Catalog Consumer

Client:Americhip
Creative Firm: DesignLab - Los Angeles, CA, USA
Creative Team: Scott Lambert - Creative Director/ Art Director/ Writer; Keith Skelton - Photographer/Location; Rick Brian - Photographer/Studio

Americhip is already known in the advertising world for its high-tech components such as LED lights and audio chips-but greeting cards? "[It was] a tall order," says Scott Lambert, principal and creative director at DesignLab in Pacific Palisades, California, "to enter a retail environment with a product where they had no brand equity." Aimed at the corporate client market, however, the Americhip-greeting card market seemed an easy fit. "Corporations spend large amounts [of money] on holiday cards, " says Lambert. "Most have mediocre graphics and do not support the company's image."

By incorporating unusual paper techniques such as die-cut windows that open to reveal the message and high-quality pages featuring metallic and coated satin stocks, DesignLab's mission to highlight the cards' detail was the icing on the cake. Macro photographs provide viewers with a close-up view of the quality craftsmanship-each card resulting in what Lambert calls "a hand-assembled work of art." Even the black-and-white photographs show the real deal: As the art director and photographer scouted potential shooting areas, they saw the perfect pair of hands, belonging to a paper engineer in his seventies. "This single image captured the soul of Americhip greeting cards," says Lambert.