Lots of people send me nice stuff which uses interesting materials/finishing/processes (and hopefully some of our papers!). Sadly, I can't get to show these pieces of work to everyone ...so this is the best way to show others what people are up to. It's also my way of thanking those that I work with and take the time and trouble to send me lovely, interesting things.
justin@fennerpaper.co.uk
The ZANDERS ZETA range should need no introduction - it is Europe's market leading paper for business. As regular readers of this blog will know, following the abrupt closure of the PaperlinX group (Robert Horne, Howard Smith and PaperCo) earlier this year, Fenner Paper took over UK distribution for the Zanders Zeta range.
We now have a lovely new swatch (230mm square) which shows the entire mill range:
The below picture shows the swatch open which has colour and embossing chips together with a waterfall of papers in each of the weights...
Like most prestigious letterhead papers, there is a watermark in the paper (see below), which in the case of ZETA is rather subtle. It is worth mentioning that with the ZETA range, most items are also available un-watermarked.
Zeta watermark in the Zeta Hammer Embossed finish
Below image shows the different shades and substances in the range.
There are five surface finishes in the range including Smooth and Wove and three embossed finishes in Hammer, Linen and Micro. The range encompasses whites and light shades in a wide variety of sizes and weights as well as matching envelopes in DL, C5 and C4.
ZETA can be printed using offset litho, hot foil blocking, engraving, thermography and is guaranteed up to 150gsm for laser printing, colour copying and inkjet printing.
These fine papers are manufactured at the Reflex Paper mill in the town of Düren in Germany, which was founded in 1857 and the mill also produces transparent papers, label papers and artists papers. All ZETA products are made from Chlorine Free pulp (ECF) and carry the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification
For most of you the Zanders Zeta range will need no introduction, it's Europe's market leading paper for business. Unfortunately with the abrupt closure of the Paperlinx group (Robert Horne, Howard Smith and PaperCo) there was no UK stockist - follow the link for my previous post about Paperlinx: http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/sad-demise-of-paperlinx-in-uk.html.
As a result of their sad demise, the mill needed a distributor for this range in the UK which has been extensively marketed over the years ...and that's where Fenner Paper comes in!
The good news is that we taken on a broad range of Zeta papers into stock, including the popular Zeta Hammer and Linen embossed finishes. Yesterday the first large stock consignment arrived by trailer, as you can see from the picture below:
Zanders Zeta is produced by the Reflex Paper mill in Düren, Germany which was founded in 1857. The mill also produces transparent papers, label papers and artists papers.
You can read more about the new arrangement in Printweek:
BUT...
please don't throw away your old Zeta swatches as currently we don't have any available. We'll distribute new swatches when they are produced but in the meantime, at least you know where to come to get the product (in fact if you have a moment why don't you grab the Zeta swatch off the shelf and write Fenner Paper on the back - it might save you time and trouble at a later date!
Since my post on Tuesday (below) about our new Stardream range, I've had quite a few e-mails asking for swatches (thank you - they are on the way). I've also had quite a few comments both on the blog and e-mails asking how we've ended up being the stockist.
So, how come we are now the UK distributor?
Well, there's a bit of a story here but basically up until now it has been stocked by the (once mighty) Robert Horne Group.
These days Robert Horne is a division of the loss making Australian based Paperlinx (as is Howard Smith and Paper Co). Unfortunately Paperlinx is in a financially perilous state which has been much reported in the press. There have been rafts of redundancies and other cuts which culminated last November, when Robert Horne announced that it was closing it's entire branch network. http://www.printweek.com/news/1106823/Robert-Horne-centralises-sales-Northampton-regional-sales-offices-close/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH
Subsequently, Italian paper manufacturer Cordenons, approached us to see if we would be prepared to work with them and improve the availability of Stardream for designers and printers in the UK. We thought about it, said OK and here we are!
It's a tough time in the print and paper industry at the moment and although in this instance Robert Horne's loss is our gain, it's important to remember that this is against the backdrop of things being very hard in the paper/print industry. I'm sure there are many other mills also contemplating their distribution arrangements.
Now I'm not a great one for reading film reviews, but here's one that I found tucked away on the Printweek.com site which I read with great interest....
Review - Linotype: The Film
Published in PRINTWEEK By James Chase Thursday, 09 February 2012
Tucked away from the roar of the Super Bowl, a rather more unassuming event is taking place on New York's 23rd Street - the world premiere of Linotype: The Film. This narrative may be comparatively modest but its subject was world-changing:
It’s Friday night in the Big Apple and Super Bowl weekend is underway. Local heroes the New York Giants are preparing for battle against perennial foes the New England Patriots in Sunday’s big showdown and the whole place is buzzing
Meanwhile, down on 23rd Street, a much smaller crowd, of maybe 250 hardcore fans, is assembling for a very different occasion. But their enthusiasm, passion, loyalty and commitment is no less intense. If any of them gives a damn about the Super Bowl at all, they don’t show it.
