me some weird pain or injury, and they’ll last longer than “El Cheapos”.
A recent example from my large-format print shop comes to mind. An amateur artist wanted to know what it would cost to get prints of her paintings. (Ah, see? The first question was “how much?” My Spidey senses started tingling). I explained that the first step was to scan her art at a high resolution and then retouch it in Photoshop so that my proofs would match her original. My charge for this is $225. She indicated that she would shop around for a ‘reasonable price’ and then have me produce her prints using the digital file she would supply. (“Hmmm…. I guess that makes me UNreasonable” I thought to myself.) I diplomatically explained that slapping her work down onto the glass of a scanner at the library was NOT going to produce a scan anywhere close to acceptable. Also, any scan would STILL require retouching in order for the prints on my combination of printer, media, ink, & other settings to match her original. For her sake, I hope she doesn’t waste her time & money going the “el cheapo” route.
Think of value as performance divided by price. Now compare the value of the high-end running shoes to the low-end El Cheapos. Even though the cost of the high-end shoes was higher, what I got for that price was much higher, so more value. If I had spent less for the El Cheapos and gotten big blisters (or worse), you can bet my first thought would NOT be the money I had saved.
Sometimes I’ll be asked why I’ve spent so much on something. My standard reply is that I always try to get the best quality I can afford, take good care of it, and make it last…. that goes for shoes, cars, and wives! So far, my strategy has worked out really, really well.
Big Printer doesn’t have to mean Big Prints.
Posted by Rick Sader on April 10, 2011 at 8:19 amBig printers are a must if you need big prints. Large vinyl or fabric banners, full-sized window graphics, vehicle wraps, etc. are best produced using a machine at least 54″ wide. But this same printer can also be used to produce small prints in large quantities quickly & efficiently. This is especially true if the printer is equipped with an integrated contour cutter. This means that any complicated two-dimensional shape can be cut to produce beautiful inkjet decals.
Lone Eagle has the Roland 545ex printer/cutter which is used to make all of the vibrant & durable graphics mentioned above. In this post, I’ll show you how the same equipment can be used to produce hundreds of custom printed & cut decals quickly. A recent client ordered 1600 wine labels printed onto adhesive-backed vinyl & contour cut around the perimeter. The machine deftly does a “kiss cut” around each printed label that cuts only the adhesive-backed vinyl but not the underlying release liner. The client then only needs to peel them off of the backing and apply them to the bottles and/or boxes.
In this example, simple rectangles were cut around the printed labels. But any intricate 2D shape can also be produced with this printer/cutter. The applications include things like window & wall decals used for interior design, retail/POP graphics, vehicle graphics, etc. The trick is to use Adobe Illustrator to include cut lines in your graphic design. These cut lines are non-printing lines that are recognized by the printer.
This video shows you what I mean. After about 100 labels were printed, the machine pulls the media back into the printer and starts to cut around each label. Check it out:
But wait! There’s more! It’s even possible to print your design, remove the print from the printer, zip it thru the laminator to add a clear protective laminate, and then re-insert the media into the machine for contour cutting. This is a great way to produce durable contour-cut graphics for vehicle wraps. I like to use reflective vinyl for the cut lettering that goes over a wrap. It really adds an awesome effect.
Big Graphics Have Big Impact on Local Campaign.
Posted by Rick Sader on April 7, 2011 at 9:11 amTo kick-off his run for Stafford Commonwealth Attorney in Virginia, Eric Olsen turned to Lone Eagle for a 4′x10′ banner as a backdrop to his announcement on the courthouse steps. As you’ll see in the photo below, this simple, low-cost vinyl banner made a big impact on the look and feel of the event. But let’s go back in time to a few days before the event. The phone rang on a Friday afternoon about 4:45pm Pacific and it went something like this:
“Good afternoon, Lone Eagle.”
“Hi Rick, it’s Eric Olsen…..got a minute?”
“Hey Eric, how’s it goin’?”
“I know it’s late notice, and I understand if you’re not able to do it, but I’m announcing my candidacy next Wednesday and I was wondering if you could make me a big banner.”
A big grin slowly came across my face. First of all, I love it when clients call with tight deadlines & they’re not sure if I can deliver. I’ve never missed a deadline…. never…. not once….. no matter how tight. Second, Eric is a friend of mine and the thought of helping him by doing what I do best made me very happy.
He emailed me some thoughts on what he wanted his graphics to look like and I got to work right away. About 90 minutes later, I emailed him a low-resolution version for his approval. (Would have been sooner but, hey, it was dinner time….. a guy’s gotta eat). He approved it Saturday morning and I started printing. About 30 minutes later I was busy punching grommets into his beautiful glossy campaign banner. It helps to have awesome ICC profiles ready to go for a huge range of media. It’s one of the things that allows Lone Eagle to fly thru jobs with both high quality and speed. My local FedEx shop had it by lunchtime and Eric had it in his Fredericksburg, VA home by Monday afternoon (two days before the event).
Here’s a photo that Eric emailed me after his event. That’s Eric on the right:
Put yourself in Eric’s shoes for a minute and imagine how he felt. I’m sure he was relieved to find the package on his doorstep Monday afternoon….two days before his event. Later, he told me how “awesome” his graphics were and how happy he was. A great big smile came across my face. That’s how we roll at Lone Eagle. Now what can we do for YOU?
“No Man is an Island.”
Posted by Rick Sader on October 27, 2010 at 1:17 pmBeing in business FOR yourself doesn’t mean being in business BY yourself. A recent wall mural project was yet another example of why this is so true.
I was recently contacted by a local architectural firm to produce a wall mural. Over the years, I would occasionally stop in to this firm’s office to give them various print samples used for window graphics, non-slip floor graphics, wall murals, etc. So one day, when one of their clients asked about getting a big wall mural, they thought of Lone Eagle. Nice! So the local architects were my first partner.
Typically, a new mural job involves working with the client to determine what kind of image they have in mind for their space. Then it’s time to hunt down the right stock photography, or hire a photographer, or design the proper vector graphics, or some combination of those. In this case, the client had already picked out the image they wanted from the stock of a local photographer. Luckily, he had shot it using 6×7 medium format film. Whew! So, now I had identified my second partner in this job.
The next step was to get the photographer’s med-format film into the hands of a high-end professional with a drum scanner. In this case, the film was scanned at 11,000 ppi, using the proper bit depth and color mode which then gave me a beautiful digital file to work with. So now my third partner successfully completed his portion of this job.
Now it was my turn. The 10’ x 25’ wall mural was printed in seven ten-foot long strips at 720dpi, 16-pass using a Roland 545ex eco-SOL printer. The media used was Dreamscape’s vinyl wall mural media. The client picked out the “Mystical” texture – good choice. After printing & drying overnight, each panel received two coats of Dreamscape’s Protex3 satin-finish liquid laminate. This gives the prints a beautiful surface finish as well as protection from water, dirt, pollution, smudging, fade, etc. So I guess you could say that my media supplier was my fourth partner since I’ve asked them lots of questions over the years and buy lots of my supplies from them.
My fifth and final partner in this job was the installer. It’s easy to image everything going well up to this point but then turning out terrible if the installation wasn’t right. My partner here was a local wallpaper hanger and he did an outstanding job. Man, this guy knows his stuff. I inspected the mural when he was done & I was impressed that the seams were so smooth and the image lined up so well. Partner #5 rocks!
Here’s a photo of the end result. When the client gets some time, they’ll build a hardwood border around the perimeter to frame it in. When I get some time, I’ll forward the link to this blog post to all of my partners and say “thanks” for a job well done – by ALL of us.
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
Posted by Rick Sader on October 24, 2010 at 10:22 amA new client called me the other day in desperate need to get his tradeshow graphics printed quickly and shipped across the country the next day. He had had a bad experience with a different print shop. At the last minute, the other shop had delivered a bunch of tradeshow banners that were just awful; the black was a dull brownish color, the product photos looked “furry” (really… furry!), there was lots of banding, and the contrast was off. He showed me one…. these banners looked horrible. Later, when he picked up his graphics from my shop, he was thrilled and told me how ‘lucky’ I was that I could do such great work so quickly.
After he left, I thought to myself “LUCKY?! Hmmmmm….maybe I WAS lucky.”
• ‘lucky’ that I had purchased a $30k, state-of-the-art mild-solvent inkjet printer.
• ‘lucky’ that I had made a beautiful ICC profile for the media he wanted.
• ‘lucky’ that I had enough ink & media on hand to complete his entire job quickly.
• ‘lucky’ enough to know to print at 720dpi, 16-pass (i.e., high-quality mode) in order to get the high print quality necessary for display at a tradeshow.
• ‘lucky’ enough to have on my website a method for him to conveniently upload his eight 380MB files to my shop overnight (www.YouSendIt.com).
Well, as you may have guessed by now, none of this is luck at all. All of the capabilities listed above were the result of careful forethought and preparation. The other shop didn’t have a decent ICC profile (they didn’t even know what an ICC profile IS!!). And they printed in “production mode”, i.e., low resolution & low number of passes in order to just crank the job out fast. As a result, there was absolutely NO control over color, ink limits, linearization, etc…. a sure recipe for terrible print quality.
The title of this blog entry is a quote from Samuel Goldwyn, the filmmaker. I’m not sure exactly what he was referring to at the time, but I’m willing to bet it was in response to someone accusing him of being ‘lucky’ upon seeing his success.