Copyright 2007 Forest Stewardship Council, A.C. All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the publisher’s copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means (graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, recording taping, or information retrieval systems) without the written permission of the publisher.

Colourtime has made the decision to become FSC certified, showing that we comply with the highest social and environmental standards on the market. The certification process is carried out by independent organizations who assess forest management and chain of custody operations against FSC standards. After a thorough review Colourtime is proud to announce that we have passed the audit and have been granted the ability to use the FSC seal certifying our commitment to maintaining an environmentally responsible business!

For more information about how Colourtime can help your next marketing campaign or financial report be a little “greener” please call us at 1.866.372.6567 to find out more about our FSC certified products.
For more information about the certification process, the strict environmental standards or where to locate manufacturers or distributors please visit www.fsc.org.

Tags: Alliance, certification, council, forest, FSC, Rainforest, stewardship
Posted in Environment, For Your Information, Innovation, Print Industry | No Comments »

When people think of Canada the first thing that usually comes to mind is hockey- a fervor and passion that Canadians seem to share whether male or female, young or old, professional athletes or out of shape co-workers getting together once a week. But, Canada is also responsible for inventing other great sports- the most famous of which are lacrosse, bowling, basketball and ringette.

While it is said that lacrosse was originally played by tribes of Native Americans, it wasn’t until 1856 when the dentist Dr. William George Beers founded the Montreal Lacrosse Club. In 1867 he codified the rules, shortening the length of each game and reducing the number of players to twelve per team.

In early December 1891, Dr. James Naismith, a physical education professor and instructor at a YMCA Training School, sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied during the long New England winters. Nailing a peach basket to the balcony of the gym proved to be the beginning of the now immensely popular basketball.

Whether or not you already knew this, you’ll have a new opportunity to remember each time you send off a love letter or thank you note. The latest in a new series of four postage stamps designed by Toronto firm q30 feature the original equipment used in each of the sports with an outline of the court or field in the background.

Sophisticated and timeless, the stamps emphasize the sports’ beginnings, which, as q30 principal Peter Scott claims, “are indebted to the creative thinking of their Canadian inventors.”

Posted in For Your Information, Graphic Design | No Comments »

No matter the industry, in order to remain a successful business it is imperative to stay informed about new technologies, new tendencies and trends, and new products or services that your company may be able to incorporate into their offerings.

Many companies that have been in business for decades are sure that they have found the winning solution- and on the one hand they are right. Considering the statistics that claim over half of new businesses fail within the first year, any business that achieves that kind of longevity has certainly earned its place in the market. But as any professional gambler will tell you, past success is no guarantee of future success. Even a thriving business can take a hit without realizing why.

So what’s the solution? Well there isn’t one magic answer, but it’s always a good idea to stay abreast of what the leaders in the industry are doing. Are your competitors buying more up to date equipment, hiring more staff or introducing new products? Maybe they have started to include discounts for return customers or have invested in a completely redesigned marketing campaign. You may choose to adapt some of these same techniques, or you may decide that they are not right for you or are out of your price range, but by attending conferences, workshops and trade shows you are one step closer to making sure your company is taking advantage of all the options it has available.

That’s one of the reasons why ColourTime sends representatives to print shows across Canada and the U.S. One of the upcoming shows, Graphics Canada, is Canada’s largest and will be held November 12-14 2009 at the Toronto International Centre. It includes sectors devoted to sign printing, mail fulfillment, graphic design and plenty of new equipment and software. We are busy maintaining our edge so we can help your company maintain theirs.

Posted in For Your Information, Innovation, Print Industry, Tips and Techniques | No Comments »

Last week the Vancouver Organizing Committee unveiled the designs for the 2010 Olympic Tickets. So far VANOC has only release images of tickets for four of the events: opening ceremonies, curling, cross-country-skiing, and of course—hockey (pictured at left).

The designs match the aesthetics and include the design elements that all of the superbly branded Vancouver 2010 promotional posters, banners, and clothing.

