Choosing materials for your printed mugs

When choosing materials for your printed mug you should make the decision based off of not only a design concept, but also the type of emotion you are looking to evoke from your customers. For the wow effect, or giving your customers are feeling of futuristic and stylish appeal, you are going to want to consider using metal as the material of choice for your printed mugs.

Not only is metal highly attractive, but it can also be finished in a variety of ways to get very different looks to the exact same material. Not to mention a metal printed mug is highly durable and will likely last for a very long time; certainly much longer than that same printed mug made out of plastic.

When creating a metal printed mug you're going to want to consider whether or not you want your mug to be insulated or non-insulated. In insulated printed mug has additional value of being able to keep a liquid warm or cool for extended periods of time. Adding insulation to your metal printed mug will add quite a bit to the cost of the final product, however it almost 100% ensures that people will be using your printed mug for a long time due to the cost of procuring their own insulated mugs.

Creating an insulated mug also helps to avoid another problem associated with metal printed mugs, that is to say their heat transfer. Heat transfer can be a huge problem when designing a metal printed mug because if a person puts a hot liquid inside of a metal cup naturally the heat will transfer through the metal and burn the person if they touch the bare metal cup. For this reason you really only should consider producing insulated metal printed mugs. A non-insulated variety can only lead to product liability suits.

Now that you have decided that insulated is the only way to go when creating a metal printed mug, your next step will be deciding whether or not you want a traditional coffee cup form factor, or a travel mug. A travel mug has many advantages over traditional coffee cups style printed mug, though as with all options this will add more to the overall cost of the product.

The benefit however associated with a metal travel printed mug is huge, and practically doubles the likelihood that people will be using your printed mug. The travel mugs are traditionally rather pricey, so when a person gets one for free and are likely to hold onto it and use it daily. Additionally, if your printed mug is a travel mug people will be exposed to your branding and logo not only will they are sitting down in the office or at home, but also while they are in the car; and in today's age of the long commute this can actually be a significant amount of time that a customer is exposed to your brand through the use of a metal travel printed mug.

Gareth Parkin is the co-founder of Ideasbynet, the UK's largest online source of printed mugs & other promotional items. He has taken UK gift market of products like printed mugs by storm through modern business thinking & latest search engine marketing techniques. For more details visit www.ideasbynet.com