L’année dernière, MOO lançait la Carte de Visite Luxe, une nouvelle carte ultra-tendance et super épaisse, composée d’une couche de couleur intermédiaire supplémentaire. Un an après son lancement, nous sommes toujours aussi enthousiastes !

Tellement enthousiastes que nous avons décidé de lui consacrer une video afin de vanter ses qualités. Et comme toute vidéo digne de ce nom, elle est également accompagnée d’un bêtisier.

Nous avons voulu aller encore plus loin, et lever le voile sur le procédé de fabrication de cette carte unique et vous laisser entrevoir le soin tout particulier apporté à sa confection. Découvrez une partie des secrets qui entourent la naissance de la carte et le savoir-faire requis pour obtenir un produit d’une qualité exceptionnelle. Une partie seulement, car si l’on vous disait tout, ce ne serait plus un secret !

C’est ici que le voyage commence. Avant même que votre commande n’arrive à l’entrepôt, notre Service Clientèle inspecte la qualité de votre produit et le bon respect du design choisi. Notre équipe veille au grain, et le regard attentif de nos membres nous permet de repérer toute erreur éventuelle présentée par un produit avant sa livraison. Lorsqu’un défaut est détecté, nous nous efforçons de le corriger. Si nous n’y parvenons pas, votre commande est mise en attente et nous vous contactons dans les plus brefs délais.

Une fois le contrôle de la qualité effectué, notre équipe donne son feu vert pour l’impression.

La carte de visite Luxe est imprimée sur du papier Mohawk Superfine de la plus haute qualité. La technologie Quadplex nous permet d’obtenir un papier de 600 g/m² et de vous proposer l’une des plus belles cartes de visite disponibles sur Internet.

Une fois à l’entrepôt, une équipe entière a pour seule tâche de chouchouter “Luxe”: votre carte est entre de bonnes mains! Nous vérifions chaque commande à la main pour nous assurer que vos cartes présentent une coupe parfaite et un look des plus élégants.

Après vérification, vos cartes sont fin prêtes à retrouver l’emballage spécialement conçu pour les accueillir. Après tout, des cartes aussi élégantes requièrent un emballage qui l’est tout autant. Les boîtes destinées à accueillir “Luxe” sont conçues de manière intelligente et vous permettent de voir combien de cartes il vous reste.

Chaque étape du voyage s’effectue à la main, car nos employés sont des humains, et non des robots (nous serions prêts à faire une exception pour R2-D2, mais ses frais de transports dépassent quelque peu nos moyens!)

Le voyage ne s’arrête toutefois pas là. Chez MOO, nous nous efforçons de vous faire parvenir vos produits dans les meilleures conditions possibles. Nous expédions vos cartes Luxe vers notre packaging Luxe, sans oublier la cerise sur le gâteau : l’indispensable autocollant Yay !

Voilà, vous savez tout (où presque) ! Nous aimons Luxe, et nous nous coupons en quatre pour vous proposer un produit parfait, de la conception jusqu’à la livraison. Et pour couronner le tout, un magnifique ruban portant le sceau de notre atelier décore votre emballage !

• MOO Products: Luxe Business Cards

Vielleicht erinnern Sie sich noch an die Einführung unserer Luxe-Visitenkarten Anfang letzten Jahres? Die extra festen Luxe-Karten mit dem farbigen Mittelstreifen begeistern uns und viele von Ihnen auch heute, ein Jahr später, noch!

Wir wollen Ihnen einen besseren Einblick in unsere Luxe-Visitenkarten geben und zeigen, wie wir diese extra für Sie herstellen. Wo fangen wir am besten an? Welche Magie benutzen wir, damit Luxe so besonders ist? Wie stellen wir das an? Naja, wir werden einiges verraten, aber nicht alles. Einige Geheimnisse behalten wir für uns.

Und so beginnt alles! Bevor Ihre Luxe-Karten in unserem Warenhaus in den Druck gehen, überprüft unser Kundenservice die Qualität jeder Bestellung. Mit Adleraugen achten sie auf Fehler in der Druckvorlage und potentielle Probleme. Falls dem Team ein Fehler auffällt, probieren sie diesen zu beheben oder werden mit Ihnen in Kontakt treten.

