The Stationers Guild

Several years ago, my wife and I had the opportunity to tour Crane & Co.’s impressive printing and paper manufacturing plants in western Massachusetts.  Crane’s facilities are spread throughout a number of plants and buildings in and around Dalton and North Adams in the Berkshires along the Appalachian Trail.  The rich traditions of this 200 year-old company are literally everywhere.  While most towns have a Main Street, Dalton has Crane Avenue.  For a delightful two hours of American history and fascinating insights into the art of making paper, we certainly recommend a visit to Crane’s Museum of Papermaking.

One of the more interesting aspects of our visit was seeing how engraving dies are made and watching Crane’s skilled craftsmen hand-feed paper through the printing press.  Together with letterpress, engraving is one of the oldest and most traditional forms of printing.  It is often used for wedding invitations, baby announcements and for both business and social stationery.  The raising printing, opaque colors and bruising on the back of the paper are signs that the paper has been engraved.

In this excellent video, Peter Hopkins, who writes the Crane Insider Blog, describes the process of engraving in exceptional detail.  Short of visiting the plant, Peter’s video illustrates the care, craftmanship and labor-intensive process of creating fine engraved papers.

To see the rich colors and beautiful samples of Crane’s engraved papers, contact a Guild member store in your neighborhood for more information.

Richard May
Founding Member

Few things are more frustrating to an experienced stationer than to see “stationery” consistently misspelled.  While I am willing to concede that it is a rather mischievous word that may have originally been spelled with an “a”, I believe that most anyone applying for a professional position should be able to spell business stationery correctly.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there is actually a petition to change the spelling of stationery (as in paper) to stationary.  The central argument is that the majority of people conducting an online search for “wedding stationery” or “business stationery” actually spell stationery with an “ary.”   I haven’t decided whether this is democracy at work or simply a case of the inmates running the asylum.  I am sure that Mr. Webster would not be pleased.

After more research, I suspect that there is a more sinister plot afoot.  The culprit or facilitator of this assault on the English language is Google.  Rather than suggesting “Did you mean business stationery” when the user typed “business stationary” in the search bar, Google simply accepts the improper spelling. 

Business Stationary

Certainly, it is monetarily convenient for Google to capture their Pay-Per-Click (PPC) fees regardless of how stationery is spelled.  Unfortunately, for those of us responsible for mounting the PPC campaigns we must enter all forms of alternative spellings to insure that our ad will be found in a Google search.  Furthermore, even fine paper companies find themselves obliged to enter “stationary” in their meta tags and company description to insure that their pages will be indexed for misspellings. 

The final straw was listing a stationery store in Google maps.  Wendy Joblon, the owner of Folia in Dartmouth, MA was asked to list her store in one of the Google search categories:

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, but I had hoped that Google would allow us to categorize our business with the proper spelling of stationery.    Google maps are most important for small businesses and we believe this function could be significantly enhanced if search categories were spelled properly.

Richard May
Organizer and Founding Member

Earlier this summer, I attended the Concours d’Elégance classic automobile exhibition in Greenwich, Connecticut. I was invited by Kenro Industries who were introducing their Bentley Continental Limited Edition of fine writing instruments by Tibaldi. This remarkable Bentley Series of fountain pens, roller balls, ball point pens and mechanical pencils were available in the five Bentley colors: Silver Tempest, Silverlake, Dark Sapphire, Cumbrian Green and Beluga.

As the owner of Thérèse Saint Clair, I have long been fascinated by writing instruments and fine papers. Reflecting on this exceptional exhibit of vintage automobiles and pens, I was struck with the thought that our lives as stationers would be a lot simpler if we only had to deal with the five Bentley colors. Upon consideration, I realized that color is only part of the equation and that paper stock and the printing process will have a considerable bearing on one’s wedding invitation, social stationery or business card.

To illustrate this point in more detail, I decided to run a simple experiment by comparing the outcome of using the identical ink color on the same paper stock but using two different printing processes: engraving and thermography. Found below is a comparison of the “Thérèse Saint Clair” logo printed on identical custom paper stock (Saint Clair salmon) using the same “green” ink, but using a different printing method:

Engraved Logo

Thermography Logo

Please note that these images have been scanned at a resolution rate of 1200 dpi and then configured to internet resolution standards of 72 dpi. While monitor and printer resolutions vary from monitor to monitor and printer to printer, there is an unmistakable difference between the two images. You might ask yourself, “How is this possible?” The simple answer is that printing processes are so different that even using the same inks and paper stock, the printing process transforms the surrounding environment. In an online world, I would hate to be ordering an online wedding invitation where I was convinced that the color green was “Engraved Logo” and get an invitation where the color green was actually “Thermography Logo.”

The only constructive way to truly see how your color of choice will appear on an invitation or stationery is to consult a color palette with your local stationer. There are situations where thermography is often the printing process of choice, but it is next to impossible to determine this without “seeing” real color samples in person. Approximation using an online printer may appear to be more convenient, but unless you can actually feel the paper and “see” the color and printing differences in broad daylight, you could well be disappointed with the outcome of your social or business stationery or wedding invitation. We recommend that you consult a Guild Member store in your neighborhood for more information on what printing process works best for your circumstances.

Over the last several months I have had several interesting conversations with Harriet Malmon, the vivacious owner of Francis-Orr in Corona del Mar, California. Ms. Malmon has some very definite ideas on the importance of business stationery and, in particular, the business card. Three weeks ago in New York, I had the opportunity to sit down with Harriet (“please, skip the ‘Ms. Malmon’”) to discuss business cards.

RM: Harriet, I know you have some definite ideas on business stationery. Would you care to share them with the StationersGuild?
HM: As an established stationer, we work with a number of local firms to design their business stationery. Many of these businesses have sought our advice because they were not entirely satisfied with their commercial printers. For the most part, the various components of their stationery didn’t work together – different fonts, design layouts, mismatched ink colors – and, in some case, their business cards were not even printed on a straight line. Our job, as a stationer, is to help the client develop a coherent design and select the paper and printing process that will lend credibility to the enterprise, regardless of its size.

RM: Do you consider the business card to be the focal point of business stationery?
HM: Most definitely! I know it wasn’t Shakespeare, but a phrase that has stuck in my mind is “that you never have a second chance to make a first impression.” That “first impression” of your business card tells your prospective client that your firm has substance, style and deserves a closer look. In fact, I consider business cards to be one of the firm’s most important public relations investments. I often ask my prospective client whether their current business card “belongs in the hands of their most valued prospect or in the restaurant fish bowl for the weekly free lunch drawing?”

A smiling RM: I guess your clients never get a free lunch?
HM: Quite the contrary. Our business cards even stand out in a fish bowl.

RM: What do you mean?
HM: With paper, you have so many design options that even a business card can have personality. For businesses that need to project a conservative image such as legal firms, accountants and wealth management companies we suggest increasing the paper weight from the standard 64# to 96# and even 220# or, perhaps, vellum. For firms that have an artistic bent such as interior design or body-sculpting, we suggest colored paper and, possibly a vertical orientation rather than horizontal.

RM: What about logos?
HM: Gosh, that is such a complicated topic that we need far more time. All I can say is that you should first see an experienced stationer, preferably a Guild member, before you engage a graphic design artist.

Thanks Harriet for sharing your insights with us. You certainly make a convincing case that there is more to paper than meets the eye.