Winter 2016 | P2P Magazine |
19
PREDICTIONS
independent businesses.
“These businesses will be looking for
office solutions that can support them
during the early days of working from
a small home office and evolve with
them as they grow. This is something
we’ve very much tried to reflect at Avery.
Businesses can use Design & Print Online
to print their own shipping, branding
and organisational materials or choose
to have them printed and delivered by
us, with our newly launchedWePrint
service.”
HOME COMFORTS
Gregory Schembri,
Trade Marketing
Manager,
Leitz
“Labelling has definitely made a
comeback.We launched our new label
printer, the Leitz Icon, in 2015 and we’ve
found that since doing so a number of
opportunities in different areas have
arisen. For example, with the e-tailing
trend, more and more people now
run small operations selling goods on
Amazon and eBay. They require easy-
to-use and quick label printers, like the
Icon, that help manage postage and
organisation in their operation.
“We’ve also observed that more of
our customers are working from home
and require a versatile home office
environment that fits in with their
surroundings.We make quality products
designed to suit different personalities.
For example, our Style range comes
in five stylish colours and includes
accessories, such as an app-enabled
lamp, desk chargers and
stationery. They fit in nicely
with any colour scheme
and are naturally slick
in design.
“Another noticeable
trend is note-taking –
2015 was our biggest
year ever for notebook
sales. People no longer
simply want a bog
standard notebook; instead they are
looking for quality and size. In 2016, we
will continue to develop our notebook
range with more colours and finishes to
meet the needs of our customers.
“This year we’ll see consolidation in
the industry. The office products industry
is getting smaller and we’re all looking at
new categories to develop our product
offering to customers.We expect the
big stationary brands to get even bigger
by extending into new categories and
developing products outside their core
offering.”
Writing instruments
STAYING POWER
Wendy Vickery,
Marketing
Manager,
Pentel
“Most of us can recall the pleasure
we had, as children, spending hours
colouring drawings and patterns
with pencils or fibre-tipped pens.
If you’ve studied the shelves of
bookshops and supermarkets over
the last year, it’s impossible not to
have noticed that colouring books
are enjoying a revival. But with a
crucial difference – this new generation
of books has been created with adults
in mind.
The boom in colouring books for
adults was, without doubt, the biggest
trend in 2015 and it is set to continue in
2016. It’s about rediscovering one of our
favourite childhood pastimes, avoiding
all other distractions, switching off the
phone or tablet and putting the stress
and worry of the day aside. Today’s
colouring books for adults might depict
a range of intricate patterns or new-age
themes, but it’s as soothing today to
become engrossed in choosing colours
to complement one of these designs as
it was in our formative years, when we
might have spent hours proudly working
on a picture of farmyard animals.
Another trend that looks set to
continue this year is the popularity of
non-standard ink colours.Whether it’s
for writing in travel journals or household
diaries, marking homework or colour-
coding reports, writing in colours other
than regulation
black has become
increasingly popular. In some schools,
pupils are encouraged to use a different
colour pen when ‘self-editing’ or marking
the work of their peers. In addition,
teachers nowadays tend not to use red
ink pens for marking homework, as it’s
perceived as being negative, preferring to
use green or violet instead.
This year, Pentel expects to see much
greater focus on the security of the
written word. Identity fraud doesn’t just
occur online and important documents,
cards or contracts should not be signed
using erasable or heat/light-sensitive ink.
With this in mind, Pentel is launching a
new range of permanent ink pens as an
extension of its EnerGel family. The ink
used in EnerGel Permanent pens meets
the rigorous requirements of ISO 27668-
2, the internationally recognised test
for light-fastness and fade-resistance.
It is also waterproof and, in common
with other products in the EnerGel
range, smooth-flowing and quick-drying,
making it suitable for both right- and
left-handed writers. EnerGel Permanent
(£3.25) has a sophisticated black barrel,
with rubber grip for comfortable writing;
a retractable tip; gold or silver coloured
accents; and a choice of black, red or
blue ink.
A second new product to be launched
early in 2016 is the truly unique Orenz
mechanical pencil (£11.50). To write with
a conventional mechanical pencil, the
lead must be advanced beyond the metal
sleeve at the end of the barrel.With
the Pentel Orenz, this isn’t necessary.
It sounds counter-intuitive to write or
draw without the lead being exposed
below the sleeve, but Pentel’s unique
anti-breaking lead protection system
allows just that. For the very first time,
it’s possible to use a mechanical pencil
without advancing the lead. Furthermore,
the sleeve does not scratch the surface
of the paper, thanks to a gently rounded
finish.
The Pentel Orenz is also the first
mechanical pencil with the option of a
0.2mm diameter lead perfect for detailed
plans and drawings, as well as 0.3mm,
0.5mm and 0.7mm sizes.
...continued
Labelling and
accessories
continued...
The office
products
industry is
getting smaller
and we’re all
looking at new
categories to
develop our
product offering
to customers