Sobald alles perfekt ist, gibt das Team grünes Licht und die Karten kommen in den Druck.

Luxe-Visitenkarten werden auf preisgekröntem Mohawk Superfine Papier gedruckt und dank unserer Quadplex-Technologie, sind wir in der Lage, 600gsm dicke Visitenkarten herzustellen und somit eine der besten Visitenkarten online anzubieten.

In unserem Lager haben wir ein engagiertes Team, dass sich exklusive um Luxe kümmert, Sie sind also in besten Händen. Jede Lieferung von Luxe-Karten wird per Hand überprüft, damit die Karten unseren und Ihren hohen Qualitätsansprüchen entsprechen.

Nachdem jede Lieferung überprüft wurde, werden die Karten in der extra für Luxe-Visitenkarten designten Box verpackt. Letzten Endes benötigen Luxe-Karten ein würdevolles Zuhause. Die Box wurde so designt, dass Sie auf einen Blick erkennen, wie viele Karten noch übrig sind.

Jeder Schritt auf dem Luxe-Weg wird von echten Personen begleitet, um den Karten einen persönlichen Touch zu geben. Nachdem die Luxe-Karten sicher in der Box verpackt wurden, wird die Box mit einem Farbband verschlossen, um den Look perfekt zu machen!

Aber damit ist der Weg noch nicht zu Ende. Hier bei MOO wollen wir sicherstellen, dass unsere Produkte im bestmöglichen Zustand bei Ihnen ankommen. Wir legen besonderen Wert auf die Versandverpackung, damit diese nach ihrer Reise eine gute Figur abgibt. Ihre Luxe haben ihre eigene Versandbox und werden mit ihrem speziellen Yay-Sticker verziert.

Das war also unser Beweis – wir lieben Luxe und wir würden bis ans Ende der Welt reisen, um die Luxe-Erfahrung so perfekt wie möglich zu gestalten. Und um den Letzten zu überzeugen, gucken Sie sich unser Luxe Vine-Video an!

We made a great video about it here - it even comes with bloopers – as all great videos should.

But we wanted to give you an even sneakier peek into our Luxe Business Cards and how we make them extra special for you. Where do we start? What extra magic that goes into making Luxe? How do we do it? Well some of how we do it, we can’t give away *all* our secrets, can we?

So here’s where it all begins! Before your Luxe order even makes it down into the warehouse, our Customer Service team make sure that we quality check every order that gets designed. Their eagle eyes are looking out for any errors in the artwork that might cause issues. If we find any, we’ll try and fix them for you (like little elves working behind the scenes!) If we can’t, we’ll put the order on hold and be in touch.

Once everything looks perfect, they will give it the big ‘thumbs up’ and it’s off to print.

Luxe Business Cards are printed on the finest Mohawk Superfine Paper  and using Quadplex technology we’re able to produce a 600gsm thick card that stands out as one of the best business cards on the web.

We have a dedicated warehouse team looking after Luxe, so you know you’re in the best hands. Every batch of Luxe Cards gets checked by hand to make sure that the cut is spot on and the cards are looking their very best.

After each batch is checked, it’s time to for the cards to find their way into the box, specially designed just for Luxe. After all, we do need a fitting home for your Luxe Cards. The boxes have also been designed with a very clever way of seeing how many cards you have left in the pack too.

Every step of the Luxe journey is done by hand to give it that personal touch (we don’t employ robots here – although we’d maybe make an exception for R2-D2.) After they are safely in their box, they get wrapped and sealed with a ribbon to top off the look!

But of course we’re not finished there. Here at MOO we make sure that your products arrive in the best condition possible. We take extra care and attention with our packaging to ensure they make the journey looking their best. Your Luxe are then packaged up in our Luxe post boxes – and they’re finally topped off with their very own Yay sticker!

