The chart below is from a presentation by Frank Romano, professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. It lists the various applications of industrial printing and dates from 2008.
It contains the following product categories (counter clockwise from the bottom):
- AdPromo, the largest category, includes brochures, flyers, booklets as well as signage and point-of-purchase.
- The packaging category includes labels, as well as flexible and folding cartons. Printing on corrugated board is also part of the packaging segment.
- Financial includes annual and quarterly reports.
- Letterhead, envelopes, business cards and note pads are examples of stationery.
- The forms category includes not just carbon, carbon-less and multi-part forms but also internal documents such as reports and handouts.
- More exotic printed products are grouped in the miscellaneous category. This includes wallpaper, wrapping paper, greeting cards, calendars, and posters.
- Periodicals include magazines, journals, and newsletters.
- Newspapers are typically dailies or weeklies.
- The books segment contains mass-market bound and paperback books as well as professional publications and college & university press.
- Catalogs are printed for both the consumer and business market.
- The best-known type of directories is the white and yellow pages. They dwarf the market for trade and organizational directories.
- The technical documents category includes manuals, guides and instructions.
- Direct mail consists of postcards, self-mailers, booklets, and letter mail.
It is impossible to create a complete list of all of the different types of printed products or products that are printed on. The list below gives a brief overview of some of the more generic types of products:
- Apparel – you can print on hats, jackets, shirts,…
- Bags
- Banners
- Binders
- Billboards – large outdoor prints for displaying advertisements
- Booklets- thin books with a small number of pages and a paper cover
- Books – hardcover books, softcover books, paperbacks, albums,…
- Bookmarks
- Boxes – STE boxes, folding cartons,… and other types of packaging
- Brochures – unfolded versions are often used as flyers, folded versions can serve as product sheets
- Business cards
- Calendars
- Cards – next to the ones mentioned in this list there are also appointment cards, promo cards, scratch cards, reply cards, tent cards, invitation cards, rack cards…
- Catalogs
- Certificates
- Covers – CD or DVD covers,…
- Credit cards
- Currency or banknotes
- Data sheets and sales sheets
- Decals – wall decals, window decals,…
- Direct mail
- Directories & Yellow pages
- Displays – pop-up displays,…
- Door hangers
- Envelopes – often ordered alongside matching letterhead
- Jackets – book jackets, CD jackets,
- Flags
- Flyers
- Folders – promotional folders, presentation folders, corporate folders,…
- Forms
- Greeting cards
- Inserts
- Invitations
- Labels – address labels, price labels, shipping labels, beverage labels, wine labels, canning labels, food labels, warning labels,…
- Letterhead – stationery with a printed heading (containing for example a company name, logo, address, website URL,..)
- Literature holders
- Magazines & Journals
- Manuals & guides
- Menus – can be plastified
- Newsletters
- Notepads
- Leaflets
- Magnets – like fridge magnets
- Mailings
- Menus
- Newsletters: dailies, weeklies, national or regional or local, tabloid, broadsheet, Berliner, company newsletters…
- Personalized products, such as pens, memory sticks, stamps,…
- Presentation folders
- Point-of-purchase (POS)
- Point-of-sale (POP)
- Postage stamps
- Postcards
- Posters – adshels, abribus,…
- Reports & annuals
- Signage – yard signs, traffic signs, property signs, …
- Sleeves – CD or DVD sleeves, packaging sleeves,…
- Stationery – letterheads, envelopes, notepads
- Stickers – bumper stickers, campaign stickers, logo stickers, promotional stickers, vinyl stickers, wall stickers, window stickers,
- Tags – price tags, garment tags, hang tags, door tags,…
- Textiles – tablecloths,…
- Tickets – event tickets, lottery tickets, raffle tickets,…
- Vouchers
- Wallpaper
- Window clings and decals
- Wrapping paper
- Wobblers
Nice chart, would be great to see an updated version! Our printing company recently pivoted to focus more on packaging and labels due to the growing demand we were finding here, especially short-run digital production.