Welcome to Italic : Toronto’s hub of Creative Designers

You’re on your way to Tutti Matti for a taste of authentic Tuscan cuisine from chef Alida Solomon and something catches your eye as you walk past the Balfour Building. A glimpse of a glowing neon sign outside 380 Adelaide St. W. Welcome to Italic Press, where creativity meets innovation to provide meaningful communication solutions. Whether it’s project consultation, business stationery printing, large format design or small promotional materials, Italic Press is bringing your vision to life.

What makes Italic Press an industry leader in the printing industry?

We are always willing to try new things! When designers challenge us with a seemingly impossible task, we always discover new capabilities and techniques that we can apply in the future. We’ve invested heavily in acquiring the best technology available and bringing it to the Canadian market. Through our adaptive technology and expertise, the sky is the limit when it comes to our clients’ visions. Our team loves to say yes.

How do you help inspire your clients? How does the process work to decide which products/services are best for their businesses/brands?

Italic Press has become almost a hub of creative designers. It is by design that Italic Press is located in the Entertainment District. We are surrounded by the best creative agencies and designers in Canada and, by letting our clients push us forward into new exciting territory, we have become a hub of inspiration.

At Italic Press, we consider ourselves mostly digital, but our final output is always physical. We encourage people to schedule a consultation to discuss their project as early in the process as possible. Coming in to see how things look and feel really sets the course. Our guidance on the most suitable manufacturing process decisions helps achieve a final product as close to the vision (and the budget) as possible.

We work to be a part of our client’s team and really understand their needs.

To what degree do materials (vs. colour or design) contribute to or define a brand (i.e. specific weight of the paper)? Can you describe what different materials convey?

As the world goes digital, brands have few opportunities to engage the senses. There is no one way to print, so we use our experience to guide creatives to make beautiful, effective and memorable work through material texture, colour, shape, weight, and a mix of traditional and digital processes. If you need something as simple as business cards, don’t print 1000 cheap business cards. Instead, print 100 really amazing business cards.

If we were to walk into your 380 Adelaide St. W location, what would we find? 

Walking in our front door you’ll find a lot of paper, machinery, and technology – but most importantly, a young, energetic team of men and women who respect each other. The team at Italic Press enjoys sharing our knowledge to empower others both inside and outside our organization. People tell us they like working with us because what we do excites us and that’s infectious.

Explain how working in the Toronto Entertainment District influences your creativity, do you channel this into the services you provide, and how?

It’s great to have our clients within walking distance! It is hard not to be influenced by the neighbourhood’s creative and fashionable population. Because we’ve built a flexible and dynamic team of talented employees, we can usually say “yes” when our clients are really thinking outside the box. There’s no better feeling than bringing something imagined to life as a tangible product. Our clients’ faces light up, and we love it too.

What are some of your favourite places to hang out in the Toronto Entertainment District?

Like most workplaces, when we’re not discussing the work at hand we’re talking about food. We know how lucky we are to be surrounded by so many great coffee and lunch options. From General Assembly Pizza to Strangelove Coffee, we’re known faces at all the best lunch spots.

Please tell us some of the coolest, out-of-the-box ideas a client has asked for that you were able to deliver?

Our clients get all the credit, and rightfully so! While our Instagram (@italicpress) shows a few flashy custom gifts for visiting celebrities, incredible pitch packages, and other fun projects, it only represents a small fraction of what we do every day. We also get really excited about some of the not-so-glamorous behind the scenes projects we’ve built. Like when a client’s request, from anywhere in the world, flows directly into production without human hands touching it and comes out exactly the same every time. We serve many international organizations who need a vendor to support them in the Canadian market.

Are there any exciting upcoming projects you’re working on that you can let us in on?

We wish we could tell you, but for most projects, we can’t disclose. You’ll have to wait and see!

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Get in touch with Italic Press for a consultation and custom pricing for all your printing needs.

Want to stay in the loop of other business services around the Toronto Entertainment District? Follow us on Facebook, Instagram (@entertainmentdistrictto) and Twitter (@Toronto_ED).