When Jessica and Alex of Cotswold Delights approached us at CBF for help with producing a new Voucher Book idea they came with a well put together a prototype and a clear passion for their product. Working with their clear enthusiasm and passion we helped them bring their Voucher Book to life resulting in one of the most intricate, well put together books we’ve ever had the pleasure of producing.
From day one it was made incredibly clear that for the Cotswold Delights Voucher Book to work as a business we would have to deliver a very high-end piece to match the brand Jessica and Alex were creating. The success of the business was based on the profits made on the sales of the Voucher Books so low costs without sacrificing quality were crucial.
It is safe to say from the very first meeting with Jessica and Alex it was very clear that this was not going to be a walk in the park production wise as a printed item to produce. Within minutes I was taking down notes of Perfect Binding, multiple Gold Foiling elements, Spot colours including Metallic inks, Perforating, multiple types of paper stocks throughout the voucher book, the challenge was well and truly set.
Over the coming weeks and months, we met up to have multiple meetings to discuss each element of the Voucher Book to ensure we were definitely proceeding in the correct manner whilst managing the balance of high-end finish against a budget.
Topics discussed were:
* Paper stocks. Supplying many different paper samples including different paper finishes and thicknesses, making sure each element of the Voucher Book was portrayed in the correct way. The Voucher Book ended up having 4 different types of paper in it! almost unheard of in print production.
* Spot and Metallic Spot colours. To ensure we created a strong branding theme throughout the Voucher Book we spent a lot of time thumbing through numerous colour swatches to get the exact look and feel Jessica and Alex had in mind. Through the Voucher Book there ended up being CMYK and 4 different spot colours including a Metallic one.
* Foiling. Cotswold Delights have been lucky enough to have created a real gem of a logo. Incredibly eye-catching so it needed just the right foil to set it off. Like everything else, we took the time to go through numerous coloured foil samples eventually settling for a very luxurious Satin Gold.
* Perforating. In this instance as the vouchers in the Cotswold Delights do carry a monetary value we had to create subtle ways to ensure the vouchers could not be replicated by members of the public on the home printers. One of the ways we did this was by creating a bespoke perforation that would be difficult to reproduce, so when people pull the vouchers from the Voucher Book a unique perforated edge was left.
* Page order. Now if you were wondering, this is where the article title comes in, “They said it couldn’t be done”. To put it simply the page order required for the voucher book broke every rule in print, it really was the printer’s version of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. That said here at CBF we do love a challenge and following some long conversations with our very knowledgeable production manager we managed to figure it all out. Due to all the different paper stocks that were involved in the making of the voucher book we ended up having to pre collate the pages 4 times, again almost unheard of printing.
Once everything was decided and Jessica and Alex were happy to proceed we then let them take the back seat a little while we worked closely with their designers to ensure everything from a creative point of view was sent over to us in the correct formats to ensure all those colours came out looking great. Also, the page order was crucial as there are so many different elements to the Voucher Book that was to be printed in different ways we have to ensure everything was submitted to us by the designers in the correct format.
After an extremely busy 10, working days or print and multiple finishes the Cotswold Delights Voucher Book was completed. When Jessica and Alex came to collect them from us you could really see how much the job turning out perfectly meant to them, they were almost hesitant to take the sample copy from me and look at it for the first time. After a silence that seemed to go on forever, huge smiles appeared and both of them were over the moon, they said it was even better than they could even have imaged and they’d definitely use CBF again for all their future editions.
Here’s their testimonial:
“We set CBF the task of printing the first print run of the Cotswold Delights books. We were careful in who we selected with it being the launch of our brand and product into the public domain. We have been so impressed by the level of attention to detail that Adam applied to the task and as a result, we are thrilled with our first edition of the Cotswold Delights book. Thank you very much.”
-Jessica Barder (Director – Cotswold Delights)
It’s fair to say that this has been one of the most incredible projects to have been a part of. We at CBF wish Jessica and Alex all the best with their new venture.