Posts Tagged
in-house publications

Papermen’s Paper

This video on I Love Typography not only made me want to jump in a time machine and win an apprenticeship as a compositor in 1940s America (possibly after taking a detour to 14th-Century Strasbourg to pick up Gutenberg and his pals), but it also reminded me of this:

I particularly love the first section, with its cheery propaganda for an employee magazine at a paper manufacturing firm:

“Here’s a postman in Hamilton, Ohio -- although it could be any town -- delivering one of the outstanding publications in the country. It’s called The Log. Ever heard of it? Well… that’s possible, for The Log is a company employee publication -- one of 5,000 sponsored by American business firms. This one is published by, and for, The Champion Paper and Fibre Company.”

Apart from the fact that the spelling snob in me is overjoyed to see an American firm carve ‘Fibre’ rather than ‘Fiber’ into its headquarters, it’s amazing to see an in-house paper with its own editor, division editors and the rest.

I’ve not written for proper in-house publications -- by employees for employees -- but I have interviewed staff for their companies’ external magazines and newsletters. I’ll always remember one who said, when she read the article I’d put together about her: “I never thought I could appear to be so interesting.”

I’d love to revive the vogue for these publications, especially for firms who want to keep up morale and avoid the expense of having to recruit for empty posts quite so often.

Any takers?

Posted by: Ben Locker
Published: 25th November, 2008 at 9:22 pm in Blog, YouTube.
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