GRÄFE’s artistic finishing on Sappi’s Algro Design paperboard unleash creativity for an unprecedented advent calendar
Premium product for the festive season
Although summer is just around the corner, printing and finishing specialists are already busy producing the next year-end print materials, making it a good time to take a quick look back and get inspired by the previous year’s achievements. This includes the yearly advent calendar, created by finishing specialist GRÄFE Druckveredelung and produced with Sappi premium paperboard, which sweetened the 2024 pre-Christmas season for customers. With a total of 24 lovingly designed surprises, the two long-standing partners once again demonstrated the superb results to be achieved when Sappi’s high-performing Algro Design range and GRÄFE's sophisticated finishing technology are brought together.
A Christmas-tree-shaped calendar filled with creative surprises
The advent calendar’s silhouette leaves no doubt as to the subject matter. Presented in the shape of a fir tree, in brilliant shades of green and gold, it set the perfect tone for the Christmas season. Each one of the 24 perfectly fitted tiny boxes was individually designed with Christmas motifs and filled with delicious high-quality chocolates. But the creative and elaborately designed advent calendar stood out not only with its tempting treats, but also with its packaging, which offered satisfying surprises for curious minds. It includeds short stories, well-known poems and songs as well as fascinating seasonal highlights, such as the history of the Christmas tree or the symbolism of the colour green. QR codes led to songs and mulled wine recipes, explained the chocolate production process and delved into the mystery behind the Christmas Island names. And, after having opened door number 17, devoted packaging fans even found out why we have been using colourful wrapping paper for Christmas presents since the 20th century.
Every year, GRÄFE Druckveredelung puts all of its heart, soul and creativity into designing a memorable advent calendar that embodies craftsmanship, a love of experimentation and, of course, a passion for sophisticated print products. Frank Denninghoff, Managing Director of GRÄFE Druckveredelung, explains the concept behind the 2024 calendar: “We developed the Christmas-tree-shaped advent calendar in keeping with the ‘unleashing creativity’ motto. Inspired by the great Houdini, who celebrated his 150th birthday in March 2024, we wanted to create magical moments that surprise, enchant and inspire our customers!”
High-performance Algro Design range supports a fascinating brand experience
Sappi’s Algro Design premium paperboard range played a decisive role in bringing this ‘magical moments’ brand experience to life. Using Algro Design Duo in 300 g/m² for the corpus and Algro Design Nature in 270 g/m² for the tiny boxes, GRÄFE counted on the range’s high-performance features for outstanding results. “Thanks to exceptional qualities, such as the whiteness and brightness of the board, we achieved outstanding printing results and complex surface finishes,” explains Frank Denninghoff. “We knew we could fully rely on Sappi’s premium solutions from the Algro Design family to ideally support this challenging application and to ensure extraordinary colour reproduction and impact. It also guarantees excellent contrast and razor-sharp legibility and clarity.”
A perfect foundation for elaborate, multi-step finishing
Ensuring the very best print and finishing performance for a flawless look and feel, Sappi’s Algro Design products were really put to the test in a complex finishing process whereby GRÄFE combined different finishing steps:
In the advent calendar’s first production step for both the ‘corpus’ and the little boxes, cold transfer in silver was used to create the foundation for displaying the finest structures, gradients and intricate details. A special substrate was decisive to achieving maximum gloss: Algro Design came into its own here with its ultra-smooth, flawless surface. This was followed by precise inline overprinting of the metallic transfer layer via CMYK-colour printing, after which the special effects of the corpus and little boxes became clear in iridescent festive shades. In the next processing step, gold foil was applied via lamination – a process not only intended to guarantee a high-quality look and feel, but also to provide the best possible protection from wear, damage and moisture. GRÄFE subsequently used hot foil stamping – a process that relies on the ideal combination of substrate, metallization and shaping – to create exceptionally eye-catching visual and tactile stimuli. In a fourth step, numerous filigree features such as holographic effects, reflective silver or green tones were added, using flat embossing to achieve the perfect representation of intricate details of motifs and lettering.
Algro Designs provides the finishing touch
In a final step, the advent calendar was given the finishing touch with blind embossing to create vivid haptic effects. The strength of the material used here is decisive to achieving striking results. Algro Design once again proved that it is the ideal choice for extraordinarily demanding applications with high on-shelf impact.
“GRÄFE’s advent calendars, for which we have been supplying our fresh fibre boards for many years, are well known for their creative design, sophisticated construction and unusual finishing techniques. The many breathtaking finishing effects used for the 2024 edition transformed the calendar into a magical work of art. We are delighted to have made a decisive contribution to the advent calendar’s distinctive, high-quality appeal with our premium solutions in the area of virgin fibre paperboard.”
