• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Printing for Less

Printing for Less

Satisfaction Guarantee

At Printing for Less, we've offered high quality online printing services since 1996. Shop business cards, booklets, stickers, and more!

800-930-2423
Get A Quote
  • Products
    • Announcements
    • Banners
    • Booklets
    • Booklet Envelopes
    • Bookmarks
    • Branded Box Printing
    • Brochure Holders
    • Brochures
    • Buck Slips
    • Business Cards
    • Calendar Printing
    • Campaign Printing
    • Carbonless Forms
    • Catalogs
    • CD Covers
    • Club Cards
    • Coil Bound Booklets
    • Custom Printing
    • Digital Printing
    • Door Hangers
    • EDDM Postcards
    • Envelopes
    • File Folders
    • Flyers
    • Folded Business Cards
    • Folders
    • Forms
    • Greeting Cards
    • Hang Tags
    • Holiday Cards
    • Invitations
    • Labels
    • Large Envelopes
    • Large Format
    • Large Posters
    • Letterhead/Envelope
    • Magnets
    • Mailer Printing
    • Mailing Envelopes
    • Mailing Services
    • Memo Pads
    • Menus
    • NCR Forms
    • Newsletters
    • Note Cards
    • Notepads
    • Offering Envelopes
    • Packaging
    • Plastic Cards
    • Pocket Folders
    • Postcards
    • Posters
    • Post-it® Notes
    • Presentation Folders
    • Rack Cards
    • Recieipt Books
    • Remittance Envelopes
    • Sell Sheets
    • Signs
    • Statement Stuffers
    • Stationery
    • Stickers
    • Table Tents
    • Tickets
    • Variable Data Printing
    • Vinyl Banners
    • Yard Signs
  • Industries
    • Advertising & Design
    • Real Estate
    • Medical
    • Food & Beverage
    • Non-Profit
    • University
    • Technology
    • Enterprise
  • Services
    • Reseller Program
    • Fulfillment
    • Digital Printing
    • Mailing Services
    • Custom Solutions
    • Design Services
    • Hybrid Experience Platform
  • Resources
    • Marketing & Design Tips
    • Templates
    • Blog
    • Help & FAQs
    • Printing Terms & Glossary
    • Video Library
  • Get Samples
  • My Login
  • Contact
  • About
    • Why Printing for Less?
    • Our Team

Plastics and Printing

Plastics and Print

We’ve added some real innovations to the printing industry in our 20 year history, and one that we’re really proud of is SmartFlex® paper. This is a synthetic paper that is made from plastic but has the same look, feel, and properties (well, the good properties) of regular wood-pulp.

We developed this paper stock and put it to use printing anything that needs to look perfect, but still be perfectly indestructible. How tough is SmartFlex? Well, here is a list of its superpowers:

  • It can’t be drowned – totally waterproof, your printed materials can go for a swim.
  • It can’t be torn – incredibly tear-resistant, you can’t accidently tear the edges of SmartFlex prints.
  • It’s always looks great – stain-resistance means coffee can’t harm it, making SmartFlex a great choice for menus.

Obviously, we love SmartFlex and we’re proud to bring innovation to the printing landscape. We also know how to print on plastic paper, winning tons of awards for our quality and customer service, but SmartFlex is just the tip of the plastic iceberg. There’s a whole world of plastics to explore.

Plastic Cards

Stand out with a plastic business card – perfect if you’re the sort of person that works on or near water or the outdoors. You can use affordable plastic cards to create your own membership cards, renewal cards, and personal entry or data cards. Think items like magnetic strips, barcodes, and personalization is out of your budget? Think again!

Take a look at plastic cards for a variety of uses if you’re exploring new marketing options. They can be added to direct mail sends or other printed pieces where they form a very official, tangible centerpiece. Plastic cards have an air of authority and can boost others’ perception of your company.

Menus and Brochures

Plastic paper like SmartFlex® really shines when it is used in a food and beverage environment. The plastic paper comes in different weights (sorta like thickness) that can be folded into familiar (or unique) menus. Just like regular paper, you can get SmartFlex in a variety of finishes and coatings – but no matter what you choose, you’re going to benefit from the waterproof and stain-resistant superpower of plastic paper. Not to mention, it’s basically indestructible so your customers won’t be banging up your menus, leaving them looking dingy and grubby.

Brochures, maps, and field guides are all great options for synthetic paper.