More that 1 million ticket in all will be printed. Each ticket will be printed with a holographic images, a watermark on the back, microprinting, and special ultraviolet light-sensitive fibres to reduce counterfeiting. The tickets are beign printed by the same specialty printer responsible for the 1996 and 2000 olympic games ticket.

To coincided with the release of the ticket designs VANOC has released more that 150,000 additional tickets for the winter Olympic events. The 21st Winter Olympics, will be held February 12-28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the resort town of Whistler nearby. Both the Olympic and Paralympic Games are being organized by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC).

Between ticket sales, tourist visits, and the construction efforts VANOC estimates this year alone the Games will inject more than a billion dollars into the economy, most of it here in Vancouver.

More on the ticket designs available at The Vancouver Sun

Posted in For Your Information, Graphic Design, Just Plain Cool, Vancouver News | No Comments »

Anyone who has heard experts discuss the current economic crisis, no matter what their political persuasion, will surely have come to the conclusion that the lack of oversight and regulation by a third party was largely to blame.  While financial specifics such as leverage and illiquidity play their role in this complicated equation, the relative absence of a qualified organization of outsiders intelligent enough to understand the financial loopholes but ethical enough not to take advantage of them, is the more serious and overarching problem.  If we can take away one lesson from this recession, let it be this- humans are fallible.  We tend to be short-sighted and in this era of gleefully unchecked capitalism we tend to put profits before the well-being of communities.  Thank goodness then, for the Forest Stewardship Council.

In the past decade we’ve seen environmental awareness take on more importance, both in the lives of individuals and in the boardroom. Caring about the earth and its future is no longer just for hippies. In fact it has become a powerful a marketing strategy, which is precisely why consumers should be wary when purchasing products or services claiming to be “environmentally friendly.”  This is a vague term that may mean anything from not testing products on animals, to using a certain percentage of post-consumer waste, to simply incorporating the color green in the packaging implying a contrived affinity with the “green movement.”

The Forest Stewardship Council has been around for over 15 years focusing on one very important component to environmental protection- global deforestation. FSC is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. FSC provides a certification system with internationally recognized standards for communities interested in responsible forestry.  FSC recognizes the fact that many consumers try to do the right thing by buying responsibly produced products but that the choices can sometimes be confusing.  At least when it comes to timber and paper products business and individuals alike can make an informed decision.

That is why Colourtime has made the decision to become FSC certified, showing that we comply with the highest social and environmental standards on the market. The certification process is carried out by independent organizations who assess forest management and chain of custody operations against FSC standards.  After a thorough review Colourtime is proud to announce that we have passed the audit and have been granted the ability to use the FSC seal certifying our commitment to maintaining an environmentally responsible business!

For more information about how Colourtime can help your next marketing campaign or financial report be a little “greener” please call us at 1.866.372.6567  to find out more about our FSC certified products.
For more information about the certification process, the strict environmental standards or where to locate manufacturers or distributors please visit www.fsc.org.

Posted in Environment, For Your Information, Innovation, Print Industry | No Comments »

Vancouver residents are already well aware that their city is source of pride. After all, Vancouver has been voted one of the top places to live numerous times, including a world wide survey taken in 2007 which ranked Vancouver 3rd out of 215 cities. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting this verdant metropolitan capital, do yourself a favor and put in on your to-do list, if only for a weekend. While our neighbors to the south may suffer from delusions that all Canadians live in igloos or commute to work by dog sled, those who are in the know relish in the exquisite natural surroundings, rich cultural heritage, and delicious international cuisine.

Many of those who have gotten to know Vancouver have done so through conventions held at our beautiful Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre (VCEC). Located right on the water with a beautiful view of the harbor and conveniently situated in the heart of downtown, the VCEC offers visitors more than just a typical convention experience. In fact, about one-third of convention delegates enjoy themselves so much that they end up traveling to other parts of the province as part of their stay.