Tonight, the School of Visual Arts Theatre is hosting the world premiere of Linotype: The Film and, in the first of the evening’s many thrills, Steven Heller takes the stage for the opening remarks. Author, curator, lecturer and an art director of The New York Times for 33 years, Heller is something of a typographical cult hero in these parts. They lap him up.
Just five words in and, already, I am out of my depth. "Is Etaoin Shrdlu here tonight?" Heller asks. Immediately, around a third of the audience squeals with delight and – just like that – the tone is set for the rest of the evening. Etaoin Shrdlu spells out the first two rows, or rather columns, of keys on a Linotype machine. They represent the most common 12 letters of the English language, in approximate order of popularity. Apparently, one of the more common outcomes of the "90 or so things that can go wrong with a linotype machine" was the rogue appearance of these two words in a row of printed type. Mr Shrdlu, it seems, has long been a part of typesetting folklore, and don’t this lot just know it.
If nothing else, it’s a reminder that we’re here to see a movie about a machine. Don’t worry – as terrible as that might sound, turns out it’s brilliant.
There are really only three things you need to know about the Linotype machine. One, it’s pretty much the most complicated thing ever invented. Two, it completely transformed our society. And three, few folks outside of SVA Theatre tonight are aware of that. Or, as the film’s director and producer Doug Wilson put it in the Q&A session following the film, "The more I learned how it impacted the world, the more I was surprised that none of us knew about it."
But once you do know about it, it becomes a source of frustration. The story goes like this: in 1886, Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German watchmaker, invented a machine that enabled lines of type to be set six times faster than by handsetters. Printers went from talking "minutes-per-line to lines-per-minute," says one of the film’s subjects. Guess what? It revolutionized mass media communication, generating huge demand for print, driving down the cost of newspapers and spawning a gigantic leap in literacy. So how is it that Mergenthaler is barely even acknowledged for such a gargantuan contribution to society? Heck, he even died tragically young, aged 44 from tuberculosis. What more did he have to do to become an international hero?
Wilson's movie does, of course, pay homage to Mergenthaler’s greatness, but it’s not really about him. In fact, for much of it, even the machine takes a back seat. Like you couldn’t see this coming, it turns out it’s all about people.
Linotype: The Film somehow manages to reconstruct history in the most gripping fashion, without ever calling on a narrator. Essentially, it’s one glorious piece of footage after another of the most naturally gifted, genuinely interesting, passionately crazy storytellers — and they are mostly very funny, too. All are operators, but forget any preconceptions of this job title for a moment.
"Operators were the artists who created this wonderful typography that we try to emulate digitally," says one of the movie’s stars. "They are artistic people posing as industrial types in dirty overalls."
And so Wilson takes us on an unforgettable journey, from character to character, each blissfully unaware that their performances are superb. "We would just show up at people’s doors and invade their lives for a day and they would let us do it," he tells tonight's audience. "People just opened up their lives and told a story to us."
Wilson himself was amazed at how the human stories took over. "I started out just loving the machine; I thought it was an amazing machine," he says. "But I realized what you need is these operators. They worked with these machines for 60 years. The machines were the hearts of these people. So I think that’s when we realized we had a film." Perhaps the fact it takes years and years to get any good at operating a Linotype that makes these folks so unique. "It’s one of the most complicated machines I’ve ever seen, and it’s one of the most fun things I’ve ever been around," says one subject. "It’s a cacophony of sounds, but in itself a symphony." In fact, Wilson pointed out that many of the operators he interviewed were musically gifted in some way. It’s this synergy, this love affair between man and machine, that really comes through, time and time again.
One of the film’s biggest stars, Carl Schlesinger, spent 35 years operating Linotypes at the New York Times. He recalls a visit from Marilyn Monroe one day while he was at his workstation. She asked him to print something for her, so he wrote her name in bold because he thought she’d like it in bold (Monroe’s favorite font was Garamond, according to Heller in the Q&A). She then kissed him on the top of his head for his troubles. "There goes the day," he says in the movie. "All I’m going to think about now is my head."
The New York Times was produced with Linotypes for 80 years, until they were decommissioned in July 1978. Schlesinger, a VIP guest at tonight’s premiere, had the foresight to document that final day on film, some of which was used in the movie. "We poured some glasses and said: ‘To yesterday—goodbye to the past, hello to the future,’" he recalls.
