Glossary of Useful Terms used in the Promotional Products and Corporate Gifts Industry.

Promotional Product or Corporate Gift: an item designed to carry your message to your client base to keep your logo or strap line in the mind of your clients and customers. It can be a value budget item or it can be a high value item. The promotional product or corporate gift can be supplied in quantities from 1 to millions depending on the item selected.

Bleed: Where the print area extends the edge to be cut.

Die Cut: Piece of print which has been cut to a specific size/measurement.

Mock-Up: See 'Proof'.

Origination: The pre-production stages, e.g. in printing.

Point Of Sale (POS): Display or promotional material physically at the point of sale.

Premium: A promotional item of merchandise usually used as a gift/reward.

Self-liquidating Promotion (SLP): A premium offered to the consumer in return for proof of purchase plus money, funding cost of promotion.

Silk Screen Print: Useful for complicated surfaces, i.e. premium items

Spot Colour: Also refered to as 'special'. One colour only, usually from the Pantone colour range.

CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black. Also known as 4 colour process.

Mono: Greyscale (0% - 100% black).

Line art: Image of 1 or 2 colours.

RGB: Red, Green, Blue. Used for web use.

DPI: Dots Per Square Inch. The higher the DPI, the better resolution. 300DPI (high res) for print, 72DPI (low res) for web/internet.

LPI: Lines Per Inch.

Vector Graphic: Original illustrative file which is typesetable/editable.

Proof: A trial version made before production, for the purpose of checking & visualising.

Branding: Engraving, tampo, screen printing, foil blocking, die stamping & embroidery

Screen printing: The most common method of personalising our product ranges. Each colour of your design is put onto an individual screen, ie a screen for each colour in your design.

A screen is a frame with a precision woven mesh stretched over it drum tight. The screen is coated with a photo-sensitive emulsion and your image is burned onto it with an ultra violet light. Screen printing inks are then placed into the frame and the ink is pushed through the burned image with a squeege to replicate the design onto the product of your choice

Engraving: This type of marking process is produced by using a diamond type tool to mark/etch into the material to reproduce your design. This leaves a permanent design on the product.

Foil blocking: is referred to by many names: A few are embossing, gold blocking, blocking etc.
The print method is a combination of heat and pressure applied via a block or die onto a coloured foil, this is stamped on to the product.

This method of printing is used on leather goods, diaries etc. It is not usually suitable for multicolour printing or designs with very fine detail.

Laser Engraving: can be used to decorate many substrates, but is mainly used on metals. It leaves a black/dark grey image on metal surfaces.

The process is that of the laser printing dots, very similar to the way your paper printer prints. With the ability to print highly detailed graphic images.

The finished product is a quality marking that captures good detail of the image you want reproduced

Embroidery: is a method of stitching a design/logo onto clothing etc. Almost exclusively produced on computer controlled embroidery machines.

Firstly your design is "digitized" onto a computer disk or cd. This process converts your design into the relevant software language for the machine used and this then controls the stitching of the design and the colours onto the garment.

Printing – There are two distinct types of printing:

Solid colour print: either 1, 2, 3 or 4 solid colours. When printing with solid colours we will need to know the exact colour. You can either choose from a colour palette or preferably tell us the Pantone® reference number for the colour(s). We normally print solid colours onto gifts and T-shirts for example or 4 colour process print : involves different colours, tints and shades (like a picture). When printing 4 colour process we will not always match Pantone® colours but the colours will be a close. We often print 4 colour process onto paper products amongst other items.

Printing charges: the cost of printing varies with the quantity and the number of print colours. There are also set up charges that vary with the number of colours. Usually repeat orders have a discounted repeat set up charge. The greater the number of colours the higher the price.

Embroidery - involves mechanically stitching an image onto garments using giant automated and very sophisticated sewing machines. As we use threads the colours must be distinct and so we cannot replicate tints and shades. Polo shirts, jackets, caps and certain bags are often embroidered.

Embroidery charges: the number of colours we embroider does not make a difference to the price, it is the size and complexity of the logo that effects the price. There are set up charges but no repeat set-up charges with embroidery