Municipality of The Hague makes print accessible and sustainable with Prindustry Brand Portal

The Multimedia department of the Municipality of The Hague supports all municipal services with the design and production of communication materials—ranging from posters and resident letters to policy documents and campaign content.
Peter Smit brings decades of experience, having started in 1988 at the municipal print shop. “We are the creatives within the municipality’s political network. We translate every message into powerful visual materials. It’s fantastic work! The best part is seeing your own posters along the road or spotting your campaign in a local pub. During the COVID period, we designed a poster to thank healthcare workers—that’s still one of the most meaningful pieces I’ve ever seen displayed in the city.”

The Multimedia department is fully dedicated to taking care of all offline communication for the municipality. With a team of seven designers and seven account managers, they ensure that every message goes out quickly, professionally, and in line with the city’s brand guidelines. “Preferably yesterday,” Peter laughs. Accessibility is central to all their communication efforts: the information must be clear and available to every resident of The Hague. That’s why print remains an essential channel. “Not everyone owns a computer. We still send out a lot of flyers and resident letters to make sure everyone stays well informed.”

When you consider the wide range of communication materials a municipality needs, a streamlined ordering and design process is essential. The Municipality of The Hague already had a Brand Portal in use, but was running into limitations. There was a need for a more user-friendly system that could scale more easily with new requirements. With the new Prindustry Brand Portal, employees can independently edit print materials within fixed brand templates and place orders directly with the internal print service. Peter explains: “The new environment is more intuitive, faster, and better equipped for future development. It’s not only for designing products—it can also connect with various suppliers and integrate with other software systems.”

Order page for posters

Employees can easily log in via Single Sign-On and access an overview of available print products, such as report covers, business cards, brochures, flyers, or name badges. They can customize these materials themselves using templates within the portal’s design editor. “The templates are preconfigured with our fixed brand elements,” Peter explains. “This ensures, for example, that the logo size is always correct and new text is automatically placed in the right position. Once the design is ready, employees can send their order to our internal print service at the push of a button.”

Another module within the platform focuses on print on demand. “That means nothing is printed until there’s an actual need,” Peter explains. “For example, a small stack of new brochures for the front desk or new flyers to hand out. In the past, we used to print large quantities at once, but often had to throw a lot away because something changed in the meantime. Now, we avoid waste and work much more efficiently and sustainably.”

Launching an IT project within a government organization requires a careful approach. “There are many strict security requirements, both for us and for the software partner. The collaboration with Prindustry was especially pleasant in that regard. They demonstrated that their platform meets all security standards – while still being user-friendly. On top of that, it saves time and costs. You wouldn’t believe how often our team used to get requests for new business cards. Now, employees can take care of that themselves – quickly and easily – using the template in the Brand Portal. I’m looking forward to expanding the portal in the coming years with even more functionalities!”