A ton of you showed interest in our recent giveaway with our new network sponsor Sticker Mule.

Their die cut stickers are clearly something that would help many of you in promoting your own businesses.

Then I started thinking… many of us may not have designs that are sticker ready yet.

Some people just have their logo converted into sticker format, but there are MUCH more interesting things you can do with your sticker designs to make them stand out.

Luckily, if you’re looking for inspiration then Sticker Mule have launched a Sticker Gallery, showcasing some of their customer’s best sticker designs.

The Sticker Mule Sticker Gallery

The Sticker Mule sticker gallery is a great place to get inspired for your promotional designs.

You can browse through the designs based on recent designs, popular designs, and even specific categories, if you’re looking for more specific inspiration.

Users also star favorite designs and exchange comments, it really is a cool little community of sticker-obsessed folk!

Check out the gallery by clicking here or on the image below:

Our Favorite Sticker Designs

The quality of Sticker Mule’s stickers speaks for itself, but we wanted to take the time to highlight some of our favorite designs from their gallery.

Hopefully this will get your creative juices flowing!

Mailchimp Freddie Viking Stickers

More Stickers

Gnomegang Blonde Ale Stickers

Cloud Shopper Stickers

Haraka Stickers

Appboy Football Stickers

Galata Labs Stickers

Gifted by Choice Stickers

Gametime Salsa Stickers

Art of Manliness Stickers

Check out Sticker Mule Today

I wouldn’t get behind Sticker Mule if I didn’t have total confidence in their services. Remember, we wouldn’t work with just any company as our main sponsor, we want a sponsor who will help our readers to improve their design careers.

If you’re considering getting any sticker prints done to promote your business then check out Sticker Mule today. Let us know how your experience with them goes, and if it’s anything like our own you’ll be over the moon.

PrintRunner have been a wonderful sponsor for the past few months, and have allowed us to really up the quality of our content and give you guys even more fantastic design tutorials and resources.

We couldn’t have asked for a better sponsor, as we’ve worked with PrintRunner ourselves in the past.

Their print quality is excellent, and their delivery very reliable.

PrintRunner have worked with over 75,000 satisfied customers, and ensure that all their services are kept in-house to maintain the best level of service.

One of my favorite aspects of Print Runner is their huge array of services and products. They offer everything from business cards to brochures, leaflets, booklets, stickers and more. Here’s a look at some of my favorite products offered:

Business Cards

PrintRunner are industry leaders in business card printing.

In October we hosted a successful giveaway where PrintRunner sponsored us to giveaway 1000 business cards.

PrintRunner offer a range of business card designs from leaf die cut, to slim, magnetic and more. You can choose from a range of sizes and everything from basic black and white, to double sided full-color.

Brochures

PrintRunner are also renowned for their brochure printing services.

In November we ran a successful giveaway with them offering 100 glossy brochures.

Their brochures offer even more diversity than their business cards. You can choose from tri-fold, half-fold or z-fold styles, at a huge variety of sizes.

Your final print will receive a glossy aqueous coating to give it a really professional feel.

Postcards and Stickers

Our most recent giveaway featured 100 postcards and 250 sticker prints.

The quality of these products is absolutely stellar as well. For your promotional products you need to ensure that they’re looking sharp. PrintRunner ensure that your stickers and postcards are crisp and printed on quality paper.

Visit PrintRunner Today

If you’re looking for a reliable, quality online printer then PrintRunner have our full backing.

You can visit them at PrintRunner.com.

Quality Brochure Printing From Our Network Sponsor

As designers brochures can be a killer part of our design arsenal. Whether we’re looking to promote our own services, or simply expand our client possibilities they’re a really effective marketing tool.

Since I’ve explored decent printing links I’ve been able to offer my design clients a much wider range of services and a more complete design solution.

Print Runner Online Brochure Printing

Print Runner are our main network sponsor and offer great quality brochures, perfect for designers or client projects. They’re our first choice for regular brochures or custom brochures.

With Print Runner you know you’re getting quality. Their brochure printing options are really comprehensive, offering a range of sizes to suit any project. As well as standard brochure printing, you can choose from a variety of folding types including half-fold, tri-fold, z-fold, gate-fold and many more.

Helpful Templates

It’s great to see that Print Runner offer a range of print-ready templates to help you format your designs before having them printed.

