Inside the Factory: Making Portfolios with Brewer Cantelmo

This is Danny Kirschenbaum, proudly displaying Carla Richmond‘s brand spanking-new portfolio. He’s doing this because Carla was one of our student photographer contest winners, and Danny is a representative of Brewer Cantelmo, which provided custom portfolios for the lucky five.

Brewer Cantelmo is a mainstay of the photographer business in New York; they custom make all of their portfolios in their on-site factory. It’s a family business that has been churning out the quality goods for over 80 years. Clients include Ruven Afanador, Ondrea Barbe, Tara Sgroi, Alex Tehrani, Jennifer Rocholl, and scads more.

Here’s the fancy stamp on the inside of the book. V cool.

I got to thinking “what is this on-site factory really like?” “How do all these portfolios come into existence?!” So down I went, straight to the cabbage patch.

Brewer Cantelmo has a showroom on 39th Street, and the factory is in the basement. Fifteen people work in the factory, and each person mans his or her own station. Books need to be cut, mounted, stamped, have their edges turned, get drop-in panels, get inside works installed, go through quality control, be cleaned, and, finally, shipped. Training takes at least 6 months for each station.

Holy Xavier Roberts!

Here are some pictures.

There are stacks and stacks of leather bound portfolios and books hanging about in the back rooms of the showroom; BC can make a book out of virtually any material. They have many materials in thousands of colors, but you can also provide your own fabric. If it can be folded, it can make a book (though many photographers still go with the 14 x11 black; you can’t mess with a classic).

Cutting Station:

Sewing Station…

Where the portfolio bags come into existence…

Some of the materials available for use. BC also makes menus and other bound-products.

These are the letters used for embossing the books. Every book has a metal plate made for it, and it’s kept on file for five years.

Here’s the plate for The Spotted Pig restaurant in NYC:

Here’s where the embossing happens. I didn’t want to get too close.

But I DID love the rolls of colorful materials. I felt like I was in a Pantone Factory.

Also, I found some abs.

And some Royals.

Here’s the menu for the Manhattan restaurant and bar Please Don’t Tell. These keep getting lifted from the restaurant, so they continually need to make more.

This was my favorite leather; Red Rust Lambskin. It was beautiful and smelled amazing. I do feel bad for the lambs, though. Luckily Brewer Cantelmo offers a super-hardy faux leather called SK. It comes in 700 colors.

If you choose a remnant material, you get a discount. There’s a nice selection.

That’s our tour, folks. I hope you found it Schweet.

You know what’s even schweeter? If you order a portfolio from Brewer Cantelmo before June 27th and tell them we sent you, you’ll get 25% off.

Whee!