Happy December, Quinte West!

Seriously, how is it December already? In just a few short weeks we’ll be celebrating Christmas with our families and ringing in the New Year with our friends. But first we have a month filled with designing and printing your unique projects.

For the second year in a row we’ve have the pleasure of decorating the display case at City Hall. This time last year the staff at JB, our customers and passerby’s were overjoyed to see the whimsical “Santa’s Print Shop” display. It was filled with bright colours, textures, print samples and classic Christmas magic!

How do we live up to that? How can we share the magic of paper with our community in a new way?

The wheels were turning on this year’s display months ago (think “Christmas in July!”) Before we could get started on the creative part there were some pressing questions we needed to answer: “What do we want to say?” “What do potential customers want to see?” “How can we incorporate paper chains once again this year?” With so many people in the shop, there were plenty of ideas bouncing around throughout the entire process.

From ideas to installation, here are a few things we learned along the way:

1. One idea is stronger than a hodge podge of many ideas.
We did our best to merge the ideas we loved (Christmas colours, candies, advent calendars, paper cutouts etc.) but came to the conclusion that our idea would be stronger if we picked one. A paper cutout theme naturally fit with our products.  

2. What do you want to tell your customers? (Decide this from the VERY beginning.)
Without a specific goal it’s hard to narrow down what will work for the project and what won’t, which means you’ll wind up making more revisions than needed!

3. Everything takes longer than expected
Even a theme that looks clean and simple like a paper cutout takes many steps to design and even more hands to produce. Don’t leave anything to the last minute, you might need that time to trouble-shoot.

4. The more the merrier!
Working as a team provides the best ideas, unique solutions and the quickest turnaround. We had just about everyone in the shop working on this project from idea to installation.

5. Be ready to problem solve.
Once we were ready to install the display we had everything we needed, and then a whole bunch extra. Good thing, too! In a pinch, and with just a bit of craftiness, we had the right tools to bring the whole display together. (And not a bit was wasted – stop by the shop to see our JB Christmas tree and frosty window graphics.)

Our cozy paper town display can be viewed at City Hall in Trenton until December 31, 2017.

Happy Holidays Quinte West, Belleville, Prince Edward County and surrounding areas! We hope you are as excited about our “paper town” display as we are.

Emily Gebhardt
Graphic Designer at JB Print Solutions