Printing for the way Boston does business.
Boston is biotech, universities, finance and healthcare packed into a small city, and it hands over cards that expect to be read carefully.
Boston and Cambridge are the world’s densest biotech cluster around Kendall Square, dozens of universities, a financial services and asset management industry downtown, and the teaching hospitals of the Longwood Medical Area. The Seaport carries the newer offices and restaurants; Back Bay and the South End carry the boutiques and practices; Somerville and Cambridge carry the labs and the startups.
Print in Boston should be precise, understated and well made. A matte card with small, exact type; a sales sheet that gets the science right; postcards for the galleries and restaurants of the South End. Trade shows and medical conferences at the convention center keep banners and sales sheets in demand.
Where print earns its keep in Boston.
Print works differently in different parts of a city. These are the places in Boston where a printed piece tends to do the most work, and the piece that usually suits each one.
Kendall Square and Cambridge. Biotech and software. Minimal cards and sales sheets with real specifications.
The Seaport and the Financial District. Finance, law and the newer tech. Cards that feel established and a banner for the event.
Back Bay, the South End and Beacon Hill. Boutiques, galleries, restaurants and practices. Postcards and rack cards.
The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Biotech and tech conferences. A retractable banner and a sales sheet.
One clear purpose. The right piece of paper.
What Boston tends to order. Boston's density of biotech and university research means the sales sheet often does more work than the business card, since a specification sheet explaining a platform gets read closely before a meeting even happens. Financial firms downtown want a card that signals permanence rather than a startup's energy. The teaching hospitals generate a steady, quieter need for professional cards and referral-style sales sheets, while the brownstone neighbourhoods still run on postcards and rack cards for galleries, restaurants and independent practices.
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.
Compare business card finishes| The moment | What usually works |
|---|---|
| A biotech conference at the BCEC | A retractable banner, booth cards and a sales sheet |
| A lab or startup in Kendall Square printing cards | Business cards for the team, one file |
| A restaurant opening in the South End | Postcards and rack cards from opening night |
| A practice in Brookline or Newton | Rack cards and a neighbourhood postcard drop |
Make the whole set feel like your business.
A Boston note. Boston likes exactness: a clean sans-serif, small type, a matte or soft touch card, nothing decorative. If you are in science, the sales sheet matters more than the card; give the data room and get it right. A painted edge in navy is as bold as Boston gets.
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.
See what design costsPlan 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 Boston. Boston is old and compact by American standards, and a delivery into the Financial District or the Seaport usually means a building reception or a loading dock rather than a street-level door, with tight loading windows during business hours. Cambridge and the Longwood medical area both have their own building security and mail intake separate from a main Boston address, worth checking beforehand. Cold, damp winters are routine, and a lab receiving dock may run its own procedure separate from the main entrance.
Mailing in Boston. For postcards by route, Brookline, Jamaica Plain, Newton and Somerville’s Davis Square area are neighbourhoods 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.
See the artwork guide on a product