The traditional invitation apparently wasn’t good enough for this wedding. For this one, the bride’s family mailed out a “save-the-date” notice – months ahead of the invitation itself – in a royal-purple, faux-suede booklet wrapped in a ribbon and placed into a matching faux-suede box.
John Romano’s company, Portfoliobox Inc., designed and hand-made 175 of the booklets and boxes – at a cost of about $75 each – but he still shook his head recently as he showed one of the boxes to a visitor, marveling at the wealth it took to pay for it.
“The money was flowing,” he said.
Making boxes for a living might not sound like the most exciting line of work, but the custom creations that Romano and his business partner, Stuart Einhorn, construct are anything but boring.
From its 6,000-square-foot location in a mill building on Mineral Spring Avenue in Pawtucket, Portfoliobox and its seven employees turn out high-end presentation boxes, binders and booklets for artists, wedding parties and corporate types.
The custom boxes – whether a lipped clamshell, a tray or a ringed case – are made, in part, with basswood and are covered with high-quality fabrics from Japan, Italy and Germany.
When the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority wanted to get the attention of corporations that might be interested in signing up for luxury boxes at the refurbished Dunkin’ Donuts Center, Portfoliobox got a call to make about 100 presentation boxes. The finished product was covered in bonded leather and, inside, had a 3-D graphic of the luxury boxes, a CD, a special pen and sales material.
When the New York-based Donna Karan clothing line issued a limited-edition belt buckle, Portfoliobox was hired to make the box in which it would be sold.
There’s no mass production here. Because every box is handmade, the company handles custom orders ranging from one to several hundred. Clients looking to make large-scale orders are referred elsewhere.
Competition isn’t much of a concern. Most box manufacturers either handle only large orders with little custom work, or make a one-of-a-kind box. “We’re kind of unique,” Einhorn said.
Customers can expect to pay as little as $12 and as much as $1,000 per box, depending on the type of materials, intricacies of the design and size of the order.
“It’s all about how can we make it work so they can afford to buy it,” he said.
Einhorn got his start in the business in the 1970s when, as a graduate student at the University of Rhode Island, he took up the hobby of book binding. He enjoyed it and was good at it, so he opened his own business – Hawthorne Binding – in South Kingstown. Then he took on an assistant, John Romano.
He eventually closed the business and took a job where he received training in making specialty boxes. Combining that experience with the binding knowledge, Einhorn and Romano opened Portfoliobox in 1984.
For years, the business was located on Valley Street in Providence, but when the site was transformed into Rising Sun Mills complex about three years ago, Portfoliobox relocated to Pawtucket.
Much of Portfoliobox’s revenue – the owners decline to reveal sales numbers – is generated from artists needing quality portfolio boxes for storage, display and marketing.
Most of the business is generated through word of mouth, and it has attracted some of the biggest names in the art world. The estates of famed photographers Ansel Adams and Richard Avedon, for example, have had their work displayed in Portfoliobox creations.
The company works with the next generation, too, making portfolio boxes for many students at Rhode Island School of Design and other art schools along the East Coast.
Portfoliobox is branching out, however, as more orders come in related to weddings and to corporate functions.
Recently, Portfoliobox employees were preparing to ship out special three-ring binders covered with a red, faux-linen material for the lottery company GTECH. The binders were slated to carry a thick proposal to the Ohio State Lottery.
Another order involved a presentation box the company made for Christie’s auction house that contained transparencies of items on auction and a miniature light box on which they could be viewed. The box was delivered to well-heeled customers in advance of the auction.
“We need to make things look snazzy,” Einhorn said of the corporate work. “Or we need convey a certain richness. And we’re doing more and more of this type of work.” •
Company Profile: PORTFOLIOBOX INC.
OWNERS: Stuart Einhorn and
John Romano
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Specialty box
manufacturer
LOCATION: 558 Mineral Spring Ave.,
Pawtucket
EMPLOYEES: 7
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1984
ANNUAL SALES: WND
