The Encore Awards include nine categories that recognize the excellence in the concept, design and production of print materials plus one category dedicated to the innovative combination of print and technology.

Three Crystal Award winners in each of the categories listed below are chosen for each category.

Categories include:

-Books and Annual Report
-Brochures-Catalogs and Magazines
-Digital-Direct Mail
-Environmentally Friendly
-General
-Packaging
-Print and Technology Solutions

At this year’s Encore event, Wentworth was fortunate to take home 2 Crystal Awards. One went to the University of South Carolina for a direct mail piece we had the privilege to produce. The next went to Stitch Design for a fabulous piece of work in Catalogs and Magazines.

Pictured above is George Rabon, Wentworth Printing’s Senior Account Executive presenting Blue Cross/Blue Shield of SC graphic designer, Bob Wertz the Coyne Textile Services “Best Finishing” Award sponsored by Mac Papers at this year’s Pica Awards held on March 3, 2012. This year’s competition featured the work of 65 participating companies and 18 graphic arts high schools and college programs from across the two states, bringing in a total of 997 entries.
Wentworth congratulates Blue Cross/Blue Shield of SC and Bob Wertz for designing such a beautiful show piece!

March 3, 2012 (CHARLOTTE, NC): The Printing Industry of the Carolinas, Inc. (PICA) recognized Wentworth Printing Corporation of West Columbia as the 2011 PICA Awards Best of Show winner. Best of Show is the highest award PICA presents to a printer. Since 1966, the PICA Awards have been the premier symbol of excellence for the graphics industry in North and South Carolina. The PICA Awards demonstrate a company’s commitment to excellence in graphic communications.

Wentworth Printing Corporation also wins Coyne Textile Services “Best Finishing” Award, Mac Papers “Best Printing Division D (51 or more employees)” Award. Wikoff Color “Best Process Color” Award and the xpedx “Best of Show” Award plus 8 Best of Category Awards, 4 Special Judges Awards and 1 Award of Excellence.

Winners were announced March 3, 2012, at the 2011Annual PICA Awards Banquet, held at the Embassy Suites Golf Resort & Spa in Concord, North Carolina. The PICA Awards program is open to all printing companies in the Carolinas.

This year’s competition featured the work of 65 participating companies and 18 graphic arts high schools and college programs from across the two states, bringing in a total of 997 entries.

The Printing Industry of the Carolinas, Inc. (PICA) is a trade association representing the graphic communications industry in North and South Carolina. North Carolina ranks as the 15th largest state print market in the United States with $3.3 billion in sales, 712 total printing establishments and 20,788 employees. South Carolina ranks 31st in the nation with $1.3 billion in sales, 246 establishments, and 8,219 employees. Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, PICA has been serving the print industry since 1931. For more information, visit www.picanet.org.

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RELEASE DATE: MARCH 4, 2012

Contact: Carrie Epps
Tel. (800) 849-7422
or (704) 357-1150 ext. 103
Email: cjepps@picanet.org

IU purchased sticky ties to wear at last night’s game vs. Michigan State.  The awesome ties you see are produced by Wentworth for our fabulous Client evREware!!

You’ve checked your resolution in Photoshop, it’s at 300 pixels per inch- but Wentworth is still telling you your image is low res! What gives?

Resolution is probably one of the most confusing things about printing. I’ll see if I can simplify it a little for you. Let’s start from the beginning…

Some common things you may hear are PPI and DPI. PPI stands for pixels per inch. Google defines a pixel as “A minute area of illumination on a display screen, one of many from which an image is composed.” So, the more pixels you have, the more detailed and clear your image will be. This is your photo’s resolution. In a perfect world, every image would be 300 PPI, but we know that is not always possible. 300 is the magic number in printing, getting lower will start looking fuzzy and going higher won’t visually make a difference, but will make your file larger!

DPI stands for dots per inch. This relates to your printer. Printers (referring to the machines) print in lots and lots of little dots that make up one image. (Crazy right?) So the greater your DPI (the more dots you have) the more detailed your image will be. Make sense?

Let’s recap. PPI = computer screen, DPI = printer. Ok, now what about the lo-res images…

Let’s say you have a 300 PPI image, but the actual size of the image is 2 inches x 2 inches. If you make the actual size LARGER, your PPI will get SMALLER. PPI and actual image size are inversely proportionate. This is where a lot of folks get confused. InDesign has this really great way to tell what resolution your image is if you are needing to resize it. When you look at your links tab, make sure you have the “Link Info” open.

