Fineline Print and Web

24/08/2026

If you’re ever lucky enough to have a few spare minutes to watch, the trials and tribulations of Edmund Blackadder are pure comedy gold.

Decades old, they may be. But the writing was sheer genius.

His biting historical satire had a wonderful way of getting his point across, even if there was nearly always some poor sap at the end of his cutting wit.

In one memorable scene, a man was found next to his victim.
13 witnesses had seen the attack.

And when the police arrived, the perpetrator said: “I’m glad I got him”.

According to the judge, the case was cut and dried, and he found the accused to be innocent.

Not only was the man acquitted, but the judge also got him knighted in the New Year’s Honours List.

In other words, what was plainly obvious to the jury was diametrically opposite to the judge’s take on the event.

It was a made-for-TV plot, of course, but it shows that no two people see an event in exactly the same way.

Which is a thought that gave me a very hard kick up the backside by way of a reminder.

You see, we’d just changed the PS on our emails to this month’s offer, which just happened to be about labels.

The very next day, one of my colleagues sent out an email about something or other (with the new PS in situ) only to get a reply asking if we did … labels.

The joke is obviously on us, and it was a painful reminder that when it comes to our marketing material, what seems screamingly obvious to us may be completely invisible to somebody else.

Sometimes it pays to look at what you’re saying from the other side of the counter. So, if you want a second opinion, you know where we are.

Until next week.

Alec

18/08/2026

Bumping up your tech stack?
Me neither.

Incredibly, this was part of the opening line of an email I received on Friday, and so badly written that it had me hooked from the off.

I immediately suspected this was a lazily written AI job, but on closer inspection, I don’t think it was.

In fact, I think the guy who wrote it was full up to the brim with testosterone and fancied himself as a big swinging tech bro.

And he was about to share his entire vocabulary of tech b*****ks with his unsuspecting readers.

Whether we liked it or not.

Full disclosure here: we work in a sector with its own peculiar patois, and some of it even grates on me.

But we use it internally, not firehose our customers with streams of jargon that folk outside the industry have never, ever come across.

It’s our job to understand that print is a tool for people to use; it’s not an end in itself.

People don’t wake up in the morning wanting print per se; they want it to drive sales, create a visual presence. And a whole lot more.

So it’s our job to guide customers - not drown them in tech-speak.

So, if you know what you want to achieve but don’t know how to get there with print, give us a shout.

We’ll do our best to help.

Alec

12/08/2026

What’s the best way to forget your wife’s birthday?

Forget it once.

And that’s pretty much the lesson I learned about Tesco vouchers.

But I didn’t forget about them; I didn’t know I had them in the first place.

I only found out by chance that I’d blown the lottery after vouchers to the value of a ‘round the world cruise’ had expired.

The pain was almost unbearable.

But it hadn’t always been that way.

Until recently, I’d hung on to my trusted club card and relied on any vouchers arriving by post. Antediluvian (*) or what!

Anyway, after deciding it was long overdue, I downloaded the app.
And that’s when it all went wrong.

If my Tesco vouchers had landed on the doormat instead of hiding in an app, I'd almost certainly have spent them.

Probably on far more After Eights (frozen, of course) than any responsible adult needs.

That's the thing about print.

It's remarkably difficult to forget something that's staring at you from the kitchen table every time you make a cup of tea.

If you're wondering how print could help keep your business front of mind, we'd love to help. The kettle's always on.

Alec

(*) Antediluvian: extremely old, ancient, or out-of-date.

04/08/2026

Danish architect or Seagull …?

Who hasn’t ever lost their car keys?

Finding them should be easy.

The logical approach is that we know what they look like, and as long as we’re able to retrace our steps, they should quickly come to light.

Logic is fine if you’re an uber cool Danish architect type who keeps everything perfectly in place at all times.

But what if you’re not?

What if your personal belongings look like a ravenous seagull’s just trashed your bin bag?

If that’s you, you probably don’t stand an earthly.

So hats off to Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev.

He’s the clever chemist who arranged the 63 known elements at the time into what we know as the periodic table.

And he even left spaces for those he predicted would be found later without ever being able to see them.

Mendeleev understood something most of us should, but don’t.

If you organise things properly, finding what you need becomes almost effortless.

The same applies to print.

Whether it’s a brochure, catalogue, menu or product guide, people don’t want to hunt for the information they’re looking for.

They want it to leap off the page.

The easier you make it for them, the more likely they are to keep reading. And … the more likely they are to buy.

If you’d like a fresh pair of eyes on your next print project, we’d be delighted to help.

Alec

25/06/2026

18/05/2026

For pure blood-curdling threats, few could match the letter we received from our electricity provider at the start of 2025.

Fifty Grand in arrears, the letter said.

And then went on to list all the unpleasant things that would happen to us if we didn’t pay the whole damned lot by the end of the month.

