Chocolate Farm

Here's a chocolatey post for this eggy time of year!

It's only rarely that we get involved in packaging, as the vast majority of board used for packaging is very ordinary with lots of print and processes. Occasionally a lovely brief comes along, where a material is required to convey quality, yet have an understated look and feel and this is just one such project.

These lovely small boxes contain a 45gram block of handmade Chocolate from the Chocolate Farm which is made using only the finest natural ingredients.

The boxes are 80mm square with a 9mm capacity. They are made using our Flora Betulla 350gsm which is a part recycled FSC board which is off white with deliberate inclusions and specks. Each box is simply printed in one colour, offset litho and is hot foil blocked with metallic foil - each type of chocolate with a different colour foil:

By printing all the boxes up together on one sheet, the job is made more cost effective and the foiling only involves one die, just a change of foil colour, again making this cost effective. The boxes are then "die-cut" (same die for all three) and assembled by hand with the flaps affixed with a gold coloured self adhesive label.

Packaging and graphic design is by Isobel Bushell at Aardvark Illustration & Design, who also created the identity for Chocolate Farm.  Print is by Graphics and Print in Telford and the foiling is by Impact in Leicester.

...and thanks to Isobel for taking the time to send me samples of the bars and a lovely note:

www.chocolatefarm.co.uk

www.aardvarkid.com

http://www.graphicsandprint.com/

http://www.impactfoiling.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.03.2012

Landor: Little book of tweets

 Landor produced their liitle book of tweets containing some of their favourite highlights from 2012. 

Size is 120mm square and it's 24pp self cover, saddle stitched. Printed on our Shiro Echo, Bright White 120gsm throughout. This is an "Indigo ready" sheet for digital printing, manufactured by Favini so this was printed digitally on an HP Indigo press and as you can see, it looks excellent.



Needless to say, design is by Landor. Printing, on their HP Indigo press, is by West London based BOSS

 

www.landor.com

www.bossprint.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 21.03.2013

Space NK apothecary - Xmas

 

Just the cover makes the difference...

Here's a job that's definitely worth a look at because it uses paper (in this case the board used for the cover) to increase the quality and feel of the whole project.

These publications are the Christmas mailing catalogues for Space NK apothecary, the British cosmetics retailer founded by Nicky Kinnaird in 1993. There are two publications; the main catalogue is 170x230mm, Landscape, perfect bound with a 72pp text and the smaller mailing piece which is 148x210mm, Landscape, saddle stitched with a 32pp text.

A series or watercolour illustrations were commissioned for use throughout the catalogue, but Sam (art director) wanted a cover board that was tactile and engaging and that would work well with the artworks being used on the cover and throughout the text. Omnia 280gsm was chosen because it had the right feel and the reproduction is almost as good as a coated paper. The material for the main catalogue was a 130gsm printers "house silk" - a choice largely dictated by cost but also because the photography of the individual cosmetics would reproduce well. 

 

Image showing the two versions - Saddle stitched and perfect bound: 

Omnia on inside front cover working with the 'Silk coated' on page 1:

This is an excellent example of using a material for a part of a project which can just lift the whole look and feel and make a piece of literature special. The Omnia has given this job a quality feel and keeps it miles away from the look and feel of a naff "glossy" type catalogue which can often be used for this type of publication in the cosmetics industry.

Creative director is Sam Walton. Printing was handled by Carl Vosper at Pearl Print Management.

www.spacenk.com
www.slwcreative.com
www.pearlpm.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 19.03.2013

The Spirit of Arsenal



This is a lovely piece of print produced for Arsenal Football Club. It's the Commemorative Stadium Tour Guidebook, so if you are lucky enough to go for a tour around the Emirates stadium, this may well be the book that you decide to buy as a memento.

The roots of the club go back as far as 1886 and the 60,000 seat stadium is the latest development in the club history. What is refreshing about this piece of literature is that it is so completely different to the normally glossy, colour saturated A4 brochures which are the normal staple of visitor attractions. This has a beautiful quality and confidence about it. 



 The size is 210mm square and is perfect bound. The 4pp cover is on our Colorset Ash 270gsm (100% recycled) and is simply printed in two colours offset litho, embellished with hot foil blocking in an opaque matt red foil just giving it an understated quality.

The 64pp text is printed offset litho in CMYK throughout on our StarFine, White 130gsm which is an uncoated with a good bulk but you wouldn't describe it either as toothy or smooth! - a very good quality uncoated paper, which as you can see, has reproduced the images extremely well and the solid black looks excellent.

