Showing posts with label VandA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VandA. Show all posts

Thursday 24 September 2020

Concealed Histories

This pioneering special display at the V&A provides insight into the ongoing research into the provenance – or history of ownership – of the Gilbert Collection. In many cases it is unclear who owned these pieces before they were acquired by Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert. This uncertainty can be alarming: between 1933 and 1945 Jewish people in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe had their possessions systematically taken from them. Art collections were confiscated, sold, scattered or destroyed by the Nazis. Despite significant efforts after the Second World War by the Allies and European governments, many of these objects were never returned to their rightful owners. Instead, many objects ended up in public and private collections, often acquired without knowledge of their background, or whose hands they had passed through. 

Concealed Histories, tells the story of eight Jewish collectors and their families under the Nazis. It is the first of its kind by a UK museum.

Click on images to enlarge
This information leaflet features a very long concertina so all eight objects can be viewed. It is a 16pp concertina, the finished size being 150x105mm with a flat size of 838x222mm.
The above image shows the inside, with the 70mm flap, which has the information about the previous owners. The below image shows both sides laid out flat...
Click on images to enlarge
It is printed offset litho in 2 colours - black and gold. The result is really impactful with the gold looking amazing...
Click on images to enlarge
The publication is printed offset litho on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm and it looks and feels absolutely gorgeous - it flops and folds in a delightful way when handling the publication as I hope these images demonstrate.
It is printed by London printer PUSH and as you can read in the note below, they were the only printer approached who took the challenge of printing the heavy gold solid and the folding!
Published by the V&A. Graphic design is by Nina Jua Klein Studio.

The exhibition runs until 10th January 2021, so you have a few months to get there.

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.09.20

Thursday 25 June 2015

Johnson Banks 21 years #4

To mark their 21st birthday, Johnson Banks has produced a series of four brochures. Johnson Banks was established in 1992 and is now a studio which has an international reputation.  Previously I have written about 'Blue Chip and Commercial projects' 'Charity and Not for Profit' and 'Education and Government', so this is the last of the series.
I'm writing about each of the four brochures individually. This post is about 'the Cultural side'.  As you can see from the projects below, there is a fantastic body of work for museums and galleries, including the Science Museum, the V&A, BFI  and the promotional work for Parc de La Villette, a cultural park in North East Paris with whom JB worked with over a nine year period.
Posters for Parc de La Villette, a cultural park in North East Paris. showing work over a nine year period
Size of the publication is 148mm square with a 4pp cover with a 32pp text and is perfect bound. It is printed on our StarFine White 300gsm and 150gsm. The spine is 3-4mm thick. As you can hopefully see from these images, the printed result on this StarFine uncoated text & cover paper is superb. The whole project is all printed digitally on an HP Indigo press by Pureprint - simply a stunning printed result.
Outside back cover
StarFine is not a 'digital' paper but it has been "sapphire treated". This treatment is a pre-coat and is often applied to more unusual papers and provides a "key" so that the inks (different to litho inks) adhere to the paper surface. If you would like to know more, you can read about it here:
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/what-is-sapphire-treatment.html
This project doesn't have a 'digital' look and feel like many digitally printed projects in part, due to the materials chosen.

Creative director is Michael Johnson, designers on the project being Kath Tudball and Julia Woollams.
Posted by Justin Hobson 25.06.2015

Friday 1 November 2013

Jobs from the past - Number 49


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 here's one from 2003.

Ossie Clark at the V&A 2003
 
This is a beautifully simple piece of print produced to accompany the Ossie Clark exhibition that ran at the V&A from 2003-2004.  From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s Ossie Clark dressed the famous and fashionable. The exhibition shows work from his most productive period which coincided with London's optimistic, rule-breaking decade in which fashion, photography, music and the cult of personality converged.

Ossie Clark was first recognised as a design talent at the age of 23 when British Vogue singled him out in their August 1965 issue. Throughout the next decade his designs represented the best of London fashion.

