Part of the new requirements is that wafer seals have to now be 1.5″ round on translucent paper. This applies to multi-page, stitched booklet mailers.

This poses a problem for designers because, previously, wafer seals were smaller and clear plastic. The front and back creative of a booklet mailer now has to take into account these larger, translucent wafer seals.

The easiest thing to do is just stay away from using dark colors where the wafer seals are going to be.

Here’s an example of a slim-jim magalog we just produced for a client that has the new wafer seals on it:

You can see the wafer seals top (2) and bottom (1), but the light colors of the creative helps them blend in more. It’s not perfect, but it’s acceptable. Here’s a close up of the top for a better look:

So while we thought these new wafer seal requirements were going to inhibit design, it’s really not that bad. And they open easier than the previous plastic ones too.

If you want to discuss the creative of your next booklet mailer, please contact us.

First off, fugitive glue are drops of glue that are placed on a self-mailer to keep it closed. So for example, if you’re mailing a double postcard, you could apply fugitive glue to keep the 2 postcard panels closed in the mail stream.

The alternative are wafer seals — the circular pieces of “tape” that get folded over the panels you want to close — but they are more expensive and more visible on the mail piece.

The potential problem with fugitive glue is this: depending on the design of your self-mailer, you might have to apply the drops of glue on a reply card that is hopefully returned back to you. If the recipient sends back the reply card without rubbing off the drops of glue, there’s the potential issue of the reply card sticking to other mail and never reaching it’s final destination.

This all said, we don’t think this is a huge issue to worry about because a reply card sticking to another piece of mail is pretty obvious and would be corrected by the USPS  And furthermore, I assume most people would rub the glue off before sending back the reply card.

If your self-mailer design is forcing you to use fugitive glue on your reply card and you’re worried about the above, you have 2 options:

1. Use wafer seals instead.
2. Speak to your lettershop vendor because there are different types of fugitive glue you can use that vary in size and intensity. 

We would love to hear about your experiences or comments on this topic. Please comment below if you’re interested.

Many times they will be able to work out a more accurate production schedule for you based upon their experience and factors such as:

• Seasonality
• Post office workload
• Method of drop shipping
• And the distribution of your names 

So for your next mailing, choose a desired in-home date and share it with your vendors early in the game — they will then build a schedule for you start to finish that will allow for time to meet this date factoring in the items above.

This should result in a more timely delivery of your mail and possibly a more generous production schedule.

Have you ever received this type of phone call? It can happen.

To give you an idea of how standard lettershop inserting equipment works…each component is placed in its own individual hopper. A gripper arm reaches down and grabs the insert and drops insert 4 on 5, 3 on 4 and so forth. All the inserts, neatly and strategically stacked, come to the end of the line. During this process, an outer envelope (the carrier envelope) is waiting at the end of the conveyor belt.

“How do the inserts get into the envelope?” Good question…a suction cup grabs the throat of the envelope and pulls it up about a 1/4″. And then an inserting arm shoves all of the inserts into the envelope.

Doing this at 4,000 pieces per hour, things happen quickly. When the envelope is opened a 1/4″, it actually shortens the overall width of the envelope. Therefore, most lettershops require a 1/4″ clearance on both the left and right side of the envelope. For example, if you have a #10 envelope with a width of 9-1/2 inches, the maximum insert size is 9 inches.

For more information or questions, please contact Matt Cote at matt (at) ballantine.com.