Paper choice is an important consideration for companies providing engraved products such as business cards, envelopes, marketing brochures and corporate announcements.
Letters are important forms of business-to-business communication, but most direct mail is thrown away. Engraved products help to thwart that problem.
"The moment someone receives an engraved business card or opens an engraved envelope containing an engraved letterhead, they receive a subtle message that says, 'You're important to me, and you're important to my business,'" says Trip Jobe, director of marketing at Neenah Paper, a Neenah, Wis.-based supplier of premium writing, text, cover, specialty and private-watermark papers. The company's parent firm is Kimberly-Clark.
According to the International Engraved Graphics Association's web site (www.iega.org), a group of recently surveyed business executives said engraved corporate identity pieces communicate prestige better than other types of printing. Executives are more likely to present their messages proudly to clients and prospects when they use engraved products, the site says.
More companies are including the cost of their brand identity materials in their marketing budgets, not office expenses, Jobe says. Each design for engraved pieces can send its own message. Engraving can elicit the message, "We're a conservative, traditional company" or, "Our work is creative, cutting-edge and contemporary." Most importantly, it evokes the message that the recipient is valuable.
Engraved products aren't limited to stationery identity programs. Because ink is opaque and placed on top of the paper, producing a raised or "intaglio" effect, engraving is ideal for fine-line artwork and type. Announcement cards used as event invitations, merger notices or name-change notices regularly are engraved in black, gold or silver on white and cream papers. Engraving also can provide vivid color contrast for logos and type on rich, dark-textured papers for presentation and marketing folders, holiday cards and brochures.
The paper itself is an important consideration for companies hoping to attract recipients' eyes. "Not choosing a premium paper for engraved stationery would be like placing inexpensive tires on an expensive racing car," Jobe says. "The effect would suffer if the quality of the paper for an identity would be left to a commodity/copier paper type of sheet."
Two types of paper fiber are used for most engraved stationery papers. Cotton fiber (100 percent or 25 percent) has long been used by professional organizations. The tactile elegance of long-fiber cotton papers practically are expected in law, medical, accounting, financial services, insurance and other high-profile arenas. Premium papers made from wood fibers also are developing a following, due mainly to some designers' perceptions that a smoother finish is more modern. Both fiber options work well in laser and ink jet printers.
According to Joe Fontana, owner of Fine Arts Engraving Company, based in Chicago, engraving costs approximately two cents more per letter than offset printing. "When you consider that stamps are usually twice the cost of a sheet of letterhead and an envelope, two cents seems like a reasonable price to pay for the enhanced product," Jobe says. "Engraving signifies class and distinction in a way that no other printing process can."
--Darin Painter
