PEAK judges gave oohs and ahs to this richly embossed, foil stamped label, just like they imagined Western States' customers doing while opening the 100th anniversary piece that held the labels.

Western States' Creative Director Renee Berger was challenged by the company president to top the "wow" factor of a metal box the company gave away in 1995. While searching for a centennial piece online, she found a period letter holder and sketched up some ideas in Adobe Illustrator. Engineers converted the drawing to CAD and within a year, the company had a viable design for a one-of-a-kind letter holder. In each of the 10,000 packages, Western States showcased the company's capabilities with letterhead, envelopes and the gold labels to seal each missive.

The labels were special, Berger said, because it was the first time the company had used a conventional die to do embossing (instead of the flexo plate approximation). It wasn't an easy task, she said, but the challenging registration task of all 95,000 labels won acclaim from the judges. Each anniversary package contained eight fan-folded labels. 

Presenting the piece in context, the judges said, was key to a win in this category. It was important to see how the label coordinated with gold relief on the letter holder and hand-applied gold finishing on the envelopes. 

Originally from Print Solutions Magazine® August 2008 © Copyright 2008 Print Solutions Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Published by the Print Services & Distribution Association.