‘Less Is More’ Design Trend has Implications for Printers

Attido’s graphic new corporate identity system screams strength and detail awareness. It oozes trust. It communicates the company’s goal-driven and solution-centered attitude.

At first glance, it might strike you as a bit simplistic (one color: black). But Bond, the Finnish brand agency and designer behind this identity package, is fully immersed in an evolving trend that has the potential to impact printers in a big way.

It’s the “Less Is More” trend. Designers who adopt the philosophy are looking for paper choices beyond white, beyond smooth, beyond what your staff may be familiar with specifying, quoting and printing.

Paper as Palette
Bond utilized the power of a bright yellow sheet as its second color, adding the company logo and contact information in black. Now there are various ways you can print black, as you well know.

The Attido business card, for example, has a black foil-stamped logo on a 225-gsm cover sheet. The actual contact information was printed offset on a separate sheet, and both were then laminated together to give the cards that extra thick feeling that is so en vogue at the moment.

Bold and Simple Throughout
“We had a very specific objective to get high-quality cards, and we went beyond the average to achieve that,” says Jaana Eloranta of Bond. “It was essential for Attido, so that they would be able to communicate their brand and what it represents.”

The clean yet bold, black and yellow theme is carried throughout Attido’s identity package:

• Website—black and yellow with some white type.
• An ingenious notebook features the company slogan—“Until It’s Done.”—in a blind emboss on black stock (so a black on black look).
• Capabilities brochure—a large yellow sheet, with black offset and black foil stamping, cleverly folds into a square.

2,000 Paper Colors
Attido’s look is professional, classy and reliable, yet completely aesthetically enticing—and all of it is based on two simple colors, one of which is the paper color.