Drinkware: Not all insulation is created equal

With the many different drinkware products available today it can leave a typical retail consumer wondering why prices vary so much from one option to another. Unfortunately if you work with someone that doesnt explain the differences most people would never know which option is the best for their need. All of the different insulations cannot be seen and if you want a high quality bottle you should never shop on price alone. A good rule of thumb is that the four main types of insulation are highly correlated to the cost of the product. Additionally more often than not those higher priced items will insulate the liquid significantly longer than an inexpensive option.

The Four Types of Insulation for Drinkware in order from lease effective to most effective are as follows:

  1. Air
  2. Foam
  3. Vacuum Insulation
  4. Copper + Vacuum Insulation

Air Insulated Drinkware:
This option is typically found in less expensive double walled plastic tumbler glasses. While it will keep your beverage cold longer than a single wall, uninsulated container it will not give you all day enjoyment of a cold or hot beverage. 

Foam Insulated Drinkware:
Foam Insulated Drinkware is commonly found in travel coffee mugs and is a "better" form of insulation. It's great for traveling to work with a cup of joe to go and is typically a good entry level price point for an insulated vessel of it's kind. 

Vacuum Insulated Drinkware:
Vacuum Insulated Drinkware is the next best option over Foam Insulation. There is no air inside the inner walls which creates the ability to keep beverages cold or hot significantly longer than foam insulation. Vacuum insulated drinkware does typically come at a higher price point but if you're looking for a higher end option this is a step up from foam.

Copper + Vacuum Insulated Drinkware:
The best insulation option available is a mix of vacuum insulation with a lining of copper inside. This is typical of all the big retail brand you'll see in stores today as the insulation properties are so strong that you can expect to keep beverages cold for up to 16 hours and hot up to 8 - sometimes even longer. As one would expect these types of containers come at a higher price point but are a great option for anyone that wants to provide a product that their recipient will use time after time.

The four different types of insulation for drinkware.

The four different types of insulation for drinkware.

Pro tip for care of your insulated drinkware:
For longterm use of your insulated drinkware it is suggested that you hand wash any insulated drinkware. Machine washing may allow are to escape and water to enter the insulated cavity thus causing poor or no insulation.

Lone Star Press Takes Home Two PIASC Best of Category Awards

We are excited to announce that on April 7th, 2017 Lone Star Press was awarded two PIASC* Print Excellence Awards for the categories of "Cards" and "Foil Stamping & Embossing/Debossing". The PIASC is a regional trade association for the print industry and hosts this annual event which sees hundreds of entries for different categories. As a recipient of two Best of Category awards our entries will automatically be entered in the PIA** Premier Print Awards which is a national award show hosted later this year. Our winning entry was a beautiful holiday card that printed in CMYK full color, custom die cut and had heavy coverage of silver foil stamping on both sides. A photo of the winning entry is below.

In addition to the two Best of Category awards Lone Star Press also received a Certificate of Merit for an annual report entry. 

*Print Industry Association of Southern California
**Print Industry Association

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Golf Tournament SWAG Ideas

Golf season is nearly in full swing and charity tournaments are around the corner. Lone Star Press has gone ahead and compiled a few of our favorite SWAG items suitable for all marketing budgets.

We think that some great golf premiums are items that people will continue to use after the event. Some of those items include ball mark repair tools, sunscreen, golf balls and golf bags.

Custom bag tags and hole flags are a great way to brand your event and creates an additional sponsorship opportunity. 

Other crowd pleasers could be hats, bags and drinkware. 

Saving InDesign file as Print Ready PDF

Choose File > Export.

Specify a name and location for the file.

For Save As Type (Windows) or Format (Mac OS), choose Adobe PDF (Print), and then click Save.

When you select the Adobe PDF (Print) option, you cannot include interactive elements in the PDF. To export an interactive document to PDF, see Create interactive documents for PDF.

To save with Marks and Bleed select Crop and Bleed Marks. Increase bleed to 0.125" on all sides.

Click Export (Windows) or Save (Mac OS).

 

 

Converting a PDF to outline format in Acrobat

Open the PDF or EPS file in Acrobat.

Click Tools and click Pages.

Click Watermark and select Add Watermark.

The Add Watermark window opens.

Type a period (or any other character) in the Text text box.

Drag the Opacity slider to 0%. You’ll need to add a textual watermark before outlining the text. Kick the font size down and set the opacity to zero so the watermark doesn’t interfere with the appearance of your document.

Click OK.

 

Click Tools and click Print Production.
If you don’t see the Print Production panel under Tools, do this:
a. Click the View menu.
b. Select Tools.
c. Select Print Production.
The Print Production panel opens under Tools.

Click Flattener Preview.

 

Select the Convert All Text to Outlines check box.

Select the pages you need to convert to text from the Apply to PDF group.

Click Apply.

Simply select the Convert All text to Outlines check box.

If Acrobat warns you that the operation cannot be undone, click Yes to proceed.

Click OK to close the Flattener Preview window.

Click File and select Save As to save your outlined text PDF as a different file from your original. The text will be uneditable once outlined. 

Close the file in Acrobat and open it in Illustrator.
You’ll notice that the text displays as it should, because it’s outlined. 

Close the file in Acrobat and open it in Illustrator.
You’ll notice that the text displays as it should, because it’s outlined

Binding Method: Perfect Bind

Perfect Binding is commonly used for soft cover books. For this binding method the cover and inside pages are glued together with a strong, flexible glue. The cover wraps around the inside pages so it allows for printing on the spine. Perfect binding is commonly used for annual reports, manuals, catalogs, books, brochures and magazines.

 

Perfect Bound Book

Perfect Bound Book

Recap from the PPAI Show in Las Vegas

In an effort to continually source fresh products and strengthen our supplier relationships we attended the 2017 PPAI EXPO in Las Vegas. Every year the PPAI, Promotional Products Association International, has been putting on this amazing trade show that caters specifically to the branded promotional product industry. The PPAI Expo is North America’s largest international promotional products trade show. In 2016 the EXPO had more than 1,300 exhibitors that took up over 1,000,000 square feed at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. 

One product that we have always loved are custom socks. There were more suppliers for socks this year than ever before with options of digitally printed/sublimated or fully custom knitted socks. 

Some of our other favorite show items are pictured below.