For each one of their brochure variations (fold type and size) they offer a print-ready template complete with sizing, borders, bleeds, margins and everything else you need to get your designs ready. This makes preparing your final brochure design for print a cinch.

Super Fast Turn Around

If you’re looking for a quality brochure soon then Print Runner have a 3 business day turnaround time.

Check them out and you can have your ideal brochure design within days!

They’re also really competitive on pricing, with brochure printing starting at just $39.70 (this price is for a limited time only).

Take a Look at Print Runner’s Online Brochure Printing Today

Business Cards Are a Crucial Marketing Tool For Designers

As designers and freelancers business cards are a key marketing tool for many of us. They are our personal stamp that sell us to potential clients.

Like a handshake, a business card is crucial in making a good first impression. A quality business card can result in follow up business, whilst a poorly designed one will go straight in the trash.

Print Runner Online Business Card Printing

Print Runner are our main network sponsor and offer great quality business cards, perfect for the aspiring graphic designer. They’re our first choice for online business card printing.

Not only are they a forerunner in the printing world, but they have a huge variation of business cards available.

In addition to their standard business card sizes they offer slim (1.5″ X 3.5″) cards, “leaf” die cut cards (2″ X 3.5″) and magnetic cards (2″ X 3.5″). If you’re looking for something a little different to improve your client business then these are ideal.

Great Prices, Helpful Guides

Asides from quality the main thing I look for in my business cards is price.

Print Runner are incredibly affordable, with 500 full-color business cards costing just $22.95. This is much cheaper than even the small local firms I know and trust, and I get the same great service from Print Runner.

They also offer some very helpful guides to get your perfect business card setup.

You can download print ready templates to ensure that your card will print properly, and beyond this you can create a free proof, where Print Runner will approve your design for print.

Super Fast Turn Around

If you’re looking for some quality cards soon then Print Runner have a 3 business day turnaround time.

Check them out and you can have your ideal business cards within days!

Take a Look at Print Runner’s Online Business Card Printing Today

10 Minimal Themes, Perfect for Designers, 91% Discount!

If you’re familiar with the design community then you’ll most likely be familiar with Mighty Deals.

Mighty Deals regularly offer incredible discounts on a variety of design related goods and services. They have become extremely popular within the community, and have established a reputation for only offering the best quality products, at extremely high discounts.

However! Despite this reputation I wouldn’t feature just any Mighty Deals deal at PSD.FanExtra! Remember, we only review stuff that we think will be totally useful for you guys, and stuff that will blow your mind.

When Mighty Deals asked me to review their latest deal I was happy to post my opinions here. This is purely and simply for the reason that this deal could not be more useful to our readers. I know that most of you are designers or aspiring designers. That means that most of you have a body of work that you’re building up. Many of you may not have a portfolio to showcase this work, or may be dissatisfied with your current portfolio…

Today’s deal offers you 10 minimal WordPress themes that have been built specifically with designers like you in mind!

These themes ignore the usual bells and whistles that can weigh down premium themes and instead put the focus on what’s important – your work! Each of these themes makes your work the absolute centerpiece, which we all know is crucial as a designer.

The Juicy Details of the Deal

As you can see from the image above, these themes are usually sold at $290. Today Mighty Deals are offering them at a staggering 91% off – that’s just $27 (I told you their discounts rocked!).

Here are some awesome features for this deal:

• Each theme is responsive and words seamlessly across a variety of devices.
• Dessign Themes can assist with installation if necessary, at no additional cost.
• You can use each theme across multiple sites and customize them to suit your own needs.
• Each premium theme comes with an instructional video explaining how to install and customize the theme on your website.

Like all Mighty Deals deals this offer will expire in just 5 days, so grab it while you still can!

Click here to grab this heavily discounted deal!

Here’s a preview of one of my favorite themes from the bundle:

The Problem With Photoshop Defaults

If you’re a reader of PSD.FanExtra then it’s very likely that you’ll own a copy of Photoshop.

Photoshop is undoubtedly an awesome piece of software, and a staple within the graphic design community.

However, it’s defaults suck!

Defaults are things like brushes, custom shapes, styles, gradients, actions, patterns etc…

Photoshop comes with a default set for each of these, but they haven’t been updated for over a decade!

This means that the defaults that come with a copy of Photoshop are out of touch with current design trends, and actually pretty damn ugly!

(An example of one of the default patterns that comes with Photoshop. Fairly plain, and not that relevant to modern design.)

Welcome PS Defaults

PS Defaults aims to solve this long standing Photoshop issue.

The project is the brain child of Mason Hipp and the teams from Media Loot and We Graphics.

Mason and his team had grown tired of the poor quality of Photoshop’s defaults and decided to come up with something better.

They began creating hundreds of high quality presets that can be installed to replace the regular Photoshop defaults.

This means that from just one installation you can suddenly have great brushes, patterns, custom shapes, styles and actions all ready and waiting for you next time you open Photoshop!

As Mason says himself “Adobe Photoshop has always had the ability to use outside presets: our set is just the first one to package everything so completely. We’re not sure why nobody has done this yet, but it’s certainly about time.”

This project is going to be huge, and should really make life easier for designers.

“PsDefaults can be installed in less than two minutes. We will provide instructions and lots of help — remember our goal with this project is to design an all-in-one solution that anyone can use.”

Check out some of the great resources that PS Defaults will offer:

Free Mini Defaults Kit

Whilst PS Defaults is still in the works, a lot of people are talking about it already.

To help give you guys a teaser, the team at PS Default have put together a mini pack, containing some of the defaults that the final pack will include.

This free pack alone is something many would pay for, so I highly recommend you get it. It includes dozens of patterns, shapes, brushes, styles and more!

To access the free mini pack simply sign up at PS Defaults.

(An example of some of the custom shapes I have just downloaded and begun to enjoy as part of the free mini kit)

The PS Defaults KickStarter Campaign

The official PS Defaults launch is just weeks away.

In the build up, they have launched a KickStarter campaign to raise the necessary funds to complete and launch the full package.

It’s a sign of how much the design community craves this kind of preset pack, as they have already surpassed their funding goal, with over 2 weeks left!

If you back the campaign then you can receive a host of bonuses, including getting the pack for half price!

Checkout the full campaign page here, including an explanatory video giving your more details.

StickerMule

When StickerMule approached us for a review, I instantly agreed. I’ve known about Stickermule for a while now, and they are one of my favorite online companies. Quite simply they are how I think a company should be run (in fact, when we launch Blogs.FanExtra next month, I’m very inclined to publish a casestudy detailing their merits, so that fellow entrepreneurs can learn how to run their companies as proficiently).

Anyway, let’s get to the good stuff! Who exactly are StickerMule?

StickerMule are an online sticker printing business based in the States who pride themselves on great quality products, and fantastic customer service. They make sticker printing a breeze with their simple ordering process and high quality standards. They also have some rather notable clients:

• Github
• AppSumo
• Shopify
• Quora
• Reddit

Today I’m going to look at just what I love so much about this company, and why they should be your go-to place for quality sticker printing!

Great Selection of Products

StickerMule offer a wide range of sticker products so you’re sure to find the specific type of custom stickers you’re after.

Check out some of their awesome products below. They not only offer regular stickers, but also laptop, Ipad, Iphone and Kindle skins!

The World’s Fastest Sticker Printer

StickerMule pride themselves on being the world’s fastest sticker printer. They ship all orders within just 5 business days, meaning that you get your stickers FAST.

Their team work hard to automate much of their production process, meaning that your stickers are produced not only to a high standard, but quicker than the competition.

Personally when I’ve used online printing services slow production times can be a real pain. Whether you have an important promotional deadline for your stickers, or just can’t wait to show them off to friends and colleagues, StickerMule are your best bet.

Free Ground Shipping

A great feature of StickerMule is that they offer free UPS Shipping to all orders placed in the US. Plenty of printing companies that I’ve used in the past have stuck on an extra charge at the end of the order process for shipping, and it can leave a bit of a sour taste.

Even if you’re based outside of the US they offer international shipping at discounted, highly competitive rates.

Real, Honest Reviews

StickerMule actually recently relaunched their website, including several innovative improvements. One of my favorite features on the new site is that they allow every customer to leave a review on their site, totally uncensored.

Whilst most sites will pick out their best reviews (thus not giving a totally unbiased view of their service), I applaud StickerMule for being totally transparent. This new feedback section certainly seem to be working anyway, as out of hundreds of reviews 100% of reviewers have rated their services as ‘great’!

Check out their new reviews section.

You can even see the final product for each reviewer:

Improved Account Features

After talking with the StickerMule guys I got to learn about some huge improves to their account user area. They’ve spent a lot of time improving this area, including some notable changes:

• A much more friendly and interactive referral system. You can now track all of your referrals and easily share your referral links via social media and banners.
• You can easily go through your order history and leave reviews for each order.

From a user’s perspective I can tell you that for such a large business their site is unbelievably simple and easy to use. The entire order process feels very instinctive and you can tell a lot of thought as gone into providing a great user experience.

So what are you waiting for…

Check out StickerMule Today!

FanExtra Business Cards

I’m really pleased to show off our brand new UPrinting business cards for FanExtra. I’ve been meaning to have some printed for some time, but was unsure of which printing company to go with.

Luckily we’ve worked with UPrinting on some giveaways before, and they were kind enough to approach us and offer 250 free business cards. I’m going to take this opportunity to show off our new cards (which have received great feedback from everyone), and discuss my experiences with UPrinting.com.

UPrinting.com

UPrinting are widely regarded as an online printing giant. They’re very well known, particularly within the design industry, and have been known to collaborate with many design blogs.

Their philosophy to printing means that they marry high-end results with very affordable pricing, and have established themselves as a socially responsible, popular company. Their products range from business cards, to brochures, posters, postcards, flyers and many more!

They also offer a 100% money back guarantee (or free reprint) if you’re not totally happy with your order.

My Order Process

The order process for my business cards was very straightforward. I simply uploaded my design and selected my business card options (double sided, rounded corners etc…).

What really impressed me was not the order process (which was great) but the free proofs that came as part of the service. UPrinting email you a free proof of your design, taking into account printing issues such as bleeds, cropping, colors etc… This way you get a free preview of your product before you order.

I also loved that they had a 360 degree preview option whilst creating your card design. This allows you to get a much more physical sense of how your final card will look, as you can toggle and flip your card backward and forward to preview it.

The proof was emailed promptly and was great to get a better idea of how my cards would look. I actually found the preview somewhat blurry, so contacted their support department. The design was looked over and I was assured that the blur was a result of my .pdf reader. As you can see below, the end result was sharp and high quality.

Great Looking Business Cards

When my business cards arrived (on the delivery day originally promised) I couldn’t have been happier with them! I’ve had so many compliments on the cards I know UPrinting definitely did a good job.

The cards have a great weight to them, feeling elegant yet durable. The die-cut glossy finish looks great, and they really stand out compared to regular cards.

I’d honestly give these cards 10 out of 10. The colors are spot on, and most importantly to me the details are incredibly sharp. I included some very subtle details/gradients in my design, which I wasn’t sure would retain in the printing process. However, not only are these details visible, but their as subtle and elegant as in my original Photoshop design.

I’ve noticed that some of my friends have used rock-bottom priced card printers. However, the results look sub-par, often appearing blurry, washed out and on low-quality card. I’m really happy that I chose UPrinting, getting both great pricing, and excellent business cards.

So what are you waiting for…

Check out UPrinting Today!

NextDayFlyers.com

With such a diversity of printing websites available today it can be hard to stand out. However, NextDayFlyers remains one of the most innovative and well respected printing companies. They’ve endured the industry and have emerged as one of the forerunners in online printing services.

As their name might suggest, Next Day Flyers are known for their speed and reliability, offering some of the fastest turnaround times in the industry. In fact, if you order by 6PM it’s guaranteed that your order will be shipped the very next day! This is just one reason why they now hold over 100,000 customers nationwide.

There’s actually a lot I like about their service, so it may be a struggle to cover everything today. However, I’ll try and share some great features of their business and my favorite aspects of their website.

Huge Product Range

Next Day Flyers offer a huge product range, from the standard items such as business cards and flyers to more obscure items such as magnets, tickets, menus and calendar printing. Most items have a variety of sizes and styles available.

If you click on ‘First Time Here’ on their homepage you’re taken to the ‘getting started guide’, which makes it incredibly easy to browse through their product line and reach the order section. The entire product selection process is done using AJAX, and so doesn’t involve loading subsequent pages. If you simply click on the product you’re interested in, the various product options automatically pop up in the second column, from which you can proceed to order.

