Sponsors of the ballet Don Quixote say an invitation to the ballet, produced as a functional fan, and entered in this year's Pride In Print awards, owes much to the innovative use of digital printing and print finishing technology.
The fan, made almost entirely out of paper, formed part of an extensive marketing campaign for the ballet, held at five venues around the country and sponsored by Meridian. Melanie Seyfort, sponsorship manager at Meridian, says, “As it's such a special event for Meridian, we wanted to send an invitation that provoked curiosity and was beautiful -- something our guests would take notice of and hopefully keep. We were particularly pleased with the invitations for Don Quixote as they were like nothing we had ever seen before and we have had a lot of feedback from our guests about how beautiful they were.”
Printed by Wellington-based Format Printing, the invitation fans brought together several elements of print design and production. Peter Hartley, account director Format, says, “Our Format HP Indigo 5000 Press proved the ideal choice to print the sheets, which were then die-cut and each piece carefully hand assembled by Wellington Print Finishers. Paper engineer Phillip Fickling produced an all paper, die-cut design using two different weights of paper: a lighter stock for the fan's accordion and heavier stock for the fan's end panels and mailer. The only off-the-shelf component was the brass grommet.”
A regular entrant to the Pride In Print Awards since inception, Format has to date collected 36 Gold Medals. Hartley adds, “Employees and suppliers work closely together on all projects to produce high quality work consistently so that they are all potential Gold Medal winners.”