 

Design is by YCN Studio and the Art Director on the project was Alex Hunting - and you can have a look at their spanky new studio website which was only launched this week: www.ycnstudio.com

 

Printing, including the excellent foiling, is by Sussex based Pureprint.

www.arsenal.com

www.ycnstudio.com

www.pureprint.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 14.03.2013

Paper certainly isn't dead!

This is a particularly interesting 39 second video titled "Emma" produced by Leo Burnett France which perfectly demonstrates why paper is so important and will continue to remain at the heart of civilized societies:  

The video is produced by Leo Burnett France for French paper brand Trefle.

Agency: Leo Burnett France, Creative Director: Xavier Beauregard, Art Director: Jérôme Gonfond, Copywriter: Hadi Hassan, Director: Bart Timmer, Deputy Chief Executive Officer: Régis Perrone, Advertising manager: Anne-Laure Faugas, TV producer: Elisabeth Boitte, Producer: Jean-Luc Bergeron, Production: Henry de Czar.

  

http://www.leoburnett.fr

http://www.influencia.net/

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.03.2013

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

Gok Wan for Tu

This is the lookbook for Gok Wan's fifth collection for Sainsbury's Tu clothing label. Gok Wan is the flamboyant fashion expert known for his direct personality and tell-it-how-it is styling advice.

This book is 215x125mm, portrait. It is a casebound, hardcover book with 36pp text. The cover is simply the simplest, yet most stunning part of the job. It is produced using Flockage Colours, Bordeaux 100gsm and you can see just how good it looks from these pictures...

The cover is simply hot foil blocked in two colours, metallic gold and matt black. Although Flockage is an expensive material, on a short run, it certainly creates an effect which is very luxurious and can be cost effective. Although they say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, you certainly can with this one! (The 32pp text is on an uncoated but I don't know what paper it is)

The job was produced by the Inspired Thinking Group. Print is by Bristol based Apple Litho and the binding is by Diamond Print Finishers.

http://www.sainsburys-live-well-for-less.co.uk/gok-for-tu/
http://www.gokwan.com/
www.inspiredthinkinggroup.com
www.applecolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 07.03.2013

Susan Hiller Catalogue

This is another exceptional exhibition catalogue for the artist Susan Hiller which features text by Andreas Leventis and a foreward by Stella Santacatterinaan. Published by the Timothy Taylor Gallery.

It is a casebound (hardback) book which is 260 x 200mm, portrait format and is section sewn. It features endpapers and two different materials for the text 

The casebound cover is printed on Neptune Unique FSC 135gsm, offset litho and is matt laminated, mounted onto the case, hot foil blocked in silver metallic foil and debossed. The unprinted, black endpapers are on our Notturno 170gsm.

Text is made up using 16pp of Neptune Unique 135gsm (uncoated) which is printed in the special PMS pink and black. The artwork themselves is reproduced on a 36pp text section printed on printers "house" coated silk 170gsm.

 

Design is by Matt Bucknall. Print and the excellent binding is by Chapter Press.

 

www.timothytaylorgallery

www.mattbucknall.co.uk

www.chapterpress.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 05.03.2013

Jobs from the past - Number 41

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. This is perfect timing as it's exactly ten years ago since the anti war protests.

Why Iraq? Why Now?



On 15th February 2003, the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) held a protest in London which is claimed to be the largest political demonstration in the city's history. The estimated attendance has been anywhere in between 750,000 and 2,000,000!

The day before the protest, a full page advertisement appeared in The Guardian, which was organised (and maybe funded?) by the architect Richard Rogers. He approached Alan Kitching to design the advert, which you can see above. The ad is designed to work both as a 'make yourself banner' and also list the some of the prominent public figures who opposed the invasion of Iraq and who were lending support to the Stop the War Coalition.

I confess to neither have seen the original ad in the Guardian or in fact going on the demonstration but I did see it reported in DesignWeek the week afterwards ...which I still have!

 ...so I called Alan and offered to re-print the page for him (with The Guardian's permission) which we did, on our Redeem 100% Recycled 70gsm. This gave them lots of extra copies and me some file copies on our lovely paper. Printed in one colour, black, only.The size is 600mm x 378mm (or the same size that The Guardian used to be)

Alan Kitching and the late Celia Stothard with the posters outside their home in Kennington

www.thetypographyworkshop.com
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/did-millions-protesting-against-the-iraq-war-on-15-february-2003-achieve-anything
www.theguardian.co.uk
www.designweek.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 01.03.2013