“Skin is a sensual material – invitingly soft to look at and touch. I was sitting on the terrace of a café on Orchard Road in Singapore, watching the Malay women walk by. Some of them were strikingly beautiful. Their smooth, firm skin looked so soft that it set me to dreaming,” remembers Arjowiggins Group Art Director Emeric Thibierge.

That dream became reality as SKIN – the newest addition to the Curious Collection – through Thibierge’s artistic talent combined with Arjowiggins’ renowned expertise and technical know-how in papermaking.

At a unique event called Les Metamorphosis De Skin, Arjowiggins unveiled its new offering atop a 20-foot high waterfall structure in New York City’s meatpacking district. Over 400 designers and end users attended the memorable premiere.

SKIN Curious Collection
A creative material in its own right, SKIN enters into the creative process from the very beginning. It is particularly suitable for applications in which touch is essential: brochures, invitations, packaging, bags, business cards, deluxe boxes, notebooks, prestigious invitations, brochure covers, envelopes, original writing paper ... but inventive designers will not stop there! 

SKIN offers amazingly even matte colors with outstanding tactile qualities. Bright, very contemporary colors set off any design, and its deep, sumptuous classic colors are easy options for up-market productions.

The three pastel shades developed with Arjowiggins’ leading-edge technology give outstanding results in 4-color printing and Extra White gives a contrast that is seldom achieved. In addition, the paper has an extremely short drying time. Skin is also available in a wide choice of strong colors to suit all needs and fancies.

SKIN is not only spectacularly beautiful, but has an unusual feel and unique finish that will not scuff or show fingerprints.

Characteristics

• A full range of 12 colors: Extra White, Ivory, Stone, Absinthe, Orange, Red, Pink, Lavender, Violet, Mocha, Dark Blue and Black
• Three weights: 91lb. text, 100 lb. cover and 141 lb. cover
• New envelope size: 6.14 x 12.2”

The Environment
Arjowiggins is a worldwide company that constantly strives to reduce the environmental impact of paper production. These products make exclusive use of elemental chlorine-free pulp (ECF) made from trees grown in sustainable forests.

All the paper in the Curious Collection is made at mills that have the ISO 14001 certification. All Arjowiggins mills have obtained or are in the process of obtaining ISO 14001 certification based on the International Environmental Management Standard.

The Curious Collection Story
In the mid- to late-80s, Wiggins Teape, a United Kingdom-based paper manufacturer, started to export Conqueror, one of the world’s leading business stationery papers, to the United States. Conqueror had rapidly become the leading Fine Writings paper in Europe and the Far East. 

Much of the marketing was based on the international availability of the brand so that global companies could use the same paper in their corporate communication anywhere in the world.

In the late 1990s, Wiggins Teape (now known as Arjowiggins) took a deeper look at the U.S. market and started to research the text and cover sector.

After two years, it was clear that while Conqueror would enjoy success, there were too many competitive products in the U.S., all domestically manufactured. In fact, at that time, there were close to 17 competitors and one key market leader. The market was already flooded.

On the other hand, it was also quite apparent that the North American Fine Text and Cover market was quite stagnant. There was nothing new in the potentially viable market and little or no innovation.

The Arjowiggins team concluded, that in fact, they had the ideal opportunity to build a new, unique brand using their innovative products from various established brands in Europe and the rest of the world. With no “brand baggage” in the U.S. market, they had an ideal opportunity to create a totally new product line.

“We decided to create our new brand using the highly creative agency that we had worked with for some years, Viva Dolan Communications, based in Toronto,” says Michael Carlisle, Sales Director, North America.

Their objective was to create a unique range of papers that would be presented in such a fashion as to be striking and highly desirable to designers, while pushing their creative buttons and imagination.

“The range would be constantly evolving as we invented new papers in Europe, and it would become the benchmark – the brand of papers that any designer would turn to for innovation and unusual substrates,” adds Carlisle.

The brand launched in 2000 and was immediately a huge success. The launch included a careful advertising campaign of bound inserts of their metallic-effect paper in all the key design and print magazines throughout the rest of the year.

The advertisements were just a question mark with the words: “are you curious?” and a 1-800 number. Arjowiggins was inundated with calls for samples, and the Curious Collection gained rapid brand awareness.

A year later, Arjowiggins presented the Curious Collection to the world. The line has continued to grow with the latest development of SKIN.

For more details, please log on to www.curiouscollection.com.

To request a SKIN swatchbook, please e-mail jenni@curiouspapers.com.

5/21/08