So there you have it – we love Luxe, and we’ll journey to the ends of the earth to make sure they stay perfect from start to finish. And to “tie it all up”, check out our warehouse Vine made just for Luxe! 

Depuis l’année dernière, nous avons commencé à tester des éditions limitées de Cartes NFC (Near Field Communication). Quiconque commandait des Cartes de Visites reçevait une Carte NFC gratuite avec un aperçu pré-enregistré de vos propres cartes. Très avant-garde et compte tenu du nombre de possibilités offertes par cette technologie, elles ont catalysé l’imagination de tous et sont devenues très populaires. Elles donnent un aperçu concret des bénéfices d’une Carte de Visite connectée.

L’entrée en production des Cartes NFC va prendre encore un peu de temps, mais nous sommes en train de travailler dur pour que les Cartes NFC existantes et futures soient compatibles avec l’application NFC par MOO. La version française est pour très bientôt mais vous pouvez déjà vous servir de la version en anglais.

 

L’application, disponible gratuitement pour Android, vous fera devenir un spécialiste du NFC : vous pouvez facilement reconfigurer vos cartes avec des informations intéressantes et à jour puis inventer de nouvelles manières de vous en servir. Créer un plan avec votre position ? Facile. Un lien vers votre profil Facebook ou votre page Flavors.me ? En un clin d’oeil. L’application NFC par MOO rend le lien entre votre carte de visite et vos réseaux sur internet encore plus simple.

Il y a aujourd’hui de nombreuses applications sur le marché pour configurer vos puces NFC, certaines sont de bonne qualité, d’autres moins. Nous voulions en créer une meilleure, avec une expérience utilisateur simple et destinée à ceux qui inventeront de nouveaux usages. Avec ce cahier des charges, la seule solution était de la créer nous-même ! Nous espérons qu’elle vous plaira. Si vous avez des questions, laissez un commentaire ci-dessous et nous serons ravis de revenir vers vous.

Vous pouvez la télécharger ici. Si elle vous plaît, laissez un avis – nous acceptons la critique !

Viele von Ihnen werden wissen, dass das Leben von Startups und freien Kreativen eine Achterbahnfahrt sein kann.  Und auch wir kennen die Höhen und Tiefen, die man in den ersten Jahren durchlebt. Doch zum Glück haben wir inspirierende Kunden wie Sie, die unsere Liebe zu gutem Design, Qualität und unseren Unternehmergeist teilen. Nachdem MOO vor 6 Jahren in London an den Start gegangen ist, hat sich hier einiges getan. Und langsam aber sicher haben uns auch immer mehr deutsche Kunden gefunden und für sich entdeckt.

Um dem jetzt gerecht zu werden, haben wir ein deutsches MOO Team auf die Beine gestellt. Die nächsten Monate wird sich viel tun… wir sind ab sofort auf Twitter erreichbar, arbeiten mit Hochdruck an einer deutschen Facebook-Seite, überarbeiten unsere Webseite und haben mittlerweile auch einen deutschsprachigen Kundendienst, der Ihnen bei allen Belangen unterstützend zur Verfügung stehen wird. Wenn die ersten Schritte nicht ganz reibungslos verlaufen, bitten wir Sie um Geduld.

Auch wird es von jetzt an regelmäßige Blogbeiträge und Newsletter geben, damit Sie immer über Neuigkeiten aus der Welt des Highend-Designs und von uns auf dem Laufenden sind. Und natürlich teilen wir auch gerne lustige Katzenbilder oder leckere Kuchenrezepte, die wir online gefunden haben, mit Ihnen.

Doch fangen wir mit uns an. Wussten Sie beispielsweise schon, dass es jetzt eine neue kostenlose Android-App NFC by MOO gibt? Falls Sie zu den Glücklichen gehören, die eine unserer Test NFC-Visitenkarten erhalten haben, so können Sie jetzt einfach Ihre Kontaktdaten bearbeiten und spielend leicht interessante Webseiten oder Ihre Social Media Seiten verlinken.

