It all began with a small design studio on a little road off Carnaby Street. SANTORO was Lucio and Meera Santoro’s small-scale venture into innovative graphic design. Today their work is found around the world and they have won some 50 international awards for their designs, greeting cards and 3D books.
The company’s first big success came with its Swing Cards, a series of movable 3D greeting cards which are sent flat but which unfold themselves immediately they are removed from the envelope. Over the years the collection has gradually expanded and now consists of more than 90 different cards, which are sold world-wide, with over 15 million recipients to date.
“If I’d realised how much work is involved in every card I never would have started this,” commented Lucio Santoro in the company’s showroom at the current headquarters at Rotunda Point in Wimbledon. “This must be the highest level of construction using paper materials.”
“But at the same time, the demanding construction work has also protected us from copies and plagiarists. There are many other products which are far easier to copy.”
It was while working on the original Swing Cards collection during the first half of the 1990s that the studio first encountered the paperboard called Invercote made by Iggesund Paperboard. Since then all the studio’s advanced collections have been made using Invercote.
“Invercote maintains a very high and consistent quality,” Lucio Santoro said. “For our purposes, though, a few of its unusual features are the most important. Its very high tear resistance enables us to create finer details while at the same time the construction is more durable.
“Another important property is dimensional stability. Few people realise that when you are working in three dimensions you not only have to ensure perfect registration between the printing inks but also with the printed image on the reverse. Dimensional stability is crucial for this.”
Over time SANTORO has built up a portfolio of designs, which the studio now licenses to other users, an activity that currently brings in almost half the company’s revenues. Designs by Santoro are now printed on everything from bags and gift articles to housewares, notebooks, ceramics, apparel and footwear to name just a few. Lucio and Meera have also produced three 3D non-fiction books: Journey to the Moon, Wild Oceans and Predators.
Sophisticated greeting cards are still an important part of SANTORO’s business. Last year the company launched its Pirouettes collection, which has good prospects of emulating the popularity of the Swing Cards.
“We believe strongly in Pirouettes – you have to when it takes about two years to develop a collection,” Lucio said. “Sales have gone well so far but it will be a few years before we can see how the collection measures up to Swing Cards’ twenty years of popularity.”
About 30 people work at SANTORO’s design studio in London, with a further 60 employees around the world.
Caption: “Invercote’s tear resistance and dimensional stability are incredibly important to us as a company making sophisticated moveable constructions from paper material,” said Lucio Santoro, who together with Meera Santoro founded SANTORO in 1985. © Iggesund
Iggesund
Iggesund Paperboard is part of the Swedish forest industry group Holmen, one of the world’s 100 most sustainable companies listed on the United Nations Global Compact Index. Iggesund’s turnover is just over €500 million and its flagship product Invercote is sold in more than 100 countries. The company has two brand families, Invercote and Incada, both positioned at the high end of their respective segments. Since 2010 Iggesund has invested more than €380 million to increase its energy efficiency and reduce the fossil emissions from its production.
Iggesund and the Holmen Group report all their fossil carbon emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project. The environmental data form an integral part of an annual report that complies with the Global Reporting Initiative’s highest level of sustainability reporting. Iggesund was founded as an iron mill in 1685, but has been making paperboard for more than 50 years. The two mills, in northern Sweden and northern England employ 1500 people.
Further information:
Staffan Sjöberg
Public Relations Manager
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Iggesund Paperboard
SE-825 80 Sweden
Tel: +4665028256
Mobile: +46703064800
www.iggesund.com