Producing industrial nameplates with incremented serial numbers is hardly the most creative project to work on, but many retailers do find it extremely profitable. That’s because the customers who require this type of engraving typically are interested first in quality and timely delivery and consider price a secondary or even tertiary concern. We know we can produce a quality product and we’re experts at managing our schedules, so this seems like a perfect fit.

Where’s the beef? It’s in this very beefy project that, among other things, will detail a process for creating table tents with call numbers on them like those used by many fast-food locations.

Large franchise operations order these by the millions at a super cheap price, but smaller, local establishments often require quantities that can be profitable for laser owners, UV printers, sublimators, and other smaller-run personalization professionals.

If you ever get the chance to watch a skilled artisan practicing their craft, you’ll notice they make it look easy. With years of practice, one can make just about anything look easy. To see a neon sign-builder make his work look easy, search for “Blue Collar: Master (Bleep) Is Making Neon Signs the Old-School Way, By Hand” on YouTube to watch Jay “Dirty” Gordon hone his craft with some vintage metal-working equipment and a lot of ingenuity. Caution: salty language is included in this video.

Today, let’s stretch some of the new creative muscles found in more recent versions of CorelDRAW together. Not using the newest version? That’s OK—this also will reveal some of the useful, productive, enhanced features in tools that have been hiding in older CorelDRAW versions this entire time because the procedures in this article have been tested in CorelDRAW2018, CorelDRAW2017, and X8. Working in an older version than that? You can force older versions to duplicate the end result, but I suspect that many of you will consider upgrading to the current version of CorelDRAW after getting a feel for the upgraded tools it puts at our disposal.

This article revolves around a project that I hope many readers with lasers will complete: a marshmallow launcher. However, the real hero of this article is CorelDRAW’s Object Manager. Laser owner or not, I hope every CorelDRAW user will download the Marshmallow Launcher.cdr file, available on the Awards and Personalization Association website at www.AwardsPersonalization.org/InsightsMagazine/Resources.aspx, and refer to it while reading the article. And for those of you who plan to complete the project, we’ve also included a brief step-by-step guide showing how to assemble and use the marshmallow launcher in the digital edition of this article.

Someone recently contacted me to learn the process of converting artwork drawn on paper into something that could be cut from CorelDRAW. You may have an idea, but bear with me because what may seem like the quickest way to convert the artwork is actually the worst option in almost all cases. Let’s go through the steps in the process.

JDS Industries provides a CorelDRAW/Photo-Paint tutorial on how to fix poor-quality artwork for a personalized, laser-engraved product. See how a blurry, faded, handwritten recipe was altered in CorelDRAW and Photo-Paint before being lasered onto a bamboo cutting board to create a sentimental personalized gift.

You can use basic math and calculations in CorelDRAW to work faster and more efficiently. Learn how to leverage CorelDraw to do the math for you. whether you're centering or resizing objects, building pie charts or bar graphs, or need a calculation to adjust your work.

It has been estimated that the total number of photos taken with film since film photography began is between 2 trillion and 3 trillion worldwide. That was before digital cameras and phones with built-in cameras changed everything. An estimated 3 trillion digital photos are expected to be taken or shared from a phone in the year 2017 alone.

I was recently handed a page with seven logo choices and asked to choose my favorite. Before I answered, I had a number of questions. Choosing an attractive logo is important, but there are other factors that are just as important. I’ll walk you through my thought process, so you can apply the same logic when considering a new logo.