by Milt Vine
As many of you know, Blake Letterpress joined the Seattle Bindery family about a year and
a half ago. Since then, we've learned a thing or two about foil stamping and had occasion
to remember that it's always wise to listen to what our customers want and need.
One aspect of foil stamping in particular gave me that opportunity to listen: foil guides.
We've all used those, right? Most look like a stack of index cards attached together at
one corner with a "Chicago screw," each card with a foil sample and a number to
signify that sample color. To use it, you flip through, pick the one you like, give the
postpress house the number and voilá: the job is closer to finished.
But it's not always that easy. Often, customers want to take the guide back to work with
them so they can pick a foil when and where it's easiest for them, with all of a job's
elements in one place. That's reasonable, even expected. But by the time Blake and Seattle
Bindery joined forces, Blake was practically out of self-made foil selector guides, and
that put us in the unfortunate position of telling customers they couldn't take the guide
they held in their hands with them out of the building. Of course, that's not exactly the
type of customer service we strive for.
The Choices. So, decisions had to be made, and it became clear pretty quickly that we were
faced with choosing one of three options. We could stick with what had worked in the past
and produce more of Blake's foil guides. We could seize the opportunity to design a new
and better guide. Or we could switch to another system entirely.
The first choice was the easiest to discard. The old guide worked fine, but a short
discussion came up with several ways to create a new one that was even better. Easy
enough. Down to two options.
At that point, the idea of switching to another system entirely looked quite attractive.
The Pantone system caught our attention. It offered a complete system that was easy to use
and to order. That last benefit was especially compelling because as any postpress house
knows, making foil guides in-house can eat up money and time.
But easy doesn't always equal best. To finalize our decision, we knew we had to look at
the market and listen to our customers.
Our Market. What we learned was interesting, and a testament to how a situation usually
isn't as simple as we might assume. Years ago, it turns out, Northwest Hot Stamping, a
local firm no longer in business, devised a foil numbering system specifically for its
customers. Through the decades, our market in the Pacific Northwest has adopted those
numbers exclusively.
In other words, 201 in any of the foil guides used around here and 201 in the Pantone book
are completely different colors. So the question then became whether we would ask our
customers to accept a change and, in the process, ask the local market to adapt to us.
After not much discussion, we decided that we wouldn't. We talked to our customers, and
they were comfortable with what they already used and understood. And since we are neither
the oldest nor the largest foil stamper in the area, it struck us as fairly presumptuous
to gallop off in a new direction and expect everyone to follow. Instead, we listened, and
our customers led the way.
New Books. Part of the reason for combining Seattle Bindery and Blake Letterpress in the
first place was to provide one-stop shopping. So, as the only foil stamper in the area who
also makes books, we thought it was wise (and, yes, fun) to make our guide an actual book,
with no more index cards and no more "Chicago screw" in the corner to hold them
together.
Our new guide books are five by seven inches and plastic spiral bound with rounded outside
corners. Each page highlights four colors. And each color swatch is an inch tall and runs
across the page, bleeding off the edge. That way, users can place the sizable sample
directly atop the area to be foiled and know right away if they like it or not.
Each foil sample in the book is also blind embossed, offering another instant view of
possibilities.
And possibilities are the name of the game, right? That's certainly what we like to offer
our customers, and our new foil selection book is proving itself to be an excellent method
of doing so. Its success, I feel certain, is because we reacted to what our customers
wanted.
Milt Vine is president of Seattle Bindery, a postpress house specializing in custom tabs and presentation folders; folding and stitching; foil stamping, embossing and die-cutting; plastic spiral, Wire-O¨ and perfect binding. You can reach Milt at 425.656.8210. For more information about Seattle Bindery, check out their web site at www.seattlebindery.com. ©1999, Seattle Bindery.