The Stationers Guild

Each year at Therese Saint Clair we help hundreds of families select a holiday photo card for their traditional holiday greeting.  For the most part, our clients will mount a 4″x 6″ family photograph on a photo card that they have had personalized by one of our many fine paper companies.  In some cases the photograph has been taken by a professional photographer, but generally a friend or family member has taken a family portrait with a point-and-shoot digital camera.

While most digital images produce very high quality photographs, we occasionally run across a few problems when it comes to cropping.  For reasons that are far beyond my level of technical competence, the “aspect ratio” of a digital camera is different to the traditional 35mm camera.  Specifically, the 35mm camera has an aspect ration of 3:2, which will reproduce a 6″ by 4″ photograph with no distortion.  Unfortunately the point-and-shoot digital camera  has an aspect ratio of 4:3 (does not apply to digital SRL’s). 

What this means is that when you take your digital image to a commercial printer it will automatically crop your digital image to create a 6″x 4″ photograph.  In effect you lose just under half an inch (about 10%) of the image off the top for a horizontal photograph.  While you might think that you can easily correct this in a photo editor and crop the photo to the desired size, it will inevitably create a distortion in your photo since the aspect ratio will change.  Found below are two images.  The first image is the actual digital image as seen in your photo editing program, the second image is the actual  4″x 6″ photograph reproduced at your local photo store.   This image comparison is courtesy of Ritz Photo in downtown Greenwich.

Actual Digital Image

Cropped Digital Image after Resizing

Perhaps an experienced photographer can crop to size and preserve the aspect ratio, but most of us do not have the time or experience.  For those of us who prefer to avoid frustration, we suggest that you leave an extra margin of space around your desired image so that it may be cropped to size without losing the top of someone’s head.   If anyone has a better solution, please let me know.

Richard May
Founding Member

The StationersGuild website went public on Halloween.  Using PRWeb, an internet-based news syndication service, the Guild news release was distributed to several hundred media distribution outlets and has already been reprinted in two newspapers.

PRWeb is an inexpensive and user-friendly alternative to distribute a news-worthy message to hundreds of potential eyes.  I strongly recommend using this web-based service over conventional newspaper advertising.  Nevertheless, it should not be used for promotional selling.  I suggest that you enroll in the excellent one-hour online tutorial to learn the basics before creating your first news release.

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

Well over a year ago, I received a late night phone call from my teacher, consultant and friend, Bud Kraus.  Bud is the enthusiastic author of Joy of Code, an online course on html and css coding, and avid proponent of designing to standards.  Bud and I had been working on putting together an RFP for a website to help independent stationers be “found” in an online search.  Barely able to contain his enthusiasm, he said “you just have to see this website:  Ante Meridiem Design.”  I did, and I was hooked.

Some months later I engaged Inguna Trepsa of Ante Meridiem Design to help redesign the Therese Saint Clair website and then the StationersGuild.org website, which was a somewhat less ambitious site than Bud and I had orginally envisioned.  While I am not a web designer, it is clear that Inguna’s stunning designs, straight-forward navigation, quick-to-load text and logical coding are clearly raising the bar for great website design.  I have never actually met Inguna or her equally charming husband, Gvido, but we have often connected many times by phone and  email.  Inguna has the singular ability to take vague ideas, moods, ill-defined concepts and turn them into great works of beauty supported by a logical and simple infrastructure.

Our Guild members owe Inguna a big hug and an immense debt of gratitude for helping us design a state-of-the-art website that supports brick-and-mortar stationers and the craftsmen whose fine papers we represent.  Many thanks Inguna.

Richard May
Founding Member, Stationers Guild

Elaine Barker of Paper Potpourri in Haverhill, MA is typical of many independent stationers who operate through brick and mortar stores throughout the United States and Canada. Elaine has been in business for 31 years and has been in the same store location for the last 15 years. Her reputation for designing custom invitations and personalized stationery attracts clients from all over the state of Massachusetts.

Elaine won this year’s coveted “Billy Award” for the best custom wedding invitation at the William Arthur conference in Kennebunk, Maine. The award is determined by a vote of her peers who vote on samples of custom wedding invitations that are submitted from leading stationers across the country. Elaine’s simple yet very personalized wedding invitation and supporting wedding papers stood out over the many outstanding designs submitted by her fellow stationers.

Elaine (left) and Evelyn Choie of Vera Wang

I had an opportunity to sit down with Elaine to discuss the creative process that went into the design of this stunning wedding invitation ensemble which reflected the very unique resort in Northern Michigan. The effervescent Elaine says that “I take great pride in providing personalized service and I love customization.  It is deeply satisfying to see the sparkle in a bride’s eyed as she sees her wedding invitation for the first time.  I see my role as helping couples and their families translate their vision of the “perfect” wedding into beautiful papers that reflect vision.”

