Images Magazine December 2016

44 / 72

42 IMAGES DECEMBER 2016
BRANDABLE BAGS KB
Getting a grip on the bag
market
For detailed, multicoloured bag designs, The Promotional Folio turns to Inhouse Branding
The Promotional Folio, a promotional merchandise company
based in Sussex, has been around for nearly 40 years now. Its
client list includes, amongst others, a number of publishers
with varying needs.
Owner Paul Dolley explains that when it comes to promo bags, he
often gets them from Hampshire-based Crazy Bags. “Crazy Bags are
always quick if we need them to be, they’re very efficient, and they
always have good stocks. Obviously price is pretty key too, on bags
possibly more than any other product, because it’s just become such
an industry staple now and lots of people are trying to undercut the
others.” Paul notes that there has been a trend towards offering
lighterweight bags as companies try to increase profits by reducing
the weight while keeping the price the same, but reports that while
Crazy Bags does have lightweight options, its standard bag is a good
quality product. “When these bags started being popular it was dif-
ficult to get real consistency from the manufacturers... but Crazy Bags
products are always consistently good.”
Nine times out of 10, Paul will get Crazy Bags to print the bags for
him as well. “It makes sense for us to buy the bags and have them
printed in-house because the job gets done in one hit. It also works
out cheaper for us to have the bags printed by the people we’re buy-
ing from.”
Many of Promotional Folio’s main clients are book publishers
Paul is full
of praise
for Inhouse
Branding’s
screen print
service and
expertise
If the print involves more than a one- or two-colour print logo,
however, then Southend on Sea garment decorator Inhouse Brand-
ing (formerly known as Wiggle Wiggle) is handed the job. “Wiggle is
a very good screen printer so when the design is challenging, then I
would rather buy the blanks and send them to Wiggle and let them
print them. We use them for the kind of print jobs that need extra
care and attention – the more complicated jobs – because, technically,
they’re very good.”
Paul explains that he tends to opt for screen printing over transfer
printing on bag orders for the well-known book publishers that are
The Promotional Folio’s main clients. “Transfer printing will always
give you a closer representation and a sharper print, but it’s a lot more
expensive and Wiggle is a really good screen printer so they are able
to take the time and get the job right.”
The most important feature of any garment decorator looking to
supply a company such as The Promotional Folio is their screen print-
ing skill and the type of equipment they have so that they can handle
the more complex designs (Inhouse Branding has an eight-colour au-
tomatic MHM). “An eight-head machine means they can screen print
in more colours, so rather than trying to achieve a multicoloured im-
age out of just CMY and K, they can add extra colours, which enables
them to get closer than someone who has only six heads to play with.
“We just did a job for a publisher where they sent me quite stylised
cartoony artwork that had lots of colours. I had to explain to them
that it was not going to be bang on, that when you’re trying to
achieve a really complicated design like that sometimes it’s impossible
to get every colour exactly using screen printing. She was a bit wor-
ried because people don’t understand the kind of technical reasons
why it’s not possible, but she was really happy with the result after
Wiggle had printed the bags.”
w
w
i