The Adventures of Bond, Plain Bond
I was by the copier machine just the other day when this hot little pink sheet came by. I could swear she was a number one sheet – with a brightness of almost 94. I would have guessed premium, but when the light hit her just right, I noticed she was thin – too thin – and her opacity was a little weak.
In fact, if I was positioned just right, I could see just what she was trying to cover up — not that I was trying to look, mind you. But heck, I’d swear you could read the fine print on her other side, if you know what I mean; what with the way you could practically see right through her. Disappointed at first, but who am I to be so critical. I guess it’s because I’ve been here longer than most – most have come and gone with a flash.
So where was I… oh yeah, in the copier room and this bright little number comes in. I could tell by her curl she had been a little wet behind her ears at one time or another – you don’t get that kind of a curl by being packed away in a box. It showed, not that anybody cared, except me. I’m Bond. Plain Bond.
Right before lunch the room filled up with the usual last-minute copy jobs and kibitzers, and I found myself getting closer and closer to her; perhaps a bit uncomfortably close. Suddenly, she was all over me like a cheap suit. I could feel her supple linen finish up against my toothy vellum exterior. Without warning she was on top of me – covering me edge to edge. I could hardly breathe.
We were jostled and jogged together. I couldn’t see much with her on top of me like that, and I was beginning to curl with all the humidity she was throwing at me – I was drinking it in like a sponge. Like the calm after the explosion of the universe, I felt a sudden eerie stillness, and we were just laying quietly, her on top of me like the dew covering the morning sand.
I was getting used to the calm when all at once I felt a gripping tug at my bottom. I was being pulled away, just when I was falling in love with one of the brightest sheets I’d gotten close to. But no time for remorse, things were happening fast now. I could feel the grip – the pulling – I was being pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled, it seemed endless, although I know it took just a second or two. Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped. Everything stopped. Complete blackness. Where there was once whirring and clicking, there was nothing now, nothing but absolute silence.
For the first time in my short life cycle I felt I was becoming unglued, my very fiber being shredded – and yet, strangely enough, I felt I knew what was going to happen. I had seen it from afar thousands of times… but this was the first time it was going to happen to me. From nowhere appeared the brightest light I had ever seen. Am I now dead? Was this a revelation? Then in a flash it was over, and I was moving again, being whisked away to… wait… what’s this… what’s this burning sensation – no one told me about a burning sensation. Starting at the bottom and now racing up to the top, more heat and pressure – yes, pressure – than I’ve ever felt, even in shipping.
As suddenly as it started, it was over. I was back in the copier room, looking up at the lights. Cooling down from the heat of the trip. The humidity and wetness completely removed from my body and, wait a minute. Wait just a damn minute here. What the hell is this? There’s writing everywhere – all over me. It’s all over me. What idiot… who the heck is responsible for this. Get this stuff off me…
Whoa, look who just dropped in, directly over me. Miss Number 94 brightness. Hellllloooooo you cute little pink sheet. She landed on me like fog on a leaf on a cool summer morning. I could feel that ripply little linen finish slide against my smooth linear tooth. I knew I was outclassed – me a toothy vellum next to the hottest little pink 24 lb. linen in town. But, hey, that’s another story.
###
Times have changed…
quite a bit since I wrote that note to that cute little blond-haired, blue-eyed girl way back in Mrs. Fabiani’s class in the early seventies. You probably wrote one, too. No, don’t give me that “I don’t remember!” stuff: we all seemed to have that long lost love that never materialized. Everyone has had that one girl in middle school that sticks in your mind, and that particular girl in high school that dated everyone but you; or the girl in college who went out with you once and now won’t talk to you just because you barfed in the back seat of her dad’s Cadillac after only one beer and, and… Hold it. Are you telling me I’m the only one, the only person here who remembers this stuff, who had experiences like these?
Seems back then you didn’t care if the note you wrote was just on a lined sheet of paper – a page from your three-ring binder, perhaps, or a yellow pad, or even a napkin from the school cafeteria. (She didn’t care either, not with that wide smile of bright white teeth – wow, remember those – and those blue, blue eyes that seemed to call you on hot nights when you were alone and your parents were both downstairs watching TV and you could just…)
Today, sending the right message – but on the wrong piece of paper – is almost as bad. I mean, it’s not as bad as asking out the new girl in your office on a 32 lb. sheet of premo white linen-finish paper, and your wife finding the note in your pocket. But, hey, it can still make a bad impression.