We politely but firmly told them to sod off, which was just as well because it turned out that they were the ones who actually owed us money.

That goolie-shrivelling feeling came flooding back when I received a ‘routine’ communication from one of our trade suppliers the other day.

This time, there was more blood-curdling language.

But on closer inspection, it was nothing more than a message to tell us that a proof was still awaiting sign-off.

All I can say is that it must have been written by an overgrown toddler with serious anger management issues. And … crucially, never checked by a responsible adult.

Which all goes to prove that the words we use matter. A lot.

There is, after all, a sizeable difference between ‘Just a gentle reminder’ (which this missive was meant to be) and a message that reads like the opening stages of a hostage negotiation.

If you’re working on new marketing material and want somebody to sense-check it before going to print, we’re always happy to act as a sounding board.

Until next week.

Alec

11/05/2026

‘Not for Children under 36 months’.

Unbelievably, those were the instructions on the packet of my new spokeshave.

If you haven’t used one before, a spokeshave is a very handy woodworking tool, which I use to pare down a new shaft or handle for my garden tools.

If you have used one, you’ll know it has a lethally sharp blade.

Any lunatic who thinks it’s suitable for a toddler to play with is a complete lunatic.

Nurse! Screens!

I know I’m going out on a limb here, but I hold very similar sentiments about the design tool Canva.

In the right hands, Canva is a brilliant piece of design software and is widely considered the default design tool for UK small businesses lacking in-house designers.

So, good on them.

The trouble is, they’ve made it so easy to use that anyone with the design skills of a Just Stop Oil paint chucker thinks it’s turned them into Picasso.

The designs they come up with aren’t half bad sometimes, but poor file prep means they are as ready to send to print as a frozen chicken is to eat.

Cue frustrating delays and rising temperatures as people and things start to go into meltdown.

Before you know it, you’ve got a 3-mile Island situation on your hands and blame certificates flying around by the dozen.

Stress Monkeys may love it, but the rest of us don’t need to be told that it’s not good for our health.

That last yard between finalising your design and handing over a properly print-ready file can be daunting.

If you want to bypass the nuclear meltdown stage and build in a bit of breathing space, we’re here to help you over the line.

Until next week.

Alec

05/05/2026

Question: What’s got a turnover of over £1billion, has more stores than Waitrose, and has an astonishing cult following.

Answer: Farmfoods, and it’s Britain’s second-largest frozen food outlet behind Iceland.

And I bet you’ve never heard of it.

I’ve driven past our local branch a dozen times, probably more, and always thought it was where smallholders went to buy feeds for their animals.

Hands up. I know this is a perfect example of the unimaginative straight-line thinking men are so good at.

So, it’s no wonder our better halves think we are so utterly useless.
But it did get me thinking, what’s in a name?

If you and I came up with a name that suggests we sell apples when we really sell pears, then we’re in a spot of bother.

Because, unlike the big boys, we haven’t got a bottomless pit of spondoolicks to spray around on brand awareness.

No. We have to be a lot smarter.

ChatGPT and its ilk might be a good starting point.

But don’t be surprised if ideas that seem astonishingly brilliant after a glass or two of château collapso don’t hold up when you’re staring into the mirror with a stinker of a hangover the following morning.

So, if your name, message, or first impression is even slightly off, people don’t just misunderstand you … you’re completely invisible to them.

And that’s a hard thing to fix after the fact.

If you’ve got a project, event, or campaign coming up and want to make sure everything lands exactly as it should — on the page and in people’s minds — we’re always happy to have a quick chat.

Until next week.

Alec

28/04/2026

Any of us can go out today and purchase an ink cartridge – a pretty simple task, right?

Our presses use dry toner that arrives after an automated alert from the presses, which is about as effortless as it gets.

But it wasn’t always that easy.

Centuries ago, it had to be made by hand, to a very specific formula.

And it all started with the humble gall wasp, laying its eggs in young acorn buds.

In doing so, it effectively reprogrammes the oak, turning embryonic acorn buds into galls that become a home for its larvae.

There are many types of oak galls, but one in particular has helped shape our history.

For a thousand years, we’ve created a special type of ink with which almost all historical documents have been written.

And all because a tiny wasp laid an egg in an oak bud.

A little quirk of evolution that has shaped our history.

The dry oak galls are crushed, mixed with water, iron sulphate, and gum Arabic to form a durable, long-lasting ink.

The same ink that was used on our Magna Carta, the American Declaration of Independence, and the drawings of Rembrandt and Da Vinci.

The oak tree has helped us record our past, express our most profound ideas and share our deepest emotions.

Putting ink on paper is what we do.

If you’ve got a project, event, or campaign coming up and you’d like the print side to look sharp and run smoothly, we’re here for a quick chat.

Until next week.

Alec