Welcome to our relaunch: Introducing the Blue Print

Building on the Business Optimizer philosophy and in line with the Navigator Paper brand, our website is getting a new name and a new look. Welcome to the Blue Print.

We’re delighted to announce that our blog has a bright new look and name. From June 2023, we are rebranding under the name Blue Print.

Introducing Blue Print

Why Blue Print? We chose our new name for a number of reasons. A blueprint is the name given to a plan or engineering drawing – the detailed specifications that enable a build project to take shape.

As the basis for building success, the word blueprint has taken on a wider meaning. The name “blueprint” has come to be applied to any plan for success – whether a strategic business plan or a personal manifesto. It’s a term that reflects our former name as a goal: as business optimizer.

Perhaps most saliently, the name Blue Print better reflects the brand behind this blog: Navigator Paper. As the world’s leading premium office paper brand, Navigator Paper is no stranger to printing. Our new name reflects the blue of Navigator’s logo and its years of history providing you with the paper you need to create your own blueprints, the canvas for your ideas.

A ground-breaking invention

Before the invention of the blueprint, architectural plans would be copied by hand. This was time-consuming and expensive.

The British astronomer and chemist John Herschel had already contributed to photography in 1839 when he found a way to fix a negative. When, in 1842, he noted the effect of sunlight on a sample he had treated with potassium ferricyanide, Herschel thought he had found a basis for the invention of color photography thanks to its blue color.

“This paper will prove valuable,” he noted in 1842.

It wasn’t until 1872, however, a year after Herschel’s death, that Paris-based Marion and Company found an application for his discovery. It renamed Herschel’s “cyanotype” as “ferro-prussiate paper” and began marketing it for the replication of architectural plans. In 1876, at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition the “blueprint” made its American debut as the first inexpensive way to duplicate documents.

A new way to plan for success

For decades, the blueprint would be the go-to solution for duplicating plans and architectural drawings. It saved users time and helped to minimize errors. That is, until the widespread use of the color printer around a century later. Were he alive today, Herschel would marvel at the color copying made possible by a modern office printer.

Although blueprint technology is today no longer in widespread use, the lexicon remains redoubtable. One only has to look at the number of books claiming to be “a blueprint for success” to see the power in the words.

With these powerful words, we aim to build on the Business Optimizer philosophy. Blue Print perfectly reflects what we wish to deliver for the readers of this blog, a canva for your ideas to gain life.