Zudem haben wir mit dem Luxe-Projekt eine Initiative gestartet, mit der wir in Zusammenarbeit mit Designern Hilfsorganisationen unterstützen. Jeden Monat gibt es ein neues Design für Luxe-Visitenkarten und der Erlös kommt einem ausgewählten guten Zweck zu. Wenn Sie selbst ein Designer sind, würden wir uns freuen, wenn Sie Ihren Entwurf einreichen. Falls Ihr Design ausgewählt wird, dürfen Sie sich die Hilfsorganisation selber aussuchen und wir stellen Sie unseren Kunden vor. Ein Gewinn für alle Beteiligten.

Zu guter Letzt noch etwas in eigener Sache. Um näher an Ihnen, unseren deutschen Kunden, dran zu sein, werden wir dieses Jahr auf ausgewählten Events, Messen oder Konferenzen anwesend sein. Wir würden gerne wissen, wo wir Sie am besten treffen können. Bitte lassen Sie uns wissen, welche Events Sie besuchen werden und wo Sie uns gerne kennenlernen möchten. Einfach einen Kommentar hier abgeben oder uns auf Twitter anschreiben.

Dealing with physical restrictions

If you haven’t been lucky enough to come visit the MOO Shop, you might not know, but… BOXPARK is made out of shipping containers! Yup, we’ve literally set up a store in a box, and a small one at that. Despite that, we knew from the get-go that we wanted our shop to be more than just a shop – we wanted it to be a place that our community could come to learn and share business tips with each other. Each week we’ve held Wednesday night talks with a different inspiring expert in their field. Sounds great, but the problem is, there’s not much space for chairs on our shop floor… or in our cupboards for storage. Our solution was to purchase lovely little Dutch By Design rainbow chairs that not only look cute, but they are made of foldable cardboard, so they pack up flat and don’t take up much room when set up either.

Obviously, not all of our worldwide customers can visit the shop in London, so we’ve also been video recording the talks and posting them on our YouTube channel afterwards. We’re really excited about the great compilation of advice we’ll be able to include over the next few months. While we’re being honest and discussing challenges, I must admit they are not slickly shot videos and we haven’t quite figured out how to broadcast high quality video live, but we hope you still enjoy them.

Keeping up customer service standards

At MOO, we pride ourselves on our customer service. If you’re not happy, we’re not happy. Which is easy enough for our Customer Service team with our internal order system, design software, and printing warehouse at their fingertips. But it’s a bit trickier in the MOO Shop. Most questions our lovely shop staff can answer right away, but what to do when they’re stumped? We decided to install a Customer Service hotline right at the till, so when needed the team back at MOO HQ can be reached just by picking up the big red phone. Maybe not every company can have their own big red phone, but the tip is that when there’s a value or service that’s really important to your brand, try to make sure you don’t neglect it when you try out new ventures/channels.

Do as I do, not as I say

People ask us all the time about things we don’t offer on moo.com – “do you do a UV coating?” “can I get cut outs in my cards?” “what about letterpress?” In the shop, we have the ability to do things a bit differently and try out new features, so we decided to install an embossing machine. Our designer Felix designed four new Business Card templates with matching embossing plates, so that people can order the cards online, and then come into the shop to hand emboss the matching design onto their cards. Sounds great, right? Problem is, almost no one has come in to use it yet! Understandably, customised embossing is a bit different than choosing from four pre-made embossing plates, but we’re still a bit surprised that after all the requests, the interest hasn’t matched. Fortunately the machine was affordable and we can swap it out with another feature if we’d like – and we know if that if we launch embossing on moo.com we should provide more than just four options. In the meantime though – why not get your own embossing plate made and you’re welcome to bring it into our shop to use on your MOO cards. We get ours from Metallic Elephant, and if you contact them and send them a file to use as a plate in the MOO Shop, they’ll help you make it happen. Just be sure to check out their guidelines before contacting.

Any questions, or tips for us, feel free to leave us a note in the comments. We’re still learning as we go, so happy to hear from you.

PACKAGING

Paul Thorogood, Head of Product Design, is a packaging guru. He designed all our beautiful MOO packaging and understands the power of presentation and thinking (so to speak) outside the box.

