Jobs from the past - Number 102

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 1997.

4th Estate
New Titles Jan-Aug 97

The Fourth Estate is a publishers that many people will be familiar with. Founded by Victoria Barnsley in 1984, Fourth Estate built a reputation as one of the most innovative and eclectic imprints in the industry, with a reputation for publishing a wide variety of critically-acclaimed and beautifully-produced titles including many prize winning authors (Booker, Orange etc).

One of the things that made the Fourth Estate stand out from the crowd was their catalogues - they were simply amazing pieces of design and print! I was lucky enough to work on a few different catalogues in the late 90's and early 2000's. Every single one was different and brilliant. Good designers were commissioned, Bogue & Hopgood, Instinct, Pentagram, Rose Design, Frost, Neville Brody, Tom Hingston to name a few. In line with their reputation for publishing unconventional yet innovative titles, the design of the catalogue was equally eclectic.

This was a one of these very distinctive catalogues. The major difference between this edition and the other catalogues is that this one is A4, portrait, whereas normally they were a more unusual format.

This catalogue is quite simply made up from an artwork of badly made photocopies, which have then been photographed on backgrounds or with appropriate objects.

Click on images to enlarge

The whole publication is printed in just one colour as greyscale - it's worth remembering that this is back in the days when one colour print was significantly cheaper than four color printing. The result is amazingly effective, as I hope you can see from these spreads....

Click on images to enlarge

The 4pp cover is printed on 250gsm and 48pp text on 120gsm. The paper used is our Neptune Unique SoftWhite, which is an uncoated off-white, smooth (yet tactile) text and cover paper - just the right material for black type to look brilliant on.

As you can see from the image below, the 48pp text on the 120gsm sits nice and flat, without 'gaping' in the middle of the book.

The below image shows the spread on the inside back cover, with the credits. Design is by Vince Frost and Derek Samuel at Frost Design in London. Photography is by Glen Erler and printing is by House of Naylor.

So, where is everyone now....

Victoria Barnsley, founder of Fourth Estate, joined Harper Collins as CEO and Publisher in 2000 when it acquired her company. These distinctive publications continued to be commissioned and produced for a few years after becoming part of a larger group. Sadly (and I guess it was just a matter of time) the Fourth Estate became a section within the Harper Collins specialist catalogue.

The House of Naylor went into liquidation in the early 2000's. Vince Frost left for the sunnier climate of Australia in the early 2000's and runs Frost* in Sydney. Derek Samuel worked in London and New York and has returned to his native Australia.

...and Fenner Paper? Yep, we're still here!

Looking through my pristine copies, it still looks and feels fantastic.

http://www.4thestate.co.uk/

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/about-harpercollins/Imprints/4th_Estate/Pages/4th_Estate.aspx

http://www.frostdesign.com.au/

http://www.dereksamuel.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 03.04.2018

Jobs from the past - Number 80

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 1996.

Fourth Estate Catalogue 
July-December 1998
  

The Fourth Estate is a publishers that many people will be familiar with. Founded by Victoria Barnsley in 1984, Fourth Estate built a reputation as one of the most innovative and eclectic imprints in the industry, with a reputation for publishing a wide variety of critically-acclaimed and beautifully-produced titles including many prize winning authors (Booker, Orange etc).

One of the things that made the Fourth Estate stand out from the crowd was their catalogues - they were simply amazing pieces of design and print! I was lucky enough to work on a few different catalogues in the late 90's and early 2000's. Every single one was different and brilliant. Good designers were commissioned, Bogue & Hopgood, Instinct, Pentagram, Rose Design, Frost, Neville Brody, Tom Hingston to name a few. In line with their reputation for publishing unconventional yet innovative titles, the design of the catalogue was equally eclectic.

This is a particularly distinctive catalogue, bound using a post and screw, using just coloured paper, printed letterpress in opaque white ink.

The size of the catalogue is 105x280mm and is either portrait or landscape depending on your point of view! Binding is simply by one brass post and screw fitting. The total thickness is 15mm.  

There are front and back covers, which are printed CMYK offset litho one side only, which were printed by Tadberry Evedale on our Avrowhite [1 sided] 325gsm

Click on images to enlarge

Back in those days, we didn't have our Colorset range, but it was a range of coloured papers that was required! I looked around various ranges and taking care to avoid some of the more expensive (and obvious) coloured text & cover papers on the market, I came up Rothmill. This was a coloured paper range made by the Tullis Russell mill in Scotland, who sadly closed last year. There are six different colours of Rothmill 280mics board used in the publication, one for each of the sections (fiction, non fiction etc)

You can see from these detail shots that the type printed in opaque white works ...but only just! It is a bit marginal. But the overall effect is great.

