Fenner Paper 2022 Diary x4!

If you are a wonderful customer and therefore a deserving user of our papers! ... you will be receiving your new 2022 diary in the next week or so and here's a sneak preview...

Four diaries? Well, just one diary but there are four different covers! ...which one will you get? This year we have collaborated with both the St Bride Foundation and the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD).This year’s cover was designed by Andrew Long and printed by the St Bride Chapel, St Bride Library’s workshop team.

The diary itself has been designed by David Coates, independent designer and board director of ISTD. The internal pages are typset in Foundry Unie from The Foundry Types. As in previous years, the diary is 230x162mm, portrait and retains the popular 'month to view' format. The 40pp text is simply printed in one colour, offset litho, on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm, which has a superb opacity and a good writing surface making this an ideal paper for a diary or notebook.

The cover is printed in three specialson our NEW PaperWise, made using 100% agricultural waste and completely unbleached. The above shows all four cover designs, front and back covers. The design was inspired by Chaostype, a process invented in the late nineteenth century by Cincinnati printer John Franklin Earhart that relied upon the unpredictable and random qualities of hot lead chaos. Below are some test sheets produced back in the Summer...

Andrew Long together with the four different covers in the St Bride Library workshop...

My thanks to all the collaborators and thanks also to Commercial Type for the use of their Commercial Classics catalogue for use on the cover design. They are recreations of historical typefaces inspired by the punches, matrices, specimens and smoke proofs held at St Bride Library. 

If you are one of our worthy clients (!), you should be receiving one of our diaries in the post but if you would rather have it sent to your home than the office or if you want to make sure you are in our address book, drop me an email: justin@fennerpaper.co.uk

 Posted by Justin Hobson 13.12.2021

UEFA Euro 2020 is now Euro 2021!

With the delayed Euro 2020 football championship fast approaching, I’m pleased to show you our fabulous wallchart...

Click on images to enlarge

Hosted by 11 countries in 11 cities, the tournament was postponed due to the pandemic but rescheduled with the opening match on June 11th. England are among the favourites to win the tournament and are playing all three matches at Wembley, which will no doubt increase the excitement surrounding the current side. 

This beautifully designed typographic wallchart is by David Coates, who also happens to be a member of the ISTD board (International Society of Typographic Designers) and my thanks to Dave for making it all happen - a perfect way to combine his love of type and football!  As you can see, it's already up on the wall in our office.

The wallcharts are printed by Zone Graphics on our lovely Pergraphica range from Mondi - Pergraphica Classic, Rough 120gsm. The size is 880 x 315mm. Typeface used is Foundry Context by The Foundry Types.

We have sent out a number of these wallcharts to our football loving design clients, but if you want to make absolutely sure you get a copy, you can email me justin@fennerpaper.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.06.2021

Freda Sack

Last week it was announced that British type designer Freda Sack died. Freda had a long career starting at Letraset in the 1970's followed by a host of other groundbreaking type design companies. Eventually Freda went freelance and then collaborated with David Quay setting up The Foundry together. Over her long career, Freda is credited with a large number of typeface designs which I shall not attempt to list here.

Freda was deeply involved in education, both as a governor and external examiner. From the mid 1990's she was heavily involved with the smooth running of the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD) in a variety of roles, culminating with being President from 2006-2010.

Last Summer, Freda was made an Honorary Fellow of the ISTD in recognition of her significant contribution to the Society and the typographic industry. The award was made at the ISTD 90th anniversary, which I wrote about here and where I took the rather over-exposed picture above.

It was a pleasure to know Freda and she was a tireless worker for the causes she was involved with. She was always giving and yet so appreciative to others for their efforts. Freda was a fellow member of the Wynkyn de Worde Society and I was honoured to have her as my guest at last year's Summer party, where she kindly gave me a wonderful 'sign of the sun' brooch, which I treasure.

You can read more about Freda's life here:

https://www.istd.org.uk/blog/freda-sack

Freda touched many lives and will be sorely missed by all who knew her.

https://www.istd.org.uk/
http://www.foundrytypes.co.uk/about-the-foundry/the-foundry-partners/freda-sack

Posted by Justin Hobson 19.02.2019

ISTD 90 Invitations

Founded in London in 1928, the ISTD turned 90 this summer. The Society has always been run on a voluntary basis and in June they organised a special celebration to recognise the huge contribution made over the years by board and committee members past and present.

The wonderfully substantial A5 invitations are hot foil blocked on our SUMO black 2mm thick board.

The invitations are simply hot foil blocked in metallic silver foil on both sides.

Click on images to enlarge

Below is an image of the blocks used for the hot foiling

Hosted at the iconic De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea, the event was an informal evening of friends, food and typographic fun provided by Andy Altmann, of Why Not Associates who gave a very amusing talk about the influence of seaside town humour and typography within his work  

As you can see from the image above, 2mm thick is really thick!

Playne Design executed the 90th anniversary identity, designer on the project was David Coates. The invitation was hot foil blocked by Pureprint, who have only just brought pre-press services such as hot foiling and UV varnishing in house.

https://www.istd.org.uk/
https://playnedesign.co.uk/
https://www.pureprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.11.2018 

The World Cup for type lovers...

Here's a World Cup wallchart for the typographic purist!

This A1 size wallchart is very simply produced in just two colour litho and is printed on our wonderful Shiro Alga Carta 90gsm from Italian paper manufacturer Favini. Shiro Alga Carta began life as a way to utilise the damaging algal blooms which were clogging up Venice lagoon. Now the lagoon in Venice has been cleared of this problem, the concept has now been extended to help the clean up process in other fragile marine areas.

Design is by David Coates, who also happens to be a member of the ISTD board (International Society of Typographic Designers). Printing is by Typecast Colour in Paddock Wood.

 

We will be sending out some of these wallcharts in the post, but if you want to make absolutely sure you get a copy for next week, you can email me Justin@fennerpaper.co.uk

 

http://www.typecast.co.uk/

https://www.istd.org.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 05.06.2018