Designer style and versatility abound!
GregoryBonnerHale Design Agency

When you’re a design company, especially working in a consumer focused environment, your clients are always demanding that you deliver something special; it has to be different, innovative and compelling, enabling their product to stand out, on the already crowded retail shelf.

The Royal Mail threw down exactly this challenge last year to their design agency GregoryBonnerHale, when they issued the design brief for the ‘Britain in Miniature’ series of First Day Covers.  The creative design was just one part: they also expressed a strong desire to have the First Day Covers presented in a unique format that would appeal to a wide target audience of existing stamp collectors as well as attract new, younger collectors!

GBH Design Agency Limited
GBH are a multi-award winning design and advertising agency based in London, solving communication problems within brand identity, literature, TV and print advertising, retail, environments and multimedia for clients both in the UK and overseas including Puma, Eurostar, Flos, Land Securities and Virgin.

Mark Bonner, Director, GregoryBonnerHale, was the man charged with bringing this project to fruition.  Mark had the daunting task of searching for a way to not only present the First Day Covers, but also to store and protect them for the future.  Mark had good fortune in finding a CD type packaging that was from a family of products by UniKeep.

He then contacted Univenture in Dublin, Ireland, the distributor for Europe, and with their extensive knowledge of packaging solutions, he was introduced to the wide range of UniKeep View Case Binders™.

Mark Bonner, Director, GregoryBonnerHale said, “We were looking for a binder that could protect a child’s stamp collection for Royal Mail’s new product, ‘Britain in Miniature’. We needed something that would be robust as well as contemporary in its feel. Univenture's UniKeep View Case Binder™ product added a translucency to the design concept that we really took advantage of. The binder’s clear cover allows the child to constantly change the stamp album's front cover. In addition, the binding mechanism itself is just perfect for enquiring, but delicate little fingers and hands. We were delighted to discover it”.

The Royal Mail was very happy with both the design of the stamps as well as the excellent way they had been presented.  It also led them to a new product listing on the retail shelf of W H Smiths, a prominent UK High Street retailer, something they had not been able to achieve for 14 years! 

Caroline McNamara, Royal Mail Marketing Manager, said “UniKeep was the perfect choice for the Royal Mail ‘Britain in Miniature’ First Day Cover collection.  Our focus has been to get the younger generation interested in stamp collecting but, not at the peril of alienating our regular customers. The UniKeep

binder is certainly ‘child friendly’ with all the characteristics that our more discerning collectors would approve. UniKeep provides true flexibility for the collector, with easily insertable dividing pages and pockets that can be added as the collection grows”.

On the retail shelf, the translucent UniKeep binder allows the colourful contents of the ‘Britain in Miniature’ to show through behind the cover print, creating an influential shelf presence.  Inside, each series is accompanied by a folder that documents the stamp subject in great detail, along with pockets for storing and displaying the stamps and First Day Covers.

About UniKeep
UniKeep™ brand binders, accessories and mailing products offer more colours, more flexibility, and more options for organised document storage than any other products for filing, presentation, mailing or publication.  Headquartered in Marysville, Ohio, UniKeep has won numerous awards and rave reviews for the design of their products, their high quality printing and creative customer solutions.

The full range of UniKeep products are available from Univenture in Dublin, Ireland. To learn more about unique UniKeep solutions for packaging and direct mail, visit www.unikeep.com/Custom/showcase.shtml or www.Univenture.com

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