More than what’s in a box

It sounds obvious but it does get overlooked – packaging is just as important as product, as it is the first thing your customer will interact with. Packing has evolved past being a vessel for carrying or protecting a product – it can be art. Whatever way you want to go with your brand, never forget that your packaging and presentation is part of it. So here are a few things to consider:

Does your packaging live up to your product?

Don’t make the product feel cheap by using cheap packaging.

Where is your package going?

Always understand where your product and packaging is going to be seen first. On a shelf with other competitors? Then make it stand out from the crowd. Delivered to someone’s door? Then make the delivery box interesting and not just a box inside a box.

Are you keeping it simple?

Too much packaging can be just as bad as too little. Over packaging can make customers feel like you just don’t care about the environment.

Always try to surprise and delight.

Packaging is one great way to give those little added extras that make your customers smile, so it’s worth making the effort.

Create a family

TYPOGRAPHY

Felix Ackermann, MOO Graphic Designer, is a typography nerd. He knows just how powerful the right visual typography can be for a business. Here, he discusses how to make typography work for your brand.

What do you want to say?

Letters would not exist if we did not have anything to say – so make sure that you do! Typography should always honour the content, not the other way round. Look at the typefaces available to you, and see which ones speak the values of your brand – are you looking for trust and simplicity, or something soft and funny? Think about the tone of voice – do you want to shout or would a whisper be more effective? Play with the space you have on your product, your website, your letterhead – but play with a purpose in mind.

One size fits all – or does it?

It is rare to find typefaces that you can use equally well for headings, subheadings, body copy, and logo type for both printed material and the web. There are those that have a lot of character, which are excellent display typefaces, and those that read very comfortably for long paragraphs. You can combine typefaces, so that you have one for headings and one for body copy. Chose them with care and make sure they harmonise. A little contrast might help them to come alive, but be careful – too much contrast might make your brand look patchwork. (And nobody trusts a brand that reads like the love letter of a serial killer.)

Keep it short, keep it simple

This goes for your content as well as for the overall design and typography of your product and brand. Make sure you say it in 10 instead of 15 words, and only use 2 colours instead of 5. Not only will it help to convey the message of your product or business in a more efficient and direct manner, it will also save you money, when you print packaging or letterheads – less colours, less cost. As much detail as necessary, as little copy as possible.

Top Tip


Pay attention to branded typography you encounter during the day – in the supermarket, the train, traffic signs. When type is used well, all you need for branding is a typeface and a colour. Be consistent in the treatment of your (well) chosen typeface, honour the content and you won’t have to do much more to brand your business!

Fancy getting nerdy with typography like Felix? He recommends “The Elements of Typographic Style” by Robert Bringhurst

PHOTOGRPAHY

Rob Wilson is MOO’s in-house photographer, and he’s extremely well versed in making brand imagery work with the tone and style of the product. He’s also got some excellent tips for freshening up your photography online.

Lighting

You want your work to look clean and fresh. Lighting is essential whether you are photographing a mug or a fashion shoot, you need to ensure that your final results make your subject pop as you want them to be seen, and portray what you want your brand to say. There is nothing worse than a dark image. This might mean shooting in natural light on pastel colours, or studio lights on grey paper. Experiment and try things out; you don’t have to have a studio set up to make your photography look great  – like this! I was inspired recently by this Etsy tutorial as well, in which a photo got to the front page of the listings simply by being crisp and clear.

Consistency

Make your style shine, and displaying your work consistently will help achieve this. Think about your brand colours and logo, layouts and text colours. I prefer grids on photo websites that draw you in and make you want to keep exploring a portfolio of work.

Sharing

Keywords and metadata are important these days. If you use a website builder or blog such as WordPress cram as many search terms in as you can, don’t be shy. It all helps get your work found online. You can add metadata in several software packages that ensures you protect your own work. If you want to watermark your work then do something creative and subtle, don’t just stick your name across the middle of an image in comic sans – blergh!

