QR wristbands are a great way to target younger, social users – college students, 20-somethings, and those who have active digital lives – but they aren’t just for the young and fashionable. They can be used in professional environments, not only replacing business cards for contact-sharing during busy conferences, but also as a way to set up virtual meetings or create limited-duration special events of all types with a single scan of a cell phone.

The QR wristband provides end users with a seamless bridge between print, online and mobile content and allows one-stop access to information and promotions.

Contact us to find out how your business – large or small – can use our QR bands in a number of unique ways.

But what is vector art?

Vector art is composed of continuous lines and shapes. It’s made using mathematical equations, which remain sharp and clear regardless of the image scale. Its Evil Twin, Raster art, is composed using pixels. When a pixilated image is increased in size, the individual pixels become very prominent. This results in blurred, low quality images and unacceptable results.

So by definition, a vector image is different from the very beginning. That is why a raster image cannot be “saved” or converted to a vector image. If the image was originally built in Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator, then we’re home free! This would create one of these file types: .eps, .ai, or .cdr (although not all eps files are vector art). The only way to tell is for us to open your file and examine it. If a raster image was placed in Illustrator and saved as an eps – it won’t be vector and it won’t work.

These file types are raster art, and we won’t be able to use them: JPEGs, GIFs, TIFs, BMPs or Photoshop files.

If a raster art image is all you have, we can work with a skilled artist to recreate your logo as a vector image. Your account manager will be happy to quote a one-time cost for this and manage the details of getting it done. We’ll archive it for use on all your orders, and provide it to you as well.

And we’ll have what we need to produce that pen with the dome logo, or the graphics for the side of your building.

This graph illustrates the average spot price in US cents per Pound for Upland cotton (color 41, leaf 4, staple 34)

(Source: USDA Market News)

If you’re planning major garment purchases for later this year, it may be wise to push your ordering forward.

Read more on cotton prices in this WSJ article.

Ad specialties are less expensive per impression than most other media

• Cost per Impression. In the U.S., the cost per impression of a promotional product stayed virtually the same from 2008 to 2010, at .005 cents.
• Comparative Cost. Advertising specialties are less expensive per impression than most other media and are very affordable and effective when compared to other forms of media.
• Product Usage. Bags have the highest number of impressions in a month, over 1,000, and over one-third (36%) of those with incomes under $50,000 own bags.
• Gender Preferences. Males are more likely than females to own shirts and caps, while females are more likely to have bags, writing instruments, calendars and health and safety products.
• Ethnic Preferences. African Americans have more promotional products on average (11.3) than any other group.
• Positive Reinforcement. Seventy-five percent of independent voters prefer consumer-branded products; nearly 1.5 times more than Democrats or Republicans.
• Identifying the Advertiser. Eighty-three percent in the U.S. say they can identify the advertiser on a promotional item they own.
• Influencing User Opinions. Forty-one percent of U.S. respondents say their opinion of the advertiser is more favorable after receiving a promotional product.
• Global Reach. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents from Great Britain have received and kept a pen in the last 12 months. In the U.S., writing instruments are used the most often, an average of 18.2 times per month.
• Popular Products. The most commonly owned promotional products among U.S. respondents are writing instruments (46%), followed by shirts (38%) and calendars (24%).
• Promo Product Capital. Los Angeles has the highest average number of items owned, at 12.7.

If you’d like to review the research in its entirety, click here.

Companies don’t stay in business as long as we have without having some success stories. Here are a few instances where our intuition, thinking out of the box or old fashioned service have been game changers for our clients.

The Case of the Second Banner

A request for a banner printed in 4 flat colors came in for a media event. The client only needed one, but we informed them for a small fraction of the cost of the first banner they could have a second banner. They balked on the offer.

We made two anyway knowing we’d eat the cost but have a great sample for our showroom. During the event, the phone rings, and they needed a second banner in one hour, and were speechless when we told them it was in our office ready to go.

The Pogo Stick

A client built a direct mail campaign to corporate CEOs around the idea of sending them a box containing a real pogo stick. We loved the idea but had some concerns – about legal liability for our client if one of their clients injured themselves while getting their game on.

The solution: source a pogo stick whose purchase price included a $1 million liability insurance policy – on every stick.

The result: our client’s marketing department got their promotional campaign and their legal department got to sleep at night too.

The Laser Pointer/Thumb Drive Diaries

Here’s a case where we lost an order – at first – when a major client placed an order for laser pointer/thumb drives from an internet source they had no relationship with. The first production run was delivered without a logo imprint. When they found out that the second production run was not going to be delivered in time for their event, they called us.

We were left with 36 hours to locate, imprint and deliver an order of 500 units. We found a source that was located in the city where the event was being held who had inventory and was able to imprint and deliver in the nick of time.

Oh, and the replacement order from their internet source – when it finally arrived it came complete with a lousy package, a tiny logo, and a virus that crashed our client’s IT system.

These are the people who dabble in our business and here’s the question you should ask yourself before you place an order with them: If they’re not fully committed to this business, how can they be fully committed to you? Or even better: ask them.

Don’t set yourself up to find out the hard way. Can’t seem to get a delivery? Maybe your critical item is at the UPS store or on somebody’s front porch. Or stuck on a truck that needs a loading dock to unload and your rep doesn’t have one. Can’t reach them when you need them the most? That’s because they’re at work at their “other job.”

Trust your brand, your event, your critical needs to a professional who is “all in” and has the infrastructure and staff to support you. Even if, for some reason, it’s not us: expect and demand a full partner who’s not in it to sell you something, but to support you and become an integral part of your success.

We’re Graphics Network, an 11-year old Tulsa-based company that specializes in promotional products, printed material and custom clothing. We’re a business-to-business company with deep roots in our home town.

Our focus may be local, but our reach is global. Our client list includes Fortune 50 multinationals, regional, and local companies. We’re a “relationship company’ and many of our client partnerships date back longer than our company history.

We get teamwork – and how to draft with each other to function more efficiently. We know where the tight turns are and how to work off of each other’s strengths to move your projects across the finish line.

To make it easy, if your company has a logo, we can put it on anything. And we do it well, on time, and within budget.

At Graphics Network, we’re champions of the race and we’d be honored if you’d let us ride with you.