10 Best Free Stock Photo Sites You Never Knew About

By Mike in Design, Marketing, Resources

When it comes to design, great stock photos make a huge difference. Unfortunately, great stock photos usually come with a huge price tag as well.

But guess what? Today’s your lucky day. We’ve scoured the internet and found 10 incredible treasure troves of free high quality stock images. They’re yours for the taking, and they won’t cost you a dime. Just be sure to check the fine print, because every site is a little different and some may require attribution depending on how you use them.

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1. Unsplash

Why it rocks:

Unsplash adds 10 new images every 10 days, and while the subject matter varies, one thing’s always the same – they’re absolutely stunning. The best part is you can use the images however you want. There’s zero restrictions.

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2. Stock Vault

Why it rocks:

Stock Vault has all sorts of images and design elements, including textures and backgrounds. What’s cool about Stock Vault is you can see their most popular and most downloaded items. It’s a great way to put your finger on the pulse of the design community.

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Animal Rescue: A New Breed of Marketing

By admin in Marketing
Photo by Sue Byford

To the Rescue

It’s startling to find out how many dogs and cats are rescued from our streets.  According to the Humane Society, there are 6-8 million dogs and cats in animal shelters each year, in the US alone.

Each one of these animals needs to find a home.  And many new organizations have sprung up to take on the challenge.

These groups don’t necessarily call themselves marketers, but that’s exactly what they are.

Their mission is to raise the awareness of the abandoned animal issue, recruit likely adoptee families, match animals with new owners, promote best practices to the community, and even sponsor legislation that helps save animals.

The animal rescue groups of today use many of the same cutting edge marketing strategies you might find in any major business, using social media like Facebook and Twitter to broadcast rescue news to thousands.

But because not everybody subscribes to their Twitter feeds, these groups have found they need to use traditional media.

And that’s where we come in.

Dog Rescue postcard magnet mailerYou see, we make postcard magnet mailers.  That’s a custom-printed, jumbo postcard and a magnet, one glued to the other, and mailed to a mailing list via the post office.

These magnet mailers are one of the most effective ways for rescue groups to get their message out: to ask people to consider adopting an animal in need.

Our Foldup Magnet Mailer is good for helping tell a more complete story — it’s designed with the magnet attached inside a large, folded postcard, and provides over a hundred square inches of space for text and pictures.

So how does the whole thing work exactly?   Simple: the Foldup Magnet Mailer reaches the family through the mailbox.  It will likely be opened and read, and maybe discussed.   The magnet will be added to a file cabinet or refrigerator, working as a mini billboard for on-going awareness.

Then, one day, the Forces of Good will converge  and the family will decide that they’re interested in learning more about adopting an animal and will find the rescue group’s web address on the magnet.

It sounds like great fiction but this process is really what happens every single day.

In fact, there aren’t many other ways for an animal rescue organization to get so much exposure, for so few dollars (…cents, actually).

It might take three or four months for a family to reach that magic moment, and decide to adopt a pet.  The Foldup Magnet Mailer provides all the right ingredients to facilitate that multi-month process, and help keep the rescue’s message at top of mind.

Of course, you don’t need to be rescued to benefit from our postcard magnet mailers.  You just need to be interested in getting your message out, and keeping it there.

Another timely message (we hope) from your friends at magnetbyMail.com , your source for of postcard magnets and other neat promotional devices.

10 Steps to Prepress

By admin in Design

Preparing art for full-color printing is now easier than ever.  But there are some useful steps you’ll need to take to avoid speed bumps later.

Digital Press from HeidelbergWhat is prepress?  It’s the process of converting a layout or design into a format that is ready for a printing press.

Before Adobe’s Photoshop came along, prepress work took a team of specialists, a full day of effort, lots of film, tricky color separations and a hefty budget.  Now it takes a few minutes with a digital file.

So we’ve made a list for the more daring of you who are interested in creating a press-ready art file yourself, rather than having someone else (like us) do it.  Now, these steps work for us and our postcard magnet mailers; but if you use another printer, you should check with them first.  Also, this guide is for those already familiar with professional grade programs like Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

Just know that if all this is more than you can do, or want to do, that’s fine.  Just tell us what you have, and what you’d like.  We’ll help make it happen.

For the adventurous, here are your 10 steps:

1.  Start with great art.  Check out our post about Good Photography.

2.  Use professional grade programs like Photoshop (for images) and Illustrator (for type, designs and layout).  Stay clear of home publishing software like Publisher or Word.

3.  Save a new copy of your working file as you proceed through each of the following steps, so you can return to a step if something goes wrong later.  Save the Photoshop (image) files as TIFF or PSD format.  Save the Illustrator (layout) files as EPS or PDF.

CMYK monitor vs paper4.  Set up the color mode for your image and layout files as CMYK (rather than RGB).  Our printing press is a CMYK press;  it uses four inks: Cyan blue, Magenta red, Yellow and blacK to achieve the effect of full-spectrum color.  If you send art files that are set up as RGB, you might be surprised by the results.

5.  Set your image size. In Photoshop: 1) be sure you’re working with image resolution that is 350 dots per inch (DPI) (or at least a minimum 300 DPI) and 2) size the image to be exactly what you’d like on the printed piece.  Be sure to allow some extra image area if you’d like the image to print (‘bleed’) off the edge of the card — we’ll print on bigger paper and trim the page to the correct size.

6.  Prepare a layout for your postcard and magnet, made to the exact size of the final item.  This is best done in a layout program like Illustrator (set to CMYK). You can set your type and position any designs exactly where you’d like them.  Colors can be chosen from the CMYK color palette.  Keep in mind that colors on your screen usually become deeper (darker) when they print as ink on paper.  When colors are printed, and then laminated, they appear deeper still.  Avoid small, light text on dark backgrounds, since the text could fill in.