This publication is a facsimile of pages from the sketchbooks of Ossie Clarke to inspire creativity by being coloured in or used to appreciate the free flowing style of the original line drawings.
The finished size is of the 123mmx175mm, the format being a 5 panel (10pp) long concertina. Printed offset litho in just 2 colours, magenta and black. The material chosen is our Neptune Unique SoftWhite 250gsm and as I recall it was chosen because white would have made the line-work of the illustrations look far too harsh.
Design was in house at the V&A. Print was by Graham Fisher at Ashford based printer Gros Monti, who sadly have since gone bust.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1250_ossieclark/
Posted by Justin Hobson 01.11.2013

Tuesday 12 March 2013

Treasures of the Royal Courts - V&A

This weekend, a new exhibition opened at the V&A celebrating 500 years of exchange between the British and Russian royal courts. Comprising more than 150 objects, from portraits, jewellery and luxury goods to processional armour and heraldry, this exhibition chronicles the close relationship between the English monarchy and the Russian Tsars. The exhibition runs from 9th March until 14th July.
This is the beautiful invitation for the private view held last Wednesday. Size is A5, portrait and is a single card (2pp) made by printing and then duplexing our Omnia 320gsm  to make 640gsm - which is 900micron thick - a truly substantial invitation! The front of the invitation is printed CMYK with the incredible detail of the 'Leopoard Flagon' reproducing beautifully. The reverse is printed offset litho in gold (1 colour)
The other thing to mention about the front of the invite is that the image area (below) is over-printed with a gloss UV varnish. (...just worth pointing out that Omnia is one of the very few papers with an uncoated look and feel that you can successfully UV varnish on to with one pass and it looks excellent).

The invitation and other collateral was designed in house at the V&A by Jo Glover.
 
Print is by London based  PUSH - beautifully printed and finished, the UV varnish fits well - a really nice clean, well produced piece.
 
http://www.vam.ac.uk/
http://www.push-print.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 12.03.2013

Thursday 8 November 2012

V&A 2011-2012


Pieces of print like this don't come along every day! This is the beautiful 2011/2012 Annual Review published by the V&A.  The museum celebrates it's highest attendance ever, at 2.88 million! ...so there's lots to celebrate. The report is divided into various sections combining the pictures and words about the collections and the life of the museum with a major section on the museum's Futureplan.
 
The cover is hot foil blocked in a white gloss pigmented foil on a Cool Grey 350gsm material from the well known, Hull based paper merchant!
With image reproduction being so important, it was essential that everything reproduced amazingly! The text chosen for the project is Omnia 150gsm because the print includes solid colours and images of exhibits - and it looks brilliant.
 
Size of the book is 200x265mm, portrait format, perfect bound. The 68pp text is printed in CMYK throughout - beautifully. Additionally, there are 4 tracing paper inserts as section dividers and an 8pp coloured section for the accounts.

Generation Press have written about it on their blog and they've also taken the time to show the foiling die used for the cover - very nice to see:
http://generationpress.co.uk/archives/3467

Design is by independent designer, Jo Glover. Photography is by David Short and the V&A photography studio.
 
Print, foiling and finishing is by Generation Press.
 
http://www.vam.ac.uk/
http://www.joglover.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 08.11.2012

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Diamond Jubilee Exhibition at the V&A


Photo: Cecil Beaton 1960 
If you weren't aware of it, there is currently an exhibition at the V&A featuring portraits of Queen Elizabeth II by royal photographer Cecil Beaton. The exhibition celebrates Her Majesty in her roles as princess, monarch and mother and coincides with the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.

You can read more about it and see some of Beaton's amazing (and iconic) images here:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/cecilbeaton/

If you were wondering if this was just a pleasant public information announcement, you'd be wrong!  I thought I would use it as an opportunity to show the lovely posters produced for the exhibition which are printed on our lovely Omnia 150gsm and which (as you can see below) faithfully reproduces Cecil Beaton's work...
The other thing to point out is that the image is "gold laden" and even though an uncoated feel was required Omnia was chosen because of the way images reproduce - including gold made out of CMYK (not specials) and still look gold, whereas on other uncoated papers it would just look a bit mustardy brown! (in my opinion). The poster size is 510x760mm.
 