Fortunately, today there are more paper choices than Japanese cars. Office paper is divided into grades for brightness, opacity, and finish; it is sold in a multitude of colors. There are also several paper houses which sell pre-printed paper: paper with graphics printed in the background in two, three, and four colors, so you can make impressive stationary and brochures just by running these sheets through your own black and white computer printer. We’ll discuss this more in uno momento.
Regular paper, often referred to by the snooty as “regular bond”, comes in different thicknesses or weights, in several finishes, and in a variety of shades of white. The paper weight is an archaic system conceived of by a sadist in the late nineteenth century who had it in for paper purchasers. Loosely defined, the paper weight is the weight of a ream of that paper (500 sheets – 17” x 22”). So 20 lb. bond weighs… 20 lbs. Good guess. Good doggie.
Suffice it to say, “20 pound bond” is cheap and light – good for inter-office memos and projects where you don’t need to impress anyone with a better grade sheet. It’s excellent for “Plain old copies that will be filed, to be reclaimed sometime between later and never ( but it seemed like a good idea to make a copy and file it at the time).” People who handle lots of paper all day long – like news editors at TV stations and newspapers – don’t really care what your paper is like, as long as your press release is well-written and the model in the press release photo isn’t wearing much when she’s holding your product.
. One step up would be 24 lb. bond. It’s a little heavier and a little thicker. Thickness, referred to as the “caliper” of the paper, is usually measured in “mils” – thousandths of an inch. 24 lb. bond is for people who prefer a stock sheet with a little more substance and a heartier feel. After all, handling a piece of paper – like handling a fine automobile – is definitely a tactile sensation. OK, maybe not exactly the same, but you get the idea. 24 lb. bond is better for two- sided printing because of its better “opacity” – there is less show-through. Opacity is a function of the basis weight and the paper density. 20 lb. bond might have an opacity of 90%, and a sheet labeled opaque would have an opacity of 92% or higher.
Still, 24 lb. bond is as cheap as a red-neck reload with half the powder. It’s also a “porous” sheet – with a good amount of air in the fiber – that lets printing ink or copier toner sink into it – and spread. On a printing press this is called “dot-gain,” especially prevalent in the newsprint where dot-gain can be as much as 10%. The dot-gain expands the thickness of the type and makes the photographs print darker and look muddled. On the copier this is called “Oh my God, this looks awful!”
When you specify better papers, I recommend you order them in a 24 or 28 lb. weight. The little extra you pay will be worth it in terms of a better feel and a sheet with slightly more weight and much more substance.
Being a tactile person myself, I always like a higher quality sheet. When my firm creates mailing packages, I always spec the letter to be a Premium No. 1 quality sheet, the rest of the paper in the package can be of lesser quality. When the envelope is opened and the customer holds the letter in his hands, I want him to feel the richness of the sheet and the quality of our firm – represented by the single piece of letterhead in his hand. Hey, call me old-fashioned.
28 lb. bond is about the maximum for good, all-around bond paper. 32 lb. bond is not so readily available; it’s a little thicker and best suited for sheets that will be subject to rough handling, or for special uses like layouts or making paper airplanes.
All commercial paper starts out as wood or cotton (or a mix of the two) that are beaten to a pulp and slowly have the water drained out of them while being gently stretched and shaped into the desired paper thickness. Better papers have more cotton, which is often referred to as the rag content. Some of the finest papers are entirely cotton.
As the fibers are stretched and pulled in the manufacturing process, the alignment of the pulp fibers give a “grain” to the paper, and makes paper directional. When looking at a paper specifier, the letter “w” for width or the letter “l” for length (or the dimension itself, such as W29” x L39”) will be underlined – showing the direction the paper grain runs in. Paper curls, folds, and tears more easily parallel to the grain. When folding is perpendicular to (against) the grain direction, heavier sheets need to be scored first to prevent cracking.
The whiteness of finer papers is graded in a scale compared to titanium white paint. (More officially the TAPPI Brightness is measured as a comparison to a standard white tile at the Institute of Paper Chemistry.) The numerical designations of the brightness of white paper range from the mid-60s for newsprint, to 84-86 for standard copy paper, to the high 90s for premium text and cover papers. Grading is as follows:
Name of Sheet: Brightness:
Premium High White 94 – 98*
Super Premium 92-94
Premium No. 1 87 – 89
Premium No. 2 85 – 86
Premium No. 3 83 – 84
Premium No. 4 80 – 83
*Unusually high – This paper is a recent development, and not easily found.
