Jul 11

Did you know that you can spell your name with Nautical Flags?

For example, the last name Jones is spelled out out on the top of this invitation:

A party invitation that uses signaling flags to spell out your name

Nautical flags were designed to be used on ships at sea to communicate messages at a distance or for times when there is radio silence. They are also known as signaling flags. Different groupings of flags can mean different things, depending on the message that is being sent. Here’s a great place to find more information about signaling flags: http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/flags.htm

The International Code for signaling flags includes a flag for every letter and number.

This makes it fun and easy to spell your name across the top of an invitation or thank you note – great for impressing your boat buddies.

Bob's signature

P.S. If you are interested in purchasing real signal flags for your party or home visit our friends IB Designs, USA (http://www.ibdesignsusa.com)

P.P.S. Can you imagine yourself as the captain of your own party? Start it with a signal flag invitation.

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Unique Invitation Design Requests Are Welcome

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Jun 15

Here’s an example of a Special Request Announcement Crafted by Poly Graphics

A few weeks ago we received a special request from Carmen for a graduation announcement. She wanted to include 3 photos. A young photo of her son, a photo of him as he is today, and a graduation cap. Carmen wanted a folded card that had her son’s young photo on the front, then his graduation photo and graduation announcement wording inside. We said “Yes”. This was definitely something that we could do for Carmen.

A few days later Janet, one of our designers, crafted what you see here. The announcements turned out great! These photos don’t do it justice – it really looks nice in person. (we blurred the wording intentionally in the inside photo)

Graduation Announcement with child and graduate photos

Carmen saw the draft that Janet prepared and was very happy. When Carmen received the announcements, she was overjoyed. Carmen got more than she expected!

inside of a photo graduation announcement

Carmen’s announcement special request was completed – from asking to delivery-  in 2 weeks time. Her unique announcements were limited to exactly how many she wanted – truly personalized printing. We kept one to use as a sample because it turned out so great.

For most special requests we ask for a week to prepare the design. With busy days at Poly Graphics and our children’s schedules we can usually find time in a week for special requests, but not in our normal 24 hour turnaround.

We do not charge extra for special requests if the design is something that we can add to the invitation collection at PolyGraphics.com. We did have to charge a design fee when we had a request for an Ultimate Frisbee + Wine Tasting Wedding Shower. If your event is something that other people may want to buy from our website, and not as unique as the frisbee + wine tasting celebration there will be no design charge.

Note that our availability for Special Requests is limited, so please give us plenty of lead time. If we have several special requests already underway, yours may be delayed because we just cannot fit everything into the time we have. Please understand that we want to do our best work for you and to craft the perfect announcement for you takes time.

If you have a Special Request, ask here

Bob's signature

 

P.S. Thank you for the opportunity to prepare something special for your celebration

P.P.S. When you order from Poly Graphics you are getting personalized, limited edition cards, that are crafted to your specifications.

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Apr 28

I just spent a minute at wordle.net to create a word map for the home page of Poly Graphics.

Here’s what Wordle thinks we’re all about:

word map for Invitations by Poly Graphics

Boy, that word invitations really stands out!

Bob's signature

 

P.S. Some words that stand out to me are: Shipped Quick, Good Prices, Love Stock, Customized Wording, and Rush 10am (if we receive your Rush order by 10am on a weekday it ships the same day you order)

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We are human – mistakes happen – How To Recover From Invitation Disasters

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Mar 03

What a nightmare it is to send out invitations that are wrong!

Speed is important – you have to work really fast to correct the bad invitations.

Here is what to do to fix your Invitation Disaster:

Angry Woman

First, figure out how much time you have to fix everything. You probably fall into one of three categories:

  1. Invitations have been ordered, but when you got them you spotted an error
  2. Invitations have been sent out to your guests, and there is enough time to send corrected replacements
  3. Invitations have been sent out to your guests and there is not enough time to send out replacements.

 

Invitations have been ordered, but when you got them you spotted an error

Contact your invitation vendor as soon as possible. They should have your order on file. A reputable vendor will offer expedited service to fix an error. If the problem was the vendor’s fault, ask for a discount –  review their policies for guarantees and policies on reprints. You may be able to get replacements for no charge if it was your vendor’s problem. Poly Graphics offers a “disaster discount” even if the error was yours.

Since you have the envelopes for your invitations, while you are waiting for replacements to be printed, go ahead and address your envelopes. Then you’ll be ready to send the invitations out when the new, correct ones arrive.

