THE JEDI PATH VAULT EDITION

A long time ago in an office, far far away.....

It is a period of print unrest, rebel production operatives striking from a California base, have won their first order from the Galactic Empire......

Powered by becker&mayer! and Lucasfilm, Ltd, starship Imago raced forward, custodians of the secret plans unable to be revealed, until now......

When Washington-based publishing innovators becker&mayer! began development on a new book project for Lucasfilm, Ltd. that would document the secrets of the Jedi, it was understood that a special product was needed to both protect the valuable manuscript and provide a dramatic way to unveil this new book to the legion of fans in the Star Wars universe.

The solution was to create a “vault,” a sleek, mechanized container that when activated reveals the coveted text, JEDI PATH, rising slowly out of the vault from beneath a pair of engraved silver doors. The vault opens with a whoosh of Star Wars sounds and glowing, pulsating LEDs.
“From the start of this project,” says Jim Becker, co-president of becker&mayer!, “we took pains to create an ‘in world’ text that would engage devoted collectors and younger generations of Star Wars fans alike—all in an out-of this-world package. The effort in-house as well as the collaboration with Lucasfilm and Imago, our manufacturing partners was inspired.”

This is the first book we have ever done that has its own trailer.... we are beyond proud, please take a look:

Code Cracking Non Fiction Format

This stunning Napoleon Bonaparte title produced on behalf of Loewe Verlag GmbH, is the latest in what appears to be a sudden influx of complex 'add on' books for Imago.

The cover has a very clever and relatively cost effective add on, with a clear polyresin domed oval affixed over the top of Napoleon's portrait, a feature which really gives the book an authentic period feel.

Also included is a code breaker to crack codes as they appear throughout the book in addition to lift up flaps, facsimile documents, booklets and touch and feel elements.

This is a really sophisticated format, conveying information in an exciting and entertaining way that appeals to adults and children alike.

A Thing to Hold in Your Hand

Hollywood, FL. I am still thinking about a comment made by a speaker at the Museum Publishing Seminar in Washington: a writer from The New York Times, she said that the book as a physical creation was on its way out, except, perhaps, "as a fetish object."

This information was received with some consternation by an audience made up mostly of those in the art-book publishing world. There were also those of us who found this rather amusing: we are a group of individuals who are mostly be-speckled and quirky, and not accustomed to thinking of our interest in books as something as sexy and forbidden as A Fetish.

This past week I read about a young designer, living in Brooklyn, who has achieved sudden and unexpected fame for his beautifully hand-crafted axes. I wonder if we are in a period that is not unlike the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - the world is moving so fast and the changes are so unsettling. Back then, artists responded to the industrial revolution by creating everyday things by hand - not machine. Now, with the internet revolution, maybe what we are losing and want to hold on to is something that is real - that exists outside of a computer screen.

Like a simple tool - or a book.

Fortunately Imago is ahead of the curve, firmly positioned with the creative and manufacturing resources to provide books and related products that are beautiful, well-crafted and most definitely a pleasure to hold in your hand. Long live the book!
Christina McEntee, Imago US

We Won!

The 34th Galley Club Awards for Excellence were held in Sydney on the 6th of August 2010 and brought together 160 professionals in publishing and printing. Imago picked up three awards having had two titles short listed in two categories this year:

Category Seven: Sheetfed - Limited edition book, no price limit
A Picture Book, First and Foremost. Published by Story Road. Printed by Imago Australia.

Category Eleven: Non-standard - Novelty book or stationery item (bath book, board book, calendar, diary)
Six Scents Global Fragrance Initiative Box Set. Published by Six Scents Parfums. Printed by Imago Australia.

We were also surprised on the night to receive an award for Innovation in Publishing and Printing for A Picture Book, First and Foremost.

A big congratulations to all those who were involved in the production of both titles!

The Imago ladies on the night:

France passes new law that impacts on School Books

A piece of environmental news which may affect you and which we thought worth sharing.

The French National Assembly published a law on July 13th 2010 which adopts several measures relating to consumer products and environmental concerns. Amongst several other key points relating to air quality, collection of waste and environmental labelling we noted that as of 1st January 2013 all school books must be reprinted on recycled paper or on paper coming from sustainable managed forests.