SmartFlex_Drink_Menu

Hang-tags

Hang-tags cover a range of items, from door hangers that can be used as marketing materials to ID or parking badges for hanging in, or on, a car. Hang-tags are often exposed to the elements and need to be protected from the weather. Plastics are a great idea, and if the plastic is coated with any type of protective coating, such as a matte finish, it will help reduce the effects of light fading the ink over times.

Thick Outdoor Plastics

Sometimes you need to go big or go home. The thickest types of plastic we print on is called Styrene. Made from composited layers of plastic, this material comes in a range of sizes and is so thick it can’t be folded, but it can be die cut and it prints very well. This rugged material can be used in outdoor promotional materials, window cards, lightbox signs, bus stop advertisements and anything that needs to take a serious beating.

Special Effects and Plastics

Because of the special way plastic reacts to ink, there are some printing effects that can’t really make it into plastic printing.

  • Pantone colors, or spot color can’t usually print on plastics (it would make them way too expensive).
  • Metallic foil doesn’t work well on plastics.
  • Embossing plastic cards, like a business card, is really only possible if you do a special font and restrict the embossing to just number and letters – perfect for something like a credit card, but you can’t emboss your logo.

Some effects look really, really good with plastics.

  • Plastics can fold very well, if they’re not too thick.
  • Die-cut plastics look fantastic.
  • Special UV effects and metallic foil tend to pop on plastics.

Plastics are an exciting new world for printing. Plastic printing is functional, beautiful, and plastics are completely recyclable. We are leading the industry in plastic-based papers.

Need help with your print? Talk to a live print expert today: 800-930-7978.

Primary Sidebar

RELATED ARTICLES

Saving Images: JPEG Format

This is the fourth posting about formats for saving images. We started a couple weeks ago with the Photoshop PSD format. Then we continued with TIFF and EPS formats. Normally, we associate JPEG files with images prepared for web or on-screen use. Because JPEG supports a full range of RGB colors … Read More >

Examine Your PDFs with Acrobat’s Output Preview

Output Preview is a convenient Adobe Acrobat tool which helps you visually troubleshoot your PDF files before they go to print. Output Preview will display content selectively, based on whatever options you choose through the Output Preview dialog. Visual troubleshooting can be a quick and … Read More >

How Small Businesses Can Use Direct Mail

Direct mail is one of the tried and true channels of marketing. It has been in use for a very long time and forms one of the foundations of the traditional marketing mix. With the rise of digital marketing, direct mail has fallen from popularity, replaced by email, search engine marketing (SEM) and … Read More >

OpenType Typography

In our first blog posting about the OpenType font format, we discussed its advantages. This posting will discuss some of the extra typographic effects that are possible with OpenType fonts. The actual typographic features built into an OpenType font vary by font. In the OpenType submenu of … Read More >

Why the Font Should I Care?

Sometimes an idea is great enough to rise above even the worst presentation.  For all other ideas no pictures, poor grammar, or a bad font can lose your audience before you even have a chance. In the span of human history, few things have truly changed our culture more than the invention of the … Read More >

How to Fix White Lines in a PDF File

Have you ever seen fine white lines appear when you print out a PDF proof of a page, and are afraid that they will appear in your final product when your commercial printer prints it? In the example below, notice the fine white lines on the right side of the man on the purple … Read More >

12 Ways to Make College Brochures Stand Out From the Pack

Direct mail is a popular marketing channel for college recruitment. Starting in the spring, more than a million high school students will be sitting down to take the SATs and PSATs, and most of these tests have a small box that the student can check to receive information on different schools. For … Read More >

Flattening Transparency in Creative Suite Applications

Adobe Creative Suite applications like Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator support many kinds of transparency. You can assign opacity and blending mode attributes to objects. You can create effects like drop shadows and glows. And you can place graphics from other applications in the PSD, TIFF, AI, … Read More >

Footer

Printing for Less

info@printingforless.com
100 P F L Way, Livingston, MT 59047

800-924-2041

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Products
  • Industries
  • Services
  • Get Samples
  • Resources
  • Guides
  • Templates
  • Blog
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Contact
  • About
  • Why Printing for Less?
  • Our Team
  • Careers
  • Login

Copyright © 1998-2023 PrintingforLess.com. All Rights Reserved.

logo
  • 866-501-7488
  • Products
  • Industries
  • Services
  • Resources
  • Get Samples
  • Get a Quote
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • My Login