The days of fiddling at your desk with plastic wallets, folders and files to protect your documents could be numbered.
With the introduction of an item such as the Fellowes Cosmic Laminator, laminating no longer needs to be a difficult or time-consuming way to protect and present your valuable office wares. And owning one no longer has to waste valuable office space.
The Cosmic is portable, storable, simple and safe. And it looks great, too.
To laminate or not to laminate? The modern day office is filled with papers, photographs and certificates that require protection from the wear and tear of day-to-day use. It is natural for a person with a home office or PC with a printer to own a laminator. A laminator should be an OP essential
in the 21st century. You can create
documents on the computer, print them,
and now preserve and protect them.
It is the best way to protect those items you wish to maintain and preserve for constant use. Most documents, certificates and photos are printed on paper – a material that is not meant to last. Lamination seals and protects your irreplaceable or frequently used items, protecting against smudges, stains, spills, creases and wrinkles. In short, lamination provides low-cost, long-term protection.
Office workers now have the option of the Fellowes Cosmic Laminator to rely on as a safe and convenient way to safeguard those increasingly worn and tatty papers. As well as added protection, lamination also provides a finished, more professional look to your work, enhancing its colour and ensuring your work stands out. In an industry where image is paramount in garnering reputation and respect, any self-respecting professional should own a laminator.
With a personal laminator, you can protect and preserve valuable documents and photos from your own desk. Too much time can be wasted travelling to a service agency or having to wait your turn to use shared machines in
a communal area as the imminent deadline approaches. With your own laminator to hand, the professional results and protection you require for your documents, photos etc can be attained almost instantaneously.
And there are literally hundreds of items to laminate in the office and home: ID and membership cards, business cards, photographs, hanging posters or signs, instruction sheets, menus, press clippings, sales and marketing materials… the list goes on.
However, up until now, using laminators has often been inconvenient, complicated and sometimes ineffective, for a variety of reasons. Fellowes has ironed out the practical problems associated with personal laminators for the small office and home that affected previous machines.
So what marks out the Cosmic Laminator from its competitors?
Investigate
For starters, Fellowes conducted extensive market research to identify the wants and needs of customers looking to use lamination. Tony Storrie, Fellowes marketing
manager, revealed that the company "spent numerous hours researching how people use laminators, what they think about laminating and what they want improved". The Fellowes team invested a substantial amount of time researching past problems customers had experienced when using their laminators. The firm has been able to highlight key problems and then address the needs that customers identified. Fellowes’ findings established that as few as one in three companies actually owned a laminator but yet most of those surveyed used a laminator or a laminating service such as Kinko’s on a fairly regular basis. In addition, a large majority of respondents indicated that they were at least somewhat likely to purchase a laminator in the next year.
Having established that its respondents employed laminators (made up of 100 commercial laminators from small, medium and large companies in the industry) regularly
in their work, Fellowes also ascertained the
primary materials most commonly laminated: letter size paper, photo or photo-sized materials and business cards were listed as the three most frequently laminated items in the interviews conducted. Using the findings of its consumer research, Fellowes set about designing a new laminator that was portable, storable, simple and safe. The culmination of this consumer-marketing driven innovation is the Fellowes Cosmic Laminator.
Innovate
By identifying ease of use as one of the key desires of customers, Fellowes has designed the Cosmic in such a way that has made simplicity its strength. It delivers superior safety and design solutions, in addition to "all-in-one" hot and cold lamination technology. It allows users to laminate like a pro, without spending a fortune, in an astonishingly simple format. Unlike any other conventional laminator currently on the market, the Cosmic Laminator features a state-of-the-art temperature management system called HeatGuard Technology. While in use, HeatGuard traps heat inside the laminator through a double wall of insulation to keep the exterior from becoming too hot to touch – a common safety concern in other models.
In addition, the Cosmic can be relied upon to deliver consistent, high-performance lamination thanks to this stable temperature management system. Marrying simplicity with safety, the laminator has a slide switch to provide both hot and cold lamination. The Cosmic takes approximately six minutes to reach the correct temperature for hot lamination, when a green ready light comes on to indicate that hot application is ready.
Once the optimum temperature is reached, the laminator’s advanced temperature management system ensures consistently professional results. While hot lamination is more widely used, the Cosmic also provides cold lamination for items printed on thermal paper, such as ultrasounds and heat-sensitive photographs. Instead of purchasing two different laminators, one for hot application and one for cold, the Cosmic supplies a dual function that means you will only ever need one personal laminator. Maintaining its straightforward nature, the laminator uses only 3mm thick pouches for hot lamination, so ordering supplies is also easy. Simply place your document into the pouch, insert the pouch into the laminator, and remove it from the exit – it is as easy as 1-2-3.
The market research that Fellowes carried out also revealed that customers looked for personal laminators that were portable. "Many of the consumers we heard from complained about the bulkiness of machines and how difficult they were to store and carry, due to the power cords and overall size," Storrie says. The Cosmic has been designed for optimal storage, travel and style to meet these customer needs.
Unlike other laminators, the Cosmic Laminator’s design allows space-saving vertical storage on desks and workstations. It is lightweight with a stylish handle for easy transport between offices, cubicles and even from office to home. The bottom is also shaped to allow the cord to be wrapped and stored neatly around free standing legs. In addition, it has been designed with style in mind, reflecting the changing role of the office as a mobile environment in which we work.
The consumer-inspired, slimline design boasts white colouring with blue accents and an arched shape that is perfect for any home or office décor. Owning a laminator will no longer require you to find a space under the table or desk to hide an ugly piece of industrial equipment. The Cosmic has been engineered to cross boundaries from office to home, much like a laptop is used in the home and office. It is consequently sleek, unobtrusive and mobile. Additional features include a dual-purpose tray that serves as a paper guide for letter size or smaller documents as well as a protective dust cover when not in use. It is also equipped with a release lever to easily reposition or remove documents.
Laminate
Fellowes’ consumer marketing, product preference study has supported the success of the Cosmic Laminator’s design – its long-term in-home user results revealed that the majority of customers who used the Cosmic over approximately two months were delighted or very satisfied with the device. The same study also showed that a significant number of commercial laminator users said they were very or extremely likely to purchase the Fellowes Cosmic Laminator. Of those participants who chose the Cosmic over rival laminator’s in Fellowes’ shelf product preference study, a similarly significant number identified its ease of use as the main reason for their preference.
The most essential products in the office are also the most effortless and innovative in their simplicity – the Cosmic Laminator totally fits the bill.
