Coming Up for Air

A couple of months ago Melanie Smith, a graphics post grad student at the LCC, got in touch asking about lightweight and thin papers. Mel had a copy of our Size, Format, Stock and was aware of Offenbach Bible and wanted a material with an almost gossamer like appearance. One of the issues was that she only wanted to produce a limited number of copies. the publication called "Coming up for Air" is about some of the quiet (and green) areas in the city of London.

We discussed papers, format, bindings etc. and I suggested a few options. Anyway, here is the end result, which I think looks absolutely stunning.

The size of the publication is A3 (420x297mm) portrait. It is a 44pp, self cover and is printed on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm. One thing you probably won't be able to guess, or even believe, is that it's digitally printed! The job was printed and finished by MTA digital, who are based in south east London, on their HP Indigo digital press which made printing only a few copies viable - even on a material such as this, which many litho printers are scared of! ...just look at the print result.

Mel really wanted an A3 format, but because of the limitation of the SRA3 sheet size on the digital press, binding options were limited! ...which is why I suggested the singer sewing - which goes through the whole text and is probably better described as "side sewn" - see picture below

This is an excellent example of what can be achieved with a little time and effort. In many ways digital print still suffers from a poor reputation, especially when it looks like a poor colour photocopy on nasty high white supersmooth "digital" paper! This is a great example which shows that using the HP Indigo press, combined with a material that is right for the design together with binding/finishing which lends itself both to the subject and the format, a superb job can be achieved.

 

Design is by Melanie Smith. Print and finishing handled by John Sinnott and Aaron Carpenter at MTA Digital.

http://thetypothecary.wordpress.com
www.mtadigital.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.06.2013