MARC USA YUPO - TRANSLUCENT SYNTHETIC

Step Inside Design, Sep/Oct 2004

Marc USA knew designing a brochure for a new condominium project would be no ordinary task. The waterfront luxury housing, called "ICON," is located in Miami's glitzy South Beach area and was inspired by notorious French designer Philippe Starck. The brochure, commissioned by the Related Group of Florida, needed to reflect Starck's unique, individualistic style. It also needed to appeal to wealthy real estate clients interested in buying homes with interiors created by one of the world's best-known contemporary designers.

The first models of the ICON compound were made from frosted plastic material, representing the modern glass exterior of the fluid 5-shaped, 38-story building. "The outside visual of the structure is very clear. They want to have a unique look on South Beach with this clear-looking building, and this was one of the visual clues I took to try to find a paper stock that could represent this," says James Guest, design director at Marc USA. "There are many translucent papers on the market as cover material, but most have drawbacks, mainly concerning durability. They crack easily, rip, and create a white line when they curl." Guest realized he needed a synthetic stock to give him the durability he needed. " Yupo is the only translucent sheet that I know ofthat is tear-resistant and durable," he says.

The Marc USA design team choose Yupo 02-lb. translucent for the cover of the ICON brochure, but use of the synthetic material was not limited to the cover-it was also used for two peel-away window pages inside. "I took the graphics of curtain folds that we printed on one of the Yupo translucent pages," describes Guest. "Now the reader has to peel away the curtain to get a view of the next page, showing a drawing of the ICON building against a bright blue Florida sky." The brochure was printed by American National Ltd., Miami, Florida with aprint run of 7,500.

Marc USA/Miami,www.marcusa.com;Yupo, www.yupo.com