Meeting with the printers

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I decided to visit a printers over Easter, which is local to where I live to get a quote and an overall idea of what they can do. At the moment I don’t have a clear idea of how I want my layout to look but I know I want to be square and a similar size to this booklet (shown below)

 and have a gloss front and back cover with silk or satin inside pages.  The booklet show below is just one I received when I was training as an associate for Victoria’s Secret but I like the shape and the size as it was small enough to go into your hand bag but big enough to have large, good quality images on and make it more special than just another store handout. I felt gloss would look luxurious and sleek for the front and back cover. Whist the silk and satin paper felt nice and didn’t have too much shine on it that you couldn’t see the paper. 

After discussing sizes I was told they were only able to standard sizes such as A4 and A5 etc. I felt that A5 would be too small and I was adamant on have a square shape. We came to the agreement that the book could be printed in A4 size but the height and width would be A4 so it would be square. We also discussed different ways of binding. I was shown a magnetic bind, which was a hard spine that I could have in graphite or black. (Example shown below) 
 

--> I liked this because it felt quite sturdy. I don’t want my look book to feel like something disposable, even though it is for advertising purposes I want it to also be something that a customer would keep to look through. Almost like the Victoria’s Secret catalogues that are sent round in the US. 

I felt positive after going to the printers because everything felt like it was coming together. I decided to go to a printing store that would be able to print my look book rather than sending it off to a company online because it felt more personal. I wanted to meet the people who were printing my book and discuss options and show them my images and plans to ensure that they understood my vision for the book and so they were able to give me there expertise and suggestions on what would make it look best. I looked on online printers such as blurb, but I felt it was to impersonal, I didn’t like the limitations on options and therefore felt that I didn’t have enough control over the outcome. 

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After discussing the printing options with my tutor I was advised not go with the magnetic bind, as it is not right for the type of booklet I am creating and does not fit the Victoria’s Secret brand. After looking around and getting look books and supplements from other beauty brands such as Benefit, Bobbi Brown and Bare minerals. I agree with this and have decided to go with a saddle stitch bind.

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