ateral thinking can come up withsome remarkable new products. Socan good design. Phillips Plasticsemploys a fair bit of both in the cre-ation of its POD range of folders, ring

binders, boxes, bags and display units. Thesecan all be easily customised by the simpleprocedure of slotting in a printed paper insertbehind a protective plastic panel.By using the name Print On Demand (POD)

and offering fast delivery and small minimumorders through its online shop(www.phillipsdirect.co.uk), the company isaiming these products very much at digitalprinters, who it says can broaden their prod-uct lines from low-value printed sheets toadded-value finished products.Its not a completely new idea, as vinyl ring

binders and the like have of course had clearwelded-on panels for decades, where youslide in a label or printed sheet to customisethem. Its practically impossible to walk awayfrom a conference or presentation withoutone of these, whether you want them or not.What makes the POD concept stand out is

the much greater ease of getting those printeditems securely into position. Everyone hasstruggled with vinyl folders, where tightnessand static cling can make it impossible to geta thin paper sheet into the pockets withoutcreasing the paper or distorting the pocket, orboth. Narrow spine windows can be evenmore frustrating. If youre in a hotel room slid-ing front and back sheets and a spine labelinto 400 delegate packs the night before aconference, youd better put room service ondanger money.The POD solution takes away most of that

frustration. It mostly exploits the characteristicsof polypropylene to give stiff and springyclear window panels that slot or clip securely

into position and trap the paper behind them.Whats more the products can easily bereused by removing the graphic and replacingit with another. Polypropylene is also 100%recyclable so it can easily and legally be dis-posed of when you dont need it any more.Whats more, Phillips has extended the idea

from folders and binders into a range of prod-ucts that you wouldnt necessarily think couldbe customised without expensive screen printor UV inkjets. The range also includes itemsavailable elsewhere, such as customisablebadges, rulers, CD cases and mousemats, butall to a broadly common style.

70th anniversaryThe company has had long experience incoming up with innovative promotional prod-ucts. This summer it celebrated its 70thanniversary with an open day at its factory andput a video of its history up on YouTube.The company was set up in the summer of

1939 as Walter Phillips (Perivale) Ltd, namedafter its founder. This may not have seemedperfect timing a few months later, but thefoundations were sound and the companysurvived and prospered. It originally made theUnicorn Brand of photographic mounts andalbums of distinction and good taste. Anupdated Unicorn still graces its logo today.Its remained a family business all along: and

in its fourth generation is now run by manag-ing director Peter Phillips. He trained at thefamous Watford College of Print in the 1970s,so he knows that side of the business as wellas the plastics.The photo book business was successful

for many years and saw some high profileusers: it provided leather bound photoalbums that were presented to royalty to markspecial occasions. Anyone who watched the

long-run This is YourLife on television willremember the redbook presented byEamonn Andrews andlater Michael Aspel tothe unwitting victimevery week. WalterPhillips made every oneof those from 1969onward.As plastics were

developed in the post-war years, the company adoptedthem for its products, eventuallychanging its name to the presentPhillips Plastics, though it was alsocalled Phillips PresentationProducts for some years. It was anearly adopter for high frequencywelding of PVC beforepolypropylene came in.It was originally based in

Perivale, an industrial area close tothe A40 road west of London. Afew years ago it moved toBerkhamsted, a smallHertfordshire townbetween Hemel Hemp-stead and Aylesbury.Here it has its design stu-dio, production centreand main offices.Theres a wide range of

production equipment,including vacuum formingsystems, diecutters andhigh frequency welders.Theres a Svecia screenprinter, pad printing and foilblocking and embossing

Berkhamsted based Phillips Plastics has come up with a clever way topersonalise packs, folders and gifts with simple paper inserts.

Digital Printer September 2009 41

LMagfile. was the first POD.

Peter Phillips.

X-File in action.

