5,000 Custom Notebooks, Two Global Brands, One Production Run

Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

Producing 5,000 fully custom notebooks — 2,500 for each airline — in a single coordinated run, with each one unmistakably true to its own brand rather than the same book in two colors.

The two notebooks side by side. Air France in dark navy with a blue linear pattern and the wordmark in white with its red accent; KLM in bright blue with a repeating white aircraft pattern and the Royal Dutch Airlines identity. 2,500 of each, 5.5 by 8.5 inches (14 by 21.6 cm).
custom notebooks2,500 per airline
5,000
distinct brand identities
2
coordinated production run
1

Challenge

Air France and KLM needed 5,000 notebooks between them, and the obvious way to produce them — one book, one logo, two colorways — would have failed both brands at once.

Each airline has a distinct visual language. KLM's is built on its signature bright blue; Air France's on a dark navy palette with a linear pattern and the red accent in its wordmark. A notebook that reads as a generic item with a logo applied does not extend either identity, it borrows from it.

The constraint was that both had to come out of the same production program, on the same schedule, at the same quality — while remaining two visibly different products.

Solution

The supplied brand elements were developed into production-ready designs rather than placed onto a stock cover, with pattern scale, positioning, logo placement and overall balance worked out for each airline separately. KLM's carried a custom repeating aircraft pattern; Air France's, the signature blue linear pattern on dark navy.

Color was managed against the approved brand and PMS specifications throughout, which is the part that decides whether a finished book looks like the brand or merely near it.

Artwork and electronic proofs were signed off before anything went to volume, so placement, branding and overall appearance were confirmed rather than discovered at 5,000 units.

Production then ran as one coordinated manufacturing run of 2,500 per airline, with print consistency, color, logo reproduction and pattern alignment checked through it. The finished notebooks were individually protected, bulk packed and prepared for delivery.

Result

5,000 custom notebooks produced at scale without either brand identity being diluted to make the run easier — two distinctly different products, connected by a consistent level of execution.

The project is the answer to a question enterprise and hospitality buyers reasonably ask: whether bulk necessarily means generic. It does not. Established brand standards can be translated into custom products at volume, with the artwork, PMS requirements, production, quality control and delivery managed as one process.