Clever design solution...

Here is a well designed, clear and thoughtfully produced little job. It is a membership booklet for Dartington, which is a charity with a long history back to the 1930's when the founders set up the "Dartington Experiment" at Dartington Hall in Devon.

This A5 booklet combines the need for clear information, a clever reply element (the pull out centre 4pp pages have a re-moist glue around three edges) and an equally clever delivery element - as the cover makes it's own envelope by use of a flap and an adhesive tape strip.

Picture above shows outside back cover and the pic below shows the front and back cover with the flap that forms the "envelope" style flap. Text on the cover has also been hot foil blocked in matt white foil which gives a rich contrast with the self-coloured cover board.
The project is designed by biz-R who are based in Totnes, Devon. Creative Director on the project is Blair Thomson and design and (some!) of the copywriting is by Blair Thomson and Tish England.

It was in keeping with the charity's aims to use 100% Recycled materials, so our Colorset Deep Orange 270gsm was used for the cover combined with another recycled text paper ...sadly not on our material (it was on cyclus offset).

Print was by local firm Kingfisher Print and Design based in Totnes, Devon.

http://www.dartington.org/
http://www.biz-r.co.uk/
http://www.kingfisherprint.co.uk/

Kino spotlight

Yesterday I went to Kino Design in London. They invited me to come in to one of their "Spotlight" presentations. About once a month they get people to come in and talk about what they do. Must have been a hit as I'm on their blog!

http://www.kinodesign.com/news#article_25

Happily Ever After

Here's a lovely project produced by Happily Ever After. It's an exhibition catalogue for Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

As creative partner, Sara Carneholm, said in her e-mail "Well it looks rather sweet and the text pages are Neptune Soft White. Cover is a non-Fenner I'm afraid, Millstream Sky Blue. But its a nice combo! Thought I should share that with you." Well it is a lovely combination and the job looks lovely, so thank you Sara.

The pocket sized catalogue is to accompany Pretty Eyed, Pirate Smile an exhibition of six video works from Ellie Rees. The works, made over the past two years, explore the archetypes and broad narrative structures that opera and film rely on, particularly regarding gender and love, specifically those of women in romantic relationships.

Design is by Sara Carneholm and Leah Harrison-Bailey.

http://www.ellierees.co.uk/

http://www.happily-ever-after.co.uk/

Madomat looks after the trees...

This is a lovely idea sent to me by Madelyn Postman of Madomat.

For Christmas gifts, they gave trees to their clients. They wrapped the Woodland Trust's own dedication card with this "once upon a tree" cover sheet with an image silkscreened in aubergine on our Colorset (100% recycled) in Dark Grey 270gsm and all finished with an aubergine coloured ribbon. The trees in the image are actually from a wood in Buckinghamshire which Madomat sponsors!

www.madomat.com
www.woodlandtrust.org.uk

If you could collaborate exhibition ...take 2

I made it to the "if you could collaborate" exhition at the A Foundation Gallery in London E2 (see previous post 15th Jan). Here are some of my favourites out of the 34 exhibits:
[Above] Fred Butler and No Days Off: The launching of the 8 days a week campaign...
[Above] Oliver Jeffers & Aaaron Ruff: A machine to enable a 4D view of the world!
[Above] Sandy Suffield and Fiona Woodcock: Stitched, hand painted reactions to tabloid headlines.
[Above] Rob Ryan and Michael Marriot: "The rockin' Rob Ryan chair"

It's on until 24th January... so go!
www.ifyoucould.co.uk/
http://www.afoundation.org.uk/
www.itsnicethat.com/

Opera North - Invitation

I've just received a file copy of this lovely invitation for Opera North for an event which is "an installation of forty voices".
The job is A5 in size and is very simply (but well) printed on our Kapok 500gsm, which is a natural coloured unbleached brown board with excellent rigidity. It has been printed using black and silver (Pantone 877). It's an excellent example of a job where the material has really worked with the design in a very simple and effective way.

Design is by Joe Gilmore at Qubik Design in Leeds. Print is by Northend Creative Print Solutions in Sheffield.

www.howardassemblyroom.co.uk
www.qubik.com
www.northend.co.uk

Chase Calendar 2010

This is such a great calendar, so I'll let the pictures do the talking:

The size of the calendar is A2 (420x594mm). It is glued at the top edge and is drilled with seven holes for hanging and is "round cornered" as well. There is a page for each week and a total of 53 graphic/typographic designers have chosen their favourite typeface for a given letter and give a brief explanation for their choice - it's a great idea and really well executed.

