Cost of Posters
The cheap sketch is the most expensive in the end.
The cheap sketch is the most expensive in the end.
There are all kinds of posters, just as there are all grades of printing and paper, and therefore there is a great variance in costs.
Shun the cheap poster and buy the best the lithographer can turn out. The posting costs nearly ten times the cost of the poster—and the expense of posting is just the same for a bad poster as a good one.
For the reason that one often wishes to know “about” what a certain quantity of posters of a certain size would cost, the following table of approximate costs is given. Everything depends upon the make-up of your sketch and the manner in which it can be handled. An eight-sheet poster with five colors on every sheet will cost much more than the same size poster with five colors on some sheets and two on others. These prices are based, therefore, on the average run of pictorial posters:
Above estimates are based on paper weighing 140 lbs. to the ream—size 42″ x 56″. Stone-drawing included, but not cost of original sketch.
Use good paper and non-fading inks.
Better prices can always be secured by furnishing your own sketches and then getting competitive prices. Where the lithographer originates the idea and furnishes the sketch he naturally and rightly charges liberally for it.
Rain-lapped posters can be had at a slight additional expense. To “rain-lapp” a poster means to paste the upper sheet over the margin of the next lower sheet just as shingles are placed on a house. The posters are usually pasted in sections four sheets high. Where posters are unpasted, the bill-poster starts at the upper edge of the board in placing the poster and pastes the lower sheet over the margin of the next top sheet. In consequence, the board does not drain the rain as it should, and the sheets tear off much more readily than with rain-lapped paper.
It is a custom with lithographers that posters should be paid for when the edition is completed, at a specified time, but they will store and ship posters as needed for any reasonable length of time. Such storage paper is usually protected by insurance for the customer’s benefit.
It is the habit of large poster advertisers to have the lithographer make all separate shipments, a list, with quantity designated for each town, being furnished by the advertiser for that purpose. The advertiser, in such cases, pays actual cost of labor and materials for wrapping and shipment, where the size of order is large enough to warrant.
You can save money on cost of paper by ordering a number, or a season’s supply, of posters at one time, especially if the designs are similar in color treatment. At any rate, the larger quantity insures a saving in paper and press-work. The lithographer is thus saved the extra expense of rush work, for which the advertiser always pays the penalty.
The cost of shipping for entire country is about four cents per eight-sheet poster.
Make freight shipments of over forty pounds. Express shipments under forty pounds.
A pretty poster without selling argument is like a pretty woman without brains. She compels your admiration for a time, but loses out in the end.
A pretty poster without selling argument is like a pretty woman without brains. She compels your admiration for a time, but loses out in the end.