In no particular order our three 20th anniversary competition winners are:

• Dawn Bontoft – Total Office

• Steve Taylor – Adare International

• Kate Morgan – Office Team

We will be in contact shortly to arrange your prizes.

Thank you to all who took part and we wish you a pleasant and happy New Year!

Best Regards

Print Evolved

Two of our most popular finishes, duplexing and triplexing involve adhering different papers together to create really beautiful finishes. Duplex involves gluing two papers or boards together, while triplexing uses three. Duplexing is a great way to achieve different textures and colours on either side of your print. It also works really well with die-cutting, as you can set the die-cutter to only cut out the top layer, revealing the second colour underneath. Triplexing can be used to get a coloured seam running through the centre of a card.

Duplex and Triplexing are a great way to make your print look special and definitely more classy. Used mostly for corporate invites and business cards, these finishing processes give an extra touch, showing your customers that you pay attention to detail and that your brand is a premium one. Emboss a triplexed invite for an outstanding result that will suggest your guests a luxury event from the second they receive it and Print a triplex business card to make a memorable first impression that will last.

If you are not sure what would work best for you, pop in for a chat, or ring us. We are happy to help!

No More Chores! Integrate!

Integration is a word that typically terrifies all but the most hardened of techies. Done right however integration can make life better for everyone connected to your business.

Benefits include:

• Reduced cost to serve
• Improved buying experience
• Increased awareness of print offer
• Total order visibility
• Quicker fulfilment
• Reduction of service queries

With this in mind we have added a multitude of ways in which Cognitu can integrate seamlessly with your existing eCommerce and MIS (management information systems).

So what is it?

Integration typically comes in 2 main flavours front end, streamlining the UX (user experience) and back office, optimising administration processes.

Integrated User Experience

With front end integration we recommend simply automating user logins when jumping from your website to our web2print solution. Removing the need for your users to remember multiple logins, ensuring they see your full offer as they travel via your main site and giving them total access to all of our software’s capabilities.

Integrated Back Office

Optimising your administration processes is where integration truly shines. By allowing your order processing systems to communicate with Cognitu you can strip away many painfully laborious and repetitive tasks, saving time and money across the board. Processes we can help automated include:

• Order creation
• PO acceptance
• Despatch notification
• Invoice processing

How do I get it?

Getting integrated can be relatively easy depending on your needs and the capabilities of your existing systems. If your website caters for cXML (commerce eXtensible Markup Language) or OPXML (a BOSS standard) you may be halfway there already, If not don’t fret we have a multitude of APIs to suit your needs.

Get in touch with your account manager to get started on your integration journey.

As far back as ancient Egypt, the allure of gold and silver in print has caught the attention of our inner magpies, and it’s no different with consumers nowadays.

This appeal may not have changed, but the techniques for adding a little shine to design has adapted over time to meet the ever growing needs of our customers.

We have always offered high quality foiling, alongside embossing and debossing services. These processes involve the creation of a metal foiling die with a raised section in the shape of the desired image which would be mounted on a traditional letterpress printing press. Once set up the printed work would be fed into the machine, where gold foil would be pressed onto the print using the hot die, leaving a great impression of the foiled design on the printed piece.

The digital era has made the legend of Midas a reality, allowing any artwork to be brought to life with a touch of gold. Almost as if the technology has gone full circle, this new technique is similar to the way ancient Egyptians adorned gold leaf onto statues. With a little ingenuity we can now adhere gold foil to printed items using the adhesive properties of the ink itself.

With this technology we can now offer foiling much faster, for shorter print runs and even cater for personalisation jobs such as tickets, certificates and invitations cost effectively.

Features

• An extensive selection of foils ranging from traditional to coloured metallics
• Clear foiling to achieve spot UV effects at a fraction of the cost
• Holographic such as sparkle or carbon fibre
• Fully personalised

Contact your account manager for more details on our digital and traditional foiling service

Workflows are a vital part of any web2print system, helping you to manage and organise your order pipeline, catering for all your post-order needs. They are a particular requirement for Large Corporates, Multi site businesses and also Companies that operate a matrix organisational structure.

