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Featured Companies
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Printing Possibilities
| Ellen C. Wells
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>> Published Date: 11/15/2009
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“Should we print our own signs?” “When does it make sense to ‘click-and-print’ or order signs from online sources?” “Should I get off-the-shelf or customized signs?” “Should I hire a designer?”
You’ve asked yourself these questions, maybe more than once. Here are some much-needed answers to your oft-asked queries.
In-House Options
“Having signs printed out-of-house, we just weren’t finding what we wanted the signs to say,” says Lora Keddie, marketing director for Al’s Garden Center, which has three locations in the Portland, Oregon, area. “It didn’t match our branding, and they were signs you could find in any other garden center.”
Two years ago, Al’s purchased a Canon printer capable of printing banners up to 10 ft. long and 42 in. wide. Al’s wanted to include more and bigger messaging, and with the number of events they hold, “the economics of doing it ourselves was significant,” Lora says. It’s 11 cents an inch to print banners on their machine. A 90-in. banner turns out to be less than $10, rather than in the hundreds of dollars. The printer investment was significant at around $6,000, but Lora estimates that they have recouped that investment over the last two years. “One of the nice things about doing it in-house is if the sign doesn’t work, you can go back and print it again,” she says.
Before purchasing their own printer, Al’s found they over- or under-bought the number of signs they needed. Even the few 8-in. by 11-in. signs they printed on a laser printer and laminated themselves cost about $1.50 without labor. With their current printer and waterproof stock, they’ve shrunk the cost to about 54 cents, saving themselves roughly $1 per sign per year.
Lora creates her signs using the graphic design program Adobe Illustrator because she’s had training in that program. However, something as simple as Microsoft Word can be used to create effective, well-designed signs. Rolling Green Nursery in Greenland, New Hampshire, prints most of their signage in-house on a Lexmark 750C. At about $650 to $750, it prints at a 600 x 600 resolution in full color. They print on a substrate called LaserTag Sign Stock—a 5-ml. polyethylene paper resistant to weather and UV. These signs can last up to three years, depending on weather and sun conditions. For garden retailers and growers looking for “green” printing materials to use in-house, The John Henry Company recently debuted EcoBreeze, laser and thermal printer-compatible blank sheets made from SFI-certified materials and produced with wind power. These sheets can stand up to weather and UV, but once they come in contact with moist soil or a compost pile, they begin to degrade in 30 days.
Database Driven
Some companies offer on-demand printing of sign, label and stake templates that include horticultural images and plant descriptions or can be customized with the store’s own photography and descriptions.
Brenda Vaughn, assistant marketing manager for The John Henry Company, says many garden centers don’t have staff who can design and print their signage needs. John Henry provides a web-based program called Image Ease that is ideal for small- to medium-sized growers and retailers. Users can upload logos and pricing, select a plant, and choose from about 30 sign styles and several sizes. Users can also order tags to match their chosen look, as well as create messaging on larger inspirational signs. “You can literally brand yourself with a look you choose from that website,” Brenda says. Once you place an order, you receive the materials in about five days.
GrowTech Solutions’ Color-Tree software is a PC-based sign system offering about 50 sign templates in a variety of sizes typically found in garden centers. “This program has built into it a plant database with photography, both ‘sales-y’ and horticultural information, and many different templates,” says GrowTech’s Sam Burks. “The end-user can select a plant, choose a template, and print the materials on-site.” Its standard plant database includes 5,000 varieties, with additional specialty plant libraries for what Sam calls the “plant guru types.” All of the descriptions and photography are completely editable, as well. GrowTech also offers an entry-level printer (Xerox Phaser 6280) with UV-resistant inks and special settings that allow the user to print on the company’s weather-proof, plastic-based substrate (it can be used as a normal office printer, as well). A higher-grade printer (Xerox Phaser 6360) is available that’s capable of printing 8 ½-in. by 36-in. long banners.
Clarity Connect offers a similar database-driven signage system through POPsignage.com, which is a web-based subscription service. Once the user creates 5-in. by 7-in. and 7-in. by 11-in. signs from its 6,000-variety strong database, she can either order the signs to be printed and shipped, or download a PDF of the sign, which can be printed onsite. Clarity Connect actually refers customers to GrowTech for laser printer purchases and is an official reseller of GrowTech’s plastic-based substrate. The advantage of a web-based system, says Clarity Connect’s president Timothy Howard, is “multiple people can be logged in at once and working on the plant library for the garden center—you have access wherever you have Internet access.” Also, subscribers have access to database additions immediately.
Ready Made
For garden retailers wanting to set up a quick-and-clean merchandised and themed display, several horticultural printing companies have ready-to-use, off-the-shelf programs that can be ordered and installed quickly. MasterTag has two such programs: Enchanted Night for white or “night” gardens and Tasteful Harvest for vegetables. Both off-the-shelf programs create high-impact retail displays with materials such as posters, bench tape and cards and stake tags.
“Both retail display programs offer retailers a great way to have a well-presented sales area without the need to develop a custom program where volume requirements are typically prohibitive,” says Gerry Giorgio, creative director for MasterTag. “They can also enhance any plants arriving from the grower which already have been labeled with a generic tag.”
Hire It Out
Some garden retailers will find they have a need for a customized signage system but don’t have the in-house resources to design and print the materials. That’s when a design and marketing firm can come into play.
Kurt Fromherz of Sunrise Marketing explains that, ideally, a designer hired to do the job should have an understanding of the particular garden center, its position in the marketplace and the style the client is seeking. Not only does signage help people find products, Kurt says, “it’s an expression of the style and brand of the garden center.” Most importantly, he points out, signage should consist of elements found in the garden center’s various media. “The good news is,” Kurt says, “once you’ve found those style points, it makes it easier down the road to get more done.”
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