I'm not going to list all 53 but they include people such as David Pearson, Alan Herron, Mike Dempsey, Jeremy Tankard, Phil Baines, Fernando Gutiérrez and the list goes on...! Below is the whole lot in one spread which Li Rui kindly sent me.

The calendar was printed on our Eco-Pure Recycled (100% Recycled) 100gsm which was a special making for this project. Printed and finished by DXG Media.

Design Director on the project is Ben Casey at The Chase in Manchester and the designer is Li Rui. http://www.thechase.co.uk/

The calendar was produced in collaboration with the following type companies:
http://www.atomictype.co.uk/
http://www.fontshop.co.uk/
http://www.type.co.uk/

If You Could Collaborate ... Private view

Wow, this has got to be the most successful Private view ever!

Yesterday evening, it was the "if you could collaborate" exhibition launch, held at the A Foundation Gallery in London E2.

The RSVP e-mail had suggested wrapping up warm and being patient as the response to invitations had been high and so it was....

I arrived at 6.30 and already the queue was about 30 deep and in another ten minutes there were at least a hundred...

Unfortunately due to the size of the gallery and the numbers, they were having to work a "one in, one out" system.

Sadly I had to get home so never actually made it into the exhibition but I spoke to a number of people on the way out and apparently it's really good, so I shall be going next week (it's on until 24th January).

It meant that I didn't get to see the catalogue which is printed on our Redeem 100% Recycled ...which according to Alex and Will is another Redeem triumph! - thanks very much for the lovely note. http://www.ifyoucould.co.uk/

http://www.ifyoucould.co.uk/collaborate

http://www.afoundation.org.uk/

http://www.itsnicethat.com/

What a lovely Christmas gift...

Holmes Wood always come up with a fantastic Christmas present. Last year it was a red shopping bag with "you only get out what you put in" printed on the side.

This year it is a lovely red apron with the witty line "This one went over my head" silkscreened on it ...and although I'm not renowned for my culinary abilities, it may well tempt me into the kitchen more often (maybe being a somelier is more my sort of thing...)

So here I am in the Fenner Paper kitchen complete with my Chefs hat (which isn't very tall, otherwise it would look ridiculous!)

Thank you to all at Holmes Wood, especially Lucy and Ali.

http://www.holmes-wood.com/

An ACE Calendar...

This is a really lovely desk calendar produced by the Central Illustration Agency (CIA). There are 52 illustrations (one per week) and all the illustrations have a "ace" theme.

The job is unusual because although it's printed in four colours, they are four specials as opposed to being normal CMYK. This calendar is printed using a dark blue, and fluoro pink, lime and yellow - with excellent results.

The cover is also hot foil blocked in a white gloss foil - v.nice.
The calendar is printed on our, 100% recycled, Colorset Light Grey 120gsm and the "tent card" (which is the commonly used term for the supporting cardboard frame) is made from a sturdy sheet of Trojan Whiteback 510gsm.The size of the job is 140mm square.

Production (at the CIA) was dealt with by the lovely Jules Beazley. Design is by Staziker Jones and print is by Hartleywilprint based in Wales.

http://www.centralillustration.com/
http://www.stazikerjones.co.uk/
http://www.hartleywilprint.co.uk/

2010 diaries are on the way!

Don't panic! The 2010 diaries are on the way.

We managed to get a small quantity in the post before Christmas, but the majority have not yet gone out. Sadly, because of the snow before Christmas, we were unable to get the printed sheets from the printer to the binders!

However, unless the snow arrives to muck things up again, we are hoping to get them all out in the post tomorrow.

... and here's a sneak preview of the cover designed by Alan Kitching.

Happy new year and best wishes for 2010

Justin

Jobs from the Past - Number 4

Regular followers will know that my first post of every month is a "job from the past" (see posts on 01.10.2009, 01.11.2009 & 01.12.2009) so that I can show some of the memorable jobs from times past, and here's one from back in 2006

This is a poster... Yes, this really is a poster. It was designed by Angus Hyland and Fabian Herrmann at Pentagram for a lecture given by Angus at the University of Plymouth in Spring 2006.

The purpose of the poster which was to publicise the lecture became much more because it made plain the secret desire of all posters ...to be entered into (and win!) design competitions.

The poster was silkscreened in black and white on all 25 different colours of our Colorset 100% Recycled range in 120gsm which we had only just launched. There was a limited run of four copies per colour (100 copies total). It was featured in the June 2006 issue of Creative Review.

I believe that they "liberated" by students, pretty much as soon as they were put up!

The posters were printed by Silkscreen printers called Handprint based in Brighton.

www.pentagram.co.uk