Opened on July 4, 1987, the existing Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre got its start as the Canada Pavilion during Expo 86. According to the VCEC website, “Within 10 years, the convention centre was at capacity with an obvious need for additional space, particularly as Vancouver became known as one of North America ’s leading meeting and convention destinations.” That’s why the PavCo. partnership has decided to build a new convention centre as an extension of the existing waterfront location. The 1.1 million sq. ft. project will triple the convention centre’s existing capacity and help generate an additional $107 million annually in delegate spending. On average, a delegate will spend about $350 per day during their visit to Vancouver, injecting national and international capital into our local economy. In 2010, the VCEC will also be home of the 2010 Olympic Games media and broadcast centres.

One of the most exciting and unique features of the convention centre aside from the spectacular floor-to-ceiling glass, is a six-acre living roof, one of the largest of its kind in the world. “The convention centre expansion not only breaks new ground in terms of design, it will also be a showcase for sustainability with such things as the living roof,” said Olga Ilich, Minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts and minister responsible for the expansion of the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre. “It is all the more gratifying when a BC firm demonstrates the ability to provide the expertise and creativity required for leading edge projects like this.” The sustainable design of the living roof includes drainage and water recovery systems that will collect rainwater to irrigate the nearly 400,000 native plants and wild grasses that will create a downtown “urban oasis.” With sustainability making the transformation from noble ideal to marketable reality, it is no wonder that businesses, governments and individual citizens are demanding more environmentally-geared projects- especially those financed with public funding.

The new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco opened in late September 2008 with a similarly green aspirations- a living roof covering almost 2 acres. It is precisely the addition of such a unique environmental feature that has begun to draw a different kind of crowd. The wait to get into the museum on their monthly “free day” in late December was over 2 hours long.

The Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre will be adding 335,000 square feet of function space to the existing 133,000 square feet, for a combined total of 468,000 square feet of meeting, exhibition, ballroom and theatre space. In addition to the employment opportunities created during construction, the project will generate more than 7,500 direct and indirect full-time jobs once it is opened in 2009. With additional public amenities including more accessible outdoor and plaza space, retail space and restaurants one can only assume that this long-awaited expansion will be a source of pride for Vancouverites as well as a source of joy and inspiration for those who have the privilege to visit.

Posted in Environment, For Your Information, Innovation, Just Plain Cool, Vancouver News | No Comments »

Just like in any profession or hobby, the interrelated worlds of printing and graphic design have many ins and outs, lots of important details and according to who you ask- very specific tools, processes, shortcuts and insiders’ tips. There are plenty of resources to help anyone better understand the design process and its follow-through to a great printed product- from books and magazines to blogs with tutorials and instructional videos. While all of us at Colourtime consider ourselves to be experts, any professional can benefit from a little brush up from time to time. If you consider yourself to be a desktop publishing connoisseur, here are a few tests you can take to see how you measure up:

The first one has to do with color in general and hue specifically. According to Wikipedia colors with the same hue are usually distinguished with adjectives referring to their lightness. This test shows four sets of color swatches with the varying hues mixed up between them. You have to rearrange the swatches so that the spectrum is correct.

Hue Test

Now good designers know how to effectively use typography to completely change the look of any composition. Pre-press technicians must have almost encyclopedic knowledge of fonts as they are often missing in files sent by customers and they must locate or find a suitable substitute for the missing font. This test, presented by www.ilovetypography.com could use some improvement, but it is tricky and even you experts may find yourselves forgetting the difference between script and calligraphic!

Font Test

Now, I did spend a good chunk of time looking for quizzes out there covering a variety of appropriately print-related topics such as inks, paper, composition and white space, even software shortcuts, but no luck. I did, however find what appears to a SERIOUS online review and final exam broken down into eight separate quizzes:

1. What is Desktop Publishing?
2. Page Layout
3. Prepress
4. Printing, Printing Presses
5. Elements of Design
6. Principles of Design
7. Typography
8. Text Composition

These quizzes are based on the material presented by the site itself- so their validity as the absolutely correct answers across the board certainly varies. I also found some of the questions irrelevant based on each printers’ own work-flow and preferences. One question in the pre-press section asks the difference between a contact proof, a contract proof and a press proof. In the print world you will also hear the terms soft proof, blue-line proof, final proof, customer proof…the nomenclature is essentially unimportant as long as you understand the concept. If you have a few minutes go ahead, see how well you do on the About.com final exam.

