Editor’s note: we wouldn’t dream of adding, cutting, or changing a word of anything written in the inimitable style of Kevin Keane, president and CEO of IAPHC Inc., who sent us the following today. But, like him, we do want our readers to know that the deadline for submissions in IAPHC’s 35th International Gallery of Excellence is just one week from today (August 14). Entry forms can be downloaded here. For more information, e-mail Kevin at [email protected] or call him at 800-466-4274. Time was, remember when? that every media buy was a troika of print/TV/radio. Now, we are merely a part (albeit still billions of dollars strong) of the media mixology. But like the hyper-kinetic and over-amped Gene Wilder exulting in the world's second best movie ever, we too are happy to proclaim, as we peruse the entries to the 35th International Gallery: PRINT—it's A-L-I-V-E !!! Your firm is one of more than 3 dozen firms who have told me via e-mail and phone that you wish to participate in the 35th International Gallery, but your entries are not yet here. How can I help you? Please remember, that our collective memory of entries past, is the key fuel for our Y'KNOW network, that remarkable device that allows us to connect a customer with a specific need with one of our past entrants whom we know, based on their entries, can help that customer, expertly and surely. Today we were looking at an entry from Rob Wainer of Sunset Printing & Engraving in Wharton, NJ—it's a brand reinvention kit for Chanel fine jewelry. Coco herself would be proud. Exquisite use of sculptured dies and blind embossing that fairly shouts out—timeless classy elegance sold here. Or the entry we played with and ooh and ahhed over yesterday -- from Jesse Roberts, admissions director of West Nottingham Academy in Colora, MD—it's a student recruitment device (it's a slider!) that is a moveable feast of creativity that Jesse executed with a print finisher in Chicago-land. Or the entries from print boutique and graphic arts avant garde firm Acuity in Toronto—simply amazing feats of not merely 3 dimensions but even 4 dimension printing. In each case, craft and science combine to form art. This is what print can be, not merely static, flat and uninspired. PRINT—it's A-L-I-V-E !!! Remember what we said about the entry from Logo-Tech Inc. in Fairfield, NJ ? People assail print, they say print is dead. They should see the visceral reaction of the bald bozo named Keane to a particular entry submission from Mary Monroe at Logo-Tech. It's a label for Mario Batalli pasta sauce. You can practically smell the saucy scent wafting over the golden hills of Tuscany. It moves me. It will be a GOLD, no freakin doubt about it. That's what print can do, and that's why Gallery is good for business. Specifically your business! The final entry deadline (at least nominally) is 14 August. You want to enter, but time is short. So how can I help you make sure your business is part of the Y'KNOW solution of network-knitting, business building largesse? Consider the entry from Pete Lovegrove of Woods Lithographics in Phoenix, AZ, as I did today, It's issue # 1 of Gutter magazine, and there on page 23 of this ridiculously well printed magazine using Woods Litho's proprietary technological wizardry we find this: "The smell of the ink, texture of the paper, size, thickness and weight of the published work all convey something special. The shape, the materials, the colors and the design speak to those who have allowed time to soak it all in. A finely printed piece speaks like no other media and will be treasured for generations. If print was once considered to be ephemeral, today, print can be everything but....." Today is 7 August. It's Friday afternoon. More signs that maybe economic life is slowly returning, and although print has been changed, changed utterly, still we know, and still will salute: PRINT—it's A-L-I-V-E !!! I want to help you be a part of our renewal. I know how good the firms referenced above are, and I want to know more about your firm too. Call me, write me, bug me and cajole me, but let me help you not miss out, Ya'KNOW? Thank you and have a great weekend!