The Stationery Subscription Box has suddenly catapulted in to the stratosphere, largely due to our inherent love of stationery. Even though the digital age was supposed to have done away with dated pens and paper the sales of stationery continues to increase year on year.

The advent of high-quality digital printing is making entry to the world of bespoke stationery printing exciting and affordable. Couple that with an easy route to market with ‘off-the-shelf’ e-commerce websites and the stationery boom has gone from a rumble to an explosion. And as far as we are concerned – it’s great!

A Local Printer uses Carbon Capture material for many of our products, which translates in to money donated to Woodland Trust to plant trees.  With our paper merchant partners the combined donations are now in excess of £800,000 which equates to rather a lot of trees. 260,000 to be precise!

What is Carbon Capture?

Carbon Capture is a mechanism for offsetting the carbon generated in the production, storage and distribution of (in our case) paper throught the purchase of 'credits'. The credits translate in to money which in turn is fed back to Woodland Trust who then use it to plant trees which absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

By using Carbon Capture paper our customers are helping to reduce the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere, which is something we can all be proud of.

It is now official that grey is more popular than black – in terms of car colour at least. But in terms of all aspects of design grey has been steadily marching up the charts for several years. A trendy pub or restaurant will greet you with calming grey walls and dark grey trim; soft furnishings match and compliment grey tones; cars, clothes, nails and even hair are now vamping up grey.

Grey has played a strong supporting role for years, particularly with blues and oranges. Its very neutrality makes it a background of choice for layering colour without being overpowering. But what is grey and how can it be used to best effect?

When we first went online as a business in 2006 pretty much the smallest quantity we offered of any product was 500. This was back in the day when commercial digital presses were still in their infancy - struggling with inconsistent quality, prohibitive costs per click, paper limitations and various other undesirable elements that made digital printing second place to litho printing. Trying to print small runs on a litho press was not really an option. By the time you got the print in registration it was time to switch the press off again! So higher quantity orders were the norm. In time digital printing became more reliable and with it the realisation that being able to offer much smaller print quantities was a real winner. So much so that today the volume of our digital print order is on a par with our litho printing. So why is digital printing a win-win proposition for you and us?

One of the main benefits of being parked in the office that manages the bespoke enquires we receive is that I can spot a trend in products that our customers are interested in. Our customers are our barometer on new product requirements and as such we are able to respond very quickly to new market interests. This year we have added 18 new products to our website based upon enquiries from our customers.

Read on to see what you are responsible for!