Manuel Canovas

This is the gorgeous brochure for the Trianon Collection from luxury brand Manuel Canovas, based in Paris. Trianon is a range of wallpapers and fabrics based on paintings, drawn in Chinoiserie style, by Jean-Baptiste Pillement in the 18th Century.

The size of the publication is 240mm x 170mm, portrait and is saddle stitched, printed on our StarFine White. 4pp cover on 300gsm and 8pp text on 200gsm. Printed CMYK offset litho and hot foil blocked in gold metallic foil on the cover.

StarFine is a quality, uncoated paper and as the images show, image reproduction is excellent. The detail of the wallpaper and fabrics is stunning - great detail for an uncoated paper, colours are bright and vivid.

The brass wire used for the saddle stitches is a really lovely touch - which brilliantly compliments the gold foiling on the cover.

Click on image to enlarge

Manuel Canovas is one of the Colefax group brands and this beautiful piece of literature has been created in house at Colefax & Fowler. Print production is by Pureprint

https://www.manuelcanovas.com/
https://www.colefax.com/
https://www.pureprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 21.08.2023

Crush for Christmas Crackers!

Luisa Vicinanza-Bedi only started learning how to make bean to bar chocolate in 2017. Since then she has established her own shop Luisa's Vegan Chocolates based in Sneinton Market, Nottingham and has a strong online presence. Luisa has also picked up a handful of awards at the Academy of Chocolate including  ‘UK Rising Star’ in 2019.

Photographs courtesy of Luisa's Vegan Chocolates

As part of Luisa's special Christmas offerings, she has produced Christmas Crackers - packed full of goodies and all products happen to be vegan too!

Photographs courtesy of Luisa's Vegan Chocolates

These beautiful crackers are printed on our CRUSH range of papers, made using 15% agro-industrial residues combined with post consumer waste and virgin fibre (all FSC accredited). The cracker body is using Crush Corn 200gsm and the chocolate box wraps are 120gsm. They are superbly digitally printed and foiled by Rose Press in Nottingham, who also specialise in Wedding stationery.

Photographs courtesy of Luisa's Vegan Chocolates

Luisa's Vegan Chocolates is the first and only Bean-To-Bar chocolate maker in Nottingham, taking her chocolate through the delicate artisan process by hand. Luisa directly sources her beans to pay her farmers a better than FairTrade price for their crop, at least double the standard market rate which is wonderful.

It's not Christmas yet but you can always buy some chocolate now and support an ethical small enterprise!... You can buy online HERE.

https://luisasveganchocolates.co.uk/

https://www.rosepress.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.08.2023

Healeys Calendar 2023

Healeys Printers in Ipswich produce a desk calendar every year and is produced on a variety of environmentally friendly stocks. This month is printed on our Colorset (100% Recycled) Bright Red 350gsm

Design by Ruben Quental - East Norfolk Sixth Form College

The month of August is digitally printed in CMYK and digital white ink, which looks excellent.

Healeys are based in Ipswich and are one of a handful of printers who are registered as a 'Carbon Balanced Printer' by the World Land Trust and can offer a totally carbon balanced printing service including the paper and all aspects of production and delivery.

Design by Willow Diwell - East Norfolk Sixth Form College

The size of each of the calendar leaves is 165x180mm (with wave die cut) and each month is printed on a different board - each is a recycled or environmentally friendly grade. Not all the papers used are from Fenner Paper, but we are fortunate enough to have our paper used for March too (on Alga Carta) which is debossed and clear foiled too

The calendar is designed by students from East Norfolk Sixth Form College, Gorleston On Sea. It's a great opportunity for students to get involved at an early stage is design for printing and to learn about the printing process.

https://healeys-printers.co.uk/

https://www.eastnorfolk.ac.uk/

https://www.worldlandtrust.org/

Sex Pistols - Filthy Lucre

Today it was announced that Jamie Reid, artist of the Sex Pistols record covers and their anarchic graphical style has died, aged 76. Very sad news for his family and friends.

It reminded me of this souvenir concert programme that we supplied the paper for back in the nineties. In those days we supplied paper to a printer called Lithosphere who did many concert programmes for the Mean Fiddler group, one of which was for the Sex Pistols and their 'Filthy Lucre Tour' in June 1996 and their show in Finsbury Park.