Despite its historical context, Linotype: The Film is not meant to be nostalgia trip. "The last thing we wanted was for the whole thing to be narrated by honky-tonk music and old blues," explained audio and sound man Jess Heugel in the Q&A. "We wanted it to feel clean, fresh, and we didn’t want it to be overly dramatic." The majority of the soundtrack comes from friends’ bands Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and Cornbelt Chorus, along three original cuts from Heugel’s own group The Preservation Society.
The film’s finest moment comes right at the end when another of its stars, Joel, has little choice but to get rid of his linotype machine. After a fruitless search to find a museum that will take it, reluctantly he calls a salvage guy to take it away. The cameras follow him to the scrap yard where a quite brilliant scene ensues, in which Joel cannot bear to turn around and watch as a giant claw attempts to smash his beloved Linotype into the piles of already-twisted metal on the ground. This should be a tear-jerking scene but somehow it becomes as funny as hell. The machine refuses to break up at first and we all start laughing. Joel eventually turns around and, with a mixture of pride and genius comic timing, declares: "This is pretty devastating… but it shows you the durability of the thing!"
Wilson is just 29 years old and, on the face of it, had no business making a film about Linotype machines. He was introduced to it at university and a fascination set in, but while he’d had the idea for a film in his head for a while, it was several years before an accidental opportunity arose.
"I was set to go to grad school in Switzerland and they wouldn’t give my wife a visa," he says tonight, "So, I said ‘screw it, I’m making a film.’" Wilson had never made a film before, but is hugely proud of what he has achieved (and extremely grateful to Kickstarter for two rounds of fundraising).
"Sadly, a lot of operators are passing away and five years from now probably 30% of the people in our film won’t be around any more," he continues. "We thought someone had to tell the story."
At the end of the evening, Heller summarises the movie as "a major contribution to the history of communications".
While the triumphant trio of Wilson, Heugel and director of photography Brandon Goodwin have clearly shown a relentless passion and commitment to both the movie and subject over the past couple of years, you get the feeling they could use a break from Linotype machines for a while.
"I think the next film would be about something that’s happening now, not something that already happened," declares Wilson as he wraps up the event. "It’s so hard to reconstruct history in an entertaining way. Oh, and we’d shoot it in one week. With an $8M budget. Not some obscure thing, but something that I could explain at the airport. Like Justin Bieber or something. But not type-related."
Talking of big bucks and celebrities, later that weekend, the New York Giants would go on to create history of their own in the Super Bowl. But that's not world-changing history on the scale of Mergenthaler’s contribution. And while Linotype: The Film is a hugely engaging wake-up to the importance of his invention to society, you don’t need a penchant for history and machines to appreciate its brilliance. If you’re interested in human beings at all, then you’re going to love it.
--- THE END ---
Thanks to the author James Chase and Printweek for an interesting and well written review.
The screening at the SVA Theatre in New York that is written about in the article was on 3rd February. I don't know if there are any plans for it being shown on this side of the Atlantic, unless anyone out there knows differently....
Last week, BSkyB announced that they have axed the print edition of Sky Magazine. Now you might not particularly see why this is important or relevant to me or this blog - as we don't supply the paper for the magazine anyway!
However, when I tell you that this is the UK's largest magazine by circulation with an average readership of almost 7.3million, you can see why it's significant.
Richard Gray, managing director of Prinovis, which printed all of the Sky titles, referred to the decision in a recent interview with PrintWeek and highlighted its significance for the print industry:
"We do have to be concerned when companies such as BskyB, who understand the benefits that print can offer, make decisions about their marketing budgets that drastically reduce the use of the printed medium. BskyB’s decision should be worrying for the printing industry, not just Prinovis."
This is the report that appeared in Printweek, yesterday, about the demise of London printer FS Moore, which I reproduce below...
FS Moore owed almost £2m when administrators appointed By Adam Hooker Tuesday, 06 September 2011
East London printer FS Moore went into administration owing almost £2m to creditors, according to the administrator's report.
The Bank of Ireland was the largest creditor, owed £517,000, but a number of paper companies, print finishers and trade printers were also included.
One paper company was hit for £137,000, while another two were each owed just under £50,000. One finisher included in the creditors' list was hit for as much as £70,000, although most were owed £10,000 to £20,000.
The company also left £250,000 owed to HMRC, around £50,000 of which was for VAT. Redundancy claims accounted for £182,000. Insolvency practitioner BDO was appointed as administrator on 28 July, before selling the business and assets to DG3 Europe in a pre-pack deal the same day.
The report reveals that the business was bought for £140,000, comprising £135,000 for plant and machinery and £5,000 for stock. DG3 also agreed to pay 1% of annual turnover from FS Moore up to £1m and 2% over £1m annually for a period that has yet to be agreed.
According to the report, FS Moore saw turnover drop by around £800,000 in the two years leading up to its administration, from £4.2m in 2008 to £3.4m in 2010.
