Jobs from the past - Number 34

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...

The Quentin Blake Gallery of Illustration - 2003

This is the introduction and sponsorship brochure for the Quentin Blake Gallery of Illustration - which has become the House of Illustration. The House of Illustration is the world’s first dedicated home for the art of illustration; from adverts to animation, picture books to political cartoons and scientific drawings to fashion design. The organisation puts on exhibitions, runs competitions, works with schools and organises events with some of the country’s leading illustrators. The main ambition is to create a permanent home to celebrate the past, present and future of illustration.

The size of the publication is 143x125mm, Landscape. It uses our Modigliani, Neve which has a "feltmark" texture similar to that of a watercolour paper which gives it exactly the right feel. Needless to say, the timeless illustrations are by Quentin Blake...

Of particular interest is the the way the job is bound. It has a 4pp cover (with a spine) on Modigliani, Neve 260gsm and a 24pp text on Modigliani, Neve 200gsm. The text pages are individual leaves bound with an elastic band (which is black and is made from "round" elastic) held in with a notch on the head and foot of the book. This enabled the brochure  to be easily updateable. 

Detail, showing rubber band and "notched" text and cover:

The project was designed by BOB Design. Creative Directors on the project were Alexis Burgess and Mireille Burkhardt. Lexi now runs his own studio in East London, Burgess Studio.

The job was printed by Reg Davis at Pica Press based in Tonbridge in Kent but he has since retired and the company no longer exists. The beautiful rubber bands were sourced from Switzerland as I recall!

http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/

http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/

www.burgess-studio.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 01.08.2012

ROOFLIFE!

On Friday evening, I was lucky enough to go to a party hosted by Haptic Architects and BOB Design. The event was part of the London Festival of Architecture on 6 &7 July 2012.

ROOFLIFE! SPECULATING ON LONDON'S UNDERUSED ROOFTOPS... An installation and event that speculates on the future of London's Rooftops. The event was held on the rooftop of the Islington studio space that they share, taking in 360 degree views of the London skyline and across the Kings Cross area in particular.

An amazing rooftop garden was created together with a scafolding skeleton (in case of rain) and "crow's nest" for the DJ (see below).

The views are spectacular, as you can see from my pic below of The Shard, which had been officially opened, the previous evening.

The garden was created by Ian Jackson Landscape Architecture and Holmes & Sons and contained 34 different herbs, fruits and vegtables, some of which were suitable for using to mix with the drinks! The pic on the right shows the beautiful signage.

The picture below shows the display in the studio which invites you to look through the peepholes and see the various well known landmarks:

...and the guide of all 34 herbs, vegtable and fruits were printed on a lovely long list 1000mm x 100mm, on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm!

Thanks to BOB Design and Haptic for inviting me and for a great party.

http://www.hapticarchitects.co.uk/

www.bobdesign.co.uk

www.ijla.co.uk

www.constructure.co.uk

www.holmesandsonsuk.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 09.07.2012

Jobs from the past - Number 24

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...

Type Museum for Typecon New York - 2005

The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) holds regular conferences and in 2005 it was held in New York. The TypeMuseum, based in London produced this lovely piece of literature as a "leave behind" to promote the Museum and to make people aware of it's existence.

The piece is an A2 flat size (420x597mm) which folds down to A5 (210x148mm) finished size. The type has been printed in reverse our Offenbach Bible 40gsm, so you read it (the correct way round) - through the paper.

Folded to A5:

The piece is hot foil blocked in a copper foil which is stamped as a positive (the correct way round!) on the front cover:

...a New York skyline in type:

and this is reading it the correct way round (photographed against the light):

Design is by Tom Green and Kieran O'Connor. They both became involved with the project because they had been at the Museum lending a hand in practical ways, such as painting walls. This piece was very much a labour of love to help the preserve the Museum. As Tom said to me recently about this project, because of the budget, it had to be dead simple and cheap and because of the event, it "had to be covetable for type geeks" ...and it certainly is.

The job was printed by Reg Davis at Pica Press based in Tonbridge in Kent but he has since retired and the company no longer exists.

Tom Green is now a senior designer at Burgess Studio and Kieran O'Connor combines lecturing at Kingston University with his role at BOB Design.

Rather sadly the Type Museum appears to be effectively closed for business at present, although the website is still up: www.typemuseum.org
http://www.typecon.com/
www.bobdesign.co.uk
www.burgess-studio.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 03.10.2011

Macallan Invitation

This is a really beautifully designed and well executed invitation. It's been a difficult one to photograph, so you'll have to go with my description!

This invitation, from Scotch whisky manufacturer Macallan is to a VIP viewing of a exhibition titled "Masters of Photography: A Journey". Albert Watson (awarded the prestigious Royal Photographic Society’s 2010 Centenary Medal) was invited by The Macallan to weave a visual narrative of the long and romantic journey beginning in the bewitching forests of Spain (where the oak for sherry barrels is grown) and ending at The Macallan’s spiritual home in Scotland.

Sitting by the envelope in the picture above, it might look like a fairly standard invitation but it is anything but ordinary.

The finished size of the invitation (as you see it below) is 140x175mm. The printed card is 128x163mm but as you can see from the picture below, it is held in place with two angled die cuts...

...and as you can see below, the card is held into a large format print, folding out to 420x525mm.

The photographic print is printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm with the 'mono' image being reproduced in CMYK. The card insert is on Matrisse 250gsm, simply printed in black only and hot foil blocked in silver.