Printed Edges

Edges are so often overlooked and here at Imago we absolutely encourage you to go to town on them!
People tend to think of foil blocking as their only option but what about using a matt coloured foil - stunning:

It doesn't there however and full on printed image edges are becoming increasingly popular to add real charm and make your item stand out. This is just one of many samples.

Metallica

We have access to a great range of metallic effect papers and boards for covers and packaging. From funky holographic and etched foils backed onto card to sophisticated brushed metal -the selection is really extensive. The material to the left recreates the look of an industrial metal floor whilst the one below is a quite stunning patterned iridescent. It's available without the patterns but hard to convey in a photo! These would make amazing and unusual cover materials for a book.

Here we're showing more variations. Shimmering and iridescent finishes are always eyecatching and have the ability to make a title leap from the shelf! The matt metal finishes lend a slightly more sophisticated feel which combined with the right design could be breathtaking.

Social media: How to Tweet your RSS Feedburner via Facebook and other short stories

Whilst we at Imago have been blogging and tweeting for a short while now, we were acutely aware there was very much more still to learn. Not least of all how we can use it as a genuinely useful tool for our business rather than just something we ‘ought’ to be doing.

So here I am. Fresh from my social media for business course and brimming (or simmering) with ideas. You can expect to hear more from me in the coming months...
What's really interesting is some of the facts and figures on social media users and whilst I won’t go into them all here, one thing is abundantly clear.... With virtually (pun intended) 50% of under 18s already using social media, the next generation are very much going to expect, nay demand it, as part of any business, service or product. And don't forget, a huge percentage of them are only a few short years away from being our future colleagues and customers. I am not yet old enough for the thought of being left behind in a technological haze to be acceptable. We must up our game!

The challenge remains of how to convert these tools into business tools. It's easier to see the appeal of keeping in touch with relatives and friends on the other side of the world and who can argue with the joy of a quick tweet with Stephen Fry, but how to generate an interest in what we have to say, because actually some of it is quite interesting!
I've been assured today that networking sites are here to stay and whilst the brand may change, the essence will remain the same. Apparently it suits our natural human behaviour and our need to form 'tribes'. After all as our trainer points out, being sent to Coventry or solitary confinement has always a heightened form of punishment denying us all our need to communicate. These 'tribes' transcribe themselves into communities which form and appear all over the virtual world. If you look hard enough, you will find group of people discussing anything and everything. What we have to do is find these groups or start our own. Once you have decent content and something to offer a community will form, and from small roots grows great potential. As soon as your followers start to grow you will find with one simple post/tweet you are reaching far more people than you ever could have before and with significantly less effort and cost. 100 followers on Twitter is a modest sum but they can 'retweet' your information to all of their followers and so on and so forth, and so the viral marketing begins. Very often once a community grows large, you will find it manages itself. Questions and queries get answered from naturally formed leaders within the community and monitoring is the essence of what is required.

How this transforms itself for Imago, you will have to wait and see, but certainly, as a global company we have a massive wealth of experience and knowledge that most of our customers only get to skim the surface of.... So I am pretty sure we have plenty to say and hopefully, you'll enjoy finding out.

Cartons... the forgotten element that could destroy your schedule!

We don't often give too much thought to the process involved in carton markings and packing and shipping instructions are inevitably bottom of the list of priorities. However, it is useful to know that as we enter peak season, carton makers are also getting stacked up and unable to work as quickly as before.

In a dream world we should be supplying packing instructions with our POs but that is often simply not possible. At the moment in this peak season, the latest should be 2 weeks before ex works. That way we should end up with the cartons we want, labelled correctly and on time!

Things are looking up on the Shipping front

There is at last some bright news for shipping... container capacity on the Asia-Europe route, is set to increase dramatically over the coming months.

Maersk and CMA-C GM are to join forces and restore a service which was put out of action in November 2008. They have even upgraded the service from 9 vessels with 8,400 container (20ft) capacity to 10 vessels with 13,400 container capacity. And they are not alone, MSC plan to launch 39 similar capacity vessels over the next 3 years and other lines are starting to bring ships out of storage.

Not only is it hoped this will ease the capacity issue, it should also help to stabilize rates in the long term, which I am sure we would all welcome....