I recently attended the Annual Conference of the International Engraved Graphics Association (IEGA) in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. A couple of decades ago, there were over 1000 engravers in the United States. There are about 90 now. During my early years of sales in the Chicago area, I called on several engravers. Most of them served the legal profession as many do today.

With the mergers and acquisitions of the past 20 years, the engraving companies remaining are strong and focused on promoting their unique, tactile product. What I took away from the conference other than meeting some very friendly and extremely talented people were two major ideas. Branding – engraving is sharp, classy, professional, stylish, artistic, rich, and unique. Those are just some of the adjectives I would use to describe it. Hey, graphic designers, you need to learn about this! The other idea is authenticity – offer the client a printed product that can’t be knocked off by a copy machine. Businesses lose billions each year from counterfeiting.

If you are a print provider and do not do engraving in-house, consider this an opportunity for you to promote differentiation for your customers. Connect with an engraver. You can get more information about engraving through the IEGA and its members (Western States is now a vendor member) by checking out www.iega.org.