About the client
For over 90 years, professional craftsmen in the fields of wood construction, carpentry, painting, renovation and varnishing have relied on Festool power tools. As one of the leading family-owned companies in its sector, Festool is active in over 50 countries with almost 3,000 employees. With a clear commitment to well thought-out, high-quality products and service orientation, Festool has positioned itself as a premium brand within the power tool industry and is also perceived as such. The commitment to production in Germany is extremely important to Festool: by far the largest part, approx. 80 %, of the products are manufactured in the main factory in Neidlingen, near Stuttgart or in Illertissen. The company also has its own plants in Ceska Lipa (Czech Republic) and Lebanon (USA).
Initial situation
We have been handling the localisation and internationalisation projects for brochures, flyers and leaflets for Festool GmbH for 14 years now. The main challenge at Festool is the multitude of languages and versions, up to 29 in number. This variety, coupled with sophisticated marketing texts and their consistent, international implementation, is a special feature of Festool as a project partner.
Status Quo Ante
This complexity led to a long, cost-intensive process with many rounds of coordination. Due to the often extensive corrections of the national companies, it was challenging to manage and very demanding in terms of keeping to the timing.
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Solution
All versions are created centrally via the LGS. Starting with the German master document, through the creation of the alternative master document in English, to the implementation of all other language versions. All within a tight time frame, with maximum transparency for the Festool marketing department.
Special
A very individual and demanding project for everyone involved is the Festool magazine, which we now produce for two professional sectors (Wood and Paint). The requirements go far beyond mere internationalisation; the aim is to produce a magazine that appears almost identically in all languages and with the same high standards of design. This is not self-evident – especially since, for example, a French text runs about 20 % and a Russian text 40–60 % longer than the German source text. This, combined with the use of justified type and languages that do not allow word separation, poses major challenges for typographic design.