Plastic on demand

equipment. Phillips main busi-ness is producing a large rangeof finished products, with orwithout decoration: making therelatively new POD range is onlya small part of what it does.Design of new products is a

very important part of the busi-ness. Richard Garratt, the studiomanager, has a modern officeequipped with CAD and graphicdesign software, a large formatinkjet and a KM503 cutting tablefor creating prototypes.Peter Phillips explained the back-

ground of the POD range, whichhas all designed in-house. The ideacame out of a job for the OpenUniversity, for student filing boxesfor coursework. When the OUchanged its logo to a four colourprocess image three years ago, thiscouldnt be pad printed ontoplastic as before. So we came upwith the idea of inserting printed paperbehind a plastic protective window. This sim-ply slots in, he said.Actually the company completely

redesigned the whole structure of the boxholder to solve another problem for the OpenUniversity, which was finding space to storethe fairly rigid originalholders before theywere sent to students.We developed a threepiece box that storesand ships flat, thenassembled with a slide-in base and front, saysMr Phillips.Then Richard thought

that if everyone is goingfor more sophisticatedlogos, there are allsorts of applicationsfor this idea. A lot ofdesigners now want complexfull-colour images on low quan-tity runs. These can be done by offset orscreen techniques but are then high valueproducts, so if the print is subsequentlyrejected by the client a costly reprint isinevitable.The POD method by contrast, uses relatively

low-cost printed paper that can be approvedbefore committing to assembly into the prod-uct. Even if the client rejects it at a late stage,its easy to take the printed paper out of thePOD items and replace it with something else.

Wetalked to our

customers andmore and more theres

a requirement for really lowrun, quick turnround bespoke

printed products, says Mr Phillips.Printers can buy the POD products and printtheir own inserts using templates on the PODwebsite, with online ordering and 24 hourdespatch. Alternatively Phillips Plastics canhandle the printing as well: customers canupload their artwork when they order online,then this is printed, inserted in to stock prod-ucts and despatched within 2 3 days.The Open University box folder is now

part of the POD range, called the Magfile,and able to store anything in roughly A4format. Several of the other files, foldersand boxes in the POD range aredesigned to fit into the Magfile.Customisable plastic boutique bags

(see above) have proved particularlypopular and are now available in three

sizes, says Mr Phillips. As with conventionalheavyweight paper bags, they are shipped flatand unfolded for use. However they are madeof translucent polypropylene that allows print-ed sheets to be slid in to personalise them. Inthis case the sheets have to be diecut to fit, soPhillips Plastics will supply ready-cut blanksthat can be run through a digital press.Another useful product is a polypropylene

counter top leaflet dispenser, again shippedflat, and with a slot-in clear window to hold aprinted label on the front.New to the range is a customisable plastic

folder with an internal welded flap thatcan be punched for standard spiralwire-o or comb binding.Another idea was a new type of cus-

tomisable ring binder. There are compar-atively normal ring binders in the PODrange, with easy slide-in pockets.However the X-File is a tough presenta-tion folder with a difference. Its made ofinjection moulded rigid polypropylene,with a cutout window in the front paneland a thin transparent backing weldedbehind it. To personalise this you first popyour printed paper sheet into a thin clearplastic sleeve, and then slide this betweenthe two layers of the binders cover. Thesleeve has a small tab on the top thatmakes insertion and removal easier. As theinside cover is also transparent you can putin double-sided print or two sheets backedup. The spine also has a window and workssimilarly.

Market educationPhillips Plastics is active in taking its messageto the market. It offers to take table top exhi-bitions out to printing companies, to demon-strate its range of goods, including POD, toinhouse design and production staff, and toprinters customers too if they want to invitethem. It just redesigned its three websites andhas also produced a series of plasticpulsepromotional videos that explain the productsand the company and posted them onYouTube (search for Phillips Plastics or plas-ticpulse).The

challengereally is ineducatingthe market,Mr Phillipsfeels. Our tar-gets are print-ers who wantto offer newproducts, anddesigners andmarketers whowould specify thistype of work. Sothey need to knowits possible. If designers dont know that itcan be done, they wont specify customproducts. Contact: www.phillipsdirect.co.uk (for thecomplete POD range), orwww.phillipsplastics.co.uk (for custommade products).

www.digitalprintermag.co.uk

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