StudioThomson portfolio

Brothers Mark and Christopher Thomson founded StudioThomson in 2004 as a multi-disciplinary agency specialising in design and art direction and in the last 16 years have built a reputation as one of London’s leading creative studios. Based in Portobello in London, they work with a wide roster of clients in fashion, skincare, photographers and many more ...and they have appeared on this blog many times over the years.

This is a superb printed portfolio showing their work...

Size is 250x176mm, portrait and is a 36pp self cover but is completely unbound. Many people might think this wouldn't work and would fall apart but because due consideration has been taken to choose the right material and weight, it holds together perfectly...

The text material chosen is our Omnia 120gsm, which would beautifully reproduce the variety of different images especially the vivid colours and not forgetting the fleshtones ...and it looks wonderful! Above shows the unbound sections fanned out. Below, shows the inside front and back cover, which works as a spread with the text pages placed underneath.

As one might expect, the images are superb and show a selection of their design and art direction projects...

Click on images to enlarge

Centre spread below...

Unlike many publications featured on this blog, which are printed offset litho, this has been digitally printed on an HP Indigo press. The colours are strong and punchy and the whole publication has a matt, tactile look and feel, every bit as good as litho.

Omnia is now kept as a stock item with "sapphire treatment". This special treatment is applied to papers and provides a "key" so that the inks (which are different to litho inks) work on the paper surface. The great thing is the job just doesn't look and feel like a digital job. Below is a detail shot showing the excellent fleshtone reproduction.

Inside back spread...

The Omnia 120gsm is a bulky sheet but in the unbound format, it flops and folds beautifully in the hand.

The art direction is by Mark and Chris Thomson and the quality of the direction and photography is matched by the exceptional digital print by Screaming Colour.

https://studiothomson.com/
http://www.screamingcolour.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 21.05.2020

Jobs from the past - Number 122

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 this invitation is from 2006.

Aquascutum - Spring Summer 2006 
Set up by John Emary, Aquascutum began as a Mayfair tailors in 1851. Seeing an opportunity for more refined rainwear, Emary created and patented the first waterproof wool. This unique creation led to inspire the brands name, which translates as "water shield" from Latin and was the first company to provide the British army with innovative waterproof cloth during the Crimean war.

This is the invitation to the Spring/Summer 2006 private view. The size is 148x210mm folding out to 297x420mm (A3)

The above and below images show the printing on the 'outside' showing SS06

Above is the front showing the SS, which folds out to reveal the below image:

...which then folds upwards to reveal the whole invitation:

I have the description, given to me at the time by Mark Thomson "The invite was inspired by the Aquascutum collection which had a shipwreck theme - the invite is meant to resemble a transparent boat sail, when you hold it up to the light you can read the whole title of the show". The invitation is printed offset litho in CMYK in both sides by Generation Press.

Below you can see the detail of the translucency achieved between the printing on either side of the paper...

It is printed on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm and it looks and feels gorgeous. The format, combined with the paper, gives the publication a light, malleable, tactile feel and as I'm sure you can see from the below image.

Art direction and design is by brothers Mark and Chris Thomson at Studio Thomson and I still have the note that Mark kindly sent me with the file copies:

Print and finishing is by Generation Press, based near Brighton in Sussex. A wonderfully simple job, beautifully printed and finished ...yet another one of those projects that looks as fantastic now as it did thirteen years ago! In fact I wrote about Studio Thomson celebrating their 5th Birthday in 2009 here!

https://www.aquascutum.com/
https://studiothomson.com/
https://generationpress.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.12.2019