Printing services
for Detroit, MI.

Printing for the way Detroit does business.

Detroit is the auto industry, a design school, a downtown rebuilt from the inside out and a small-business culture with real pride, and it likes print that is built to last.

Detroit is the automotive industry and the engineering, design and supply chain around it, a downtown and Midtown filled back in with tech offices, restaurants and residents, a design and arts community anchored by a world-class art school, and neighbourhoods where independent businesses carry the block. Corktown, Midtown and Eastern Market hold the restaurants, makers and studios; the suburbs hold the auto offices and a lot of the households.

Print in Detroit should feel made. Thick stock, honest type, a finish that holds up. Postcards and flyers still move the neighbourhoods and the markets, and the auto industry’s shows and supplier meetings keep sales sheets and banners busy.

Where print earns its keep in Detroit.

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

Downtown and Midtown. Tech, law and the restaurants around them. Cards that feel established and a banner for the event.

Corktown and Eastern Market. Restaurants, makers and the Saturday market crowd. Postcards, rack cards and flyers.

The auto corridors of Dearborn, Auburn Hills and Warren. Engineering, suppliers and the meetings between them. Sales sheets and clean cards.

Huntington Place. The auto show and a year of conferences. A retractable banner and a sales sheet.

One clear purpose. The right piece of paper.

What Detroit tends to order. Auto suppliers and engineering firms order sales sheets and plain business cards built for a specification review rather than a pitch, since supplier meetings run on drawings and tables. The 32pt uncoated card with a painted edge suits the maker community around Eastern Market, where a card is expected to feel handmade. Restaurants and shops in Corktown lean on postcards and rack cards for foot traffic, and the auto show season keeps a banner and booth cards busy downtown.

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 Detroit note. Detroit design is strong and unpretentious: bold type, black and one colour, a 32pt card that feels like a tool. Uncoated stock with a painted edge suits the makers; matte suits the engineers. Keep the phone number large.

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 Detroit. Detroit's metro stretches from downtown through Dearborn, Auburn Hills and Warren, and a supplier contact on one side of that ring can be a real drive from a Corktown or Eastern Market address, worth checking on a map first. Huntington Place and downtown hotels expect a name and event attached to anything arriving ahead of the auto show. Winters bring snow and heavy road salt, so a card sitting out at a counter or a market stall does better coated than plain uncoated.

Mailing in Detroit. For postcards by route, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Grosse Pointe and the Indian Village and Palmer Woods neighbourhoods are where a mailer reaches households.

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.