Showing posts with label 3 hole sewn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3 hole sewn. Show all posts

Wednesday 3 May 2023

Jobs from the past - Number 162

Regular followers of this blog will know that my first post of every month is a "job from the past" so that I can show some of the really good work from years gone by and this one is from 2015...

Spring/Summer 2015 - The Tokyo Collection

Olivia von Halle is a British luxury nightwear brand that launched at London Fashion Week in September 2011. The brand can be found in nearly 100 stores in 20 countries including Harrods, Selfridges, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and online with Net-a-Porter.com.

Focusing on beautifully cut silk pyjamas in stunning exclusive prints, Olivia von Halle has quickly made a name for itself in the world of high-end nightwear. In 2013 the company was awarded the ‘Blue Butterfly Trust Mark’, which is given to brands and companies that have a positive impact on people and the planet.
The publication is sub A4 - 290x205mm, portrait. It has a 4pp cover on Omnia 200gsm and a 16pp text on Omnia 150gsm and is 3 hole sewn.
Unlike many of the fashion lookbooks featured on this blog, which are printed offset litho, this has been digitally printed on an HP Indigo press. The colours are strong and punchy and the whole publication has a matt, tactile look and feel - in fact I can honestly say, every bit as good as litho!
Although Omnia was never originally developed for digital, we now keep it as a stock item with "sapphire treatment". This treatment is often applied to more unusual papers and provides a "key" so that the inks (which are different to litho inks) work on the paper surface. The great thing is the job just doesn't look and feel like a digital job.

These pictures show the binding which is particularly worthy of note. This type of binding is generally known as 'three hole sewn' - because there are three holes! I wrote about the process on this post here: http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/what-is-3-hole-sewn.html

Where the binding on this particular project differs from the three hole sewing that I described in my post is both in the distance between the holes and the fact that this is knotted on the outside - on the spine.

The thread runs 130mm from hole to hole (260mm in total). It's the first time I've seen this and it works superbly.
Art direction is by Tiffany Goody at Erotyka and photography is by Takuya Uchiyama. Graphic design is by Michael Knight, who runs his studio in East London called A New Mark. Print and finishing is by Gavin Martin.
https://oliviavonhalle.com/
https://anewmark.com/
https://www.gavinmartin.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 03.05.2023

Thursday 13 October 2022

The Wei Ligang Collection

Michael Goedhuis specialises in the best contemporary Asian and Western art. Their collection includes painting, sculpture, ink painting, bronzes and antiquities. They also represent contemporary artists and this brochure is for one such Chinese artist - Wei Ligang.
The size of the publication is 265x216mm, portrait with three hole sewn binding. It has a 4pp cover with 120mm flaps printed on our Colorset (100% Recycled) Dark Grey 270gsm and a 28pp text printed on Gardapat 13 Bianka 150gsm.
Click on images to enlarge
For readers not familiar with GardaPat 13, it's a fully coated paper but it really does have a dead flat MATT surface. There are many papers on the market which profess to be matt - some which incorporate the word matt in the name, but aren't! Apart from the high quality matt surface, this paper has an extraordinarily high bulk - this 150gsm text with a thickness of nearly 200mics. If you would like to read more about the bulk, you can read it here.

Centre spread...
Detail image showing the exceptional reproduction and three hole sewing...
The text is digitally printed using an HP Indigo digital press and the results are superb, beautifully showing the artworks. As many readers will know, many materials have to be "Sapphire Treated" to work successfully on HP Indigo presses, however this project has been printed without sapphire treatment.
Click on images to enlarge
The 28pp text flows nicely in the hand, feeling substantial but not overly heavy.
Detail of the three hole sewing on the spine......
Detail of the hot foil blocking on the outside front cover.
Design and Art Direction is by Ornan Rotem at Sylph Editions.

