Becoming an Icon in Record Time

Eliza Thiemig — Their power to inspire. As you know, every good story starts with an empty sheet of paper. And when you get to look at the entire selection with its variety of colors, surfaces, and grammages, you understand that it’s the perfect conduit for ideas. After all, there’s a reason why our slogan is “From Idea to Icon.” These paper offerings have an incredible feel – touching them is an experience in and of itself. And the appealing and elegant range of colors behind ICON Papers raises the bar visually. All in all, they’re one of a kind.

Eliza Thiemig — Wow, that’s a tough one. But there’s a good reason for that, and it’s that ICON Papers are incredibly versatile. We have, for instance, the “Classic” series, which is virgin-fiber-based and is well-suited for use in graphic design applications and printed goods of all types, including business stationery, certificates, editorial design projects, luxury packaging, and much more. And then there’s the “Nature” series, which uses recycled paper as a basis instead and is perfect for things like book covers, calendars, cards, and art prints. If you absolutely forced me to choose, I’d say that my personal highlight is journal notebooks – especially if they’ve been embossed to give them that extra oomph. Oh, risograph printing also works like a charm with ICON Papers. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a process that’s similar to screen printing and is super trendy right now. It’s environmentally friendly, brings vibrant colors to life, and has a natural appearance.

Eliza Thiemig — A huge role. We’ve been working successfully with Koehler Paper in other segments for many years now as well. Part of that is due to the two family businesses sharing the same values. For example, we’re well aware that the Koehler Group is tremendously committed to renewable energies, and closely followed the conversion of the power plant in Oberkirch to biomass. And that commitment was one of many reasons why we decided to develop ICON Classic and ICON Nature together with Koehler. After all, as I already implied, sustainability is a big part of our company strategy too. As you may know, ICON Nature paper offerings are made of secondary fiber material and have been awarded the “Blue Angel” eco-label. And in addition, the entire ICON Paper collection is FSC®-certified (FSC C008984) and fully recyclable.

Eliza Thiemig — Well, the most important factor was the incredible teamwork and excellent, continuous communication between IGEPA and Koehler. We’d actually had the idea for our new ICON Papers brand here at IGEPA for quite a while, but certain things changed in the market and we suddenly had to carry out the project really quickly. So we got in touch with Koehler. The range of surfaces, colors, and grammages was pretty hefty, so we had to be fleet of foot to develop the 400 individual items on time! And the administrative side of things was tricky as well – this kind of process needs both parties to plan everything painstakingly and be able to fully depend on each other. But it all worked out and Koehler knocked it out of the park!