AI link menu to embed image7.  You can position your Photoshop images on your Illustrator layout.  But to really attach the Photoshop image to the Illustrator file you’ll need to 1)  use the Place command (File -> Place) when you first collect the Photoshop image for Illustrator and 2) then, with the image on the layout, and selected,  use the Embed command (from the Links menu, select ‘Embed Image’).  Otherwise, the image file will not be a part of the Illustrator file and you’ll need to send us the image file separately.

8.  For black graphics and text, you can set the CMYK value to 70%-70%-20%-100%.  This will result in a look that is richer than simple black ink.

9.  In Illustrator, convert any typesetting in your layout to vector outlines.

10.  If you want us to print right to the edge of the card, provide us with graphics that are 1/4″ wider so we can print (with a bleed) and trim.

There is a lot here, and even an experienced designer can run into a snag.  So don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or need help creating your files.

The end result — seeing your magnet mailer at work, making the phone ring — makes it all worth it.

 

Always here to help you make a great postcard magnet campaign:
magnetbyMail.com

 

USPS Requirements

By admin in Design

Yes, the US Post Office can deliver our magnet mailer through their system without a problem.   The magnet stays securely attached to the postcard based on our spot glue process.

US Postal ServiceThe USPS processes our custom printed postcard magnets as machinable, non-automated mail.  Among other things, this means if you’d like to have your magnet mailers sent via first class, the postage rate would be based on the 1 oz. letter rate (not the the postcard rate), plus a charge for special handling (currently $.20ea).

The USPS offers discounted rates for properly prepared bulk mail. Based on these current rates, here are our current postage prices, if you’d like us to do the mailing [updated 1/27/2013] (subject to change without notice):

US Postage rates
  • Third (Standard) class bulk mail: $0.29 ea
  • First class presort mail: $0.44 ea
  • Non-profit bulk mail: $0.21 ea
  • Rate based on machinable, non-automated item
  • We can use your Postal permit; or our permit

If we will be mailing your items, please complete and fax to us a Bulk Mail Form and USPS NCOA Processing Acknowledgement Form — both forms are in the Templates file found on the webpage for each item on our magnetbyMail website. You can choose to use our indicia on the mailing piece (and pay us postage cost), or use your indicia, if it is the type that can be used at any US Post Office (not all are). If using our Indicia, prepare your art layout leaving the appropriate space for us to add the correct Indicia box and text. Note our Mailing List details (also on our website) when preparing your mailing list for us.

Of course, if you want us to ship all the postcard mailers to you, so you can distribute, we can do that, too.  In this case there would be shipping charge for UPS delivery.

Everything you ever wanted to know about mailing postcard magnets is on our website.

And you can always call us.  We’d love to hear from you!

Good photography

By admin in Design, Resources


Photos.com Royalty-Free Photos by Subscription If you’re going to invest money (, time and effort) in a postcard mailer campaign, you should make sure your layout and design looks its best.

If you need good photo images to help convey your message, you should look through .

At Photos.com, you’ll find stock photography that is all shapes and sizes.  At least one of the images is bound to be perfect for your project.

Oh, and prices are very reasonable, too.  There are plenty of great images available for under US$10.

Images at Photos.comImportant note: make sure you obtain high-resolution photos.  For print quality, its good to have images that are at least 200 Dots Per Inch (DPI) resolution.  Images intended for the web can have much less (72 DPI), so don’t download an image intended for a website.

Also, based on my own experience buying an image at Photos.com, I suggest you first, set yourself as a site user, then add the image(s) into your online ‘lightbox’, and then pay for them with your creditcard. Doing this in an other order can become frustrating.  At least that’s my experience.

I do recommend regardless of the abovementioned quirky checkout process.  Pricing seems to be better than iStockPhoto.com .

Just our 2 cents, from magnetbyMail.com

ideas for layouts

By admin in Design, Resources

Need some quality, ready-made art templates for your magnet mailer design?

Check out graphicriver.net for complete design layouts by world-class  artists.

graphicriver.net design templatesFiles generally include high-resolution images, and Adobe Illustrator or  Adobe InDesign elements, and suggestions for font files.

Its most everything you need for camera-ready artwork.  You may need to tweak the layout size to fit a postcard.  And of course, you’ll need to write your own copy…

The best way to use graphicriver.net is to browse through the templates.  Even of you don’t buy anything, you’ll be inspired with plenty of design ideas.  And if you do buy something, you’ll be surprised at the low prices.

Postcard Sample Template from graphicriver.netFor example, check out this collection of card and brochure designs by jahimmyess.  There are plenty to choose from, you can change colors based on your palette, you receive templates for postcards, brochures, forms, and business cards.  And the download will cost less than US$10.

Now that’s impressive!

Our recommended resource for design templates:  www.graphicriver.net

 

 

 

Most Popular

By admin in Design

 

Magnet Postcard for Farmers MarketWhat is our most popular custom printed postcard magnet?

It’s definitely ‘The Basic’ postcard magnet, our half-sheet, full-color postcard and businesscard – sized magnet.

Why?

Well, sure the low price helps.  Even in small quantities, they’re about a dollar or less, including standard-rate postage .

But the magnet size makes a lot of sense to many marketers.  Mail recipients don’t necessarily want a huge magnet on their refrigerator unless it has extremely useful info, its very attractive, or they know (and like) the sender very well.

So when you’re new to somebody’s kitchen, it might be good to think ‘baby steps.’

The Basic gets the job done.

It’s available at our website at: magnetbyMail.com