Size of this souvenir programme is 320 x 245mm portrait with a 4pp cover and 16pp text and is saddle stitched.

The programme was printed on our Lightning Silk 240gsm cover and 135gsm text and I believe it was printed CMYK plus a Fluorescent special (pink).

Although the catalogue was not designed by Jamie Reid, it certainly used the style he created for the band and his imagery. It was designed by Simon Collett and printed offset litho by Lithosphere.

You can read the obituary for Jamie Reid here...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/09/jamie-reid-artist-of-sex-pistols-record-covers-dies-aged-76

Posted by Justin Hobson 09.08.2023

Jobs from the past - Number 165

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 one is from 2014...

Sopianae Brand Book - 2014

This project is a brandbook for Sopianae, which is the most well known cigarette brand in Hungary. This book covers the history and culture of the brand whilst explaining the relationship with the Rountable Agency who are their brand communication consultancy.

It is a very large book at 415mmx260mm! It comes with a slipcase and the whole print package is superb and made extra special by the binding.

Click on images to enlarge

This is generally described as 'Japanese Binding' as it is in the Size|Format|Stock pamphlet that I wrote, although as I've pointed out in the same publication, terminology is certainly not universal - I doubt if they call this Japanese binding in Japan!

The cover is formed by a 2mm greyboard which is silkscreened in three colours and mounted on the cover. The 64pp text is on a mixture of an uncoated ivory coloured paper (unknown) and our Stardream Crystal 120gsm from Cordenons in Italy.

Now what has made this project particularly worthy of note is that there were not that many copies produced, so in the main, this job was produced on a digital press (HP Indigo). However because of some of the 'throw outs' - such as below, some of the pages had to be printed offset litho as the format of the digital press (in this case SRA3) wasn't large enough.

So the clever thing, from a print point of view, was to get the litho and digital sheets to match! not that easy to do but the end result is superb - as you can see below digital meets litho on the same spread.

Click on images to enlarge

The other thing that makes it slightly less complicated is that Stardream is kept in stock as HP Indigo ready, as well as the sheets for offset litho.

Stardream is a pearlescent and metallic range which shimmers and the pic below may give some idea of how it looks:

Design is by the Roundtable Agency by Head of Art, Franco Reda.

Printing and the terrific binding (at their own Bindery - Wayte Binding) all achieved in house is by Identity Printers in Paddock Wood. They truly have excelled.

https://www.roundtableagency.co.uk/
http://www.identityprint.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 03.08.2023

100,000 page views per month on this blog!

Most people reading this blog realise that I'm not writing this so I can be some kind of social media star, after all I'm not even on TikTok! However, I'm very gratified to see on my blog statistics that last month (July) I had over 100,000 page views! ...which really is amazing, so thank you.

I've been writing this blog for over 10 years and there are over 1730 articles, mostly about beautifully printed jobs, different finishing, three hole sewing, singer sewing, hot foil blocking and of course the state of the paper making industry too.

Many thanks for the support and the nice emails and encouragement I receive from you, it is much appreciated.

Posted by Justin Hobson 01.08.2023 

McQ Women

McQ, is the contemporary brand from Alexander McQueen which takes inspiration from street culture "evoking the varied and ever-evolving style tribes that spring up around Britain’s rich music and art scenes. Drawing on references from uniform and the military, core staples of the British wardrobe are re-imagined each season in new guises. Traditional techniques are used in contemporary ways, creating pieces that are both functional and beautiful"

Creative Director of Alexander McQueen and McQ is Sarah Burton. This is the season's lookbook for women.

The size of the publication is 450x320mm, portrait and is a 12pp self cover. It is printed on our lightweight Offenbach Bible 60gsm and is a beautifully designed piece of literature.

The lookbook is printed in four colour offset litho and is a superb example of printing on Offenbach Bible - superb solid coverage and deep monochrome images reproduced in CMYK.

Click on images to enlarge

Due to the lightweight nature of the paper it just flops beautifully, with a bewitching feel.