Workflows act as the communication tool to manage authorisation/approval procedures that would normally be performed by people if they were sitting next to each other. They can also be used to create awareness of certain activity

Typical tasks any workflow may need to facilitate are:

• Authorise
  • Sign-off Orders Financially
  • Check Artwork Compliance
  • Legal/Regulatory approval
• Collaborate
  • Team Up to Create Newsletters
  • Get Business Cards Translated
• Automate
  • Send Notification Emails
  • Perform Automated Checks
• Design
  • Get Artwork Recreated
  • Use Our Design Studio Services

Within Cognitu one or more tasks can be joined together, creating workflows as simple or as elaborate as your needs.

Call your account manager to learn more and discuss how we can help you save time and improve the way your web2print order system works

Make your templates do the hard work so you don’t have to.

Below is a short guide on how to make the most out of your online templates and how to brief these in correctly.

Top Tips for building a template

• Drop Downs – if you have multiple data sets make sure you set your template up with a drop down to keep it clean and easy.
• Lock it down – If there is only one address needed on your product, lock it down. Less is best.
• Profile Data – If each location will be ordering for themselves then consider using profile data so products are automatically populated based on the user or group they belong to.

Key things to remember when briefing in a template,

• Always use the Template Wizard
• Provide all information upfront in as much detail as possible.
• Artwork needs to be high resolution PDFs with bleed and packaged with any fonts used.
• Artwork should show the maximum data length and all possible fields required.

Use your existing templates Smarter

An often overlooked aspect of Cognitu’s capabilities is address books, simplifying address entry within the delivery stage, saves time and improves the ordering experience. By just supplying a spreadsheet in the correct format to the template team we can upload this into your client setups on your behalf.

Use your order history! If you frequently need purchase order number reports, cost centre spends, usage reports etc. Cognitu’s downloadable order history can help. What’s more you can even tailor the information to your needs.

Our NEW Digital Washing Machine is here to help!

It checks the files are print ready and fixes many minor artwork issues. If the artwork cannot be fixed instantly you can choose to send via an automated workflow to our expert studio team to be fixed, recreated or even designed from scratch.

What’s more as it’s all done online, the whole process is easily trackable and the final order is available to reorder in the future.

Full Wash

• Artwork Upload – Checks the files (FOC)
• Artwork Creation – Recreate from a scan or a photo (Fixed price)
• Design Service – Build artwork from scratch (Quoted)

Quick Spin

• Artwork Upload – Checks the files

You will have products that are not template-able due to ad-hoc additions of text or accreditations etc. so let us set up a file submission product for you. You can then upload these non-conformist PDFs within your portal, making the item visible, trackable and re-orderable within Cognitu and with a fraction of the hassle associated with manual orders.

Benefits

• Frees up your studio time
• No costly contract rates
• Instant response

Speak to your account manager or the sales team if you would like to find out how this can be added to your portal on 0207 566 5070

Get custom watermarked paper for the fraction of the cost of traditional methods.

With our specialist finishing capabilities we can apply a custom watermark during the print process, making the paper unique and hard to duplicate as well as showcasing your brand in a different way. The watermark can be anything you want and this process gives a much sharper result than more traditional methods.

This process is ideal for letter heads and certificates but can also be added to luxury pads, appointment cards and invitations.

Key Features

• Added security for your printed items
• Create more brand awareness throughout your stationary lines
• Add a luxury aspect to your product offering
• No minimum order quantity

Add a bespoke Watermark to your letter heads for as little as £14.99* per 1000  *price based on an order of 10,000 sheets

There are a few things to remember when adding watermarks to one of your products.

• It works best on Uncoated 100gsm
• You get a cleaner image on non-textured substrates
• Designs such as logo work best

If you would like to discuss any of the above in further detail please call us on 0207 566 5070

To request a sample please fill in the form below: