I am a self-confessed clutter monkey and print anorak.

This means it won’t be long before Francis Towers resembles Mr Trebus Towers, due to my inability to discard nice printed things.

I was going through a big pile of said things yesterday evening (including a lovely 8pp one-piece shaped mailer from Majestic Wine; clever stepped promo leaflet from Sky; personalised Christmas offer from Matalan; all the Christmas cards received this year, both professional and personal; fab sample pack from the Liquorice Press; membership renewal with integrated cards from the National Trust; Christmas issues of various magazines that I’m still delving into; beermats with cross-media promos; MyWaitrose brochure with cover flap; clever year planner from Evolution Print… the list goes on. And on.).

While doing this I had a bit of an epiphany about a simple New Year’s Resolution for every printco.

That being to ‘print something’ that’s a promo for your good selves. If you can produce fancy things such as complex shapes and whatnot, great. Do that.

But even if your product range involves more standard fare, it’s still possible to send out something with stand-out by using a creative idea.

A case in point is the Christmas card from Manchester’s DXG Media. It’s not a weird format and it doesn’t feature an array of special finishes. But it has stand-out because it says ‘Happy Easter’ on the front. The message inside says “from Manchester’s most forward thinking printer”. Clever eh?

Print really can leave a lasting impression, and this is one New Year’s resolution at least that is eminently achievable.