Printing services
for Tampa, FL.

Printing for the way Tampa does business.

Tampa is finance, healthcare, the port, a defence base and a bay full of new residents, and its businesses are printing like they mean to stay.

Tampa has become one of the fastest-growing business cities in the Southeast, with finance and insurance back offices, a large healthcare sector, the port, MacDill Air Force Base and a downtown that has been rebuilt around Water Street and the Riverwalk. Ybor City carries the history and the nightlife; Hyde Park and South Tampa carry the boutiques and practices; St. Petersburg across the bay has a scene of its own.

Tampa print should look confident and coastal. Gloss cards and bright palettes suit the city; matte and soft touch suit the finance and healthcare crowd. Postcards, rack cards and door hangers do real work in the neighbourhoods, which are growing faster than anyone can keep up with.

Where print earns its keep in Tampa.

Print works differently in different parts of a city. These are the places in Tampa where a printed piece tends to do the most work, and the piece that usually suits each one.

Downtown, Water Street and the Riverwalk. Offices, hotels and restaurants. Cards that feel established and a banner for the event.

Ybor City and Seminole Heights. Bars, venues, studios and independent shops. Flyers, postcards and rack cards with character.

Hyde Park and South Tampa. Boutiques, practices and restaurants. Postcards and door hangers for the neighbourhood.

The Tampa Convention Center and the fairgrounds. Conferences and the Florida State Fair. A retractable banner and a sales sheet.

One clear purpose. The right piece of paper.

What Tampa tends to order. Port Tampa Bay's bulk cargo and agricultural export trade, including phosphate shipped out for fertiliser, keeps a plain sales sheet in circulation among the shippers, brokers and equipment suppliers who serve it. The contractor and support community around MacDill Air Force Base submits trifold brochures and sales sheets built for a government qualification packet rather than anything with a flourish. Across the bay, St. Petersburg's arts and mural scene supports a steadier trade in postcards and rack cards for galleries than Tampa's more corporate downtown does.

Put a readable name first, then one line about what you do, then the one contact route you want people to use. A finish should support that, never make it harder to read.

Make the whole set feel like your business.

A Tampa note. Tampa likes bright and clean. Gloss for anything that lives in the heat, matte for the boardroom. Keep the layout simple and the contact route obvious; a lot of new residents are choosing a dentist, a contractor and a gym from a postcard in the same month.

A brand does not need every piece to look identical, only a consistent voice, a deliberate palette and type that works at several sizes. Bring your logo, or start from nothing: print product design is $97 and logo design is $250, set up for the product and finish you picked.

Plan around the day you need it in hand.

Work backward from the day the materials have to be ready, and leave room for artwork, the proof, production and shipping. Each product page states its own time on press: two to three business days for most cards and postcards once you approve your proof, three to four for soft touch and door hangers, seven to twelve for the XL banner. Shipping sits on top of that. Give us the delivery address and your date when you order, with a receiving name if it is going to a venue, a hotel or a shared office. If the date is fixed, say so and we will tell you whether it is possible before you pay.

Getting print into Tampa. Crossing Tampa Bay between Tampa and St. Petersburg means one of a small number of long bridges, and rush-hour traffic on them can make the two downtowns feel farther apart than the map suggests. The Tampa Bay area sees an unusually high amount of lightning in summer, and outdoor setups, a banner included, should have a plan for getting the stand and any people near it under cover if a storm rolls in. MacDill Air Force Base runs its own gate security, needing a sponsor and clearance arranged in advance.

Mailing in Tampa. For postcards by route, Hyde Park, Seminole Heights, Carrollwood and Westchase are neighbourhoods where a mailer reaches households and gets read.

Give the file your full attention.

Use the artwork guide on the product you picked, because the finished size, the bleed and the safe area are not the same for every format. Upload a PDF, PNG or JPG and the size, bleed and resolution are checked in your browser, then your proof arrives by email and nothing goes to press until you approve it. Read your own details out loud when it lands: names, numbers, web addresses, dates, spelling and which side is which. If there is a QR code, scan it yourself.