Freelance graphic designers spend a major part of their careers creating designs that make businesses more successful. This is a fine art that takes talent, skill and experience and a quality printer to reproduce their work. This may not be simple to do.

Excellent Graphic Designs Deserve Top Quality Printers
Graphic designs are not merely colors, sizes, dimensions and arrangements of audio/visuals for marketing and sales. The best designs may be reproduced with undesirable results unintended by graphic designers. The significance of quality printers to reproduce in precise design specifications is crucial to the satisfaction of business clients.

Quality Printers And How To Find Them
Reproducing designs is a big part of graphic design's final stages. Look for quality printers who specialize in reproduction, color matching, sizing and dimensioning for best effects. These printers will usually not be the type who mass-reproduce from secondary draft designs. A quality printer will have the skills to reproduce from a master design whether in hard or electronic copy format. These printers specialize in this type of reproduction and usually have a list of graphic design clients they work with on a regular basis.

Reliable Quality Printers
The other factor of significance in how to find a quality printer for freelance graphic designers is reliability of their work. The best quality printers are those who can reproduce graphic designs on a regular basis without flaw or error. For the freelance graphic designer, this means timely, cost-effective reproduction time after time.

Resourcing Quality Printers
One of the best ways to locate reliable, reputable quality printers for freelance graphic designers is to rely on associates in your industry for referrals. This helps to discover which printer is a good match for the specific type of designs created. If your work is the highest quality, the printer must also be of highest quality in order to exact maximum results.

Quality Printers Know The Importance Of Graphic Design Reproduction
One clue to which printer offers the best services is their knowledge of graphic design. Once the fields of choices of printers are narrowed down, make direct contact with them to discover their level of graphic design knowledge from the printer's point of view. They will discuss the needs of freelance graphic designers with ease and offer suggestions that may be overlooked by designers in terms of final reproduction. A quality printer will always place great importance on this type of reproduction.

About the Author

Casey Haslem is a professional writer for SmartPress and enjoys hiking, the outdoors and spending time with her family.

The Olympic rings are a perennial (or, more accurately, biennial!) of logo design, one of the most recognizable symbols on the planet. In addition to the rings, though, each host city comes up with its own unique logo for their particular games. The 2012 Summer Olympics just concluded in London, and there was a good deal of controversy about their super-modern logo, so as we look forward to Rio 2016, I want to take a moment to examine some of the design choices made by host cities to give their Olympic moment its own special brand.

From 1896 to 1932, there was a transition from mere poster design to implementation of simple, streamlined, modern, distinctive logos. This tendency was finally solidified in the 1960s. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics logo brought a helpful Japanese simplicity, with a big red rising sun above the rings, and it’s fair to say that this bold design set the pattern thereafter. The 60s and 70s logos are “cool” modernist concepts that can leave one a bit cold...from the op-art spiral of the tragic 1972 Munich games to the U.S.-boycotted 1980 Moscow games, whose symbol resembles a militarized version of the Atari logo.

The 1990s logos of Barcelona, Atlanta, and Sydney added a postmodern playfulness that brings out the fun and energy of the games. Logos since then have tended to be abstract, yet recognizably human-oriented and kinetic.

Beijing’s 2008 logo drew on the anthropomorphism of Barcelona’s (bold dashes of primary-color paint suggesting a gymnast) and Sydney’s (which threw in a boomerang shape for local resonance). It resembled a red traditional stamp with a white figure that resembled both a dancer and the Chinese character for “capital.”

The London logo was a stylized magenta representation of the numerals 2012: jagged but also vaguely humanoid. Indeed, some more irreverent commentators soon noted that the shape suggested a silhouette of Lisa Simpson doing something unspeakable to brother Bart. For this and other reasons, many in the (famously self-flagellating) English press considered it a bit of an atrocity. The designers at Wolff Olins certainly deserve credit for being bold, almost confrontational in their choice of color and shape, reminiscent of Italy’s equally controversial “Memphis” design movement.

The logo of the next Summer Olympics, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016, is the diametrical opposite of London’s. Rather than sharp edges and fierce colors, it is all gentle curves and a cool blue/green/yellow palate offering slight echoes of the country’s flag and its tropical good-time image. The figure clearly indicates a trio (pun intended?) of people holding hands and dancing. In this blogger’s opinion, the 2016 Rio logo sets a great tone for our next global celebration of human movement and togetherness.

[Note: The IOC is infamously protective (litigious) about their trademarks, so it was tricky to find good public-domain sources for all the logos discussed here. If you’re looking for a survey of graphic design from all modern Olympic games, this site seems to have the most useful and comprehensive rundown.]

About the Author
After obtaining her construction management degree, Kristie Lewis decided she wanted to help others better understand the process and industry by writing about it on www.constructionmanagementdegree.org. Feel free to contact her with your questions, comments or concerns at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Designers and marketers alike are constantly looking for new products to showcase their brands. As new gimmicks and trends arise we see an emergence of popularity in style colors and new ideas to push the envelope.

A recent marketing tool that is been on the rise and may catch you by surprise is the sticker. Yes, the sticker. As kids are excitement with the sticker was tangible as seen from most possessions owned by child and riddled with the sticky gummy remains. But in the professional market stickers have once again claim their rightful place.

More and more, we're seeing stickers used to promote:

• Events
• New Products
• New Releases
• General Brand Awareness
• Giveaways and Promotions
• And almost anything else you can come up with!

There are 4 basic sticker layouts—circle, square, oval, rectangle.

Choosing the shape that will best further your purpose is the first step to solid design, but keep in mind if you will be having a large number of the stickers printed, you might prefer to go with the die cut variety. By using a die cut variance with your printer, a custom shape is always an option and you can literally have the sticker cut to resemble your specific logo or any other fun shapes.

To begin, let's take a moment and look at the strong sticker design, some of my own designs, and some found in online showcases.

And now for your actually waiting for—

In Search of Design has teamed up with PrintRunner.com, who will be offering a free print giveaway of 250 stickers to a randomly selected commentor on this post. To enter the giveaway simply leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling us what you like to do with the stickers and you will be automatically entered. On Friday, June 8, the winner will be selected using random.org and notified via e-mail!! Good luck and thanks for reading!!

Giveaway Sticker Specifications:

• Sticker Shape : Standard Stickers
• Flat Width: 2"
• Flat Height:  3.5"
• Quantity: 250
• Paper:  Premium Sticker Stock
• Colors:  Full Color ( 4 Color Process), Black and White
• Proof: NONE
• Ready to Ship Is: 3 Business Days

*Giveaway is open to US Residents only, ages 18 years old and above.

Thank you to PrintRunner for providing us this giveaway, I also have received a set of stickers for hosting this giveaway!