Award-Winning Outlook

When Neenah, Wis.-based Outlook Group set out to produce a brochure, it knew it had to impress its toughest audience—itself.

Outlook Group not only completed this task with its striking self-promotional piece, it also caught the attention of judges for the industry's largest and oldest worldwide printing quality competition, the Printing Industries of America (PIA) Premier Print Awards. This month, during the Graph Expo and Converting Expo event in Chicago, Outlook Group will be presented with a coveted "Benny" statuette in recognition of outstanding achievement in the "Print/Graphic Arts Self Promo: Other Graphic Arts Firm" category.

"The brochure needed to showcase our ability to be very versatile in what we do," says Calvin Vesely, pressroom supervisor for Outlook Group. Printed using direct-to-plate technology on a six-color Komori press with two coating stations and UV curing capabilities, along with another five-color Komori machine, the brochure features a series of gatefold pages.

The piece's brilliant red cover showcases a round lenticular seal that reads "seeing" and "believing," a theme that is carried throughout the rest of the brochure. On the first gatefold, meant to illustrate "printing," a striking red ball is shown in a pool of multicolored water, printed with a combination of hybrid process inks and satin and gloss coatings. On the brochure's second gatefolded page, which highlights "enhancements," the red ball appears with a wavy lenticular finish, shown in a stand of trees that show off the piece's embossing. Other pages highlight what Outlook Group can do with labels, packaging materials, promotional packaging, and direct mail.

According to Jim Rivett, creative director and principal of Green Bay, Wis.-based Arketype Group, the design firm that conceived the piece, "We wanted a whimsical and fun concept that could still tell the story of Outlook Group's capabilities."

"We asked Outlook to do some things that weren't the easiest to do, but we had faith that the company could execute it," adds Matt Bellisle, senior designer for Arketype Group, which also worked on another Benny-award winner this year, a marketing piece for Gilbert Paper. "Technically, every gatefolded spread features a different technique, but there was a challenge in that some of these spreads cross different signatures. Outlook certainly lived up to that challenge."

For Outlook Group, which is enjoying its first Benny, the project was notable for the collaborative approach that its various teams took, Vesely notes.

"The people who put this together were production managers, supervisors, finishing and bindery team leaders, and people from our planning, client services, and marketing groups," he says, adding that Wisconsin prepress firm Image I.T. also worked on the brochure. "We built it section-by-section, page-by-page, and employed interesting things throughout."

Among these elements was the use of Hexachrome, florescent, and duotone inks, as well as the lenticular designs on the front and back, Vesely explains, adding that foil stamping and embossing were completed on Bobst machines. Two types of paper were used: a C2S card stock, and a series of information sheets on Neenah Paper's semi-transparent 17-lb. UV/Ultra II substrate.