Pop Up Card

Inspired by our foldfactory.com workshops, we designed this fun and functional pop up booking card for Purcell Heli-Skiing. Guests can keep it in their wallet, or stand it on their desk as they eagerly anticipate their upcoming heli-ski excursion. We especially like the interplay between the helicopter, trees and skier. Makes you want to strap on the skis/board and head out!

Visit Purcell Heli-Skiing

Meet our folding buddy

We recently had the pleasure of attending a seminar with folding guru Trish Witkowksi from foldfactory.com. We love her enthusiasm about unique printed pieces and agree with her sentiment, "Why print a Yawn when you can print a Wow"! Trish graciously featured Kallen Printing in two of her recent videos. Thanks Trish!

FOLD of the WEEK #134: Tri-fold with Surprise Lift-up Panels

January 25th, 2012

I was in Calgary last week for International Print Week on behalf ofNorQuest College Centre for Excellence in Print Media and I was giving workshops at SAIT Polytechnic and one of my workshop attendees, Kallen Printing (longtime foldfactory fans), brought me a huge box filled with gorgeous print samples. It was hard to pick one to feature this week - but I did it! This piece was part of a larger bound piece, and it was in a pocket at the back. The format is so smart and functional as well as beautiful in its application. It’s a great use of a tri-fold format and short folding to create reveal panels and an organized presentation of the content. You’re gonna love it, eh?

FOLD of the WEEK #137: Brochure with Tucking Tear-off Closing Mechanism

February 15th, 2012

This week’s fold is a companion piece to #134 from a few weeks ago – the tri-fold with surprise lift-up panels. It’s a four-pager with a die-cut tab that tucks into the cover. The tab is perfed and serves a very practical purpose as a tear-off keepsake with important contact information on it. Sent to us by Kallen Printing of Calgary and designed by December 2nd, this piece was part of a larger marketing package and I just thought it was one of those great, simple and practical ideas that can offer a lot of value. I hope you like it.

Kallen Print goes in search of Nessie...

Well actually, our clients Roth & Ramberg did! These talented photographers take an annual trip to shoot photos for their desk calendar self-promotion piece. This year the destination was Scotland. This gorgeous desk calendar features beautiful photography and stories of their journey in search of the loch ness monster…

Want more? See behind the scenes.

It's here...

With 2012 just around the corner, we're busy delivering our limited edition 2012 "Kallendar" to Kallen Printing clients and friends.
This year's edition features the photography of Urs Kallen, and one stunning glacier photo from our friend and client Ruedi Beglinger. 
Each month was printed in CMYK + 1 PMS and 1 Metallic ink, and then dull and gloss varnished. Phew! 

See other great photos from Ruedi at SME.


Thanks to our friends at Pryor Design for their great work.

Who's excited about winter?

We are! Especially after creating this luscious direct mail piece for our boutique heli-skiing client. Who wouldn't want to get a package like this in their mailbox? Complete with friendship offer, a gift sticker and QR codes linking to customized website content, this piece had it all. And the response has been outstanding! Our client called to say what great feedback the campaign has brought. Just what we want to hear! 
At Kallen Printing, we're excited about what Print can do because it works!

We're also excited about heli-skiing! Check out:
Great Canadian Heli-Skiing

Kallen Print at the Benny Awards

Photos from the Benny Awards Gala for the Premier Print Awards in Chicago...

Kallen Printing in Business in Calgary magazine

Read about Kallen Printing in the September issue of Business in Calgary. We're in great company!

Kallen Printing makes the news!

News of our Benny win is spreading... Many thanks to David Parker for a wonderful profile on Kallen Printing. The article is a great summary of where we started, up to our present day Premier Print Awards accomplishment.

Nadine Kallen of Kallen Printing, a family-run print shop, earned an international award for Once Upon a Pond. Photograph by: Genesta Walz, Calgary Herald

From the Calgary Herald, Around Town by David Parker:

One of the most coveted awards a printing company can receive is a Benny, a statuette of Benjamin Franklin offered as the highest honour of the Premiere Print Awards, the industry's oldest and largest worldwide graphic arts competition.

Only four came to Canada this year - two to Vancouver companies, one in Ontario and the other to Calgary's Kallen Printing, a small family-run business that prides itself on using technical expertise and its desire to provide the best result, no matter the size of the job.

The attention to detail that "borders on the absurd" is simply in their Swiss genetic code, according to Urs Kallen, who came to Calgary with his wife Gerda in 1965.

They landed in Toronto, but a postcard of Banff from a friend who had settled in Calgary quickly convinced them to move here, as they both have a love of the mountains.

Urs was a trained pressman who quickly found a job here and by 1985 had started his own company with Gerda as his production manager.

Kallen Printing was launched, primarily relying on printing from their Swiss friends who had businesses in the mountains - Swiss guides and ski adventure companies that continue to use the Calgary printer for their work. On my tour I was impressed with a brochure for Ruedi and Nicoline Beglinger's Selkirk Mountain Experience, delivered in an envelope printed with a topographical map of the peaks and glaciers around Revelstoke.

Today the plant delivers printing for a variety of customers, many of whom are long-standing, thanks to modern equipment and the addition of their daughter Nadine to the company staff. Urs is still the press room craftsman and he has a scientific approach to planning, envisioning and executing every project that comes through the shop, while Gerda has daily oversight on every job to ensure quality, co-ordinating with staff and suppliers, adhering to timelines and demanding perfection.

Nadine is a graduate in printmaking from Alberta College of Art & Design who first worked at a Victoria advertising agency to gain practical experience as a designer before returning home to join the family firm.

Meanwhile, the company had purchased a second four-colour press and produced good works for companies such as Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut, Sunshine Village collateral, Nexen's newsletter, Banff Mountain Film Festival posters and an award-winning Fishten-Retrouver Art Catalogue.

It was an art catalogue for Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre in Medicine Hat that won the Benny for Best Booklet. A unique and challenging print job also designed by Fishten Design Studio of Calgary, Once Upon A Pond was praised for its striking deboss and foil on the cover, its vellum flysheets and staggered, angle-cut pages.

It is a super example of the design, pre-press and bindery that make up the art and craft of printing at Kallen.

Calgary Herald Article_09.19.2011

Calgary printing company, Kallen Printing, wins Benny Award

We are thrilled to announce that Kallen Printing of Calgary, Alberta has won a prestigious Benny award! Our entry, “Once upon a pond” was awarded the Best of Category in Booklets.

The Benny (the Oscar award for the print industry) is awarded to the most outstanding entry in each category by Printing Industries of America. To win, an entry must be flawless.

Winners will be presented their Benny statuette at the Gala awards banquet, held in Chicago in conjunction with Graph Expo each fall.

Thanks to Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre in Medicine Hat and Kelly Hartman of Fishten in Calgary.

Print in action

At Kallen Printing, we get a kick out of seeing how the printed products we create are being used out in the world. This was certainly the case when we recently visited the stunning Lake O'Hara Lodge.

Along with a brochure, we also created various pieces for the guest rooms and cabins like notepads, binder tabs, comment cards and chocolate truffle boxes! Mmmm...

http://www.lakeohara.com/