Searching for Eve in the American West

This is an catalogue for an exhibition of work by Maryam Eisler titled "Searching For Eve in the American West".

Eisler photographed female models within the desert surrounds. As the academic, editor and writer Anthony Downey has written in his essay in the exhibition’s accompanying catalogue, this approach ‘answered the need to understand the discombobulating landscape through the reassuring presence of human figures. In its isolated and sparsely inhabited environs, the region is perhaps almost too much to experience on one’s own.’ Eisler is not the first photographer to be inspired by this wild landscape – others include Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Indeed, a statement made by Weston might equally apply to Eisler’s inspiration: ‘The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the things itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.'

The size of the catalogue is 395x260mm, portrait. The binding is a hybrid mixture of "swiss binding" and singer sewing, so the text is bound and glued to the inside back cover, enabling the text to sit nice and flat.

 

Detail showing the cloth tape along the spine: 

 

Introduction by Maryam Eisler, followed by an Essay by Anthony Downey:

The 44pp text is printed on our Omnia 150gsm which gives it that dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction. All printed offset litho throughout. The piece has a fantastic feel - solid flat areas of colour work amazingly well - it is difficult for me to say too much more about it - see the images below, they speak for the job...

A wonderful collection of solid colours, all printed as specials

The images are printed in two blacks (as duotones) plus a yellow special integrated with the image, the result of which is superb, as I hope you can tell from the images....

...and here we go for a bit of a plug!  - As you can see from the above images above, there is lots of colour and images with dark areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing flat colours superbly whilst retaining that all important detail in the dark areas (in my opinion- but I would say that wouldn't I?)

Centre Spread with the singer sewn binding:

Detail of singer sewn threads:



Catalogue design is by Roger Fawcett-Tang of Struktur Design. It is beautifully printed and finished by Boss Print.

 

https://www.maryameisler.com/
http://www.struktur.co.uk/
https://www.bossprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.01.2022

Nat-ional-Re-con-struct-ion Book Launch

Nat-ional-Re-con-struct-ion is a self-promotional project by Studio Sutherl& exploring the visual and verbal language of flags and national identity.

"Flags are a potent symbol of national identity: an example of visual communication in its purest form. Their shapes represent the land, sea and sky. Suns, moons and stars. Solidarity, religion and freedom. Their colours represent physical and emotional attributes. At a time when the world is riven with nationalist tensions, global challenges and diseases, it’s a small flag raised for play and creativity."

On Wednesday evening, Jim Sutherland hosted a book launch at D&AD where he spoke about the project together with writer and poet Nick Asbury.

...and there was a whole table of flags to be cut up and reconstructed

Jim Sutherland gave a talk explaining how the project began and it's evolution through D&AD workshops to the eventual production of the book.

The Nat-ional-Re-con-struct-ion book is 115 x 200mm, Landscape and is digitally printed in a limited edition of just 200 copies with 50 different cover designs.

The text is digitally printed (HP Indigo) on our lovely Offenbach Bible 80gsm.

"Nat-ional-Re-con-struct-ion explores the visual and verbal language of flags and national identity. This book is an excercise in deconstruction and reconstruction. At a time when the world is riven with nationalist tensions, global challenges and diseases that respect no borders, it is a small flag raised for play and creativity."

The book is beautifully printed and bound by Boss Print.

It was a wonderful evening and so good to get out and meet people physically again. There are still copies available, so you can still buy a copy HERE.

Posted by Justin Hobson 10.12.2021

International Women's Day

What better day to show you this amazing poster celebrating Beatrice Warde, produced as part of the Collections and Collaborations event at the St Bride Foundation.

Beatrice Warde (1900 – 1969) was a writer and scholar of typography. As editor and publicity manager for the Monotype Corporation, she became influential in the male dominated world of typography and printing and is recognized one of the few internationally renowned women typographers.

Warde wrote what is often described as a manifesto "This is a Printing Office" which is one of the most well known pieces of writing about printing and typography.

The poster was created by illustrator and teacher Pam Smy together with book designer and lecturer Ness Wood (together with Maisie Paradise Shearring they make up Orange Beak Studio), 

The A2 (494x420mm) poster is printed offset Litho in CMYK on Pergraphica Smooth, Natural 120gsm. It is printed by Boss Print (as were all the posters for the event) who are based in London.