See where it says “Actual PPI” and then “Effective “PPI”? The actual PPI is 300, which is good, but the effective PPI at 249 means the image has been made a bit larger than it was at 300- making the image a slightly lower resolution. With this photo, it wasn’t a drastic change, so that 249 PPI is still going to look ok. If the photo were enlarged say by 100%, then there would be a low resolution issue.

This works both ways. See how on this one the actual PPI is 240, but the effective PPI is 453? This means that the original image size was made SMALLER so the resolution got LARGER.

So to make a long story short, if you enlarged your image from its original size, that is why you have a lo-res image in your project. I could sit here the rest of the week and talk more about image resolution, there is so much information, but hopefully this is enough to get you started!

See ya next week!

-Valene

@valene2102

Questions/Comments/Suggestions? Email vsims@wentworthprinting.com

One of the great mysteries of the Universe is Printer Spreads. I have always wondered, why are they called printer spreads when printers don’t even use them?

Well, that’s not completely true. We do use printer spreads, just not in the way you would think. Let me explain…

When you send your job into Wentworth, the first stop is the prepress department, then it goes into planning and gets an imposition. When the job gets an imposition, all the pages are laid out so when the piece comes together and gets folded/stitched/bound it will go in the correct page order. It’s like a big puzzle. If you take apart a saddle stitch magazine you can see that the printed pages aren’t actually 8.5 x 11, but instead are 17 x 11. Page 2 is attached to page 27, page 6 is attached to page 23, etc. (These are just examples of page sizes and page numbers, all projects will vary!) Each page is part of a bigger piece. This is essentially a “printer spread.”

The great thing about printing with Wentworth is- you don’t have to worry a thing about printer spreads, we take care of all the hard work for you. We prefer you to send your files in “reader spreads.” That is, the piece is laid out exactly how you would read it in chronological page order. (page 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.) It is easier for you because you don’t have to figure out what the printer spread would be and it is easier for us because we don’t have to arrange the pages back in chronological order.

I apologize to all of you pulling for printer spreads in this fight- reader spreads is walking away the champion today!

Ever wonder what the deal is with PPI, DPI and all those crazy abrevs? Check in with me next week!

-        Valene

@valene2102

Questions/Comments/Suggestions? Email vsims@wentworthprinting.com

Thanks for visiting my very first blog! This entry is first in the series “The Prepress Perspective.” Here at Wentworth, our prepress department has over 20 years combined experience. Through the years we have all seen common confusions that our customers have when sending in files. Each week I’m going to tackle some of these issues and try and better educate you- our valuable customer!

Week One – That Pesky White Line

Dictionary.com defines “bleed” in the way of printing as, “a sheet or page margin trimmed so as to mutilate the text or illustration; a part thus trimmed off.”

Adding bleed to your files is quick, easy and painless! All you need to do is add 0.125 inches to every side of your page. If you create a document in Adobe InDesign or Illustrator you can define the bleed under “Document Setup” and the program provides the guides for you!

Then, just make sure all of your design elements that you would like to reach the edge of the page reach all the way to the bleed line. If you are going to send us a PDF, don’t forget to save with bleeds when you export your project.

Now you are probably wondering, why is it so important for me to add bleed to my files?

Well, the main reason is a pesky little white line. After your project is printed, it moves on to the bindery where it is trimmed down to size. Some slight shifting or bouncing may occur on the cutter and if there are no bleeds- Poof! You have a white line along the edge of your pages. And if you are anything like me, if you did not design that white line to be there, you sure don’t want to see it!

Making sure you have bleed in your files is just one small step you can make to help us give you the absolute best final product.

See you next Wednesday, when I will give you the low down on the fight between printer spreads vs. reader spreads.

-      Valene

Twitter: @valene2102

Questions/Comments/Suggestions? Email vsims@wentworthprinting.com

We were also fortunate that we saw overall growth in sales this past year, with a strong forecast for 2012.  We are thankful to all of our loyal customers for allowing us the privilege and opportunity to work with them.

2011 also saw several of our coworkers relocate within Consolidated Graphics – from as close as Atlanta, Georgia to as distant as Hagiwara, Japan.  We wish them the best of luck as they further their careers.

Happy Belated Holidays!

- President, Brad Masai