Presto Perfect

When Nike launched its line of Presto shoes, it sought not just to grab people's attention, but to wow them. To achieve this goal, the company commissioned an ambitious promotional project in its Presto Design Annual, which involved such an enormous amount of attention to detail and piecemeal work that many printers easily could have been labeled the job "the project from hell."

Fortunately for Nike, it selected Metropolitan Fine Printers, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Metropolitan has a propensity for taking on involved projects like Nike's Presto Design Annual. Metropolitan account executive Scott Gray, who oversaw the project, even has a nickname for such difficult and all-consuming jobs, affectionately dubbing them "the weird and wonderful."

To generate a buzz about its Presto shoes, one of Nike's marketing strategies was to create a list of the 400 most influential people in America, find out the shoe size of each person on the list, and mail him or her a pair of Presto shoes and watch, plus the Presto Design Annual.

The Presto Design Annual includes a white box that measures 6¼x6¼x6¼". When opened, the box reveals four 100-page 6x6" books, each of which represents one of nature's four elements. Each book also represents the personality of one of Nike's Presto people. The silver Presto book, for instance, tells the story of Jennifer, a young urban African-American woman.

Distributed throughout the four books, and affixed with tape or another adhesive material, are various photos, a U.S. dollar bill, several Post-it notes, and nearly 40 narrow strips of paper with words typed on them. "The piecemeal work involved a lot of patience and hard work," Gray asserts.

The promotional piece was designed by Nike Image Design, with prepress work handled by Metropolitan and Arentia (formerly known as ColourScan WyEasy Color, Inc.), Portland, Ore. Metropolitan used Creo Prinergy 2.6 PDF workflow software, a Creo Trendsetter 3244F thermal computer-to-plate device, and Creo's 10-micron Staccato stochastic screening.

Metropolitan printed 400 copies of each book on a 41" MAN Roland 700 eight-color press. It used Flint CMYK and match inks, with Flood Hi Wax satin varnish. Paper stock included Sappi McCoy 80-lb. silk cover for the text pages, and Gilbert Gilclear translucent 28-lb., DuPont chrome Mylar, Reich Paper Chartham 24-lb. Iridescent, International Paper Strathmore 80-lb. Pastelle cover, and handmade rice paper for the fly sheets.

Postpress work was performed by Metropolitan as well as Vancouver-based DLS Box Machines and Pacific Bindery Service, Ltd.

Says Gray of the reaction Metropolitan has seen among those who've received the Presto Design Annual, "People see the piece and their jaws just drop."

So, too, was the case among judges for the Printing Industries of America (PIA) 2002 Premier Print Awards: Metropolitan won four Best of Category ("Benny") awards for the project, including the coveted "They Said It Couldn't Be Done" Award. As PIA judges noted, "[We] found this to be a monumental effort incorporating hand crafting and multiple substrates. The pre-planning alone was a challenge far beyond the normal."