If you’ve made a decision not to go back to your original invitation vendor, look for a new one that can get you replacement invitations quickly. You’ve already ordered one set of invitations that were wrong, you do not have time to order yet another replacement if your new vendor can’t get them right.

Invitations have been sent out to your guests and there is enough time to send corrected replacements

Ask your invitation vendor for a reprint of your order with the corrections made. Hope that they have expedited shipping option, or can at least get your reprints out to you very quickly – like the next day.

If your event is informal, ask your vendor if there is a way to mark the new invitations “updated”, “corrected” or “revised”.

Invitations have been sent out to your guests and there is not enough time to send out replacements

I’m afraid that you are going to have to pick up the phone. Go back to your guest list and call everyone that you sent an invitation to and tell them about the error on your invitations. Make sure that everyone gets the message, or they may show up on the wrong day or the wrong place.

Do you have the email address of your guests? Send an email to your guest list – it can be an extra reminder that the information on the invitations is wrong.

Remind at RSVP Time

If you have asked for an RSVP on your invitations, when your guests respond, remind them guests of the correct date, time, and place.

Damage Control

With your corrected invitations or the night spent on the phone with your guests, the damage caused by wrong invitations can be brought under control. If you have particularly forgetful guests, you might want to remind them again as the party gets closer…. make sure your crazy Aunt Millie gets there OK!

Here are some invitation disasters that we have seen and how we fixed them

The biggest invitation disasters happen when your proofreading didn’t catch a problem and you send your invitations out with wrong information on them. Here are a few examples of disasters that we have helped fix.

Venue Change

The place Sherry thought that her celebration was going to be held called you to tell her that they were double-booked and that her reservation was canceled. Sherry was about to send her invitations out, but had not yet.

Solution: Reprint ASAP. Replacement invitations were sent out the same day we knew about the problem. Sherry received a “disaster discount” because just a small change was needed to the existing order on file. Sherry addressed her envelopes while waiting the 2 days for her replacements to arrive.

Date Change

The Church that planned Kathy’s son’s Confirmation decided to change the Confirmation to Saturday from Sunday. Kathy had not sent invitations out, but had addressed the envelopes.

Solution: Reprint ASAP. Replacement invitations were sent out the day after we knew about the problem. Kathy received a “disaster discount” because just a small change was needed to the existing order on file.

Left A Name Off

We printed some return address labels for debra, but accidently left her husband’s name off. Debra received the labels and when her husband saw them he asked if they were getting divorced. After a laugh, Debra called us to tell us we made an error. She did not want her friends to think that she was alone.

Solution: Reprint ASAP. Replacement labels were sent out the day after we knew about the problem. Debra received the replacements for free because it was an error on our part..

Quick Action Helps

Sure, there are much worse disasters than wrong invitations, but with some quick action your celebration won’t be affected at all.

Bob's signature

P.S. I hope you never have an Invitation Disaster, but if you do, we’re here for you.

 

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Jan 25

What? No Instant Preview of My Invitation Design?

People who have ordered from other online invitation companies sometimes say that they would like to see an instant preview. But most understand after working with Poly Graphics that not having an instant preview is actually better.

three people talking about design

And here are 5 reasons why having a dedicated designer is better than instant preview:

  1. It saves you time. You don’t have to fiddle and move your wording around to fit the design. Instead of taking 30 minutes for you to get it all looking right, just take 5 minutes to type your party information. We just need your wording, not your time.
  2. It’s more comforting. One of our designers proofreads your wording – looking for stuff you left out, misspellings, correct English and word usage. At least two people review your order before it is finalized for you.
  3. People are better at design than machines. All you have to do is look a Jeopardy and the Watson computer. IBM spent years and untold money building a machine that is he size of 10 refrigerators to play a game. Yeah, Watson’s good at it, the machine beat the humans in the game. But design is a different story. The human eye can detect things that a computer cannot. Look and feel are not things that a machine is good at.
  4. We will work with you until you are happy. When you place your order we are immediately notified and your requests are sent to a designer. 24 hours or less later, a draft is prepared for you to review. If we didn’t get it just like you expected, tell us and we’ll fix it.
  5. The many tweaks and corrections that a designer can make cannot be done with just an online preview. For instance, we have a font that we use that has a capital I that looks like a J. If you choose that font for your invitation, we look over all your text and manually replace all the funny looking I’s with a replacement that we have developed.

