Jobs from the past - Number 136

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 2003.

The Fourth Estate Catalogue 

January-June 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 commissioned, 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.

The design and art direction is by Vince Frost with the superb illustrations by Marion Deuchars. This is a very special project where the creative direction, excellent execution of the images and high production values all come together.

The illustrations by Marion Deuchars were created using Carbon Paper. If you aren't familiar with carbon paper, it is the original way to make a copy on a typewriter, the impression from the top copy being made on an underneath sheet. So these wonderful illustrations are already second generation copies.

The size of the book is 225x160mm, portrait. It has an 4pp cover and a 88pp text and is printed on on our Redeem 100% Recycled 315gsm cover and 130gsm text.

The book is printed one colour, halftone, throughout and it is printed with all the imperfections that the carbon paper produces as you can see from the detail image below...

Most of the images are just illustrated on the left hand side but some of the pages are illustrated across the spread.

Pages 61-80 include just listings:

...and pages 81-87 is the backlist:

Below shows the 8mm spine with the neat perfect binding.

The 88pp text flows well and the pages turn nicely in the hand.

The covers and inside cover spreads are made using scans of the carbon paper used by Marion, which are composite images and look great.

Design and art direction is by Vince Frost. Illustrations by Marion Deuchars. Printing is by Principal Colour in Kent.

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, leaving in 2013. Marion Deuchars is a very popular illustrator and has recently published some instructional art books. Vince Frost left for the sunnier climate of Australia around eighteen years ago and runs Frost* in Sydney. Principal Colour are in Paddock Wood in Kent and Fenner Paper? ...yep, we're still here! 

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

https://www.frostcollective.com.au/

https://www.mariondeuchars.com/

http://www.principalcolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.03.2021

Design Interview 1Q

One of the good things to come out of the Covid-19 lockdown...

Design Interview 1Q is a You Tube channel set up by Fabio Mario Rizzotti to generate content to share with all of us trapped in the current lockdown situation. While the world has stopped Mario has been busier than ever with a series of online interviews about design. He has interviewed some great people, exploring their philosophies and thoughts - not just a showcase of that interviewee and their work but a much deeper and more insightful discussion.

Each interview is based on 10 questions with topics like the essence of design, the role of the designer in the future, the design process, design education,  the impact of the internet and many other subjects.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEX1w6yLz4_uV4KUQg9SBmA

It's been very well received and recommended by many people I've spoken to and you should check it out. Mario has conducted 28 interviews to date including Studio Dumbar, Adrian Shaughnessy, Steven Heller, Paula Scher, Karel Martens, Studio MUT, Studio LaTigre, Erik Brandt, Niklaus Troxler, Anthony Burrill, Marion Deuchars, Michael Bierut, Dafi Kühne, Nikki Gonnissen to name a few. 

It's a wonderful initiative and it's great that it has been supported by so many well known, and some not so well known, design personalities.

Well done and thank you Mario.

Fabio Mario Rizzotti is an independent graphic designer based in Milan and you can see his work here: http://www.fmrizzotti.it/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEX1w6yLz4_uV4KUQg9SBmA
https://www.instagram.com/designinterview10q/

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.05.2020

Jobs from the past - Number 31

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...

Ballpoint 

Exhibition Catalogue 2004

In 2004, Angus Hyland, a partner at Pentagram's London office, curated an exhibition celebrating 50 years of the Parker ballpoint jotter. Introduced in 1954, the Parker Jotter sold more than 150 million pens worldwide and was Parker's first ever ballpoint pen. Angus's aim was to explore and celebrate the artistic potential of the humble ballpoint pen. His inspiration came from a collection he had begun to make of the doodles and drawings made by his fellow Pentagram partners during their international meetings. A conversation with his wife, the illustrator Marion Deuchars, gave rise to the idea of an exhibition of artwork created using only ballpoint pens. The result was Ballpoint, a collection of works by over 50 fellow creatives from around the world.

I remember that I went along to Pentagram for a meeting with Angus together with Gary Bird from Gavin Martin. Angus briefed us about the project as a whole and the exhibition catalogue in particular. He showed us some of the submitted exhibits including the school desk (see below) which illustrator Billie Jean had submitted - not just a photograph, Billie went out and bought a desk, illustrated it and sent the whole desk to Pentagram - how cool is that!

A spread showing work by Ian Wright and Billie Jean.