You can see how this process takes just seconds if you follow my order process below:

Online Design Center, Complete With Pre-Made Templates

A very handy addition to their website is their Online Design Center. If you don’t have the Photoshop skills to produce your ideal product it’s easy using their stripped down design center. You can import images, crop, resize, work with layers, styles, text and more! Think of it like a very basic version of Photoshop that helps get your designs print ready. Each design space is even fitted with print guides to help you take into account bleeds and borders.

Best of all, if you really have no idea what you’re doing they have a wide selection of pre-made templates, which you can edit to fit your needs. Check out one of their photography business card templates below in the design center working space:

Full of Information and Helpful Guides

If like me you’re not that experienced with the world of printing, Next Day Flyers offer in depth guides to assist beginners. With their help you’re able to help them produce the highest quality results. What I found most useful was that their instruction guides are provided for a range of different software. They’re super easy to use and talk you through the process of preparing you files in a straight forward step by step manner.

Once you’ve gotten to grips with preparing your files, they offer templates for every product at every size available to order. This ensures that you can double check your images before ordering a proof, and is a great way to make their customers more print savvy!

Check Points to Guarantee Quality of Product

If the pre-printing process hasn’t convinced you of their quality, then their 33 check point process certainly should! This is something that I haven’t seen any other printing company do. If you check out the image below you can get an overview of their check points, which act as quality control for every order. You can really get a sense for the attention to detail and level of human involvement throughout the entire process. For many printing companies they only provide a mass production solution, with little human quality control. It’s nice to see Next Day Flyers setting a good example with this!

So what are you waiting for…

Check out Next Day Flyers Today!

CustomBagsHQ.com

As my own business has been growing I’ve been looking more and more at diversifying promotional materials, both online and offline. This can range from business cards, to more unique approaches. This is partly why Custom Bags HQ is so intriguing to me at the moment.

Custom Bags HQ are a full service custom bags printer. They print more than 100 million custom bags each year, with orders ranging from 250 to 1,000,000 bags! They also have over 3 decades experience manufacturing, resulting in lower costs, efficient deliveries and higher customer satisfaction.

But that’s all just general info! Let’s look at why I really love this brand:

Products Available

They have a huge range of products and styles available, so you should be able to find just what you’re after. Personally I didn’t even realize there were so many different types of plastic bag, so they certainly provide more than the basics! Check out the 7 types of plastic bag available:

They also offer a range of 3 reusable nonwoven bags:

Quality Counts!

The main attraction of their product range is the quality. All of their bags are made out of thick low density poly (the smooth shiny kind), rather than the cheap stuff you see at supermarkets. This means that the bags are really durable, with a longer life and more quality appearance.

It’s also important to note that their bags are all 100% recyclable, and manufactured using up to 30% recycled plastic. The company only use plastic that’s sourced domestically and derived from natural gas.

As well as the high quality of the bags themselves, their printing process is second to none. Many other companies will limit your printing to 3 colors, or will give you a reduced quality artwork. Custom Bags HQ pride themselves on offering full color printing, and work hard to ensure great quality for your artwork. If it needs tweaking for the printing process they’ll do this themselves to ensure that it’s press ready.

Easy & Fun Ordering Process

One of the things that I love about Custom Bags HQ’s website is that you can tell it’s aimed at creative professionals. It’s really well designed (in fact one of the best online shopping experiences I’ve ever had). The ordering process is straightforward, well designed and user friendly. Key to their success is how they walk you through the entire process of uploading, editing and saving your artwork:

They also offer a really handy templates option, where you can accurately position your artwork over your bag of choice in order to preview it:

Proofs/Samples

Another great feature of the site is that you get free samples and proofs for all your purchases. This means that you can be totally happy with the final product before placing a large order. Custom Bags HQ even promise:

“We’ll make unlimited edits to your artwork, until you’re satisfied with your proof”

This is definitely something that a lot of companies are lacking, and it’s great to see Custom Bags HQ leading the way with this.

Other Great Features

I hope that I’ve given you a useful overview to this service, and that many of you will check them out.

I’d just like to mention a couple of other great features that may interest you:

• There are no additional/hidden charges (plate charges, set-up charges, PMS match charges), meaning that the price quoted is exactly what you’ll be paying
• Many printing companies require you to buy in huge quantities, and whilst Custom Bags HQ let you order up to 10,000 bags (more if you contact them), you can also order as few as 100. This is perfect for smaller businesses!

So what are you waiting for…

Check out Custom Bags HQ Today!