Iggesund Paperboard, Sweden, says its 2012 Christmas card "has all of the requirements to be a classic that many people will keep for a long time." The card was designed by the Netherlands-based van Heertum Design agency. For several years, Iggesund has been creating intricate Christmas cards that "demonstrate, and in the best cases stretch, the limits of what can be achieved with Invercote as the base material," the company explains.
The card's motif is a starry sky featuring both reindeer and celestial objects done in an extremely fine laser cut, complemented with several foils and then printed in three PMS inks. The tabs attaching the laser-cut sections to the rest of the card are so fine that they are hard to see, Iggesund notes, "and it is only thanks to Invercote's superior tear strength that the card stays in one piece," it adds.
"We want to produce more than a Christmas card, we want designers to challenge Invercote and give us something that reflects its essence," says Carlo Einarsson, director of market communications at Iggesund Paperboard.
Frans van Heertum, founder of van Heertum Design and winner of a number of awards for sophisticated printing projects, has done large, advanced projects a number of times using Invercote as the base material. One recent project is his contribution to Iggesund's Black Box Project, in which he printed a series of cards. Each paperboard sheet was printed using three different techniques and more than 30 inks and varnishes. The printed sheets then passed through various finishing stages a total of 14 times.
"I take on these projects because I want to know how far the material can be pushed," van Heertum says.,
This year's Christmas card is made of Invercote Creato 350 gsm and van Heertum Design VHD was responsible for both the design and implementation. The agency was assisted by a group of Dutch suppliers, including as the printers Drukkerij Tielen, Boxtel, and the foil printers Hensen Foliedrukkers, Oirschot, using foil supplied by Leonhard Kurz Benelux of Nijmegen. The characteristic laser cutting was done by Point to Paper, Waalwijk.
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