About BookWear®

What do you think about a company that produces a book filled with cotton rather than pages? You wonder if the staff's heads are stuffed with cotton too? And what if that tome is filled with popcorn instead? In your mind, does that further implicate the maker's sense and sanity?

But there's good reason for these novel novels. And it's for your benefit. The key word to BookWear® (and the staff) is creativity. The package is full of creativity and surprises. We take your story (text, photos, ...) and add spice and sparkle to it by putting it on this book cover and then filling it with a gift, a product the recipient can use and that has your logo on it. Your message gets immediate impact because of the novel package and then has longevity because every time the gift is used your message is remembered. It's fun and effective.

Now, this is not to suggest there's no element of wackiness to the BookWear® staff. There is (creativity demands a certain dose of it). We've been in business since 1977 doing graphic design and printing. The original company was called Field Crafts and we produced mostly environmental and recreational graphics, printed them on apparel and sold them all over the country. We had 64 sales representatives in 1994 and customers for artistic printed apparel in every state. But the market changed dramatically in the decade of the 90's. Franchise fever overtook the nation and the independent stores we'd sold to were replaced by big boxes and national franchises. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is applicable because we needed a new market and product to gain a niche. The BookWear® chapter of the business and the patent was written at this time.

We had experimented with compressed T-shirts and various shapes in the mid 90's. This included a black shirt compressed down to a flat circle, making it look every bit like a hockey puck. We produced this for Gordy Howe, the famous hockey player (he didn't take any slap shots with our little shirt/puck but he did order them and visit our production facility). The puck and other shapes we compressed T-shirts into make some sense but how did we leap to the book? In the early 90's we'd printed a number of literary designs for libraries and book stores around the country. Thinking of the literary theme there was an "Aha" moment and a "Geez, let's compress a T-shirt down to a little brick of cotton and then fold a cover around it to make it look like a book!" It's a bit of a leap and this is an over-simplification. It took experimenting, development and false tries with both the shirt compression and the packaging before it really looked like a book. Sometimes, now, it resembles one too much because when we exhibit at trade shows many attendees think we're actually publishers selling books. We practically have to tackle them and show the details before they understand what the package really is. Then, typically, there is an "Aha" moment, a smile and a "Get out! You've got to be kidding! Gracy, look at what they have in this little book!"

We exhibit at lots of trades shows nationally; 34 in 2008 alone. We like those moments of epiphany when people hold BookWear®, understand what it is and realize the potential for their own marketing, recruiting, PR and fundraising.

As it was said at the top of this page we have a great group of creative people at BookWear®. We believe in customer service so much that, for example, you don't get a recording when you call here. You get a live person, a friendly and skillful one at that. We know that when you call somewhere else and get a recorded message it's really like a slap in the face (only when all our phone lines are full will you get a recorded message). There are lots of testimonials supporting our customer service, products, and quality. In addition to creativity we have a staff that's friendly and cohesive with years of technical and practical skills. We pay attention to the environmental and physical quality of the products and procedures we use. We believe in community and the individual and practice a business structure that supports both.

Our goal is to give you the best value for your project. We put priority on product quality, environmental effects of products and procedures, customer service, and quality of human relations (internally in our business and externally). We look for those features in our suppliers also. When shopping is done strictly by "cheapest price" the above qualities are not given appropriate emphasis.

Our heads really aren't full of cotton and popcorn. Please call us with any questions, requests for samples and order information. We look forward to sharing many creative "Aha" moments with you!