Seeds of the new Craft
Hello
Perhaps you saw the news from the Royal Botanic Gardens (at Kew) in Britain last month:
15 Oct 2009
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership ‘top banana’ as it celebrates banking 10% of the world’s wild plant species
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership is celebrating collecting, banking and conserving 10% of the world’s wild plant species by banking its 24,200th plant species.
The item caught our eye, as it drew our mind back to an intriguing GOLD Award winner in the 35th International Gallery from Garlich Printing Company in St Louis. If you visit the Garlich website you will see the firm has a long tradition of award winning prowess in the International Gallery and other events.
The particular entry we salute included this supplemental information for the entry titled:
AT&T Paperless Billing Mailer
"Cast Paper is a manufacturer of artisan papers and 100% rag specialty seed paper such as is used on this job. They referred us through a mutual customer as a printer capable of handing exotic substrates.
The end user sought a manufacturing solution to emphasize the promotional message of the mailer with an environmental thrust. Our manufacturing solution included the sourcing of special, non-petroleum based ink from Planet Green for the ink jetting of the finished mailer, the use of our low-VOC formulation inks as well as our CTP workflow. Special handling was required to remove the deckle edge from the stock and each sheet (6,000 plus sheets) was hand inspected prior to printing to ensure excellent printability. Frequent cleaning of the blankets kept the printing quality high on this environmentally focused, high profile piece
http://www.pginkjets.com/about.php
Besides, it's just cool to be able to plant the mailer and get wild flowers!"
Occasional browsers of this Blog may note the frequent references to a given graphic arts purveyor and a project entered in the International Gallery which they executed with award-winning aplomb.
Much like our friends Bill Farquharson and Dr. Joe Webb keep exhorting printers to move rapidly away from an order taking mentality into a consultative solutions orientation in an industry that has quickly bi-furcated into two utterly distinct and different business models -- one the conventional offset printing manufacturing model, and the other, the information based digitally enabled service model..... well, we see the proof in a very tangible manner -- based on the entries from printers the world over, the industry is changing and is inventing new ways to assist clients and to keep print a relevant part of the marketing equation.
In other words, there is a new kind of craft being invented in the arts and sciences of global graphic expression.
There is irony in a project done so well that has as its goal the elimination of printed paper statements, but that is the reality of our time and only the ostrich would deny it.
For our money, we think it is far better for Garlich to have created such an excellent and creative use of print than for the firm to gone off on a goose chase of seeking to become an enterprise printing solution for AT&T. For as we urged our audience at the Executive Outlook conference, one day prior to the opening of Print 09 to consider:
'Transpromo (for our segment of the printing and publishing industry) is Poppycock!'
Moreover, someday, some one will need a printer who can do what Garlich wrought on this project, and we will do a referral because, as we keep reminding all prospective Gallery entrants -- Gallery: It's Good For Business!
We salute Garlich Printing and do so in keeping with our IAPHC Mission-Mandate : "To Educate/Promote/Inform/Connect all members with the Global Graphic Community." We think today's post hits on all four of the linchpins of our EPIC goal.
How can we help your firm get the word out about your efforts?
For sport, we Googled this Blog (Kevin Keane's Blog) and sure enough, it is already hitting the SEO radar screens. Let us know what we can do to tell the world about your company, won't you? And thank you!
Cheers,
