It's not often that distributors have the opportunity to flex their artistic muscles. But for Harriet Beckman, customers' projects often become works of art.
When Beckman, president of Whitman Printing Corp., Mineola, N.Y., started her firm as a 1-person distributorship in 1996, she quickly learned she needed to offer creative services in order to stay competitive. "I would talk to a prospect about a commercial printing job and they'd ask, 'Can you do the design work?'" she says. "I didn't know any designers so they'd say, 'We'll get back to you.'" Often, those firms assigned their projects to graphic designers, who printed the pieces through their preferred print shops, she says.
Beckman soon hired a proofreader and developed relationships with freelance graphic designers, writers, and photographers who allowed her to offer those value-added services. The first project Whitman Printing completed after introducing those services--a 4-color, die cut, embossed presentation folder for an interior design firm that featured digital photography, opaque inks and custom marketing literature--won a Silver Medal from the Long Island Association of Advertising Directors. The distributorship's projects also have won awards from the Association of Graphic Communications and supplier Neenah Paper.
Whitman Printing's customers have driven the firm to expand its product and service offerings, Beckman says. Initially, traditional forms accounted for most of the firm's sales. Today, commercial printing accounts for 50 percent of sales. Whitman Printing also provides office supplies, security documents, labels, direct mail, promotional products and stationery to customers in the publishing, interior design and financial markets.
Whitman Printing Corp., a 6-year-old distributorship in Mineola,
N.Y., provided a back-room operations specialist company with 5,000 3-panel
presentation folders that folded to 8 3/4 x 11 inches. The project combined the
work of a freelance writer, a freelance photographer and a freelance graphic
designer. The distributorship also redesigned the end users letterhead,
stationery, envelopes and business cards.
The real secret to Whitman Printing's success, however, has been its strategic alliances with graphic designers, copywriters, photographers and other professionals, Beckman says. "I guess you could call me Whitman Network Printers," she jokes. The distributorship has an alliance with Network Design and Communications, a graphic and web site design firm in Manhattan that enables Whitman Printing to offer web site design services to its customers. Though the graphic and web site design firm employs a computer programmer, the two firms also recently began partnering with a computer systems development professional to handle large projects.
Whitman Printing also works with a forms warehousing and distribution firm with 20,000 square feet of storage space and 14 delivery trucks. Although many firms couldn't make deliveries to Lower Manhattan for several weeks following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Whitman Printing's partner delivered orders to the distributorship's customers in that area. "He made me look really good," Beckman says. Whitman Printing also allies with another firm to offer e-commerce services via the distributorship's web site.
When an international back-room operations specialist company for banks
and large brokerage firms wanted to revamp its logo and create a
professional-looking presentation folder to hold proposals or quotes for its
customers, it turned to Whitman Printing. After meeting with the client to
discuss the end user's ideas and goals for the piece, one of the
distributorship's freelance writers wrote marketing literature for the firm. At
the same time, Whitman Printing purchased a world map and a variety of currency,
including English pounds, Japanese yen and German marks, which its freelance
photographer photographed with a digital camera. The photographer also took
digital photos of a Greek ionic column.
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"Companies are really looking for someone
who can offer more than, 'I can print it.'"
Harriet Beckman
President
Whitman Printing Corp.
Mineola, N.Y.
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The distributorship then arranged a photo shoot at New York's Grand Central Terminal. The photographer photographed the back-room operations specialist firm's three principals standing on one of the terminal's two grand staircases, which is in front of a 40-foot steel-frame window. "When you're doing a photo shoot in Grand Central Station, you have everyone looking at you," Beckman says. "They're asking, 'Who are those guys? Are they famous?'" Tourists soon began snapping photos of Beckman's clients, the photographer and Beckman herself.
After creating a new logo for the client, one of the distributorship's freelance graphic designers created the piece in QuarkXPress, using the 40-foot window as a repeating element. The 3-panel, 26 1/4 x 22 1/4-inch folder folded to 8 3/4 x 11 inches. The folder's center panel featured an expandable pocket to hold documents of various thicknesses. The pocket also included a slot for a business card and a die cut opening that allowed a client's logo to be displayed. The interior and exterior of the folder included photographs, and the interior included marketing literature. Whitman Printing provided the back-room operations specialist firm with 5,000 presentation folders, as well as redesigned letterhead, stationery, envelopes and business cards.
Though the client had only 15 employees, it was pleased that the folder gave it the image of a Fortune 500 company, Beckman says. "Companies are really looking for someone who can offer more than, 'I can print it,'" she says.
—Kara S. Carpenter