Desktop Publishing Final Exam

These tests are not only useful to those who work in the print world, they are also helpful to customers of the print world- whether you are a designer or just an independent business owner, familiarizing yourself with the print process makes you a better, more informed customer and ultimately increases the probability of the product turning out exactly how you want the first time around.

P.S.- As many print designers are also web designers, (the two worlds are converging at an alarming rate) I include a fun quiz that doesn’t actually test any knowledge on your part, rather it asks you to check adjectives that describe you from a long list of possible choices. It only takes about 3 minutes at the end of which you find out based on your answers which of the 144 named HTML colors describe you. The colors are found based on hue (how you think), saturation (how much you do about it), and lightness (the effect you think it has). Apparently I’m paleturquoise #AFEEEE!

HTML Color Personality Test

Posted in For Your Information, Graphic Design, Print Industry, Tips and Techniques | No Comments »

Time Flies.

It has been thirty years since the two Brenner brothers opened their first shop on Burrard Street. The quick copiers were humming to the tunes of Fleetwood Mac as the business flourished serving customer’s needs for short-run, fast black and white documents. Originally named “Copy Time,” the business grew quickly.

As the printing world dramatically changed, technology moved from lead type and typewriters to word processors, personal computers, and desktop publishing. Project timelines went from weeks down to days and sometimes even down to minutes for quick changes. The team managed to keep pace with all the changes and continued to upgrade equipment and services.

In 2000, the company, having been a diversified printer for many years, decided they had outgrown the name “Copy Time” and updated their identity to “Colour Time” to reflect their growing expertise in colour document production. The staff, many of whom have worked for the company for ten or more years, are a fine-tuned working group of specialists, devoted to keeping customers happy. Thank you to everyone who has helped make ColourTime the success that it is!

Posted in For Your Information, Print Industry, Vancouver News | Comments Off

Photography, whether digital or traditional, is a tricky art form. With the aid of photo editing software such as Photoshop, the possibilities seem to be limitless- changing not just basic color information such as sepia tone or black and white, but allowing the user to reach into the photo and change, enhance or diminish reflections, skin tone, back lighting, and lens flares. A photographer can make a photo appear to be a watercolor painting, a charcoal sketch or even a high tech rendering of etched glass. Colors can be flipped and inverted so that the end result bears almost no resemblance to the original image.

Of course all of these tool and tricks must be used with caution. The internet is full of sites where people show off their photography (Deviant Art, Flickr) and in viewing these you are likely to come across many cityscapes that have been converted into candy-land renditions of an acid flashback. Tweaked beyond repair, these photos are the evidence that in addition to fancy software and a fast computer, in order to produce a truly great photograph one must also possess the more traditional aesthetic mindset which naturally leads to excellent composition, interesting subject matter, appropriate lighting and good taste in general.

Now, even if you have all of the aforementioned items checked off your list, if the photo is out of focus, you’re pretty much out of luck. Of course you can try to work around it, use the Sharpen tool, make a mask and use the Healing tool on the background to increase the contrast between the two…but ultimately, even the most talented photo editor will agree, there is little to be done with an out of focus photo. And in most instances, we cannot go back to that time and place to capture that same magical moment.

This is where Adobe comes into the story, the protagonist and superhero ready to lend an able hand. Or at least, ready to tell you about a prototype of a piece of hardware that they will encourage camera companies to manufacture in order to use a new tool they would like to introduce in their software in say, 10 years. But the hope is there, and the prototype is oh-so-cool, so let’s take a look.

Adobe, most well known for programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, seems to have effectively taken over the market when it come to graphic design. With their purchase of Macromedia in 2005, Adobe now offers a slew of programs to do anything from creating animated banner ads for cell phones to complex websites to laying out entire newspapers and magazines. To stay competitive, the researchers at Adobe came up with a camera lens unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It has 19 small lenses and prisms that capture the same scene from slightly different angles in order to create a “3D photograph,” according to Dave Story in a French press conference in October of 2007.