Printing and the terrific finishing - which was all achieved in house is by Identity Printers, based in Paddock Wood in Kent.

https://www.michaelgoedhuis.com/
http://www.sylpheditions.com/
http://www.identityprint.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 13.10.2022

Thursday 24 June 2021

Light/Rock #4

Founded in 2008 by Adrian Strittmatter and Andreas Fux, Saentys now has offices in London, Paris, Lyon, Geneva and Zurich and are a leading specialist in bespoke destination marketing. Every so often, they produce a customer focused publication looking at projects, case studies, trends etc. and this is the latest superbly produced edition, produced at the end of last year...

Size is 330x240mm, portrait and is 6 hole sewn! with a 4pp cover and 48pp text. 
Click on images to enlarge
Following the introduction is a news section
Each section is separated by black divider spreads.
The paper used is our Omnia - 200gsm on the cover and 120gsm for the text. The reason that Omnia was chosen is because it would beautifully reproduce the photography with the rich imagery of locations, the solid blacks and dark, detailed images. Of course the most important thing is for the publication to be special - with the reproduction that you would expect on a silk or gloss but with a natural tactile uncoated feel.
The Omnia 120gsm is a bulky sheet, although it flows beautifully in the hand. The use of a 200gsm for a cover, would often be considered too light, until I tell you that Omnia 200gsm is 280 microns thick!
Click on images to enlarge
The below image shows half of the binding...
This type of binding is generally known as 'three hole sewn' - because there are three holes, the thread comes out of the middle up and into the top hole, down the inside of the book out of the middle hole again and now down to the lower hole and in again up the inside of the book to the middle hole, where it is knotted. In this case, there are two banks of three hole sewing, which holds the text and cover very securely. The below image shows the centre spread, where you can see both of the binding threads...
Centre spread...
Omnia has a dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction. All printed offset litho throughout. The publication has a fantastic feel - solid flat areas of colour work amazingly well - as you can see in the images below, the solid rich deep blue and the light nude shade both look fantastic with no mottle or patchiness - in fact they are flawless solids...
Click on images to enlarge
The publication has a total thickness of 5mm, but even though Omnia is bulky, the 48pp sits nice and flat and doesn't 'gape' in the spine.
Design is by Saentys. The exceptional printing is all offset litho with production handled by Nick Stacey at Ctrl-P, a bespoke print studio based in London.

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.06.2021

Friday 18 July 2014

What is ...3 hole sewn?

What is ...Number 7
Regular followers of this blog will know that in the middle of the month, I publish a "What is ....? post. The article covers various aspects of paper, printing and finishing in greater depth. However, many of these subjects are complex, so these posts are only intended to be a brief introduction to the topic.

What is ...3 Hole Sewn?
Three hole sewn is a binding technique which goes back to the earliest days of printing and binding. It is a highly effective and strong binding method which can give a project a 'crafted' look and feel and by using a coloured thread it can add a further dimension to a piece of printed literature.

Three hole sewn projects have appeared often enough on this blog so that many of the pictures here are from posts on this blog:
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-marshes.html
Effectively this is a process which can be done entirely by hand - you quite literally just need a needle and thread (ideally a thicker 'twine' like thread). The picture below demonstrates the way it works - from the inside of the book you go out of the middle hole, up to the top hole in and along the inside and out of the middle hole again, down to the bottom hole and up to the middle again and tie a knot ...simple! 
Some binderies have adapted a sewing machine so that it can be produced as a 'hand operated, machine process'. In common with other binding methods where binding is through the spine, it's produced over a 'saddle' - so the book sits on an upturned V.
A stack of 'three hole sewn' brochures
The below picture shows a dummy made using red thread and using two 'banks' of three hole sewing. this is worth considering on publications with a longer spine - over A4 for example. The reason for this is that some movement of text pages can occur if it's only held, relatively speaking, in the middle.
Picture shows inside (below) and outside (above)
Below is a project using yellow thread and two 'banks' of three hole sewing.

http://www.sylpheditions.com/
Below is another project, where there is a smaller A5 section bound in the centre spread, so the 3 hole sewing (2 x banks) is not centred and is offset towards the foot.

One thing to bear in mind are that it is a binding method more suited to publications with less pages - depending on the materials used - 32pp is probably about the limit.
Posted by justin Hobson 18.07.2014