DO Radio

The "DO" lectures is an organisation started by David Hieatt one of the founders of howies. The idea is to get together people who are real "doers" to do lectures and make them as widely available as possible. Now they have launched Do Radio to broadcast new and the previously recorded lectures.

My first post of the month is to look back at work from previous years, so what better time to revisit this wonderful promotional mailer produced for the Do Lectures in 2009. It was designed by the howies in house team and was specified on Offenbach Bible 60gsm. It's A2 folding down to A7.

 

The size is A2 (420x594mm) folding down to A7 (105 x 74mm)

Claire Margetts (administrator at the do lectures) was very grateful as I put them in contact with the printer who would print on Offenbach Bible and said I was a real "doer" 

The job was printed in 2 colours offset Litho by Principal Colour. It was machine folded and then hand finished. http://www.principalcolour.co.uk/

Above are some previous howies catalogues that we have supplied Colorset (100% recycled) for the covers. Designed by Nick Hand

https://thedolectures.com/

https://thedolectures.com/do-radio/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.09.2025

Portraits of the Hibakusha

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. Today marks the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the first Atom bomb on Hiroshima. The bombing, which took place in 1945 was to bring a speedy end to the second world war against Japan. The anniversary is remembered through ceremonies, and leaders from Japan and around the world have used the occasion to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons and peace.

It reminded me of this beautiful project from 2010 for an exhibition in London held on the 65th anniversary... (my apologies for the poor images - it is hard to photograph this piece well!)

THE LIGHT - Portraits of the Hibakusha

THE LIGHT - Portraits of the Hibakusha - was an exhibition which ran from the 5th August- 8th October at the Brunei Gallery at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2010.

The subject of the exhibitions is as follows: At 00.15am on the 6th August 2010 in London it will be 08.15am in Hiroshima and it will have been 65 years since ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima by the USA’s B-29 bomber ‘Enola Gay’. The exhibition of the 65 Hibakusha portrait paintings will last for 65 days, one for each year since the bombs were dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Each painting will be accompanied by a detailed description of each subject’s haunting recollection of exactly how they came to survive and be found after the bombing.

Hibakusha are survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese word translates literally to “bomb affected people”. There are no names on any of the Hibakusha Portraits as is the tradition in Japan all are ‘subjects’ and always remain unnamed.

This beautiful poster/invitation/promotional piece was designed by Leah Harrison Bailey and Sara Carneholm at their studio called Happily Ever After, which sadly they disbanded in around 2014. 

Below is the finished (folded up) piece which is A5 size:

- which then folds out like so...

To reveal the final piece...

The open size is 592x420mm. The job is printed on our beatifully thin and lightweight Offenbach Bible in 60gsm. It was printed and finished by Pureprint, who have produced this really well - not only the print but the very tricksy folding!

...and thanks to Leah and Sara for sending it to me and for the lovely note - yes, it certainly is a blogworthy piece! in fact, so good it's been on twice now!

https://www.soas.ac.uk/
https://www.pureprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 06.08.2025

The Trouble with Mr Doodle

This Wednesday, Channel 4 is showing a documentary, titled The Trouble with Mr Doodle, exploring  his obsession with doodling and his personal struggles..

Avid Fenner Paper diary fans may remember our 2019 diary cover created by Mr Doodle and regular readers of this blog may recall wne I met the (then) 23 year old Mr Doodle (aka Sam Cox) at The Art of Ping Pong opening and was truly inspired by his work which is when I asked if he would like to collaborate on our diary!

As I understand it Mr Doodle not only has a successful career but he is now married (presumably Mrs Doodle?) 😊 and they have a son too, so congratulations to them both and I look forward to watching the documentary on Wednesday...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-trouble-with-mr-doodle

 

As a reminder, here is the amazing 2019 Fenner Paper diary...

Click on images to enlarge

My thanks to Mr Doodle for collaborating with us on our diary back in 2019, when he was slightly less famous! ...and I should like to wish him continued success with his career.

Posted by Justin Hobson 07.07.2025

Fenner Paper Diary 2025

If you are a user of the Fenner Paper ranges and therefore one of our wonderful customers, you may well have already received one of our wonderful new 2025 diaries... 