At first glance, Story shows19 versions of the same photograph, and the difference is so slight that it makes you wonder what all the fuss is about. Then he explains, “With that we are able to determine the depth of every pixel in the scene.” Story then shifts the focus from the statue in the midground to the statue in the foreground, then again to focus on the wall in the background, changing the depth of field in a matter of seconds. Very cool. Then he keeps the statue in the midground in focus and the foreground out of focus and goes in with a “focus tool” and essentially “paints” the parts of the image he wants to be in focus. Conversely, he later goes in with an “unfocus” tool and “again “paints” the areas he would like to be out of focus. The result is really impressive- imagine taking just one photo and having all these options that before would have been utterly impossible to do with a camera alone and difficult, messy and unprofessional to do with the current tools available in Photoshop.

There are those who are drooling all over themselves waiting for this new fly-eye lens to come out on the market, and there are those are ideologically opposed, claiming that soon no one will need to have any skill whatsoever to take a decent photograph. Watch the videos yourself and see what you think. The French video is pretty low- quality but is a longer explanation and shows the “focus” tool I mentioned. The NotCot site has a higher quality video but it is much shorter and includes less explanation.

Posted in For Your Information, Graphic Design, Innovation, Just Plain Cool | Comments Off

Printers like ColourTime, who offer a wide range of services and fast turn-around, are always concerned about the quality of their products and offering a high level of customer service. According to Toni McQuilken in the February issue of Printing News, this is part of a growing trend, “The industry as a whole is trying hard to move away from a strictly manufacturer role to more of a service provider and partner to the clients and end users.”

Part of the way printers look to improve relationships with their clients is by suggesting new products or services that they might enjoy. Because the process of traditional offset printing hasn’t changed much in the past 100 years, this leaves the innovation to other areas such as digital imaging and poster printing, as well as new technologies in either paper or ink. As we take at look at advancements in ink production, it is easy to see how the catalysts of such progress are primarily economic in nature.

In the aforementioned issue of Printing News, McQuilken interviews several representatives from ink manufacturers. Steve Simpson, senior vice president and chief technical officer for Superior Ink states, “In 2007, we saw the continuation of significant price increases in raw material costs, much of which was driven by skyrocketing crude oil costs. Additionally, the cost and availability of seed-derived oils such as linseed was dramatically impacted by the biodiesel movement, where farmers are shifting their crop selection toward corn, soybean, and other more profitable bioethanol feedstocks.”

As with many industries, the most important issue printers and print suppliers see going into 2008 is the subject of sustainability. Sustainability is one of those terms that is difficult to define, possibly bringing to mind images of quaint farmers’ markets or fields full of windmills. Sustainability, however, is just as much an economic term as it is an environmental one. As Wikipedia sees it, those in favor of a “sustainable approach” strive to make “human economic systems last longer and have less impact on ecological systems.”

While we often associate sustainability (or lack thereof) with major global problems such as climate change and oil depletion, it is important to remember that any economic unit- a business, a household- will naturally benefit from resources that last indefinitely. Many businesses are realizing that this “green” trend is moving from merely a buzzword to a profitable business strategy.

Though most printers already offer at least a few options of post consumer recycled paper it appears that we will be seeing even more “green options” in the years to come, including:

***Inks made with vegetable derived oils such as linseed and soybean, as well as resins derived from renewable resources like tall oil and gum rosin.

***100% UV-curable offset inks, which are not only free from volatile organic compounds, but they offer other benefits such as reduced makeready, which leads to less printed waste.

It seems that ensuring both sustainable profits for printers and sustainable resources to protect our environment don’t necessarily represent opposing viewpoints. As for any printers who want to move towards a more sustainable business strategy there are several organizations who offer just that sort of advice such as the Printers’ National Environmental Assistance Center and the new start up website SGP Partnership. For consumers in the U.S. looking for businesses and services in their area with a sustainable approach try pluggreen.com. Canada has its government run site with info about developing sustainable business strategies.

As the SGP site claims, and we have to agree: Print plays a vital role in communication, education, and daily existence. The printing industry has historically understood its effect on the natural world and accepts responsibility to continue efforts to reduce its overall environmental impact.