MOO is launching the MOO Card Swap to make sure your Business Cards are representing yourself and your business in the best possible way that you can. Maybe you’ve been saying to yourself “I’d love to get some MOO Cards, but I have a stack of hundreds of flimsy, outdated non-MOO business cards that I need to use up first.” Well, now’s the time to give them up!

From now until the end of April, if you come visit us in the MOO Shop* and hand over a pack** of your old non-MOO cards, we’ll give you a voucher to order 50 free Classic, Green, or Rounded Corners Business Cards on moo.com. Just pay for shipping and your shiny new cards will be posted to your door.

Whether you want to use MOO Designs or create your own, the choice is yours – either way, there’s no excuse for having anything less than the best Business Cards around.  (Now you can get back to cleaning out your desk drawer – you never know what you might find!)

*Can’t make it to the MOO Shop in London? You can still take part – send your old non-MOO cards by the end of April to: MOO Card Swap, 32-38 Scrutton St. (REAR), London, EC2A 4RQ along with an address or email address we can send your voucher to.

**A pack is at least 20 cards – but we won’t turn more than that away! Once per customer please.

Here at MOO, we’re big fans of April Fools day, as you may have seen from our posts from previous years – like MOO-D ink Cards and The Lightbox

This year was no different, the MOO Crew all sent in their ideas, we voted and the Collect-O-Matic vending machine was born. Well when we say born, we mean – won at an auction, picked up, torn apart, cleaned, prodded, vinyl’d and made brand new again.

It’s true, we won’t be distributing Collect-O-Matic vending machines across the globe for order pickups (just think of the poor Customer Service reps inside), but we do deliver to over 180 countries and this way you still get your order delivered straight to your door in the post – and who doesn’t love receiving parcels?

We also may have been *slightly* cheeky in moderating the comments on the blog – but wanted to keep the joke going as long as possible. A big high five to everyone who guessed it right! You’ll find all the comments on the post now.

To our surprise, we even got Collect-O-Matic in working order again (think Frankenstein’s monster, but with less thunder and lightning and lot more jumping up and down in excitement).

So what next for the Collect-O-Matic? Well, it will soon take pride of place in the MOO reception in our London office for a while. Make sure you come and pick up your free sample packs if you can. Don’t forget, you can also submit  where you’d have liked to see Collect-O-Matic. We’ve already seen it in Sydney, at a race track in Indianappolis, even on the moon! Follow it’s journey on our Tumblr page.

For the 99.9% of you who haven’t been able to see the MOO Shop first hand, we’re over the moon with how it turned out. The feedback from you has been amazing. We’ve heard how you love being able to come and pick your new cards up hassle free (the cookies probably play a part in that!) But this got us thinking, why stop there?

So we all got together, took your feedback on board and after a lot of banging heads it came to us (in a true eureka moment) – let’s replicate the pickup experience, with everything you love about the MOO Shop, and make it available all round the world.

So here it is folks… Introducing ‘Collect-O-Matic’ vending machine by MOO. Well, the ‘Collect-O-Matic AF-201-3-X’, if we’re going to be formal!

So how does it work? That’s easy, just follow the steps below:

1)   Place your order (as normal), but under delivery options, select Collect-O-Matic from the delivery options.

2)   We’ll send you your personal NFC token or order number straight to your NFC phone.

3)   Then take you this to your nearest Collect-O-Matic and voila, easily collect your order.

Want to know more? Take a little peek at our video below:

Very soon, ‘Collect-O-Matic’ by MOO will be coming to a location near you, so keep your eyes peeled! You can also keep up to date with more exciting news on our MOO blog, our Twitter, Facebook and by signing up to the MOOsLETTER.

We’d love to know where you’d like to see your nearest Collect-O-Matic? Outside your local restaurant? At your nearest airport? Maybe at your favourite landmark? Let us know below in the comments or show us (either by snapping it in the real world or by using your Photoshop skills.) Just download your very own Collect-O-Matic, add in your location image and submit it to our Collect-O-Matic Tumblr page.

We can’t *wait* to see all your suggestions.