The cover has been designed by Carol Kemp using drawn lettering and brush calligraphy. In a career of over 30 years, Carol has produced lettering for over 800 books and logos for numerous brands worldwide

The 4pp cover is printed on our Creative Print, Diamond 270gsm using an HP Indigo digital press. The 40pp text is printed in one colour, 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 diary has been put together by long term collaborator and friend David Coates using typefaces from Buy Fonts Save Lives that raises money to support Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support.

As in previous years, the diary is 230x162mm, portrait and retains the popular 'month to view' format.

Buy Fonts Save Lives sells typefaces to raise money to support Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support. 100% of the proceeds go to the charities and to date, over £150,000 has been raised!

Founded by Paul Harpin in memory of his niece Laura who sadly died from cancer, aged just 26. We’re delighted to support and help promote the initiative with our diaries. Any purchases of the fonts help to raise vital funds that literally save lives.

If you are one of our worthy clients (!), you should be receiving one of our diaries in the post. If you want to make sure you are in our address book, drop me an email: justin@fennerpaper.co.uk. For people who aren't customers, they are available to buy through the St Bride Foundation here:

https://stbridelibrary.bigcartel.com/product/fenner-paper-diary-2025

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.12.2024

Jobs from the past - Number 181

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 2017.

Wildwood Deli - Pannettone Wrap Christmas 2017

This is a lovely project which was produced for Christmas 2017. I received a call from Richard Davey (who is now at London printer Empress Litho) who asked if we could supply a 60gsm in a red and black paper. We discussed the project further and it turned out that paper was to be printed with a metallic gold text and sent to Italy to wrap the traditional Panettone cake for sale in the Wildwood Deli.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a readily available red/black 60gsm stock paper available from one of our supplying mills and the quantity wasn't enough for a 'mill making',  so I suggested that he could successfully print a solid colour onto our Offenbach Bible 60gsm and the metallic gold text with excellent results. I sent Richard a printed sample of a McQ project to show how well a solid could work.  

The sheets were printed on a B1 Heidelberg offset litho press, in a solid pantone (not panettone colours!) colour plus a metallic gold and as you can see, the paper has printed beautifully. The size of the finished sheets are 550x750mm.

Not only does Offenbach Bible print beautifully, it also is very strong and "scrunches" beatifully! making it ideal for this type of wrapping, where a tissue paper (which you wouldn't be able to Litho Print) would actiually not be strong enough ...and here is the finished packaged article

Couldn't resist trying a slice!

Thanks to Richard Davey for giving us the opportunity to be involved with this very tasty project!

Posted by Justin Hobson 03.12.2024

Monocle at Christmas

Monocle is a premium media brand with print, audio and online elements, not to mention their ever expanding retail network and on-line business. The Monocle Shop is at street level in six cities - London, Zurich, Merano, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Toronto. The shop keeps everything from luggage and clothes to stationery and furniture.

The finished size is 216x102mm, portrait and is a 16pp folded format folding out to a flat size of 405x432mm.

The above folds out to reveal the first spread below...

Click on images to enlarge

...and then folding out again, left and right.

and then folding up to reveal the full spread below.

The below image shows both sides.

The whole publication is all printed offset litho on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm ...and it looks and feels absolutely gorgeous - it flops and folds in a delightful way when handling the publication as I hope these images demonstrate. The below image shows the way it folds.

Click on images to enlarge

Print quality is superb as I hope the image below demonstrates, fleshtone reproduction is excellent.

Design is by the team at Monocle. The publication is printed offset litho, CMYK throughout. The excellent print is by Park Communications, who are based in East London.

https://monocle.com/shop/ 

https://www.parkcom.co.uk/ 

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.11.2024 

Modern Poetry in Translation 2024

This is the latest edition...

Cover art by Liliana Dmitrovic

Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT) is a magazine, originally founded by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. The first issue, published in 1965 was a 12pp broadsheet printed on a Bible paper and cost 2s 6d! MPT presented poems by a wide range of authors, particularly from Eastern Europe introducing them into a wider circulation in English in the West. The original designer of the publication was Richard Hollis, continuing until 2004.

