By Margie Dana

Every once in a while something slips through the mail slot that catches my eye immediately. It may be a design, or a unique size or shape, or a headline that calls out my name.

Last week, it was a petite 4 x 6” postcard that – despite its diminutive size – had me burrowing through all of the other mail to pick it up and study it carefully.

Have a look at the photo of this little guy: can you see why it stopped me cold?

It wasn’t the size.
It wasn’t the shape.
It wasn’t the copy.
It was the paper and the design.

Did I say “paper”? It’s actually printed on 40 pt. chipboard. So cool and different, so eye-catching and memorable, that I went right to the web site at www.logolounge.com and dashed off an email.

Within an hour, I heard back that designer Brian Miller from Gardner Design (www.gardnerdesign.com) in Wichita, KS, was responsible for the card. The next day, we spoke by phone.

Logolounge.com was created by Bill Gardner in 2001 as a resource for graphic designers, who pay a $100 annual fee to join. Once they’re members, they can upload logos they’ve designed (and add keywords to help the search process). The site was designed to be a research tool and a database of logos for designers.

I learned that before Logolounge, it used to take massive amounts of time for designers to do logo research. Now they have this online, real-time database. The site just passed 150,000 logos. “It’s the zeitgeist of real-time logo design,” Brian added.

Every year for the past six years, they have held a contest for designers to submit logos for a book that includes 2000 logos. The postcard I just received is promoting logolounge 7 – the seventh such book of winning logos. The company finds eight independent judges from around the world to select the 2000 logos each year.

Predecessors to the “call for entries” promo have been huge pieces – typically a 19 x 11”, 2-sided fold out poster that had everything on it about the contest and the site.

Year after year, they sent this burly fold-out piece to attract designers and grow membership.

And then social media happened.

“Why not act like the digital company that we are?” they thought. So they set their sights on designing a direct mail piece that designers would keep – and would make them head straight for their site.  “We’d been cautious and careful,” said Miller, “and this time we departed dramatically to this little card.”

The one question they asked themselves as they planned this piece was this: what would be one thing that a designer would keep?

How’d They Do That?

Their first thought was letterpress – but initial prices for their 55K-piece mailing were too high.  With research, they found a local printer in Wichita with good pricing. Print Master printed the cards. (Early this month, the company was acquired by Docuplex.)

Originally the team found expensive stock to use, when Logolounge founder Bill Gardner said, “What about chipboard?”

The design took flight. The postcards were printed first in 1C (blue) letterpress on each side, then 1C (blue) foil-stamped on one side – also done letterpress. For the mailing panel, they wanted to print white ink using letterpress and have the mail house inkjet addresses on the white ink.

Mailing had its challenges. They learned that inkjet direct to chipboard wouldn’t work. They tested two different white inks and brought them to the mail house to be sure they could mail.  The whitest ink did scan. Off they went to print the job, and once they were done, the team brought samples back to the post office to be sure they’d be mailable. This time, they didn’t pass the test (although originally they’d been given the OK). That’s when they decided to use labels on the cards.

A Bit about the Chipboard

You can’t specify the color or the contrast of chipboard, though it’s always some sort of brown color. A colleague of Brian’s did wedding invitations on chipboard, and that batch had reddish undertones. The stock was cheaper than all of the other stock the designer looked at, though it did take up a lot of space because it’s so thick.

I wondered if there’d been any other issue with this new design. “From a marketing issue and the card being so small, we had to boil down our message,” the designer said. “And if I had to say what’s going to push the button of a graphic designer? It’s ego.” Strong copywriting came into play for this piece of the campaign.

Brian also acknowledged the importance of the stock itself. “Tactile design is key. We knew it would only be kept in a designer’s work area if it had a tactile thing working for it.”

This small postcard has a unique combination of industrial stock (chipboard) with a specialty process (letterpress plus foil stamping) that makes it special and compelling.  Brian summarized the piece best: “In a world where everything’s going so digital, it’s nice to give people something you can touch. You better make your promotional effort something worth holding onto.”

Brian’s contact information is . Take a look at his site and visit www.logolounge.com as well.

©2011 Margie Dana. All rights reserved. Your comments are encouraged. You’re free to forward this email to friends and colleagues. However, no part of this column may be reprinted without permission from the author.