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Postcard Finishing Options
Postcards are more than a pretty picture that you would send on your vacation, postcards can be any promotional material that goes by mail. The finishing of your promotional material is just as important as the printing in producing high quality and functional postcards. If you need finishing options for color postcards like folding, drilling or binding, this is the section for learning more about it. When choosing your postcard design, finishing options must be addressed from the beginning. For instance, let's assume you plan to design an 81/2 x 11 brochure that will be tri-folded for a direct mail promotion. You need to plan your page layout so that the cover and the place for the mailing address are in the right place after the folding is completed. Scoring may be appropriate on heavier paper stock so that the paper and/or ink doesn't crack when folding takes place. These and many other potential finishing options will affect the quality and impact of your print communication piece.
Folding
Creative folding can allow you to deliver a strong message for less cost.
You can build a six-panel or six-page brochure from an 8 1/2 x 11 piece
of paper through the use of a tri-fold or z-fold! Following are some of
the more common folding options.
Folding Examples
1. Half Fold - Single fold providing 4 pages.
2. Tri Fold - Left and right flaps open to reveal a message inside.
3. Z Fold - The piece opens up like an accordion.

Scoring
Scoring is done on printed pieces that use a heavier weight paper and/or
heavy ink coverage throughout the piece. If scoring is not used cracking
at the fold will happen. This can distract from the overall look and impact
of the piece. Make sure if you are using a heavy paper such as cover stock
or heavy ink coverage to ask for scoring. To learn more or ask questions
regarding this topic click
here.
Binding and Other Finishing Options
Drilling, binding, and much more can be done with your printed piece.
Drilling is putting holes into your piece, perfect for calendars, sheets
for a three-ring binder and more. Binding is most frequently used when
you design a multi-page publication over four-pages. There are two primary
binding options to choose from - - perfect binding or saddle stitching.
Binding style is dependant on number of pages within the catalog and the
look and feel you are trying to achieve. Most publications under 80 pages
are saddle stitched with two staples in the middle holding it together.
A more expensive and upscale binding style is perfect binding. Perfect
binding is also used for thicker books, most frequently for those over
80 pages. Perfect binding is the term for gluing the cover to the backbone
of the body pages, like the paper back novels sold at retail. Manuals,
soft cover books and many others printed pieces use this method. Other
binding methods are available such as comb binding and wire (both plastic
and metal) binding. These other binding options tend to be more expensive
than perfect binding or saddle stitching solutions. For printing and finishing
prices, please click
here.
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