Jobs from the past - Number 52



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...

Association Gallery Leaflets 1997-2000

The Association of Fashion & Advertising Photographers (AFAP, although it later became AFAEP when editorial photographers were embraced) was originally founded in 1968, changing its name to The Association of Photographers in 1993.

 

During the late 1990's the AOP had their gallery and exhibition space at 81 Leonard Street, EC2 and the gallery manager was Alex Steele-Mortimer. Being a self funded 'trade body', resources were extremely limited, although the subject, brief and raw material was fantastically creative.  Alex commissioned Frost Design for the promotional leaflets for quite a long period. They stick in my mind as being incredibly simple, yet because of their powerful use of cropped, interesting images, single colour print and quality paper they had a consistency and quality that stands high today.

The finished size is 210x95mm (roughly a DL format) and is 12pp, folding out to a flat size of 210x570mm.

The format of this leaflet works particularly well as the text concertinas into the folded spine. This works particularly well for this type of leaflet as because it effectively creates a spine and the foredge of text - some leaflets fall open in all directions! This is neat and tight and as a result feels less like a leaflet and more like a piece of less throwaway literature.  

Text on the inside reads at 90degrees to the outer. Some people may disagree but I find this a very easy to read and inviting publication.

 Picture below shows the way the text folds into the spine

The papers used were a variety of the period, and depended on the use of the one colour that they were being printed (don't forget this was a time when one colour litho printing was substantially cheaper than CMYK!). Materials used were Matrisse 140gsm, Modigliani Neve 145gsm, Redeem 100% Recycled 130gsm etc....
The crops of the fantastic images were always good. Below is the cover of June/Sept 97 edition with photograph by Spencer Rowell:

Below is a selection of covers from my collection.

Click on image to enlarge

Creative director was Vince Frost who now runs Frost in Australia. Various designers worked on these jobs in that period but I know for certain that Andrew Collier, Melanie Mues and Sonya Dyakova were responsible for the majority. They are all now independent designers working in London.

Print was offset litho by The House Of Naylor, one of the last printers based in Clerkenwell, they are no longer in existence.

http://www.the-aop.org/
www.muesdesign.com
www.atelierdyakova.com
http://www.frostdesign.com.au/

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.02.2014

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

The Future of Paper Books

I've just been sent an invitation to the latest de.Frost* talk on the 14th July.  This is the fourteenth in the series of de.Frost* talks which are hosted by Frost* Design at their studio. Julie Gibbs is the Publishing Director of the Lantern imprint at Penguin, which publishes, high quality, illustrated books in the fields of cookery, gardening, interiors, photography, shopping, travel and biography. Julie has been in publishing for her entire career, and at Penguin for the last nineteen years.

At de.Frost* Julie will be discussing the value of paper books in our lives and what their future might be. She has also invited members of the audience to bring along a favourite illustrated book and perhaps say why it means something to them.

I would absolutely love to go along to this talk, it would be a fascinating and passionate insight into where the publisher sees the future, but sadly I can't go. ...why not? I hear you ask ...well sadly (for me) the Frost* studio is in Surry Hills in Sydney and although I did visit back in 2009, it's too far, even for me, to go for this talk.

Anyway thanks to Frost* for the invite and I look forward to hearing about the evening.

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

Posted by Justin 24.06.2013

Donovan returns to Frost*

Just heard the news that Anthony Donovan has returned to Frost* as Creative Director at the Sydney studio. He's spent the past two and a half years as creative director at Moon who are also based in Sydney's burgeoning creative district in Surry Hills.

Anthony Donovan and Vince Frost

Ant was previously at Frost and also spent some time in London working for Frost, together with Nicole Bradfield, back in 2009. During this time, we worked together on a couple of projects including this lovely book for architects Sheppard Robson.

This book was produced using our Construction Blackstone 1500microns on the cover with the text on Redeem 100% Recycled 100gsm. Sheppard Robson are committed to sustainability, and as such all materials used had to be 100% Recycled and it was printed by Pureprint. This may be the subject for one of my "jobs from the past" in the future!

I also saw Ant when I popped in to visit Frost* in Sydney at the end of 2009.
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/roving-report-frost-design-in-sydney.html

Ant ...welcome back to Frost* and best wishes for the future.

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.02.2013

Jobs from the past - Number 36

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 2004.

National Portrait Gallery - Off the Beaten Track 2004

This is the invitation to the Press View for the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery called Off the Beaten Track, celebrating three centuries of women travellers in portraits. Journeying to distant parts of the world from the 1660s to the 1960s, before the age of mass travel, these women had experiences and encounters almost unthinkable today. The exhibition brought together 60 portraits from the National Portrait Gallery's collections, alongside souvenirs, photographs and paintings made by the women on their travels.

This 'passport style' invitation is 90x125mm, portrait and is saddle stitched with black staples (very nice) and also features round corners. It has a 4pp cover on Colorset Nero 270gsm with a 4pp text on Redeem 100% Recycled 130gsm. The cover is hot foil blocked with a matt white foil & blind embossing and the text is printed in four colour process.

Above: centre spread

Detail showing the printed 'intaglio' pattern. Redeem was chosen as it has a neutral white shade with an aged look and feel.

The reply card printed on Redeem 100% Recycled 240gsm and then rubber stamped by hand.



This beautifully conceived and produced invitation was by Frost Design, London. Creative directors on the project were Matt Willey and Zoë Bather. Designer was Laura Hains. The excellent foiling, print and finishing was by Matthew Glover at Orchid.

www.npg.org.uk
www.frostdesign.com.au
www.orchidprint.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.10.2012

Jobs from the past - Number 32

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...

The Fourth Estate Catalogue 

July-December 2003

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, 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 last catalogues I was involved with, designed by Tom Hingston Studio.
Here's the comment from Tom Hingston's website: "For our design of the Fourth Estate July-December 2003 catalogue we took inspiration from the aesthetic of an authors manuscript. This gave us the opportunity to explore the use of type as image, to illustrate each title in a way we felt appropriate for a books catalogue"

The size of the book is 150x215mm, portrait. It is casebound (hardback). The book is divided into two sections, new releases 1-32pp and the remainder 33-56pp. The papers used are both lightweight. The first section is of the catalogue is printed on Redeem 100% Recycled FTP 90gsm and the second section on Myriad Colours Yellow, 80gsm. End papers are on Episode IV 115gsm. The cover is covered with self coloured bookcloth and foiled (beautifully) in black foil.

Detail

Design director is Tom Hingston, designer on the project was Manuela Wyss.
The job was printed in two colours by Wisbech based printers Balding & Mansell, who are now sadly defunct.

Victoria Barnsley, founder of Fourth Estate, joined Harper Collins as CEO and Publisher in 2000 when it acquired her company ( ...she did well!). 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 homogenised Harper Collins catalogue and the individual publications ceased.

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

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

www.hingston.net

Posted by Justin Hobson 06.06.2012