Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 16, 1993 TAG: 9305140411
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: YORKTOWN (AP) LENGTH: Medium
The husband and wife, who live in Yorktown, spend countless hours poring over pictures of Williamsburg area landmarks, trying to find just the right images for the postcards, cookbooks and tourist brochures they produce through their company, Miller-Bicast Publishing.
Harris said demanding perfection from photographers and printers has helped Miller-Bicast make products of award-winning quality.
"I'm the most picky person when I'm looking at photographs," he said. "We send stuff back to the printer all the time. I don't want to take our product to a merchant unless it's perfect."
His fastidiousness paid off last year when Miller-Bicast won first-place awards for three different postcards at the International Post Card Distributors Association convention in Charleston, S.C. The awards were for best tourist attraction card, best multiview card and best sunrise or sunset card.
Two of the award-winning cards, like most of the products Miller-Bicast makes, include images from Colonial Williamsburg and the Jamestown and Yorktown museums. The sunrise card depicts the Yorktown end of George P. Coleman Memorial Bridge.
"We were shocked when we won," said Stacy Harris, whose parents, Bill and Carolyn Gaertner, own the business. "We were thrilled with just one award, and then we won another and another."
The Harrises, who run the business with the help of one part-time employee, work out of a small office attached to the Gaertner's York County home. Gaertner, who works at Newport News Shipbuilding, takes many of the photographs they use.
Postcards and cookbooks, sold in stores throughout the Williamsburg area, make up most of the business, Stacy Harris said. But the company has recently expanded to make mugs, advertising brochures, key chains and other souvenirs.
"We'll make anything that has to do with photographs," she said.
One recent addition to their product line is a key chain displaying the Elvis postage stamp.
The two said they get many of their ideas for postcards and merchandise from local shop owners who pass along suggestions from customers. They constantly travel to local points of interest to hunt for eye-catching views.
Stacy Harris said they have to be careful to avoid gaudy products - which sell quickly in many vacation spots - in the staid Williamsburg market.
"You have to keep in mind the area," she said. "You have to be very conservative."
by CNB