Design and art direction is by Rupert Smith who is a freelance art director based in London. This is an elegant and splendidly produced publication. To get these dark images to look this good on an uncoated paper is a real achievement. Print is by Rob Squires at Pureprint.

https://my.mcq.com

https://www.pureprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.07.2023

Garden Scenes by James Ellis

Here are two beautiful new notecards published by James Ellis in a handy wallet pack containing eight cards.

Garden Bird House by Matt Johnson

The notecard designs are titled 'Garden Fork' and 'Garden Bird House' illustrated by Matt Johnson who lives and works in Cornwall. 

Garden Fork by Matt Johnson

Full images of the notecards are also displayed when the wallet is opened, along with information about the artist. The wallet measures 134 x 134 x 16mm. The cards are 120mm square, and the envelopes are 130mm square. 

The two designs are printed on the front and back of the wallet and each wallet contains four of each notecard together with envelopes.

The cards and the wallets are both printed on our Starfine, Natural 300gsm, which is an natural white, uncoated board with a lovely feel and great surface for printing. It is FSC accredited and also free from OBA's (optical brightening agents). The cards and wallets are printed offset litho by Alpha Colour in Gloucester.

The whole package is plastic free and 100% recyclable, which you can see from the handy information illustration on their website.

https://www.jamesellis.com/collections/notecard-wallets/products/garden-scenes-wallet-of-eight-notecards-by-james-ellis

https://www.jamesellis.com/ 

https://mattillustration.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 21.07.2023

Paper production in Europe falls further

This is a new article from Print Business magazine... "Paper production across Europe dropped faster last year than in the Covid years according to the Confederation of European paper industries (Cepi). Paper consumption and production across Europe in 2022 fell to a greater extent than in the Covid years. According to Cepi, the consumption of paper and boards fell 3.5% while production of paper and boards fell 6.5% in the same period."

"In many sectors, consumption fell by double digits, while production was hit by the loss of mills and paper machines, cutting overall production capacity. There were 23 fewer mills at the end of 2022 compared to the year before with 21 fewer carton board making and paper machines."

Read the full article here...

https://printbusiness.co.uk/european-paper-production-dives-says-cepi/

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.07.2023

Orange Peel

Orange Peel is a publication with one goal... to put a smile on the readers face. It is designed to provide a sense of joy through positive content. Issue No.1 is an accumulation of artistic forms, including photography, illustration, painting, screen prints, poems and interviews. These transform the publication into a collectable work of art that provides the reader with an experience.

“Orange Peel” is the final major project by Alice Emery, a graduating student from the Arts University Bournemouth on the BA (Hons) Fashion Branding and Communications course.

Orange Peel features our Crush Citrus 120gsm, which is paper made using residues (15%) from the processing of citrus fruit and juicing process in Italy. This is sustainably sourced paper from Favini that uses waste and recycled fibres reduces the number of trees required to make the paper.

Crush Citrus 120gsm forms most of the text pages and is combined with other papers from that other well known "Hull based" paper merchant! (GF Smith)

Alice says..."These colourful pages of artwork make the publication feel more vibrant with a happy tone with the textures providing a tactile experience to ground the reader. The publication is size 270x360mm. This large format compliments the artwork in the publication making it feel important. The publication is bound with two short wire bindings allowing the pages to lay flat to fully appreciate the artwork on each page for an easy reading experience. To open the publication there is a wrap around using orange ric rac trim that the reader needs to unpeel to get to the content inside. This changes the way the reader interacts with the publication providing a tactile experience they can get their hands on and enjoy!"

Alice Emery is from Portsmouth and has always loved being creative, enjoying painting and drawing in her spare time. She has just graduated with first class degree BA (Hons) Fashion Branding & Communications. 

“Orange Peel” was a real passion project for me bringing together my love of art and fashion into creating a carefully crafted publication including content creation, branding and marketing. I am hoping to launch my career in fashion marketing using these skills and developing my practice.

The publication was digitally printed by Dayfold in Dorset with silkscreened additions.

Congratulations to Alice on a very accomplished piece of work and our best wishes for a successful career ahead.

https://www.graduatefashionweek.com/search-portfolios/alice-emery

Posted by Justin Hobson 14.07.2023