Printing for the way Tulsa does business.
Tulsa is energy, aerospace, a downtown arts district and a city that has recruited a wave of remote workers, and its businesses print with a little art deco pride.
Tulsa’s economy is oil and gas and the engineering firms around it, aerospace and aviation maintenance, healthcare, and a growing tech and remote-work community drawn by the city’s programs and its arts. Downtown and the Arts District carry the offices, venues and studios; Brookside and Cherry Street carry the restaurants, boutiques and practices; South Tulsa and Broken Arrow carry the households.
Print in Tulsa should be clean with a bit of character. Matte cards for the energy and aerospace offices, gloss for the trades, postcards and flyers for the Arts District and Cherry Street. The city’s art deco heritage gives its brands a look worth borrowing, and the festival and event calendar keeps banners busy.
Where print earns its keep in Tulsa.
Print works differently in different parts of a city. These are the places in Tulsa where a printed piece tends to do the most work, and the piece that usually suits each one.
Downtown and the Arts District. Offices, venues, galleries and studios. Cards for the meetings and flyers for the nights.
Brookside and Cherry Street. Restaurants, boutiques and practices. Postcards, rack cards and door hangers.
The energy and aerospace corridors. Engineering, maintenance and contractors. Cards that survive the field and sales sheets.
The Cox Business Convention Center and the BOK Center. Conferences and events. A retractable banner and a sales sheet.
One clear purpose. The right piece of paper.
What Tulsa tends to order. Tulsa's energy and aerospace firms want sales sheets with real specifications and cards sturdy enough for a site visit, while the wave of remote workers the city has recruited print minimal cards meant for a coffee shop meeting rather than a boardroom. The Arts District's galleries and venues favour postcards and flyers with real design behind them, echoing the city's deco architecture. Door hangers and postcards introduce a new contractor or service business in the newer suburbs southeast of 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.
Compare business card finishes| The moment | What usually works |
|---|---|
| A conference at the Cox Business Center | A retractable banner, booth cards and a sales sheet |
| A restaurant opening on Cherry Street | Postcards and rack cards from opening night |
| A remote-work startup printing its first cards | Business cards for the team, one file |
| A contractor in Broken Arrow or Jenks | Door hangers and flyers where the houses are |
Make the whole set feel like your business.
A Tulsa note. Tulsa can carry a deco touch: a geometric typeface, gold or deep green, a matte card. For the trades, gloss and a big phone number. For the tech newcomers, minimal and a QR code on the back.
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 Tulsa. Tulsa's downtown core is compact, but the suburbs to the south and east are enough of a drive that one delivery date rarely suits a downtown office and a suburban branch equally well. Summers bring heat and humidity hard on stock left sitting in a parked vehicle, and spring storm season occasionally brings enough wind to affect anything meant to stand outside. Winters are milder than further north but can still bring an occasional ice event worth allowing for.
Mailing in Tulsa. For postcards by route, Brookside, Cherry Street, Midtown and South Tulsa 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