You spoke, we listened: the 2016 highlights

The year 2016 was an eventful one here at printed.com, and we like to think that’s because of you and your (quite frankly) brilliant ideas. There were so many innovations and launches inspired by you that we couldn’t fit them all into one blog post. After agonising over the list, we chose some of your best bits and assembled them into this little trip down memory lane.

Roll up your sleeves, here we go…

More time to order essentials

You’d normally have to order before midday to get your standard turnaround, but you told us that there were certain things you just had to have, like, now. With that in mind, we pulled up our socks, cracked our knuckles and pushed back the ordering cut-off time on selected business and wedding stationery essentials, so you can order right up until 5pm and still get your standard 48 hour turnaround time. Bosh!

You be-spoke, we be-listened: bespoke ordering launched

Any way you want it, that’s the way you need it! Here at printed.com we talk a lot of ‘your print, your way’ chatter, but we mean what we say. This year saw the launch of the bespoke ordering form—you use it to tell us just exactly what you want, and we get back in touch with a quote and turnaround time in 24 hours or less.

The white ink revolution happened

You’ve been after this for a white and 2016 was the year your dreams came true. The innovative, fresh finish didn’t just give you the exciting new challenge of designing for white ink printing (just think of the possibilities!), it also brought a range of seven uncoated, high-pigment coloured papers with it. Heck yes! You can try your hand at a spot of white ink printing when you order leaflets and flyers, business cards and postcards.

You fell in love with envelope liners

Love is in the air and envelope liners are in the…envelopes. This one goes out to you, wedding stationers. You asked us for envelope liners and we pulled some strings at our print facility to make them a reality. You can get them in four sizes to fit standard envelopes and in six of our most popular paper stocks.

Branded notebooks stocked your stationery cupboards

Is there a stationery lover alive that doesn’t dream of having their own personalised, branded notebook? You can build your ideal notebook by selecting from white or black wire binding, blank or ruled inner pages, and eight different cover options, including tearproof. Bring one of these out in a client meeting and be the envy of the table or send them out as corporate gifts and get really popular really quickly.

Wrapping paper rocked your world

Every single one of you had the potential to become wrap artists this year when wrapping paper sheets launched. Created for retailers and anyone with the urge to make their own printed gift wrap sets, these uncoated A2 sheets of joy are available single or double-sided and make the act of branding and packaging products a doddle.

The choice was clear…stickers

These are something we’ve been working on for a while, so when they launched a few months ago, we knew you’d be made up. By printing on clear crack-back, you get to have both transparent and opaque elements in your design, so you’ve got loads of room to get innovative and playful. They make pretty darn impressive product labels—we love them for wine and spirit bottles.

Seven new stocks

Forget Christmas stockings, these are the only stocks that count. You guys are massively into your luxury papers, so we were more than a little bit excited to go out paper testing on your behalf. It resulted in two new textured papers and another iridescent paper: Rives Shetland, Fresco Gesso and Ice Gold. You can find them on most small format products, so get stuck in!

Sitting at the technical end of the ‘new paper’ spectrum is tearproof (on leaflets and flyers, table talkers, branded notebook covers and business cards) weatherproof (on outdoor posters), mesh banner (on banners) and two new self-adhesive vinyl substrates—removable and repositionable matt vinyl.

Phew! We’re going to need a sit down and a mince pie after all that summarising. If there’s anything you want to see happen in 2017, make your way to the Ideas Board in My Account and let us know—we love a challenge.