JPA’s Quick Quote is a simple form that can be accessed at the bottom of our new website. Once opened a prospective client can enter information about their project and we can deliver a quote within 24 hours. The Quick Quote system is the first step of many to improve our accessibility through our internet presence. You can get your quote Here. Or visit the website.

First, remember to adjust your camera settings to shoot larger and more quality photographs. An electronic image is at its best printable quality at 300 DPI, or Dots Per Inch. 300 DPI allows us at JPA to not only print crisper and cleaner images, but gives us a bit of leeway if we have to adjust or resize the image. In most cameras the medium to high setting will obtain this DPI, but it is best to refer to your camera’s manual.

The second thing to remember is the importance of good camera orientation. Landscape photos, or photos that are taken with the camera held normally, and portrait photos, which are pictures taken with the camera on its side, can drastically effect or confuse a rather simple project. As a general rule, If you’re unsure if the picture you are taking is going to work as a landscape or a portrait you should shoot as a landscape. From a design perspective, a landscape picture is 10 times easier to make into a portrait than the other way around.

Finally there is the issue of the files themselves. If you are supplying photos and have been using a photo manipulation software like Photoshop, then it is in your best interest to save the files as Tiffs. When your digital camera takes a picture it saves that picture as a Jpeg. Jpegs are an acceptable file type for most editing software, however they are compressed files and every time they are opened and resaved they lose a bit of quality. Tiffs are uncompressed and can be manipulated without losing any image quality.

Eventually the practice of visitor cards disappeared while business cards remained a mainstay in business. Today business cards are more commonly used than ever. Advances in printing technology and new QR Code technologies have further reinforced the business card as a necessity for any company.

Fonts: Stick to one or two fonts with little size and style variations. Certain information needs to standout, but too many fonts and text sizes will cause confusion.

Alignment: Though the majority of the cards we see are center aligned, don’t underestimate a left or right alignment. This opens up more space for longer emails and other artwork while making the card appear less cluttered.

Colors: Use them! Either a spot color or 4 color process, colors are an easy way to add pop to your company’s identity.

Information: Thorough but not overwhelming. Phone number, email, cell phone number, address, and website, are all standard while @Twitter names, Facebook page information and linkedin profile links are better placed on your website or email signature.

What card is right for you?
Jersey Printing offers a full range of options however the most common are digitally printed cards and offset printed cards. Digitally printed cards are cheaper to produce and allow for quick and easy reprints, while offset printed cards are usually more expensive and produce a higher quality product. We usually find companies that depend on a more professional image spend the money to produce a more formal card that matches the companies color and style, while digital cards are seen in start-up companies, companies who do a lot of tradeshows, have a high employee turnover, or are less focused on the company branding. Due to its low cost and JPA’s exclusive digital printing techniques and in-house design team, there is a very minimal loss of quality between the two processes.

Quick Fact: Digital printing is not always cheaper! Larger runs, usually in the 5000 card range, are often cheaper to be produced on the offset press.

Back in the mid 1980’s there was a great boom in scanner technology. Scanners were becoming easier to build and more accessible to the small businesses. Different manufacturers used different file types when saving their scanned images. TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) was invented as a way to unify the files under a single format, eventually it was acquired by Aldus and then Adobe. Tiff is now one of the more reliably compatible file formats out there.

Why use tiff? Because it’s lossless. Lossless is a computer graphics term that means that the file is uncompressed and thus of higher image quality. Other formats like jpegs are lossy and are compressed for creating smaller file sizes. This compression takes away from the quality of the image. Unfortunately, Once an image has been turned into a JPEG, it can’t be reverted back into a Lossless file by changing it back into a Tiff, however our in-house practices involve “Tiffing” all jpeg files to prevent further compression if for some reason we need to go in and tweak a photo or two.

The project was put together in a short 2 months and was supplemented by a DVD documentary about the school. Johnathon Pfleger, of the graphic design team had this to say about the journal: “Definitely one of our more interesting projects, the amount of photos and ads alone required the skills of all of our designers. But as usually, all the work was justified when we got to see the finished project, it looked awesome!”

Congratulations to Christian Brothers Academy on their 50 year anniversary.