Posted in Environment, For Your Information, Innovation, Print Industry | Comments Off

Color is a fascinating concept and far more complicated than one might expect considering that the names of colors are one of the first things we learn as children in school. Though color theory is most often studied by artists, designers, photographers and other creative professions, how a color comes to be is actually quite scientific.

Scholars have learned that all the colors in the universe, from the yellows and oranges of leaves in autumn to a neon green paint job on a hot rod, originate from a mere fifteen fundamental physical causes. And these fifteen causes of color combined with the signals received by your eye and sent to your brain are what make us say things like “Wow, what a beautiful sunset!”

The average human eye has three types of cones that sense three different sections of the light spectrum. One cone perceives mostly short wavelengths (450 nanometers) which translates into a bluish color, another cone perceives mostly medium wavelengths (540 nanometers) which we see as a green color and the third cone perceives mostly long wavelengths (580 nanometers) which we interpret as having a red color.

Now anyone who is familiar with photo editing software will immediately recognize these three colors as those that make up the RGB spectrum. In most software of this type, a person is able to adjust the level of each color individually thus changing the overall appearance of the photograph.

The RGB (Red Green Blue) colorspace actually grew out of early experiments done in the late 1920s by W. David Wright and John Guild who mapped all the colors visible to the human eye in a three dimensional graph.As for most people, from an early age it’s hard to grasp the idea that red, green and blue combine to make white. As anyone who used finger paints as a child will attest to, combining red, green and blue paint only leads to a murky brown.

The difference, of course, is that the RGB colorspace is an additive model that combines all primary colored lights, while black is the absence of light. In the CMYK model, it is just the opposite: white is the natural color of the paper or other background, while black results from a full combination of colored inks. CMYK, the model on which the entire printing process is based, stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and K is used to represent Black, though the letter K actually comes from the word Key, as in the key line on the metal plate used to transfer the ink to the paper.

The interesting part comes when we at Colourtime try to match colors designed in an RGB space to our output colors based on a CMYK model. But of course, with the level of expertise we have, it’s no wonder the documents we print end up looking fabulous every time!To learn more about these forms of color, from “made light” to “lost light” to “changed light,” visit the Causes of Color website.

Posted in For Your Information, Graphic Design | Comments Off

Group 1 Software, a Pitney Bowes company, recently sponsored research showing that consumers pay more attention to direct mail than to their online equivalents. Americans, it seems, spend nearly twice as much time reviewing printed statements and other documents received in the mail than the three and a half minutes spent reviewing them on the web. As Rob Pipe, vice president, marketing and strategy for Group 1 Software states, “These findings suggest that organizations who put targeted cross-selling messages on physical statements may achieve higher return on investment.”

The Pitney Bowes press release indicates that this information might be especially useful to banks, credit card companies, mobile phone companies and even governments. The assumption is that if a current or potential customer is spending more time reviewing a company’s printed material, the extra time spent will allow that customer to see information about new products or promotions thus leading to additional sales or a greater level of brand recognition.

Why is it that the average person pays more attention to printed material than their web equivalent? Perhaps, as Jakob Nielsen claims, because “A web page is fundamentally a scrolling experience for the user…Users often begin scrolling before all elements have been rendered, and different users will scroll the page in different ways throughout their reading experience.”

Nielsen, who has been called “the king of usability” (Internet Magazine) and “the smartest person on the Web,” (ZDNet AnchorDesk) points out these restrictions on web-read statements: “less graphics, smaller graphics, shorter text (since it is unpleasant to read online), less fancy typography (since you don’t know what fonts the user has installed), and less ambitious layouts.”

Could it be that aesthetics play such an important role in the amount of time spent reviewing a bank statement? According to this information it seems that when it comes to capturing your customers’ attention for a sustained period of time, direct mailers have the upper hand over their web equivalents. Just another reason to come into ColourTime and let us show you what we can do to help your business.

For more on this research see Group 1’s press release.

For more on print vs. web design, see Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox.

Posted in For Your Information, Innovation, Print Industry, Tips and Techniques | Comments Off