Wales, UK | Packaging Production
We believe that packaging should never be an afterthought, which is why we dedicate the same level of consideration to the experience of receiving your Pen as we do to the creation of the Pen itself.
For us packaging isn’t just about boxes, it’s the preface to a story or the opening scene to a movie and should set the tone for the journey that you are about the take. From the moment you open your AJOTO tool you are transported into another world, a world of wonders, possibilities and innovations. This all begins with paper and print.
We recently fully overhauled all of our AJOTO packagings. The aim was to set a new direction for our AJOTO story. A major part of this change has been the print and finishing process we use and in many ways it’s been a return to our roots.
The tactility of traditional print is unmatched by digital printing techniques, for us, there is a human and mechanical element that allows for minor accidental imperfections that bring a piece to life. This said our view has always been to bring together the soul of craft with the precision of advanced manufacturing techniques as we believe this is where we find beauty and balance and ensure skills, knowledge and processes remain relevant.
To achieve this there is only one printer we could work with, Blush publishing. Nestled in a village in North Wales, Blush is a boutique letterpress studio run by Mark, a highly talented illustrator and printer who fully understands our approach to the modern craft. Along with his tightly knit team, they have dragged letterpress printing into the 21st century and produce work that is unequalled for quality and detail.
Blush’s printing process is the antithesis of a digital print press where an operator taps a button and a piece of card systematically transforms into a fully printed box. Each tool and machine in Blush’s studio is a piece of heavy machinery, customised and adjusted to carry out a single process to perfection. Touring the studio, you are engulfed in the distinctive scents of ink, oil and wood and a cataclysm of noise from clacks and clunks to whooshes and swooshes. It's a feast for the senses.
All of their machinery isn’t kept for nostalgic reasons, but rather the unique ability to control the full process from the start to finish. This approach to print gives Mark and his team the freedom to experiment, innovate and create work that is unmatched in print quality. The result is a timeless piece of print that excites the eyes combining heavy letterpress and blind embossing with an off-white paper stock from the famously sustainable Gmund paper mill in Germany.
It’s true to say that working this way takes more time and skill, but this is what we crave and is the difference between forgettable and timeless.