Most sheets are bleached for whiteness, leaving a bit of the acidic bleach in the paper after processing gives the paper a more acidic content (or a lower Ph) which will eventually yellow, crack, and destroy the paper over time. Neutral acidity or balanced Ph sheets should last for years without aging adversely. Better quality book paper may be specified as acid-free or neutral Ph sheets. Both my books, How To Market A Product For Under $500! and Uncommon Marketing Techniques are printed on acid-free sheets.
Texture
Paper can have any of several different finishes, which are impressed into the paper at the end of the manufacturing cycle. The most common finishes are
Smooth – the smoothest
Bond – slightly rougher than smooth
Vellum – the roughest or “toothy” finish
Felt – surface profile simulating a “felt cloth”
Linen – surface profile simulating a “linen cloth”
Laid – surface profile with a “chain pattern”
In addition, commercial papers (for brochures) are finished in
Matte – a non-smooth finish
Gloss – smooth and polished
Dull – smooth but not polished
Color
Paper tints and color are based on the “hue” (color shade), “saturation” (grayness), and “brightness” (white to black scale). Stationery papers are available in every imaginary hue with finishes such as speckled, striped, tinted, frosted, dotted, colored, and embossed. You can order paper with edges that are torn, burnt, deckled; heck, I even have a paper that changes color when you hold it.
Over the past decade or so several innovators have created a niche market for pre-printed designs on paper. Used extensively by small businesses, these paper suppliers pre-print background designs for letterheads and business cards, and print three- and four-color backgrounds for brochures in lots of different formats (fold-over, three-fold, etc.). The merchants then sell these specialty papers in small quantities. You run the sheets through your printer or copier and make brochures that look like they are from large companies… or at least that’s the idea anyhow. If you only need one or two hundred brochures, it probably wouldn’t pay to do a two- or three-color printing; so if you want your brochure to look nice, these pre-printed stocks are worth their weight in the premium costs they charge.
The following direct-marketing merchants offer a free catalog of pre-designed letterhead and envelope sheets, business cards, labels, brochures, certificates; also nicer paper that’s not printed. Great for short runs (100) of matching letterhead and envelopes.
Paper Direct: 800-A-PAPERS, fax 800-443-2973
www.paperdirect.com
100 Plaza Drive, Secaucus, NJ 07094
104-page catalog of pre-designed and quality stationery papers.
NEBS: 800-225-9550, fax 800-234-4324
www.nebs.com
500 Main Street, Groton, MA 01471
One of the largest forms printers in the United States.
Stationery House: 800-638-3033
1000 Florida Avenue, Hagerstown, MD 21741
Handsome 84-page catalog.
Quill: 800-789-1331, fax 800-789-8955
www.quillcorp.com
100 Schelter Road, Lincolnshire, IL 60069
A discount catalog of better quality inkjet and laser papers.
Paper Showcase: 800-287-8163, fax 800-842-3371
www.papershowcase.com
P.O. Box 8465, Mankato, MN 56002
Publishes a 54-page catalog of letterhead papers, envelopes, fun papers, and so forth.
Hewlett Packard: 800-552-8500
www.hp.com/go/paper
Now entering the small business market with new lines of inkjet and laser papers, and some specialty papers such as glossy and matte photographic paper, postcard paper, note cards with envelopes, and transparency paper. Mediocre reviews on their printers, and mixed reviews on their technical support where additional training and manners are much needed and English seems to be a second language.
Fraser Papers: 800-543-3297
51 South Elm Street, West Carrollton, OH 45449
Ask for their sample department, get samples of their Pegasus Premium High White sheet with the incredible 98 brightness.
In answer to your question (I thought you’d never ask), I seldom recommend plain old “colored stocks;” you know the ones: the cheap colored paper you got in high school that was a horrible shade of red, blue, yellow, or that awful gold color they couldn’t call gold because people in the jewelry industry would barf, so they made up the name goldenrod. My only use for these ugly colored sheets is when printing special notes on a quarter or a third of a page that are included with direct mailing packages. Uses include “buck slips” with special offers, gift certificates, lift notes (short folded-in-half notes popular in the 70’s that actually lifted response of your direct mail package), and high-attention notes that – if kept short and on a small piece of paper – are regarded as special (if they’re too long they succeed – but only at making your mailing look cheap).
When plain old white paper just won’t do, I hope I’ve given you a few options so it won’t have to. Jennifer – who sat next to me in Mrs. Fabiani’s class – please call, I’ve been waiting.
References, and special thanks to Richard Clapp, Ph.D.
Director of Product Development at Fraser Papers, Inc.