If you exhibit at tradeshows, you know you're paying a small fortune to spend a few moments communicating your message to potential customers. To reinforce that momentary connection you give them a memento, AKA tradeshow swag. Can that notepad, mug or T-shirt communicate with them?

Let's make that notepad, mug or T-shirt tell your story long after the event!

By adding a digital watermark to that coffee mug, the customer's smartphone could be playing your video, getting your latest product updates, adding you to their contacts or entering your contest. This could be done with a QRcode, but which mug would you prefer to give away?

Learn how to accomplish this with Digimarc Discover...

I created an account on at CafePress and used their templates to edit my artwork to the right size for mugs, notebooks and T-shirts. Once I got the artwork sized correctly I added watermarks. It was simple and quick.

To watermark your artwork you’ll need an account on the Digimarc Discover Online Services Portal. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial, no credit card required. Then do a round of tests to make sure it works regardless of the print system you're using. If everything works as expected, you’ll just need to upgrade to a regular account to extend your digital watermark's connection beyond 30 days.

The notebook was really simple. The "live area" is 4.5" wide so I resized my artwork to 4.5" at 300 dpi. I used the 4-Colorpress > 133ls setting (this works well with the digital printers Cafepress uses) and moved the 'Strength' setting from the default of 5 to 6. I wanted a little higher strength since the Cafepress notebook has a textured plastic topcoat. This topcoat is between your smartphone and the digital watermark.

For the mug and T-shirt I switched the watermarking setting to the 'Newsprint' preset to create a slightly larger watermark structure that works well with lower quality printing. I also set the strength to 10. Yes, the file looked somewhat noisy on screen, but the quality of the printing on the T-shirt and the mug removed any visual noise from using such a high watermark setting.

The mug required an additional tweak once I got the test item back. The printed colors were so saturated that the watermark was nearly gone. I reduced the saturation of my artwork to 80% and then re-watermarked it. The second mug works like a champ, looks great and you can’t see the watermark.

A couple of tips for printing on odd swag materials like ceramics, fabrics and plastics:

1. Do test prints to see how well the printer can produce your watermarked artwork. I like working with a local producer if possible. You can work with them to understand how they are printing your swag.
2. If the printer is having trouble reproducing the watermark, turn up the watermark strength and possibly switch to the newsprint setting for an even more robust watermark.
3. If it looks good and you can read it easily, you are ready to go. Remember to test in bad lighting... tradeshows are not known for natural lighting.
4. Last but not least, make sure when the watermark is read, your visitors are taken to a compelling reward. You want them to remember you.

Full disclosure: there is no relationship between Digimarc and Cafepress.