Printing services
for Nashville, TN.

Printing for the way Nashville does business.

Nashville is music, healthcare and a building boom, and every one of those industries still runs on a card handed over at a bar, a hospital or a job site.

Nashville’s two big engines are healthcare, with some of the largest hospital operators in the country headquartered here, and music, which runs from Music Row to the writers’ rooms and the studios out on the east side. Around them is a hospitality and construction trade that has been growing faster than the roads. Tourists fill Broadway; locals do business in the Gulch, Germantown, 12 South and East Nashville.

The card culture here is strong because introductions happen constantly and informally. A songwriter, a nurse recruiter and a general contractor all hand over cards in the same week, and all three want something that looks like it came from a real business. Flyers and postcards do well in the neighbourhoods, where shows, openings and pop-ups are announced on paper as much as online.

Where print earns its keep in Nashville.

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

Music Row and the Gulch. Labels, studios and the offices around them. Cards with a bit of character; a matte finish and one good colour.

East Nashville and Germantown. Bars, venues, salons and studios. Flyers for shows and postcards for openings.

The hospital corridors around Vanderbilt and Centennial. Practices, staffing firms and vendors. Rack cards and sales sheets that spell things out.

The Music City Center. A full convention calendar. A retractable banner and cards for everyone working the booth.

One clear purpose. The right piece of paper.

What Nashville tends to order. Nashville's hospital systems recruit travelling nurses and clinical staff constantly, and a trifold brochure or sales sheet built for a job fair table does more there than a card alone. Manufacturing and auto-supply plants scattered through the counties around Nashville still run on a plain sales sheet and sturdy business card for the vendors who call on them, a different world from Music Row. Nashville continues to draw corporate relocations from other states, and a new regional office often needs a first run of cards and a sales sheet before the sign goes up.

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 Nashville note. Nashville has a lot of black-and-white with one accent going on, and it works. A matte card, strong type, one colour. If you are in music or hospitality, a painted edge is the finish people ask about. Keep the back for a QR code to the thing you actually want them to hear or book.

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 Nashville. Lower Broadway gets so crowded with pedestrians on weekend nights that a delivery vehicle can struggle to reach a bar or shop directly, so anything timed for a weekend event is safer arriving earlier. Vanderbilt's and Centennial's hospital campuses run their own receiving and security, and a package for a clinic there usually needs a department name and an expectant contact. Summer humidity across Middle Tennessee is real, and stock sitting too long on a loading dock or in a hot vehicle can ripple before anyone opens the box.

Mailing in Nashville. For postcards by route, 12 South, East Nashville, Sylvan Park and Green Hills are the neighbourhoods where a mailer lands with people who go out.

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.