Are you worried about it taking longer to receive your order because a designer is working on your order? Don’t worry. When you place your order we are immediately notified and your requests are sent directly to a designer. 24 weekday hours or less later, a draft is crafted for you to review. If we didn’t get it just like you expected, we’ll work with you until you are happy.

Most orders ship within 3 days. Rush orders ship the same or next weekday.

Does that make you feel better?

Bob's signature

P.S. Can you tell that we like to get your order approved and to you as soon as we can?

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Dec 29

I stumbled upon the website TargetMap.com and was curious about how many places PolyGraphics.com has customers – how many towns across the nation have ordered from us.

After a quick database query to pull unique zip codes (if we have shipped to a zip code many times, I only got the zip code once). The total zip codes came to over 6000!

I fed the data to TargetMap and here’s what came out

invitations have been sent by Poly Graphics to these places

That’s not bad for a little ‘ol shop in Apex, NC.

Can we ship some invitations to you?

We’d be happy to.

Bob's signature

P.S. Do you live outside the United States?  We’ll ship to you – via USPS Global.

P.P.S. You can also have personalized note cards, return address seals, response cards, and more from PolyGraphics.com

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Sep 16

It’s probably a wee bit late to send out yer invitations fer Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19th), but if ye’ve got plans fer ‘nother Pirate Party in ye future, ye best be examinin’ what we’ve got here.

Have ye got both pirates and princesses a-comin’ to ye gatherin?

Try this one on fer size, matey!

Princess and Pirate Party Invitation

‘N here are some crafts for your wee skallywags (I especially like the newspaper swords)

Bob

P.S. Be sure to scour the decks and hoist the yardarm for yee party guests.

P.P.S. Change your Facebook language to Pirate by going to the bottom, click on “English”, then click “English” again to get a pulldown where “English (pirate)” is the option ya want.

P.P.P.S. Ye don’t like the invitations here? Try The Pirate Party Invitation Page, or ask Poly Graphics to design something unique for you.

Arrrrrgh!

Jul 21

Your invitation order from Poly Graphics gets the utmost attention by a designer.

A designer who reads your wording & looks for anything that is missing.

A designer that reviews your text for spelling and omissions.

A designer that formats your wording in the font that you select on the design that you have chosen so that it looks the very best that it can.

A designer that takes the time to make your invitation wonderful.

But we may have different ideas of what “wonderful” means.

Your order will be carefully drafted, then placed on a personalized page where you can review what we’ve done.

So if you don’t like what our designer has created, let us know. We’ll change it until you like it*.

There is no automatic, machine generated drafting process at Poly Graphics. And we like it that way. We hope you like it that way too.

Bob

* We will work with you on your draft until you like it – which means several versions of your wording and graphics. Normally there is no extra charge for preparing drafts, but we may ask for an additional design fee if we prepare an unreasonable amount of drafts and no conclusion is in sight. We’re here to serve you, but we need to feed our kids.

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May 28

accurate invitations are our goal at Poly Graphics

When ordering invitations online it is nice to be able to be sure that they are exactly correct.

Most of the time there is no extra time to re-do invitations. There is a deadline to meet so that your guests can receive their invitations and  have enough time to RSVP to your celebration. Usually there is no time to waste.

At Poly Graphics we have a designer work with you to make absolutely sure that your invitation is exactly right. Your designer prepares your draft, which you review on your private page.

When you view your draft we ask for your feedback.

  • Is the wording correct?
  • Is everything spelled correctly?
  • Are the dates right?
  • Do the graphics look right?
  • Are the colors what you requested?

If anything is out of line, let us know. We’ll correct your draft – and work with you until everything is as you like it.

the draft - review - correct - ok process at Poly Graphics

No fears!  The  draft – review – correct  cycle is here …. until you say OK.

Bob

P.S. Did I mention that drafts and corrections to drafts are provided to you at PolyGraphics.com for No Extra Charge?

P.P.S. This process applies to anything you order from Poly Graphics – invitations, note cards, stickers, stationery, & more.

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Sep 15

First in a series of videos to help you see what we do and how to purchase custom printed invitations from PolyGraphics.com

How To Order From Poly Graphics

In a little over 3 minutes you can order a fully customized invitation from Poly Graphics. Note that after you confirm your order an email is sent to you summarizing your order. Confirming your order also starts the draft clock – we’ll prepare a draft for you within 24 business hours. Use the order number you receive in your email and on the Thank You page to go back to PolyGraphics.com to review the draft.

We’ll have more videos available in the future to help you.

Thanks for watching.

bob_sig