DESCRIPTION Lakeburger Welcome Guide CLIENT Self-promotion DATE July 2009 DESIGN CREDITS Design: Jim Hargreaves Special Thanks: Joel Hill, Darren Brickel, Teresa Brown, Jim Glynn PRINT CREDITS Jim Hargreaves TYPE CREDITS Garage Gothic by Font Bureau

QUANTITY PRODUCED 1 PRODUCTION COST Garbage, a piece of string, and some toner: probably $2 – $3 PRODUCTION TIME 1 day DIMENSIONS: WIDTH × HEIGHT × DEPTH 8 in × 11 in PAGE COUNT 12 PRINT METHOD Laser (Xerox) PAPER STOCK Paper bags, burger wrappers, newspaper, junk mail NUMBER OF COLORS CMYK BINDING Hand-stitched

One of the biggest questions that plagues graphic designers is how to get the attention of a new client, someone who they really want to work with. Magazines, books and even peers tell you to approach them with something unique, something that is relevant to their industry. In theory this makes sense, in practice it’s pretty hard to pull off. So, here is a perfect example, in practice, of how to do it: To introduce themselves to Larkburger, an eco-friendly and 100% natural fast food burger joint that had just moved into their Denver, CO neighborhood, advertising agency Barnhart created a guide highlighting Larkburger’s competition. To drive the point home and appeal to their potential client’s sensibilities, Barnhart used recycled materials from the fast food industry — fast-food bags, newspaper, sandwich wrappers, and various junk mail — and produced a one-of-a-kind mailer printed on their own laser printer and hand-stitched. The result is an engaging, tactile and on-target promotion to get on Larkburger’s good side.

Designer Jim Hargreaves shares some of the perils of DIY-ing with recycled materials:

Each material presented its own challenges. The newsprint for example, was so thin that I had to back it with another sheet before running it through the laser — otherwise, it would simply jam or tear. The sandwich wrappers were also pretty unpredictable; most were treated with some kind of coating that didn’t always react well to the heat of the laser, but as you can see on the cover, it resulted in some pretty cool cracking and warping. Fortunately the Tyvek was the only major clog — I was lucky to even get it yanked out of there… for a few minutes I was almost certain that I had just destroyed a $15,000 printer.