Calling cards

Making an instant visual impression is key to a successful business, says Julian Hartley, but this is something he claims is sometimes lost on Hungarian companies.
The order book of Polite Media Budapest Bt, Hartley’s design, photography and print company, is currently 99% dominated by U.K. firms, he says.
He says clients currently range from Vodafone UK, to the British Royal Navy, to Marks & Spencer, with more coming in thick and fast. And though few of his customers may be Hungarian, he says that Hungarian printers make efficient and reliable partners.
“With a high-speed internet connection, distance is no longer an obstacle,” says Hartley. “I can receive very large files from clients, do the necessary design and pre-print work, then e-mail it to a printer in Budapest that can generally begin the print job on the same day. Add four days overland transportation, and that means we can turn round full and complex print jobs in an equivalent time to a U.K. printer.”
The company specializes in the design and production of all types of cards, ranging from standard business cards and photo-quality greeting cards, to multi-layer and hand-finished marketing material, Polite Media was the brainchild of Hartley and his friend Jack Jackson. They first met back in the U.K. at Manchester Metropolitan University’s design faculty, from where they both graduated in photography and digital media. Both are experienced photographers, and it was this that first brought Hartley to Budapest.
“Several years ago, when I was working as a travel photographer, I came to Budapest for a job and fell in love with the place,” he recalls. He adds that his and Jackson’s experience of trying to get noticed as up and coming photographers was the initial idea behind Polite Media, which was set up in 2002.
“It’s a very crowded market, and to get noticed you really need to make a splash,” he says. “We found that one way to do that is put your work on very high-quality postcards and mail it out. The business applications of this struck us as obvious.”
The philosophy of Polite Media is simple, Hartley says.
“There’s a price advantage gained by shipping printing jobs to Hungary, but we’re not really competing on price,” he stresses. “We’re competing on quality and a high level of service.”
Hartley adds that another selling point is the expertise of local printers, who have made huge investments over the past decade in cutting-edge equipment and technology.
“The printing technology available in Hungary is more or less equal to that of the U.K., and in some areas, particularly for small print runs, or complex jobs that require a degree of manual work, Hungarian printers tend to be much more flexible,” he says.
The whole of the business is technology-led, with customers worldwide able to place orders on the company’s website, www.politer.com. Communication with the Manchester office, where the jobs originate, is via e-mail or webcam.
And yet, physical contact with clients is still key, insists Hartley. He says both he and Jackson devote much effort to adding an extra level of service in terms of liaising with clients, offering advice on printing techniques and alternatives. He adds that most clients are repeat customers.
Once the job has passed through the design and pre-print phase, Hartley’s Hungarian wife, Júlia, coordinates production.
Hartley says shipping print jobs back and forth between the U.K. and Hungary is great business, currently meaning the design and printing of over 100,000 postcards a month. However, he sees the hitherto untapped greeting card market in Hungary as the logical next step.
“There’s no real culture of sending cards in Hungary,” he observes. “High-quality, creative cards are also very hard to find here, and we think as the market develops there is definitely room to supply such cards, and not price them at a premium.”
All images on Polite Media-branded cards are created in-house, but the firm has also recently teamed up with a well-known figure on the Budapest art scene, British painter and illustrator Marcus Goldson, to produce a range of greeting cards featuring his work. Plans are also afoot to open a Polite Media store in Budapest.
Hartley says he wants to keep to the philosophy of Polite Media. This, he says, means individual, creative and original work – what he terms a unique approach to the printing industry. He says he would like to keep the process in his own hands, rather than franchise the brand.
“I see the shops as design boutiques,” he says. “Rather than open across Hungary through franchises, I’d eventually like to see Polite Germany, Spain, Poland, etc.”


by Matthew Higginson

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