As a MATTEr of Fact

Being a designer is all about choices.

What color best portrays this company?

Serif or sans-serif?

left aligned or center aligned?

All these choices are important to the end piece because they all will effect the visual communication. But, some choices go unnoticed, like the space between the letters, or the size of the document, or whether it was printed on an ink-jet or laser printer. All of these factors play a key role in how the piece ends up looking when all is said and done.

Although the above mentioned factors are a good place to start in trying to understand the mystery of design there is one factor that is often overlooked and sometimes can completely ruin a perfectly good design, that is the choice of the paper that it gets printed on.

It amazes me how many people think that just because they throw their design on a sheet of paper with a shine to it (you may know it as glossy) it will make whatever they are trying to communicate explode off the page and rain down upon the end user like it's monsoon season in some third world country.

This is the wrong way to approach a design problem. Instead you must think to yourself "what is appropriate for my company and what I am trying to communicate"

If you are trying to communicate that your company is shiny like puff daddy's watch then glossy paper may be an appropriate choice, but there are other types of paper out there. Some paper is a little shiny, some is very shiny, some is colored, some is recycled, but the most under utilized type of paper there is, is paper with a matte finish.

Matte paper is excellent to the touch it does not absorb the grease on your fingers like a glossy finish does. It does not have a glare like glossy paper does, therefore does not affect your design under different types of light. Both ink and toner sit well on it and colors are often much truer on a matte paper than on a glossy paper because there is no introduction of whatever chemical that glossy paper has on it to make it look like that.

People comment to me that it is "boring" but this is compared to what? Gloss? what's so exciting about that? It's shiny big deal.

So please look deep within yourself and next time you have to choose a paper remember that bling bling only works in certain situations.