Jobs from the past - Number 112

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 project is from the year 2000.

Traveller - Pictor.com

In the pre-internet age, if you wanted an image, you used to have to search through printed catalogues supplied by photo libraries. You would then either, phone, fax or even write a letter (!) ordering the transparency for which you would be charged. As digital technology developed, photo libraries were able to provide a larger volume of images on disc, but to promote the images from the library, they would often also send a book showing a selection of printed images. This is one such publication produced in the Summer of 2000, just at the time when the internet was enabling the exchange of digital files and at the time of the first dotcom boom.

It is an unusual format of 140x297mm, Landscape. It is section sewn and casebound with a 56pp text plus printed endpapers.

The images are of the highest quality and this publication is just to give a flavour of the bigger selection of images available on disk, so the first couple of pages show the areas in the world where the different sections have been shot...

Click on images to enlarge

The text is printed on Neptune Unique FSC 135gsm and looks truly amazing! Neptune is smooth uncoated with a high white shade and the images have reproduced amazingly (in no small way, due to the printer as well). Printed offset litho in CMYK plus a special pantone color for the printed end papers. At this time, most stock photography catalogues were printed on coated papers, so that reproduction was ensured, but at this time, although image reproduction was important, it was also important to show how images might look in use and it was at a time when the use of quality uncoated papers was becoming more prevalent.

In those days there needed to be a disc included as file transfer over the internet was still to come, so as you can see below, a disc affixed on the inside back cover...

Image showing the thread of the section sewing...

Creative direction and design is by the in house team at Pictor. It seems that Pictor no longer exists as a picture library, but I guess the world of stock image photography has changed beyond all recognition since the millennium.

The excellent printing and binding was by Fulmar, based in Croydon, Surrey and this project was handled by Keith Marley. Fulmar was a printer founded in 1971 by Mike Taylor and was a forward thinking, successful and large print group. Mike Taylor sold Fulmar in 2006 to the CPI group and they are still printing in the same factory and still producing lovely work!

Keith Marley now runs his own printing consultancy: http://keithmarley.co.uk/

http://www.cpi-print.co.uk/
https://bapla.org.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.02.2019