As you can see from the below picture the section printed on the Rothmill Mulberry (Non Fiction) is by far the most significant section in the catalogue.

Design and art direction is by Vince Frost. The text of the catalogue was set and letterpress printed by the House of Naylor on Saffron Hill in Clerkenwell.

So, where is everybody now?....

Victoria Barnsley, founder of Fourth Estate, joined Harper Collins as CEO and Publisher in 2000 when it acquired her company. These distinctive publications continued to be commissioned and produced for a few years after becoming part of a larger group. Sadly (and I guess it was just a matter of time) the Fourth Estate became a section within the Harper Collins specialist catalogue. She left Harper Collins in 2013.

The House of Naylor went into liquidation in the early 2000's re-emerging as The Letterpress House in Hemel Hempstead. Bill Naylor finally retired a about five years ago and the machinery dispersed (all going to good homes).

Vince Frost left for the sunnier climate of Australia just over fifteen years ago and runs Frost* in Sydney.

...and Fenner Paper? ...yep, we're still here!

http://www.4thestate.co.uk/

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/about-harpercollins/Imprints/4th_Estate/Pages/4th_Estate.aspx

http://www.frostdesign.com.au/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.06.2016

Jobs from the past - Number 47



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 1996.

4th Estate Catalogue
Aug 96-Feb 97
 

The Fourth Estate is a publishers that many people will be familiar with. Founded by Victoria Barnsley in 1984, Fourth Estate built a reputation as one of the most innovative and eclectic imprints in the industry, with a reputation for publishing a wide variety of critically-acclaimed and beautifully-produced titles including many prize winning authors (Booker, Orange etc).

One of the things that made the Fourth Estate stand out from the crowd was their catalogues - they were simply amazing pieces of design and print! I was lucky enough to work on a few different catalogues in the late 90's and early 2000's. Every single one was different and brilliant. Good designers were comissioned, Bogue & Hopgood, Instinct, Pentagram, Rose Design, Frost, Neville Brody, Tom Hingston to name a few. In line with their reputation for publishing unconventional yet innovative titles, the design of the catalogue was equally eclectic.

This is one of the most distinctive catalogues. Large format, printed in just one colour and printed letterpress!

The size is 310mm square, saddle stitched. It has a 4pp cover and a 44pp text and is printed on our Neptune Unique SoftWhite 250gsm and 120gsm (...which is still available from Fenner Paper seventeen years on!)

Design and art direction is by Vince Frost. The catalogue was set and letterpress printed by the House of Naylor on Saffron Hill in Clerkenwell. Body text set in the Gill family by Bill Naylor and Richard Rolfe on Monotype Keyboard. Cast on Monotype composition caster by Cyril Clements. Elements in wood and metal composed by Bill Naylor, Derek Reid, Richard Rolfe and Ian Barber. Printed on a Heidelberg SBB Cylinder press (1965) by George Hughes and Colin Ansell. Edited by Mark Reynolds.

Unfortunately I can't recall how many copies were produced - probably about 3,000 I would think. Each catalogue is "crash numbered" on the outside back cover. For those of you who aren't aware of this process, it is a letterpress process which uses a numbering box - it's an "impact" process which simply thumps the number on the sheet and then (in a clockwork style) clicks on one digit.

So, where is everybody now?....

Victoria Barnsley, founder of Fourth Estate, joined Harper Collins as CEO and Publisher in 2000 when it acquired her company. These distinctive publications continued to be commissioned and produced for a few years after becoming part of a larger group. Sadly (and I guess it was just a matter of time) the Fourth Estate became a section within the Harper Collins specialist catalogue.

The House of Naylor went into liquidation in the early 2000's re-emerging as The Letterpress House in Hemel Hempstead. Bill Naylor finally retired a couple of years ago and the machinery dispersed (all going to good homes).

Vince Frost left for the sunnier climate of Australia just over ten years ago and runs Frost* in Sydney.

...and Fenner Paper? Yep, we're still here!

Looking through my pristine copy, it still looks and feels fantastic.

http://www.4thestate.co.uk/

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/about-harpercollins/Imprints/4th_Estate/Pages/4th_Estate.aspx

http://www.frostdesign.com.au/

Posted by Justin Hobson 03.09.2013