The Paper Story

When you buy a Boya piece, you will receive many other nice touches from us. These differ in purpose and content but they all share one important fact – we want to communicate with you! We want to know what you have purchased from us. We would like you to know how it was made. And we want you understand why it was made.

We were never fully satisfied with the old printed material but it is always important to offer the best that is available at any given moment, rather than waiting for perfection. As time has passed, we have grown away from the content of our brochure – which had always been the centerpiece of all the printed material we share with you. But what had become a real eyesore to us was the bubble wrap; a necessity when shipping ceramics, but also cumbersome and not eco-friendly. So we started working on a replacement – which I will share with you later – and that was the trigger to change everything.

Brochure, Certificate, and Greeting Card

 A greeting card was made of recycled paper, should we say.

Collection Cards

Small, pocket size collection cards. Everyone likes something like that. We didn't make them for all collections but we will. Guess what kind of paper we selected?

Vouchers and Gift Cards

Gifting of these is now more festive, elegant and special. Workshop vouchers are made of the same paper as our new white gift boxes and the gift cards are also from a nice thick paper but in a pale shade of iron-gray. These will be wrapped in a nice envelope with a sticker holding our logo printed in gold.

Gift Boxes and Wrapping Paper - Story of Friendship

Our boxes are made for us for 4 years now by the same bookbinding manufacture Grbović from Belgrade. That is the first story of friendship. Thank you, Danijela! The cardboard used was always made from recycled paper but we wanted to go further. This was an opportunity to do the redesign of these. That is where Maja of Vilenica Studio stepped in. She took Bojana for a few sessions of painting and graphic design. It was much more than that, actually. She showed another talent of her. She showed a lot of empathy and understanding of the idea, taking Bojana carefully to each step toward getting to the final design on her own decisions. The result is this abstract pattern that is printed on our wrapping paper  and as the gold application on our new boxes. Thank you Maja for this, and again for a warm and inspirational friendship that lasts.

We have selected the paper made by Flavino. Italian producer of eco-friendly print materials near Venice. Beautiful palette they offer. We now offer only tree colors of the boxes in three sizes plus special boxes for three mini-bowls sets in the same colors. Black has a slight nuance of gray and is coated with paper made of recycled office paper. Mocha-colored box paper is made of almonds. The white one is not fully white as it is made from grape seeds. How crazy, right? 

The wrapping paper is a thin translucent paper but not too elastic as we all like some good rustle when opening a present.

Bags

When we think of the pollution, plastic bags "decorating" every tree is one of the first pictures that comes. Ours were always made of paper but there was room to go a step further. Besides our logo, they now hold four words with which we tried to explain the idea of the brand.

Delicate

Festive

Refined

Timeless

Shipping

Our shipping boxes were always eco-friendly but the bubble wrap... By the way, did you know the bubble wrap was invented to be wallpapers? No, it is not a typo, wallpapers. I guess that is what happens when to techy males think about interior design.

So, let me first introduce her excellence - the honeycomb paper.

As you can expect it is a bit pricier than that name we don't want to mention anymore but it is Earth friendly, it takes much less space and it is even decorative. The only thing missing is the psychotherapeutic effect that you can substitute with this. Instead of the old duck tape we now use paper tape that is to be moisten before the application. That is done by the simple mechanism that holds the tape and a little water reservoir. So vintage and fun.

Let me show you how we pack for shipping. 

Or like this, depending of the content.

 If you wondered what that stamp on the photo is for.

Happily, even unpacking of our parcel sent by mail became fun. Now the smartest thing you will read in this blog post. A few sentences from our favorite Seth Godin:

Insufficient effort creates work that’s wasted. If you do a slapdash job, then the roof leaks, the food is inedible, the car doesn’t start.

Insufficient effort is a shortcut that wasn’t worth taking.

Sufficient effort is the goal of the industrial capitalist. Capture the most value with the least work. Build a house that doesn’t fall down, with components that last exactly long enough to avoid a claim. Explain that due to unusually call volume…

And then, perhaps, there’s a third option.

Expending more effort than most people think is sufficient. This is attention to detail. Care in design. Follow through in customer service. This is an embrace of elegance and wabisabiand the opposite of laziness.

This is bringing care (which is rare and precious) to work even if most people would look for a shortcut instead. More effort creates beauty and magic and remarkability.

Perfectionism is a false hope and a place to hide.

Effort, on the other hand, is our best chance to do work that matters.

Graphic design: Milica Pantelić and Bojana Brkić

Gift Boxes: Grbović Bookbinder

Print (brochure, certificate, greeting card, workshop voucher, gift card, business card, collection card): Alta Nova

Print (wrapping paper): Beopak

Bags: Štampa Beograd

Paper tape: Eko-Traka BP

Photo: Liyle Photography