The
2007 CCS Summer Workshops were a big success thanks
to great customer involvement.
by Dana
Hill
There
were over 60 CCS customers attending, many of them
new to the CCS family. The
staff here at CCS enjoyed the opportunity to meet with
you here on our “home turf”.
For those of you that attended and have not yet completed our workshop survey,
please do so by clicking on this link. Your
feedback is very important. We appreciate
your time in giving us your input on the sessions
you attended so that we can continually improve
our seminar and workshops.
The presentations from the Summer Workshops can be found on candidnet under seminar
/ workshops July 29-31, 2007 / presentations.
The dates for the next CCS seminar are February
26th and 27th. The meetings
will be held in Los Angeles at the Sheraton Universal. Look
for more info in upcoming months but mark the dates
in your calendar now!
New
Wedding Samples Images Now Available
Ifyou
attended Radley and Tina Muller’s wedding presentation at the CCS
Summer Workshop then you saw firsthand how these beautiful images were created. We
have taken Tina and Radley’s images of our bride and groom and made them
available online for use as samples. Just go to http://www.partypics.com/ ,
password samplessamples. Look under the category of PPS Samples / portraits
to find them. Thanks Radley and Tina!
Level II Sports: On the Horizon—Level
II, Phase II
by Brian Speers
Last December, CCS introduced an innovative and electrifying
line of products in the Sports market called Level
II. Level
II sports products are custom prints of an individual
player—or a team—surrounded by high-level
graphics that are color coordinated to the athlete’s
uniforms, and can also include the school or team logo.
These products, championed by lab supervisor Bo Lewis
and created by CCS digital artists Michael Melton and
Jeremy Dabbs, are the coolest and most strikingly imaginative
products ever to ship from the production floor of CCS.
The original idea behind Level II was to offer something
that the competition didn’t or couldn’t offer,
and to create a product that would coordinate especially
well with game action shots or simulated action. The
work flow allows you to send us a jpeg of your subject;
then we cut out the image of the individual; and that
image is then dropped into one of the unique designed
backgrounds chosen by your end customer.
Originally, there were seven distinct background designs
with equally distinctive names.
Velocity
Echo
ChromeMoon
Domino
Limelight
GoTime
Vorpal
At the recent CCS Summer Workshops
we previewed what will be known as Level
II, Phase II.
Level II Phase II
will not only offer new designs with names like Halo,
The Catalyst, Stellar, Psionic and Vortex but
it will also allow you to use TWO unique images within
one Level II product. In
addition to the double image photos you will also be
able to offer custom logos of schools, organizations,
teams and leagues. As
with all Level II products they are only produced on
the Kodak Metallic paper which, we think, establishes
the special attributes of these products and allows you
to charge a premium price for a premium product. We
also recommend further enhancing these products by having
them mounted on Gator foam or foam core backing.
Current pricing for Level II products can be found on
Candidnet under Products and Services. Click the link to
view them.
If you are planning to shoot sports action or simulated
action please keep in mind that a SHARP, mostly
full-frame image of the athlete will make the best product. This
means if you are taking game action you need to have
a long telephoto lens that can reach out to the middle
of the field, diamond, or court. This is important
because an image of an athlete—extracted from a
small portion of the photograph—and then enlarged
to fill a 16 x 20 print will look out-of-focus, and
somewhat pixilated. This will not make your end
customer happy and decrease the quality of the Level
II product. Also keep in mind that high
shutter speeds are reccomended when you are attempting
to stop the action.
If you are not a good sports action photographer (and
let’s face it, not everyone is) then consider shooting
simulated action which can be done in a studio, on a
basketball court, or on a baseball diamond. It
is better to have a great simulated action shot then
a mediocre or out-of-focus game action shot. Keep
in mind that a benchwarmer is rarely in true action shots;
but they can simulate action, and they will buy!
Level II sports can be something that can open doors
for you as you market your products to leagues and schools. If
you have any questions about Level II, or if you would
like to know more about marketing these products to your
customers, contact Brian
Speers at ext. 251.
Our
very popular sports flyers and envelopes are
an exciting way to present products to your
customers. Both the flyer and envelope have full
color fronts with blank backs for laser printing
or for on press. You can choose WITH
GLUESTRIPS or NO GLUESTRIPS!!
**PLEASE NOTE!!! We will
be printing these every three months, so you
will need to estimate your needs for the next
three months. We will NOT be inventorying these,
so you must order what you need for this time
period!! Envelopes will ship via ground
as soon as possible. Please allow 2 weeks
time for the printing plus time for ground shipment
after the deadline date for ordering.
DEADLINE FOR ORDERING IS FRIDAY, AUGUST
24, 2007!!!! ORDER YOURS TODAY!!!
Take
a look at these BLANK FLYER ENVELOPES that can be
used FOR ANY MARKET! You can download the order form here.
We’ve had customers
that use these for DAYCARES, PARTY PICS, ETC. The
possibilities are really endless! The perforated/glue
strip design has been very popular, as the flyer can be
detached from the envelopes. AND SOMETHING NEW THIS
TIME: We will now offer these WITH GLUESTRIPS and WITHOUT
GLUESTRIPS! This will make the envelopes
even more compatible with the laser printers. In the past,
we have had some customers have problems with the glue
strips going through their laser printers...so we are giving
you an additional option! Most of the customers that
have had with this problem say the glue strip is NOT important
to them, and they would rather us print them without it.
We also have customers who need this glue strip, therefore
we are offering both options!
As far as the envelope/flyer itself, we have some CCS customers using the flyer
part to show packages, which their customer keeps as a record of their order,
then they use the envelope part to obtain the customer’s information and
actual order. --OR-- you can make the flyer part the order form, use the
envelope as a mailing device, and the customer encloses their order form and
check and mails it direct to you in this envelope. Remember too, with these BLANK
Flyer Envelopes, you will also have the FULL BACK SIDE to feature your products
you wish to offer to that market. It’s flexible to any market!
The BLANK Flyer Envelopes will already be glued (if you choose with gluestrips)
and folded as an envelope and left open flat for overprinting on both sides. The
whole piece (including flyer, glue strip and envelope) is 12-3/4" X
8-1/2" (the smaller size from the past) but you must
allow about 3/4" in the middle of the glued side where no type can be printed.We
are keeping this at the original size as in the past. The envelope itself will
be 8-1/2" wide X 3-3/4" tall once the top flyer part is torn off. You
can overprint whatever you want on either side---it’s up to you! You
can customize these for any market, either by printing them off your laser printing
or by taking them locally to be overprinted. These envelopes are a special
type of envelope that not that many presses can produce. By converting
them and leaving them blank for you to overprint–we give you a great cost
on them due to the volume we produce for everyone, and then you take it from
there for overprinting!
**PLEASE NOTE!!! We produce these twice a year (every 6
months), so you will need to estimate your needs for the months of September ‘07-February ‘08. We
will NOT be inventorying these, so you must order what you need for this time
period!! DEADLINE
FOR ORDERS IS FRIDAY, AUGUST 24th, 2007, 5PM (CST). Lab Service Times for8/5/2007
- 8/11/2007
by Bo Lewis
Problems
with, or suggestions about The Developments Newsletter? Email us
to see if we can help.