Design is by the V&A in house studio. Print is by Principal Colour.
 
...and you'd better hurry as the exhibition ends on 22nd April.
 
Posted by Justin Hobson 11.04.2012

Friday 6 January 2012

Jobs from the past - Number 27

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...

V&A Zoomorphic Exhibition Literature
2003/2004
Personally, I think this is one of those projects which will be written about in design books and blogs for many years to come as it is a beautifully clever idea, simply executed.
Johnson Banks designed the campaign to promote this exhibition which is on architecture inspired by animal forms that imagined what animals would look like if drawn as architectural pieces. The project is based around a series of three main posters, with the other event literature using elements from each of the posters.
 Click on the images above and below to get the full effect.
...and the exhibition blurb is as follows:

Zoomorphic looks at the emerging trend towards buildings that emulate nature, presenting leading contemporary architecture inspired by animal form.

The exhibition shows an eclectic mix of architects’ models and preserved animal specimens to illustrate the zoomorphic analogy, with works by leading British and international architects including Santiago Calatrava, Renzo Piano and Wilkinson Eyre. Some of the architects featured employ animal metaphors quite explicitly to create iconic signature buildings, for others the animal likeness emerges as the design evolves.

Zoomorphic documents a highly significant new trend that will extend and enrich the language of modern architecture and asks: What will it be like to live in zoomorphic buildings and walk around zoomorphic cities? and: How might the buildings of the future be transformed as architects continue to explore the lessons of biology in more depth?

The exhibition was curated by Hugh Aldersey-Williams

The main posters (above) are 760x515mm. Other literature includes the A5 leaflet, below, which folds out like so:
...and down again
to reveal the 594x420mm poster:
a different version of the armadillo poster as 394x594mm folding down to 197x297mm:
Simple A6 invitation/reply card:
Design is by Johnson Banks. Creative director on the project was Michael Johnson and the designer (and, most importantly, the illustrator as well) was Sarah Fullerton (now Dezille).

The posters were all printed on our Redeem 100% Recycled 130gsm with the cards on 315gsm. Redeem 100% Recycled was chosen because a blueprinty/dyeline paper feel was required and this was the paper that did it! Interestingly, it might look like that it is just the natural/neutral shade of the Redeem coming through but although it was just printed one colour offset litho in a bluey/purple pantone colour, it was further enhanced by having a very small percentage tint of the colour printed all over the sheet, thereby reducing the hardness of the edges, especially on the "pencil type" lines.

It was printed by a west London printer called Fernedge who were a very progressive printer and one favoured by many design companies at that time. Sadly they have since ceased trading. Pippa Redmond (Mustoe) who was MD at Fernedge, now runs the Norwich Kall Kwik franchise.(http://www.kallkwik.co.uk/norwich/aboutus.cfm). - and I'm dead sure it was printed by them, because as you can see from the label, my file copies are still in the original job bag!

http://www.vam.ac.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 06.01.2012

Wednesday 14 December 2011

V&A 2010/2011

This is a superb piece of print - the 2010/2011 Annual Review published by the V&A.  The report is structured in such a way that it literally goes through the year on a month by month basis, showing the exhibitions and the life of the museum in a close up way.

With image reproduction being so important, it was essential that everything reproduced amazingly! The text chosen for the project is Omnia 150gsm - chosen because the print includes solid colours and images of exhibits - and it looks brilliant.



The cover is hot foil blocked in a grey pigmented foil. It is a 350gsm material from the well known, Hull based paper merchant, in Smoke with a morocco embossing. It has an elastic loop which is riveted to the cover - a very nice touch.
Size of the book is 200x265mm, portrait format, perfect bound. The 72pp text is printed in CMYK throughout - beautifully. Additionally, there are 6 tracing paper inserts.

The report was designed in house at the V&A by Nadine Fleischer and Lindsay Pentelow. Since the publication of the report earlier this year, Nadine and Lindsay have left the museum and set up their own design practice called Irish Butcher (www.irishbutcher.co.uk)

The excellent print, foiling and finishing is by Generation Press.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 14.12.2011