St Bride Foundation 125th Anniversary

As many readers of this blog will know, this month the St Bride Foundation celebrates their 125th anniversary. To coincide with this, they are running a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the Foundation to fund a year of special events (throughout 2021) and most importantly the beginning of a project to digitise the extensive Library enabling the collections to be shared with the global audience they deserve.

It brought to mind a fantastic project for the St Bride Foundation which I was involved with last year which I never wrote about but now having plagiarised (with permission!) the excellent blog article by Alistair Hall of We Made This, here it is...

Fourteen artists, designers, writers, illustrators and musicians were asked if they would collaborate in pairs to each create a poster designed to celebrate and highlight the rich and varied collections held within the St Bride Library and the building itself. The Collections and Collaborations project culminated in an evening to celebrate their work and the items from the collections that inspired them. The private view, held last May, included a series of short lectures from some of the collaborators about the process behind their work.

The collaborators are: 

Catherine Dixon & Mick Clayton 

Pam Smy & Ness Woo

Bob Richardson & Alistair Hall

Tom Gauld & John L. Walters

David Pearson & Paul Barnes

Anil Aykan & Jonathan Barnbrook (Fragile Self)

Tom Etherington & Keith Houston

There are 7 posters in total, each printed in an edition of 60, all printed on papers supplied by Fenner Paper and all printed Offset Litho by Boss Print ...and what a set it is!

Designer, writer and teacher Catherine Dixon worked with freelance type compositor Mick Clayton, who manages the St Bride Print Workshop. They went the extra mile – well, several extra miles to be honest – and letterpress printed their creation in the print workshops at the library, onto Shiro Echo, White 160gsm. It features a collection of ‘lost words’ from the printing trade.

Click on images to enlarge

Book designer Tom Etherington, from Penguin Press, working with author Keith Houston, who wrote the fantastic books Shady Characters and The Book, created this fantastic print...

Click on images to enlarge

The image above doesn’t really capture the brilliant way it’s been printed though. All the grey text is actually printed in black on the reverse side of the poster, showing through the semi translucent 60gsm Sixties stock, as you can see here:

The type on the above poster is set in Commercial Type’s Thorowgood Grotesque and Caslon Doric Wide.

Anil Aykan & Jonathan Barnbrook from Barnbrook Studio are also musicians and have just released their first self titled Album ‘Fragile Self’. They took a set of song lyrics from a broadside they found in the library, and created this contemporary version, featuring a bespoke typeface...

Click on images to enlarge

I discussed the poster with Jonathan and the concerns about the dark image and how it was important that the reproduction retained it's detail, which is why we decided on using Omnia 150gsm, which would reproduce the image without losing clarity.

Illustrator and teacher Pam Smy teamed up with book designer and lecturer Ness Wood (together with Maisie Paradise Shearring they make up Orange Beak Studio), and created this print based on the work of Beatrice Warde, printed onto Pergraphica Smooth, Natural 120gsm.

Illustrator Tom Gauld was paired with John L. Walters, author, musician, and editor of Eye magazine. John wrote a piece about the experience of visiting St Bride Library, and Tom created this stunning print around it. It’s printed onto Gardapat 13, Klassica 115gsm.

Click on images to enlarge

Here’s a detail...

Book designer David Pearson, worked with type designer Paul Barnes from Commercial Type, showcasing some more types from Commercial Classics. The posters were printed onto different shades from our Colorset range in 120gsm, the below image printed on Colorset Solar...

...and last but by no means least, here is the poster by Alistair Hall and Bob Richardson. After research in the Library, Alistair was inspired by the incredible elongated sans serif typefaces fom the R D DeLittle “Eboracum” Letter Factory. The finished result uses the Colophon Foundry’s recently released Coign type family and was printed on our Creative Print Champagne 170gsm

Click on images to enlarge

The below image shows the set of posters for sale during the launch evening. Some of these posters are still available and you can buy them HERE. Each poster has been produced in a limited edition with all profits going to the St Bride Foundation.

The project would never have been possible if it were not for the support of Boss Print who donated the printing, which was no small thing. Also, I must mention Becky Chilcott, the organiser, without whom this event would never have happened and my thanks again to Alistair Hall for allowing me to use the images and copy from his blog.

During this crowdfunding campaign, what better way to remember why the St Bride Foundation is such a valuable resource? - right in the heart of London and worth YOUR support. At the time of writing, the crowdfunding campaign stands at £36,000 of a £50,000 total with 15 days to go ...so please pledge your support right now! ...and tell your friends - remember many £10 or £20 donations will all help get to the target.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/st-bride-library-125th-anniversary https://stbridelibrary.bigcartel.com/category/posters-prints-cards
https://www.sbf.org.uk/
https://www.bossprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 29.11.2020

St Bride Student lecture

Yesterday, I attended a lecture day at St Bride's put on for students which was funded by the Wynkyn de Worde Society Charitable Trust. The speakers at the event were Alistair Hall (from We Made This), Sharon King-Chai (an author-illustrator and book designer) and Chris Bounds (from Carter Wong design). There were around a hundred students from universities around the country. I spoke to some from Kingston, University of the Creative Arts and University of Reading.

Alistair Hall gave a special insight into the way that the Ministry of Stories initiative started followed with an amusing set of anecdotes about the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies - truly this is an example of where design has helped changed people's lives for the better - over a thousand children helped with writing every year.  

Sharon King-Chai spoke about her career, from her arrival in the UK to getting work experience, her work designing album covers and her transition into the world of publishing. One slide in particular struck a note with me ...be nice

Doesn't matter who you are - being nice is the right thing. Even when you have to say NO, you can still do it nicely.

I took a few printed examples to show, to inspire students about the quality print work that is out there and what can be achieved.

It was a very interesting day and I'm sure the students that were there found it inspiring and useful. The print workshop was also open which gave people the opportunity to print some letterpress keepsakes to take home.

If you would like to stir the greymatter, how about going to the Type Tuesday event this evening, run by Eye magazine? The archive evening is hosted by Paul Barnes and there are half a dozen speakers talking about their favourite items found in St Brides. You can read about it here: http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/type-tuesday-archive-night-with-paul-barnes and you can buy tickets from Eventbrite - only £12.00. Go on, get out and feed the brain!

http://www.sbf.org.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.03.2016