James Cropper will use London Packaging Week to bring the people, skills and materials behind specialist paper into view. The British papermaker’s immersive Stand H24 experience will include the first public screening of a trailer for The Last Mill Standing at 1.00pm on Wednesday, 16 September. The event also introduces The Colours of London participatory installation and a new Paper Portal experience. Together, the three elements position paper as both a carefully made material and a continuing source of creative possibility for packaging, branding and design.

A Film About Specialist Papermaking

For more than 180 years, James Cropper has produced distinctive papers for luxury brands, designers and printers. At London Packaging Week, the company will place that industrial heritage and material expertise at the centre of its visitor experience through The Last Mill Standing, a documentary focused on the UK’s last remaining specialist coloured paper mill.

The trailer will offer visitors an early view of a film that examines the craft, precision and experience involved in turning fibre into coloured paper. The full documentary is due for release later this year. Its arrival comes at a moment when British manufacturing faces rising costs, international competition and changing market requirements, placing renewed attention on the value of specialist capabilities and the people who sustain them.

Rather than treating papermaking as solely a mechanised process, the documentary focuses on the generations of knowledge involved in producing materials used by brands around the world. That perspective gives the stand’s programme a useful human dimension, connecting a finished packaging material with the skilled work carried out behind it.

Connecting Material And Creativity

The exhibition stand has been designed as a sequence of experiences, beginning with the film trailer and continuing through activities that invite visitors to consider their own relationship with paper. The approach reflects the broad role paper can play across design, communication, packaging and personal expression.

At the heart of the programme is an invitation to look beyond paper’s everyday familiarity. The stand will show how a material often encountered as a finished product can carry a story of fibre, production expertise and creative intent.

Jordan Scott, Head of Marketing at James Cropper, said:

“People experience paper every day, yet very rarely do they get to see the extraordinary expertise behind it. We wanted to create more than an exhibition stand. We wanted to create a journey that begins with the people who make the material and ends with the ideas those materials make possible. Whether visitors are discovering The Last Mill Standing, sharing their own Colour of London or exploring the Paper Portal, we hope they leave seeing paper in a completely different way.”

The Colours Of London

Inspired by one of London’s most recognisable landmarks, The Colours of London will invite attendees to capture their own Colour of London on a specially designed postcard. Visitors can then post their contribution into the stand’s pillar box installation.

The activity is intended to draw on the memories, locations and moments through which people experience the capital. It also offers a direct expression of paper’s continuing place in communication and creativity, using a familiar physical format to encourage personal reflection amid a major packaging industry gathering.

For packaging professionals, the installation provides a reminder that material choices have an emotional and tactile dimension alongside their technical and visual requirements. Paper can form part of a brand experience before a product is opened, and James Cropper’s stand concept brings that relationship into focus through a simple, participatory act.

A New Paper Portal

Alongside the trailer and postcard installation, James Cropper will present its Paper Portal. Designed to spark curiosity and inspire new ideas, the experience is intended to be encountered in person rather than explained in advance.

The decision to keep part of the installation for the show floor reinforces the company’s emphasis on discovery. In an industry where physical material qualities matter, a visitor experience built around direct engagement can offer designers, printers and packaging professionals a closer connection to the possibilities of paper.

Visitors attending the documentary trailer premiere will also be invited to join the James Cropper team for drinks. The gathering will continue conversations around British manufacturing, material innovation and paper’s role in design, packaging and branding.

Celebrating The Story Behind Paper

London Packaging Week will bring together thousands of packaging professionals, offering James Cropper a timely platform to present the craft behind its materials. The company’s programme makes a clear case for retaining specialist knowledge in British manufacturing while showing how that expertise remains relevant to contemporary creative work.

By combining documentary storytelling, an interactive London-themed installation and an in-person material experience, the stand gives visitors several routes into the same message: exceptional paper begins with skilled people and continues through the ideas it enables. For a sector shaped by material decisions, brand expression and production realities, that is a compelling story to place centre stage.