The event was organised by another amazing woman in design Becky Chilcott, without whom the event would never have happened. The good news is that you can still buy one of these posters and support the St Bride Foundation HERE.

https://www.sbf.org.uk/

https://www.bossprint.com/ 

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.03.2021

The Sublime Feminine

Maryam Eisler is a London based photographer and author. Her photographic work, the crux of which is centred around the Sublime Feminine thematics, has been sought in different places and environmental spaces, a personal journey of sorts during which she has tried to trace and visually revitalize this energy, embodied in the female form, as set against the grandeur of nature. Eisler is represented by Tristan Hoare in London and Harper’s Books in New York.

The size of the book is 240x165mm, portrait. The 4pp limp cover, which is beautifully hot foil blocked, houses the 'swiss bound' text. 

Swiss Binding is where the text is mounted onto the inside back cover with the front cover and freestanding spine. The below image shows the inside front cover, inside spine and page one of text with the binding tape covering the spine.

There is an introduction by Maryam Eisler together with an essay by Hannah Barry.

The 100pp text is printed on our Omnia 150gsm which gives it that dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction. All printed offset litho throughout. The piece has a fantastic feel - solid flat areas of colour work amazingly well - it is difficult for me to say too much more about it - see the images below, they speak for the job...

Click on images to enlarge

The book is 'section sewn' - you can see the thread in this section break pictured below.

...and here we go for a bit of a plug! - As you can see from the images, there is lots of colour and images with dark areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing flat colours superbly whilst retaining that all important detail in the dark areas (in my opinion- but I would say that wouldn't I?)

It goes without saying that the paper is just one aspect and if the quality of the images or the repro and the printing was not equally as superb, then the finished article would not be as amazing. The superlative printing is by Boss Print and you may remember reading on this blog that they won the category for the best catalogue design at the British Book Design and Production Awards in 2017 with another project for this same photographer. Below is a detail image showing the superb reproduction of the mono images.

The images are printed offset litho in two blacks (as a duotone) plus a yellow tint integrated with the images. The solid flat colours are all specials....

The section sewn and singer sewing makes the book flow easily in the hand.

Below image shows the detail of the section sewing. The Swiss Binding was completed in-house at Boss Print.

The book design is by Roger Fawcett-Tang of Struktur Design. It is beautifully printed and finished by Boss Print who are based in West London.

https://www.maryameisler.com/

http://www.struktur.co.uk/

https://www.bossprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.02.2021

PEEL Limited Edition Book

‘PEEL’ is an exploration of self-identity. As a reaction to the scrutiny young people undergo through social media, Marksteen Adamson created the PEEL programme which works with groups of young people and uses photography and poetry to help them explore their identity and who they are rather than just focussing on what they look like. Social media, self-expression and self-identity present growing problems for young people, and there is growing evidence that this pressure is contributing more and more to mental health issues.

Launched in 2017, the project is the culmination of a three-year study, that has acted as the foundation and prototype for the training programme. The PEEL project has been developed into curriculum based resources to enable educators and service providers to run the programme.

This limited edition book comprises 30 studies, each with their own unique poem and photographic portrait and containing the latest statistics. Size is A5 (210x148mm) portrait has 114pp of text (plus the throw outs) in a 'casebound' cover and section sewn binding.

Click on images to enlarge

The amazing thing about this book is that each of the 30 case studies is printed across a right handed 'throw out' in the book.

The book is printed Offset Litho on GardaPat 13, Klassica 115gsm. For readers not familiar with GardaPat 13, it's a fully coated paper but it really does have a dead flat MATT surface. There are many papers on the market which profess to be matt - some which incorporate the word matt in the name, but aren't! Apart from the high quality matt surface, this paper has an extraordinarily high bulk (thickness).

It is hard to describe the 'dead flat' mattness that is a characteristic of this coated paper but the print result is totally flat as you might see in the below images...

Click on images to enlarge

Gardapat Klassica is a pale ivory shade and is perfect for colour reproduction as well as the solid colour and metallic gold used for the statistic section...

The reproduction and printing is excellent and does the superb photography justice, however the feature that is most amazing about this book is the attention to detail in the binding - it is simply incredible.

If you look at the above image showing the foredge of the book, it looks perfectly even, in fact it's flawless - but then consider that 30pages of this book are throwouts! It is points of a millimetre perfect!

The inside sewing is perfect as you can see in the image below...

...and the spine is equally as perfect.

Marksteen Adamson is co-founder of Cheltenham marketing and brand agency ASHA. Design of the book is by the team at ASHA with designers Scott McGuffie, Simon Dryland, Emily Kane and Hannah Mapleston.

The superb print and even more exceptional binding is by Fenton at PrintSmith. A truly amazing piece of print and binding.

https://projectpeel.org/

https://ashaandco.uk/

https://www.printsmith.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.11.2020