Happy Valentines Day!

What better day than to look at this superbly produced book, titled 'Arrows of Love'...  This superb book was originally published to accompany the Quentin Blake exhibition titled Arrows of Love which took place in 2018 at the House of Illustration. This was an exhibition of Quentin Blake’s rarely-seen nudes consisting of 18 exuberant pencil drawings depicting women avoiding or embracing Cupid’s arrow. The original works are pencil on paper and were drawn circa 1974.

Having opened on Valentine’s Day, this exhibition reveals Quentin Blake's personal reflections on the joy, folly and sorrow of love with his characteristic humour. You can read about the exhibition here.

The size of the book is 265x220mm, portrait and comprises of 64pp plus endpapers. The text pages are printed on our Omnia, Natural 120gsm which gives the book a 'toned' look but which sympathetically reproduces the pencil illustrations.

The books starts with arrows...

Click on images to enlarge

Click on images to enlarge

Click on images to enlarge

Birds eye view showing the sewn sections and the 'quarter bound' binding. Spine is 7mm

Detail showing reproduction of the pencil illustration....

This is a beautifully produced publication, which you can buy here. Printing is by Jigsaw Colour, who sadly are no longer trading but Paul Martin handled the project, who is now at Identity Printers.

https://www.quentinblake.com/
http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/home

Posted by Justin Hobson 14.02.2022

Jobs from the past - Number 117

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 2013.

Keith Coventry - Twentieth Century Estates 2013

In 2013, Modern Collections brought together the most comprehensive exhibition of Keith Coventry's 'Estate Paintings' ever staged. At first these paintings appear to be abstract or lost Russian Suprematist paintings but in fact turn out to be maps of housing estates. An essay by Owen Hatherly interprets the work and places it in context of the 20th century.

This is the exhibition catalogue which is A5 (210x148mm) portrait. It has a 4pp cover and 68pp text and the contents include a foreword by Orlando Whitfield, the essay and then images of the works. The 4pp cover is printed in a solid green on our Colorset White 270gsm which is an uncoated board with an antique feel. The text is printed on Omnia White 120gsm.

Click on images to enlarge

Images showing the works hung in the gallery....

The below image shows the majority of pages, image on right hand side only.

Click on images to enlarge

 Inside back spread...

 ...So what is it exactly that is special about this job? Colorset was chosen instead of the other well known coloured text and cover range because it would save money but most importantly print a solid colour superbly, which it did. Omnia was chosen for the text pages because a coated paper would have had the wrong aesthetic for the work, which required an uncoated look. However the shadows in the images have a subtle vignette which on a 'normal' uncoated would lose all the detail but on Omnia it graduates in a crisp even, subtle way and looks great, as I hope you can see in the image below....

Design is By Jon Gray at Gray318. Printing was by Paul Martin at Jigsaw Colour printers, based in Bermondsey in South London.

A superb example of an art catalogue.

http://keithcoventry.com/artworks/estate-paintings
http://gray318.com/
http://www.jigsawcolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.07.2019

Arrows of love

This superb book was published to accompany the Quentin Blake exhibition titled Arrows of Love which took place last year at the House of Illustration. This was an exhibition of Quentin Blake’s rarely-seen nudes consisting of 18 exuberant pencil drawings depicting women avoiding or embracing Cupid’s arrow. The original works are pencil on paper and were drawn circa 1974.

Having opened on Valentine’s Day, this exhibition reveals Quentin Blake's personal reflections on the joy, folly and sorrow of love with his characteristic humour. You can read about the exhibition here.

The size of the book is 265x220mm, portrait and comprises of 64pp plus endpapers. The text pages are printed on our Omnia, Natural 120gsm which gives the book a 'toned' look but which sympathetically reproduces the pencil illustrations.

The books starts with arrows...

Click on images to enlarge

Click on images to enlarge

Click on images to enlarge

Birds eye view showing the sewn sections and the 'quarter bound' binding. Spine is 7mm

Detail showing reproduction of the pencil illustration....

This is a beautifully produced publication, which you can buy here. The excellent printing is by Jigsaw Colour who are based in Bermondsey, London

https://www.quentinblake.com/
http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/home
http://www.jigsawcolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.05.2019

Linda Kitson - Drawings and Projects

This is the catalogue for last years' exhibition at the House of Illustration. Linda Kitson’s line drawings have recorded seminal moments in British history. This exhibition and catalogue charts a lifetime of putting pen to paper including her drawings on the front line of the Falklands War, as the first woman artist commissioned to accompany troops into combat. The reportage works on show lead up to her most recent, innovative ventures on the iPad. The exhibition was curated by Quentin Blake, who has known Kitson since she was first a student at the Royal College of Art.   

The size of the catalogue is 240mm square. There is a 4pp cover and 48pp text all printed on our Omnia. An important factor for the publication was to capture the narrative and the sensitivity of the work, whilst ensuring there is no compromise on the reproduction of the artwork. Omnia was chosen as it would faithfully reproduce the artworks whilst still lending the tactility of the original uncoated materials used.

Click on images to enlarge

Cover is printed on 320gsm and the 48pp text is printed on Omnia 150gsm.

Omnia performed brilliantly throughout the publication, ensuring that the fine detail in many of the illustrations was reproduced superbly. In stark contrast is the last spread which is one of Linda Kitson's iPad pieces, which quite literally jumps off the page!

The book is section sewn with a nice square spine..

The catalogue has been beautifully printed and finished by Jigsaw Colour.
You can read more about Linda's exhibition here:
https://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/whats-on/past-exhibitions/linda-kitson-drawings-and-projects

www.jigsawcolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.05.2018

Studio Culture

Studio Culture is the publication produced by this year's graduating students from the Kingston School of Art at  Kingston University's Art and Design Faculty.

To accompany their end of year show, they produced a publication which is a visual diary of ideas in their final year, an insight into the way they worked and played, emphasising the studio culture which has been developed on the course.

There are two publications. There is a fold out broadsheet (above). The size is 225x160mm which folds out 640x450mm. This is used both as a poster and also has the details of all the individuals on the course. The folded broadsheet is inserted into the main 'Studio Culture' booklet as you can see in the below image...

Click on images to enlarge

Above is the front cover and below shows the front and back cover opened out. The size is 232x165mm, portrait and is saddle stitched. It is a 64pp 'self cover' publication.

The paper used for both parts is our Shiro Echo Bright White 90gsm. Shiro is a 100% Recycled text and cover paper from Favini and as I'm sure you will be able to see from the images below, it prints beautifully. The publication is printed offset litho in CMYK throughout.

Click on images to enlarge

It's a very interesting insight to the final year of the course. It is well written with articles by students and tutors.

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Centre spread:

...even though it's a 64pp, because it's on 90gsm it flows beautifully.

Design is by Ellie Game, Caiah Morash, Harriet Payler, Karen Tsang, Amber Ng. It was Ellie Game who dealt with the paper (me) and also with the print production with Paul Martin at Jigsaw Colour printers.

This really is an excellent publication and so much more engaging than most 'end of year show' publications. This is a far more insightful piece of literature.


http://kingstongraphicshow.co.uk/
http://www.jigsawcolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 05.10.2017