This issue titled ‘Bearing the Burden of Sameness’ spotlights the poetry of care. Featuring Rachel Rankin’s new translations of Brynjulf Jung Tjønn’s experiences of adoption in Norway, the myth of the Chinese river snail reborn in Tuoya Wulan’s version of Xinyang Wu, and Beth Hickling-Moore’s translation of Carla Nyman’s radically physical poetry of the body. Also: brand new translations of Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, Olga Ulturgasheva on Siberian animist poetry, and Jenny He interviews Fiona Sze-Lorrain. 

The magazine is 215x140mm, portrait. The 114pp text is all printed offset litho on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm and printed in 2 colour, burgundy and black throughout with an overall tint over some of the sections. Images are reproduced as halftones. The publication is perfect bound.

This is a really lovely piece of literature which feels good in the hand and is definitely one of those publications which invites the reader in. It flops and flows beautifully.

The perfect binding is nice and neat as you can see below...

Design is by Brett Evans Biedscheid. Print is by Wakefield based Charlesworth Press.

https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/

https://www.charlesworth.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.07.2024

Jobs from the past - Number 173

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 ten years ago

Ex Duris Gloria - 2014 

This is a very simple 'leaflet' or 'flyer' - so what makes it so special and why does it deserve space on this blog? Basically it is simple, well written, beautifully designed and exquisitely produced piece of literature and printed on lovely paper!

Produced by Rapha, the specialist cyclewear brand, it is an essay written by the author and broadcaster, Graeme Fife, who has written many books on cycling and the Tour de France in particular. Titled in Latin 'Ex Duris Gloria' (Glory through Suffering) the essay is about the pain and suffering that road riders endure on their bike.

Size is A5, portrait and it is a 2pp, yes, just a single sheet of paper. Printed Offset litho in two colours, black and a grey special for the background tint which reads 'Kings of Pain'.

It is printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm.

It is used, very simply, as a supporting piece of branding that Rapha uses in a variety of ways, including sending it out with online purchases - a very nice touch.

Art direction and design is by the in-house team at Rapha. Printing is by Generation Press.

https://www.rapha.cc/gb/en/kingsofpain
https://generationpress.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.04.2024

Jobs from the past - Number 172

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 nine years ago.

GSA x Drygate 2015

Click on images to enlarge

Drygate Brewing Company is a craft brewery based in the east end of Glasgow and they celebrated their first birthday on May 29th 2015 marking the occasion with a small-batch birthday brew. Working with D8, who had also created the brand identity and packaging for Drygate's core range of beers, they partnered up with graduates of The Glasgow School of Art to create beautiful hand-wrapped, individually designed and signed packaging.

The six Glasgow School of Art alumni are: Fran Caballero; Rae-Yen Song, Isabella Widger, Paul Flynn Brady, Alice Hoskins and Matthew Bainbridge.

D8 worked to create unique packaging that would also reflect Drygate’s philosophy and values. The brewery believes in open, fearless brewing to achieve the exceptional, and the spirit of collaboration has always been one of their main characteristics.

There were 350 editions of six hand-signed artworks. Each is printed offset litho onto our Offenbach Bible 60gsm. The sheets are then hand wrapped around the 750ml bottles, sealed with a branded roundel and a tag held with string is tied to the neck of the bottle to secure the wrap.

The project was featured on the packaging design website the Dieline ...
"The idea is perfect for a birthday beer, allowing beer enthusiasts to open the gift of an amazing brew! The illustrations used on the “wrapping paper” are incredibly special and unique, coming from artists in the community, and they offer variety and individuality among the limited amount of this exclusive libation. The concept can also expand and be used for future brews, utilizing the same bottle style and different artworks, designs, and ideas for the outer wrapping"
http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2015/6/1/drygate-limited-edition-packaging

Offenbach Bible is the perfect paper for this project, as it is light enough to be easily wrapped around a bottle, has an almost 'tissuey' feel and yet prints amazingly.

Creative direction and design is by D8 and the project was handled by Stephen Cappello. The bottle wraps are printed by J Thomson Colour printers, based in Glasgow.

All in all this is a most engaging piece of branding and packaging. A superb creative solution, beautifully executed and printed.

https://drygate.com/
https://d8.uk/
https://www.gsa.ac.uk/
https://www.jtcp.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.03.24