Color has the power to move us in ways few other things can. So when European color-napkin manufacturer WEPA set its sights on expanding into the American marketplace, the design team at Ultra Creative took that capability and ran with it. What they ended up creating feels less like a sales kit and more a personal treasure chest featuring a year’s worth of rich, vibrant colors inside, enhanced by the clever use of laser cut reveals.
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The sales kit consists of a handsome walnut box sporting the “WEPA” name laser engraved on its lid. This can be easily removed thanks to a deep notch on the container’s top end designed to accommodate eager fingers.
Free of its lid, the package provides a glimpse of the first of 4 inserts, each boasting a gorgeous, moody photograph representing one of the four seasons. Once an insert is out of the box, you can get a peek at the vibrantly hued napkin inside thanks to a clipped corner. And this is where the fun begins!
That’s because the moment you open the insert, you’re presented with a gatefold – with each panel featuring simplistic 1-color illustrations appropriate to a given season, as well as an equally fitting laser-cut reveal at its center: autumn, for instance, features bare trees and a crackling campfire, respectively. The laser cutouts are particularly attention grabbing because they allow the colorful napkin tucked inside to vividly shine through, emphasizing the power of WEPA’s offerings inside. When you’re ready to experience the napkin in its full glory, you simply lift up the panel and voila! And because this is a sales tool, all the relevant sales information sits right under the napkin, including a Pantone-like color chip chart displaying all the different napkin colors available suggested for each season.
All were printed UV offset by Shapco on 140-lb. French Paper Muscletone and Speckletone Starch White Cover stock. As a finishing touch, the box also holds a pack of color napkins that can be customized for each sales opportunity.
The seasonal color grouping – with their intricate laser cutouts –cleverly invite a potential customer into the WEPA story, making this a truly meaningful and memorable sales kit.
Sabine Lenz is the founder of PaperSpecs.com, the first online paper database and community specifically designed for paper specifiers.
Growing up in Germany, Sabine started her design career in Frankfurt, before moving to Australia and then the United States. She has worked on design projects ranging from corporate identities to major road shows and product launches. From start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, her list of clients included Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Deutsche Bank, IBM and KPMG.
Seeing designers struggle worldwide to stay current with new papers and paper trends inspired Sabine to create PaperSpecs, an independent and comprehensive Web-based paper database and weekly e-newsletter. She is also a speaker on paper issues and the paper industry. Some refer to her lovingly as the "paper queen" who combines her passion for this wonderful substrate called paper with a hands-on approach to sharing her knowledge.