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....