The brief was to produce something that had the actual look and feel of a sketchbook rather than something that just reproduced the images. He didn't want a pastiche, just something that felt realistic ...and of course a solution that was also affordable. After discussing pagination and economical formats with Gary, the result is a book of 235x300mm, portrait, saddle stitched. The 72pp text was printed on our Redeem 100% Recycled 130gsm, which has the utilitarian feel but which would reproduce some of the more demanding images really well. The cover is Idaho Blu Sky 275gsm, which has an "excercise book feel" and colour and which worked really well with the blue binding tape that went down the spine. The tape is also used to create a pen holder - there is a full flap on the inside back cover which is glued  down allowing a slot with the loop of tape which cleverly holds the pen.

A spread showing a detail from Roderick Mills’ “The skies are full, 101 aircraft, 101 pens (no.2).”

Work by Angus Hyland and Marion Deuchars.

Invitation to the private view:

Images from the exhibition:

I wasn't sure how I could pick one or two people to highlight in this piece, so I've listed all the contributors here:

Ceri Amphlett, Lorenzo Apicella, Ron Arad, Alan Baker, James Biber, Nicholas Blechman, Anthony Burrill, Margaret Calvert, Nina Chakrabarti, Paul Davis, Mike Dempsey, Ryan Denton, Marion Deuchars, Stephen Doyle, Daniel Eatock, Jonathan Ellery, Sara Fanelli, Alan Fletcher, Jeff Fisher, Jason Ford, Tom Gauld, Michael Gillette, Fernando Gutiérrez, George Hardie, Thomas Heatherwick Studio, Julian House, Sharon Hwang, Angus Hyland, Benoit Jacques, Billie Jean, Kerr Noble, David Lancashire, Uwe Loesch, Ross Lovegrove, Fernando Medina, Abbott Miller, Roderick Mills, Flavio Morais, Christoph Niemann, Woody Pirtle, Shonagh Rae, Lucinda Rogers, Paula Scher, Sophie Smallhorn, Leonardo Sonnoli, DJ Stout, Adrian Taylor, Patrick Thomas, Peter Till, Aude Van Ryn, Ian Wright.

From my point of view, it was a great project to be involved with. It won  many awards including the 2005 DesignWeek Award for Promotional Brochures, the Best in Book Creative Review Annual 2005 and the main award in the Books and Exhibition Catalogues category at the 23rd International Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno in 2008 and probably many other awards I'm not aware of!

A particularly lovely touch (especially from my point of view) is the beautiful way in which our business cards were illustrated on the credits page:

Art direction is by Angus Hyland with artwork by Marion Deuchars. Designer on the project was Charlie Hanson. Charlie has since established her own studio together with Jessie Earle called Studio 10½. The exhibition was co-curated by Steven Bateman, PR and gallery coordinator at Pentagaram, he is now an established and revered wordsmith.

It was beautifully printed and finished by Gavin Martin in London.

If you've got a copy, you're lucky as it's an absolute gem!

http://www.parkerpen.com/
www.pentagram.co.uk
http://mariondeuchars.com/
www.tenandahalf.net
Steven Bateman: http://www.26.org.uk/members.asp?ID=3442
www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.05.2012

House of Illustration

This is the membership invitation for the House of Illustration to enrole sponsors and donors for the new House of Illustration Gallery instigated by Quentin Blake (there was also a brochure produced - see my previous post on 25th February).

The size of the invitation is 900x150mm which concertinas down to 150mm square. It uses our Modigliani Candido 260gsm, which has a "feltmark" texture similar to that of a watercolour paper which gives it exactly the right feel. Needless to say, illustrations are by Quentin Blake...

The project was designed by BOB Design. Creative Directors are Alexis Burgess and Mireille Burkhardt. Designer is Matt Price.

http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/

http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 11.06.2010

House Style!

This is one of those great jobs that you pick up which just has an amazing sense of fun.

This is a brochure for the House of Illustration, the function of which is to enrole membership and donations for the new House of Illustration Gallery instigated by Quentin Blake.

The size of the brochure is 260x200mm and it uses our Modigliani Candido 260gsm, which has a "feltmark" texture similar to that of a watercolour paper, so right from the start the material works with the subject.

The illustrated type is by the talented and prolific Marion Deuchars and is used to great effect throughout the 12pp brochure.

However the real surprise comes in the centre spread when a "pop-up" house appears ...fantastic!
The project was designed by BOB Design. Creative Directors on the project were Alexis Burgess and Mireille Burkhardt. Designer and housebuilder on the project was Matt Price. Below is a picture of Matt "burning the midnight oil" building the houses.
and thank you for the lovely letter...

http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/

http://www.mariondeuchars.com/

http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/