This wedding was particularly memorable.  In February, Elaine sat down with the bride-to-be and her mother to sketch out the preliminaries of the wedding event such as timing, locations and likely color combinations.   Two months later, the bride’s mother provided Elaine with lovely hand-drawn motifs that would be used to tie all of the wedding papers together under a common theme.  Elaine notes that everything illustrated on the invitation packet was a significant part of the bride’s experience in growing up in the area of Northern Michigan. The bride was the 5^th generation of the family to summer on the shores of the area. The lighthouse on the invitation was the location of the reception; the sailboat on the Events and Activities Card was the family sailboat, the “Sophia Helen” named for the bride’s grandmother; the sailboats on the front of the navy pocket represented the local ”Northern Michigan” fleet, whose design dates back over 75 years, which races in the harbor; shown on the respond card was the motor launch called the “Pointer” which formerly served as transportation between the resort and a nearby town. The Pointer is now used to take people out for brief cruises and was used for the rehearsal dinner; a bicycle was used on the accommodation card as they are a favorite means of transportation in the area; a “carriage” was used on the direction card as no cars are allowed on the resort during July and August. Even the stamps on the envelopes were personalized with the mother’s hand-drawn motifs, the lighthouse on the invitation envelope and a seagull on the respond envelope and also the back flap of the invitation envelope as seagulls are her favorite bird. It’s fun when the whole family gets involved in the design process.”

Green and blue were the color combinations used for the wedding papers.  The bride decided that letterpress printing would bring out the subtle colors of the Northern Lake Michigan coast line and sky and opted for Vera Wang paper and the William Arthur paper pocket to assemble the wedding papers.  Needless to say, the groom, bride and her mother were thrilled with the outcome and so were their guests.

Elaine’s expertise and penchant for customer service is not uncommon among members of the Stationers Guild. Elaine notes that “my fellow stationers all love the beautiful papers we work with everyday. More importantly, we cherish the special relationships that are formed with our clients in helping them plan for significant events in their lives.”

Sheila P. May

StationersGuild.org<–>

This may seem like a silly question, since sending a Thank You note is a gracious way to express your appreciation for an act of kindness or hospitality. Sheila May, owner of Therérè Saint Clair, a stationery store located in Greenwich, CT, goes further and says “it is not only the ‘gracious’ thing to do, but simply proper etiquette and common sense.”

While Thérèse Saint Clair carries several lines of engraved Thank You notes from many fine paper companies, Ms. May explains “that boxed Thank You notes are simply an inferior substitute for personalized stationery.” She goes on to explain that “a fold-over note with the words ‘Thank You’ engraved on the card strikes me as a bit impersonal and somewhat last-minute. Where possible, I try and steer our clients toward designing their own personalized stationery. Don’t you think it is more refined to say ‘thank you’ inside your card than have it as a bold pre-printed headline?”

“The hand-written note is one of the most intimate and personal forms of communication,” says Sheila. “Your selection of the paper, font style, monogram, motif, ink color and envelope lining all working in harmony is often as much an expression of your personality as the words you write.”

One of the great advantages of personalized stationery is its versatility. It works equally well for “Thank You” notes as it does for congratulatory messages or sympathy notes. While most boxed “Thank You” notes tend to be fold-over cards, other options are available if you design your own personal stationery. Ms. May notes that “bordered cards tend to be very popular for both men and women and, after somewhat of a lull, we have seen a resurgence of half-sheets, particularly among business executives.”

Ms. May suggests that you work with an experienced stationer, preferably a Guild member, to design your stationery. “Paper is tactile,” explains Ms. May, “and it is absolutely essential to sort through many paper samples to choose the paper that feels right to you. Once you have selected your paper, concentrate on a font style or monogram style. Monograms are great for social stationery, but your printed name or initials are best suited for business correspondence. The printing process is an important final step in crafting your stationery. Engraving and letterpress are the most traditional forms of printing. Nevertheless, they are more expensive than thermography or lithography. If you select colored paper stock, I strongly recommend that you consider engraving since the opaque nature of this printing process will not distort ink colors.

Personalized stationery need not be expensive. There are many design and printing options for you to consider. “The most important consideration is the paper stock,” notes Ms. May. “Crane, William Arthur and several other fine paper companies have beautifully-designed and affordable boxed correspondence that can be personalized by your local stationer. I strongly recommend that you base your selection on how the paper feels rather than any promotional hype.”

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.