Those of us who love printing and paper love to get swatch books to see the latest and greatest paper offerings. Over the last year, Neenah has taken a creative approach to swatch books with its Explore series. So far, three have been published. According to Greg Maze, Senior Digital Brand Manager for Neenah Paper, “Explore is all about short-run production and simple solutions, although not necessarily digital.”

When the first book was launched last year, the company stated that it was a “comprehensive print sampler to ‘explore’ how paper colors and textures can be used creatively for frequently specified short-run applications … Neenah hopes that brand managers and their creative partners will consider the unique attributes of colored, textured and specialty papers to bring new tactile dimensions to their work.”

It certainly seems that this approach has struck a chord. This year, Neenah added two more books:

• Considerations for Your Urban Environment, drawing inspiration from activities and events commonly found in urban areas; and
• Considerations for your BIG Event, with application ideas for a variety of life events. 

The company has established a web site where designers can access a library of die lines that can be used as is or modified as required and easily incorporated into a design for a print/finish ready file. Maze adds, “Especially with respect to the most recent BIG event book, just because you don’t need big quantities doesn’t mean you can’t use really cool papers to get your message across. And for the designer and printer, small jobs can often take as much time as larger jobs. Through the die line library, we wanted to give them a good starting point that can shorten the timeline.”

Maze reports that the response to the Explore series has been very positive, and that you can expect to see another edition in October of this year. Maze says, “People tell us they love these pieces and ask for specific applications to be featured in the future. As long as we continue to get great feedback and ideas from the community, we will continue to produce these.”

For anyone who thinks that print is dead, these books should give them pause. They are beautiful and useful designs that should stimulate creativity and make it easy to produce a wide range of common and not-so-common applications on beautiful papers. I encourage you to take a look!