Printing for the way St. Louis does business.
St. Louis is a plant science, healthcare and manufacturing city with a neighbourhood culture as strong as any in the country, and it prints for the block.
St. Louis carries a plant science and agricultural technology cluster, major healthcare systems and a medical school, financial services and a manufacturing base, plus a startup community that grew up around Cortex. The Central West End and Cortex carry the offices and the research; the Grove, Soulard and the Delmar Loop carry the bars, venues and shops; the county carries the households and a lot of the corporate offices.
Print in St. Louis works neighbourhood by neighbourhood, because that is how the city is organised. Flyers, postcards and rack cards for a block; cards for the practices and the firms; sales sheets for the research and healthcare vendors. Design is honest and a little traditional, and it rewards a well-made card.
Where print earns its keep in St. Louis.
Print works differently in different parts of a city. These are the places in St. Louis where a printed piece tends to do the most work, and the piece that usually suits each one.
The Central West End and Cortex. Research, healthcare and startups. Clean cards and sales sheets with real specifications.
The Grove, Soulard and the Delmar Loop. Bars, venues, restaurants and shops. Flyers, postcards and rack cards.
Downtown and the riverfront. Offices, sports and events. Cards for the meetings and a banner for the event.
America’s Center and the Dome. Conventions and consumer shows. A retractable banner and a sales sheet.
One clear purpose. The right piece of paper.
What St. Louis tends to order. Plant science, healthcare and research offices around the Central West End and Cortex lean on a sales sheet and a plain business card built for a lab or vendor meeting, since specification matters more than design. Because St. Louis organises itself block by block, flyers, postcards and rack cards do real work in the Grove, Soulard and the Delmar Loop, where a business is known by its neighbourhood as much as its name. Contractors serving the county tend to run door hangers street by street.
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 |
|---|---|
| Mardi Gras in Soulard and the festival season | Flyers, postcards and a banner for a venue |
| A startup at Cortex raising its profile | Business cards and a sales sheet for the pitch |
| A practice in the Central West End | Rack cards for the desk and cards for the team |
| A contractor in Kirkwood or Webster Groves | Door hangers and flyers where the houses are |
Make the whole set feel like your business.
A St. Louis note. St. Louis design has some tradition in it: a serif for a law firm or a practice, strong type for the trades, a matte card most of the time. Put the neighbourhood on the piece if you serve one; here it is an identity.
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 St. Louis. St. Louis city and the county are really two delivery pictures, and a stop in the Central West End or downtown is a different trip from one in Kirkwood or Webster Groves. Downtown's older office towers do not all have a modern loading dock, and a reception desk may be the real delivery point. Summers are hot and humid enough to soften a card left in a warm car, and the river adds its own congestion at the bridges into Illinois during a big event.
Mailing in St. Louis. For postcards by route, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, University City and the Central West End 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.
See the artwork guide on a product