It was a rainy Thursday morning as I sat with our client in the lobby of a printing company waiting for our on-site press check for the City Vista Apartments brochure. We had read all the old magazines, caught up on industry gossip and started to check out the vending machine when we heard, “It will be just a little longer. We’re almost ready.” This was not a good sign as we had been waiting for two hours.

Finally the cover press sheet was ready. The cover of the brochure was being printed on 24 pt. Touché Cover, white. The client at Lowe Enterprises personally picked out this paper due to its soft tactile surface, and was so excited that he had an opportunity to use this stock. When we saw the inconsistency in the ink coverage, long frowns soon filled the room. There were no answers as to why this was happening. Finally, the printer determined that there must be a problem with this particular lot of stock, and the paper representative was on his way to see if he could offer any remedy.

Another two hours past and we were told we had to choose a different stock. The weight, color and quantity of Touché stock that we needed were not available, and would not be manufactured for another four to six weeks. We scrambled trying to think of all the similar stocks that we could use. Unfortunately none would work due to various reasons. Our client was being forced to settle for an ordinary coated or uncoated stock. The thrill was gone. This was to be our client’s showpiece. They had an apartment grand opening event occurring on the following Wednesday and needed these brochures.

I remembered looking at a beautiful promotional piece for Cougar paper from Domtar. It’s title, Orchidaceae and the Nature of Nurture. It’s a beautiful piece, and I remembered that the cover felt very soft, like suede. I learned that this softness was achieved when you suspend soft fibers into a water-based coating and they fluff up. It’s called soft-touch textured coating. As I described this to our client and print representative, hopeful smiles returned to our faces. The printer had not seen or heard of this technique but was willing to try it. Fortunately their paper representative carried the Domtar line and remembered this piece. He left immediately to retrieve a sample so we could look at the production notes.

Two hours later the printer’s VP of Production had said sample in hand and was on the phone with their ink manufacturer to learn how to achieve this effect. We decided to test this newfound process on 24 pt. Tango Gloss and on 160# Cover double-thick uncoated Finch to see which would produce the best results. We were running out of time and did not want to risk the outcome on one type of stock. In the end, both looked and felt nice. We decided to go with the Tango since the whiteness of this stock matched the whiteness of the inside text pages of the brochure.

Bottom line the brochure turned out gorgeous, delivered in time for the grand opening event, which made all parties involved very happy. Our company submitted this brochure to the DC ADDY awards this year and it won a gold ADDY award for a four-color brochure.

Visit Merrick Towle’s website to see the brochure and other pieces from this successful campaign or visit our blog for an entry on the entire campaign.

by Donna McGee, Director of Production, dmcgee@merricktowle.com