Design is by BOB Design and the designer on the project is Tom Green.

Print, foiling and hand finishing was done by Robert Young at R.Young & Son ...and we (at Fenner Paper) made the bespoke black envelopes (160x195mm) out of Notturno 140gsm.

Thirty-six individually customised bottles of The Macallan dating from 1946, were produced for the project. Each bottle is paired with a signed, one-off, specially commissioned Watson platinum print and will be sold at a reserve price of £10,000! At the private view were David Bailey, Bianca Jagger and Mary McCartney but sadly Justin Hobson was unable to make the event. The exhibition is now touring around the world.

http://www.themacallan.com/
http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/
http://www.ryoungprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.02.2011

Best of 2010 Xmas/New Year pieces

Thanks to all those people who very kindly sent me Christmas cards and some exceptionally fine and humorous Xmas and New Year promo pieces.

Here are two of the best:

BOB Design http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/

A beatifully packaged and well presented pair of Red and White Christmas socks. They were mailed in a bespoke envelope shaped wallet (made using Colorset, Bright Red 270gsm) and held together with a 'seal' shaped sticker. The pair of socks with the 'warm wishes from Bob' tag is hot foiled blocked (on Matrisse 200gsm) and held on by red ribbon and a lovely little gold coloured safety pin. The attention to detail is fantastic.  

Mytton Williams http://www.myttonwilliams.co.uk/

Again, this is a piece which is produced with fantastic attention to detail (and it's not even produced using our paper!). Simply (but very nicely) wrapped in brown paper, there is a well produced white box inside which when opened reveals the number of the limited edition snowball and the message "catch you in the new year". Inside is a lovely snowball (fake, but very realsistic) and some loose snow! Really excellent production:  

...and what about the rest?

The above pieces are just two that I thought were worth highlighting because of their exceptionally high production values but I also received some other excellent cards, calendars, bookmarks and novelties. HOWEVER, I also received some items which those design companies should simply be ashamed of - especially if these were the same items as were sent to clients or potential clients. Here are three examples (names witheld!):

• An item where the wrong postage amount had been put on it so it arrived with a postage to be paid sticker (if mine was wrong, so were all the rest).
• A fairly well produced notebook, the effect of which was ruined by it being put into a 'jiffy' bag together with a compliment slip which had a greeting laser printed onto it.
• Beautifully silkscreened tea towel and lovely tag, badly let down by being sent out in a wrongly sized, bog standard C5 "Office Depot" business envelope!

The point to be made here is to only send something out into the market that represents what you can do best. If an item is let down by incorrect postage or a badly thought out envelope or content, it won't impress a new client and might even make an existing client think again. If you aren't going to see it through and produce something of the same quality and production values that you would be happy to produce for a client - my advice is, don't do it!

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.12.2010

HAPTIC

I've just received printed samples of this superb identity project for architects, Haptic.

Rules have been used to create letterforms (see above) which have then been translated into a fantastic emboss and deboss for the business cards, pictured below.

The effect on the business cards is created using a multi-level die which embosses and debosses in the same pass on the machine. Fantastically simple and amazingly effective - nothing more to be said!

Materials used are Matrisse Cotton 110gsm for the letterhead and Matrisse 320gsm for the business card.

Design is by BOB Design in London. Creative Director is Mireille Burkhardt.

Print and embossing is by Benwells in London.

http://www.hapticarchitects.co.uk/
http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/
http://www.benwell.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.10.2010

PoetryQuest

Here's a really inspired piece of literature for PoetryQuest which is a national arts project run by the Price's Foundation for Children and the Arts.

The project was designed by BOB Design. Creative Directors on the project were Alexis Burgess and Mireille Burkhardt. Designer on the project was Matt Price. The illustrator is Robert Hanson.

The size is an unusual 190x238mm, with a 4pp cover and 48pp text. Printed on Redeem 100% Recycled 240gsm and 130gsm. Print is by Push (note the really good CMYK/tint layed solids).

This project is a combination of poetry and visual art being run through schools and art professionals and manifests itself in the construction of a decorated Tipi! Below you will see some of the finished Tipis which were set up in Kensington Gardens on 7th July. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall attended and the visit finished with the Duchess reading one of her favourite poems to the school children ...and she also had the pleasure of meeting Lexi and Matt who were appropriately suited and booted!

http://www.childrenandarts.org.uk/what-we-do/poetryquest/

http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/

http://www.robertsamuelhanson.com/

http://www.push-print.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.08.2010

House Style!

This is one of those great jobs that you pick up which just has an amazing sense of fun.

This is a brochure for the House of Illustration, the function of which is to enrole membership and donations for the new House of Illustration Gallery instigated by Quentin Blake.

The size of the brochure is 260x200mm and it uses our Modigliani Candido 260gsm, which has a "feltmark" texture similar to that of a watercolour paper, so right from the start the material works with the subject.

The illustrated type is by the talented and prolific Marion Deuchars and is used to great effect throughout the 12pp brochure.

However the real surprise comes in the centre spread when a "pop-up" house appears ...fantastic!
The project was designed by BOB Design. Creative Directors on the project were Alexis Burgess and Mireille Burkhardt. Designer and housebuilder on the project was Matt Price. Below is a picture of Matt "burning the midnight oil" building the houses.
and thank you for the lovely letter...

http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/

http://www.mariondeuchars.com/

http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/