Edited by Cori Watkins, editor, PostPress
With March Madness in full swing, PostPress would be remiss not to highlight Hazen Paper’s Basketball Hall of Fame Yearbook. Hazen Paper Company (Hazen Paper), based in Holyoke, Massachusetts, has scored big with its impressive holographic Enshrinement 2024 Basketball Hall of Fame Yearbook. The 12th Enshrinement Yearbook cover for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, showcased new optical technology to produce a stellar example of trailblazing optically variable visual effects. The limited-edition 2024 cover, created with Hazen HoloJet®, features a free-form Fresnel Lens image of the Hall of Fame Dome as well as a multi-channel hologram of a floating basketball.
Hazen Paper, founded in 1925, is a paper converter specializing in holographic origination, film coating, foil and paper lamination, metallizing, gravure printing, specialty coating and rotary embossing. According to its website, Hazen Paper products enjoy a wide acceptance for use in health and beauty packaging, entertainment and media packaging, golf ball packaging, bookbinding, lottery scratch tickets, merchandise tags, product labels, photo mounting and ticketing applications. Still owned and led by John and Bob Hazen, Hazen’s custom holography is known worldwide for its use of holographic technology, including recent covers of the Super Bowl program.
High-Scoring Colors and Design
The yearbook cover for 2024 is striking with the rich fall colors of navy blue, gold and burnished copper; holographic spotlight beams emphasizing the words ‘Basketball Hall of Fame’; and the star of the piece – the floating holographic basketball. It includes Fresnel Lens technology utilizing Hazen’s deep-groove technology for sharper images and greater dimensionality. Appearing to move and change with the angle of light, the holographic treatment on the cover attracts attention and interaction with the book. It also serves as a validating seal to definitively authenticate the very limited number of 2024 Enshrinement Yearbooks. The 2024 Yearbook is a testimonial to the great achievements of the honored inductees to the Hall of Fame. It cannot be altered or tampered with and will stand guard over the 2024 inducted heroes through the ages.
Hazen Paper produced the holography and optical magic completely within its secure and vertically integrated Holyoke facility. The nano wave optics were created in Hazen’s laser lab, then micro-embossed and transfer-metallized onto smooth-as-glass cover stock using Hazen’s environmentally friendly Envirofoil® and HoloJet® process. The holography is created with an optical structure that is imparted on the surface of the paper (underneath the printed graphics) with an ultra-thin polymer layer that is less than 2 microns in thickness. Envirofoil® is a non-plastic paper that is as recyclable as paper.
President John Hazen described, “The Hazen holographic team has produced a unique seal and insignia that is secure and cannot be altered or replicated, as this book will be coveted by collectors from now until the end of time because of the inductees it honors.”
The yearbook cover was designed by agency GO of Hartford, Connecticut. Once the holographic design and Envirofoil® sheets were produced by Hazen, covers were printed CMYK with the addition of white ink, which is used in tonal areas to highlight around the holographic images, as well as opaque white where the design included print-only areas on the cover. This was needed for both the design of the Hall of Fame cover and the back cover advertisement.
“The white is an interesting conversation,” stated Hazen. “It is not necessarily opaque. Yes, in certain areas, it is opaque, but the whites also are used in half-tones or at various levels of translucence to create and augment 3D effects. The white layer is quite complex – opaque in some areas but tonal in others.”
The covers were printed and individually numbered for authenticity on a HP Indigo digital press by Starburst Printing, Holliston, Massachusetts. The back cover included an advertisement for Mohegan Sun Casino, which used a custom hologram that was overprinted to create a high-voltage graphic that radiates energy and enthusiasm.
Crowd-Pleasing Reviews
The 2024 Basketball Hall of Fame Yearbook clearly was a slam dunk. Attendees of the 2024 Enshrinement enjoyed the look and feel of the yearbook while securing autographs from their favorite Hall of Fame Inductees on its distinguished pages for an extra-special memento. “The customers coveted the books and collected autographs on the books at the Enshrinement,” reported Hazen. He added, “This is a very significant piece from so many perspectives. It deserves recognition because it is valuable to brand owners.”