The Cleveland Historical team has occasionally used print materials – including mounted posters, window clings, postcards, vinyl banners, and walking tour brochures – as part of our offline programming and promotions. Here are a few examples.
Do you have any opinions about the effectiveness of print materials in building awareness for the website? Any approaches that have not worked for you? I’m thinking about getting a set of stickers or window clings printed up for Explore Baltimore Heritage.
We did window clings with QR codes and I don’t think they weren’t especially effective, though I imagine a lot of the utility would depend on placement and content (e.g. highly visible with content that is relevant to the user’s immediate location/task).
I think stickers that you can hand out at local events is a great idea.
Hi @ebell. I was wondering if you might be able to update the links in this thread, since it’s so useful and we’re starting to explore our vinyl sticker and printing options.
I was also wondering if you have any further reflections from the last few years about successes and failures with your print materials for Cleveland Historical. We’re aiming for something like you have mentioned (stickers that are very location specific with QR code links to our app and material on Curatescape), so any ideas would be really helpful and insightful.
Hi @james-smith, here’s an updated link (which expires one year from now due to university policy) with some files that might be useful to help you get started or perhaps just to give you ideas. Some of these examples are rather old and – since I made most of them, I can say this – not very inspired. Nonetheless, I tried to include editable master files where possible, though you’ll need access to Adobe Creative Cloud in order to edit many of them. Ultimately, print design is a specialized skill and sometimes it’s preferable to hire a pro (locally, when possible) who can assess the best way to promote your project.
Thanks @ebell, that’s really helpful. We’re having that exact conversation right now and we have a new hire in the last 18 months of our project who will be a tourism specialist, so this will really help us plan.