Initially the directors planned to sell the company in November 2010, however the deal fell through when HMRC refused to defer the repayment of its debt.
It's a real shame when companies which have a good reputation, such as Moores (who's work has appeared before on this blog) hit the buffers. However, it is indicative of the current state of the print and paper market.
It was announced in Printweek today that Maurice Payne, founder of Theale, Reading-based Maurice Payne Colourprint, died this weekend (22 January), following a long illness.
He started his career in print in the late 1960s, founding Maurice Payne Colourprint in 1983. During his 27 years at the company he secured a number of firsts, including the UK's first five-colour press (yep, back in those days four colour presses were the norm) and the world's first installation of two 12-colour perfectors.
Although I didn't know Maurice Payne personally, he was certainly a legend in the UK print market. Our sympathies go to his family.
There was a snippet of news in last weeks edition of Printweek magazine which I though was worth a comment. Ordnance Survey which is the government run body which literally "maps" the UK is closing it's printing works and will no longer print OS maps. That's pretty sad news but the good news is that a British company has been awarded the contract to produce the maps which is excellent because I expected to read that they were being outsourced to China!
Anyway, it's the book and catalogue printer Butler Tanner & Dennis based in Frome , Somerset which has been awarded a four-year contract (worth £8m-10m) to print Ordnance Survey (OS) maps.
Butler and Tanner are the long established colour book printer who went bankrupt in 2008 but which was rescued by publishing entrepreneur Felix Dennis (pictured right). He's an interesting character having been the co-editor of the famous OZ magazine in the 1970's and who went to prison following the OZ obscenity trial of 1973 - have a look.. http://www.felixdennis.com/. - he also recorded a single with John Lennon!
Apparently he rescued Butler and Tanner, so that they could continue print his peotry books, although that's probably an urban myth! Since 2008 BT&D printers has been through much reorganisation but appears to be running well and in a sustainable way. Contracts like the OS maps staying in the UK is good news for UK print and I successful companies should be applauded.
Sadly we don't supply the paper for the maps ...maybe one day!
I've just had a lovely surprise this morning. Not only have I received a letter (that's not just a dig at the post office, it's just that in this e-mail age, I hardly ever receive a proper letter these days) but it's also a really nice thank you letter!
It turns out that we supplied one of our materials (called Kapok) to Richard Harnasz, who is a student at LCC (School of Printing and Publishing) and this, in part, helped him on his achievement of winning the 2009 Printweek Student of the Year award!
I wrote about the Printweek awards (see post 20.10.2009) but hadn't realised that Richard had won the Student award. Anyway, congratulations on the award Richard and thank you for taking the time and trouble to write.
Last night it was the PrintWeek awards, held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. It's a glitzy affair and although I was invited (a big thank you to the wonderful Helen Morris) sadly, I couldn't go.
I've just been reading an article in Printweek by Caroline Archer who's a "print historian". Apparently one of the largest (if not the largest) collections of printed ephemera in the world was collected by John Johnson, printer to the University of Oxford (1925-1946). It is housed in the Bodleian Library and numbers over one million items.
Most importantly this collection is of "jobbing" work such as leaflets, flyers, posters, labels, tickets not books or periodicals - pretty impressive - certainly competition for lots of designers that I know are serial collectors (of stuff)!
Tall, lanky and with glasses is how most people whom I have met might describe me. Hopefully they'll also remember that I'm enthusiastic about what I do. I've been working in the paper industry for many years, so people seem to think that I know quite a bit (I would also point out that I've also forgotten a lot!). My occupation is actually a "Paper Merchant" (it says that on my Marriage Certificate!) and I am the Marketing Director at Fenner Paper. We specialise in finding the materials and paper solutions for graphic designers that are producing printed work. I also work closely with "creative" printers - although there are only a few of them anyway! (I shan't name names!). Fenner Paper is only a relatively small company although we handle some large projects and we have quite a high profile. So the business that we do is handled on a personal level - and hopefully that is demonstrated in this blog - read and enjoy!
My address is
Fenner Paper Company Ltd
15 Orchard Business Centre
Sanderson Way,
Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1QF
Tel: 01732 771100
The ZANDERS ZETA range should need no introduction - it is Europe's market leading paper for business. As regular readers of this blog will know, following the abrupt closure of the PaperlinX group (Robert Horne, Howard Smith and PaperCo) earlier this year, Fenner Paper took over UK distribution for the Zanders Zeta range. 
There are five surface finishes in the range including Smooth and Wove and three embossed finishes in Hammer, Linen and Micro. The range encompasses whites and light shades in a wide variety of sizes and weights as well as matching envelopes in DL, C5 and C4. 
It turns out that we supplied one of our materials (called Kapok) to Richard Harnasz, who is a student at LCC (School of Printing and Publishing) and this, in part, helped him on his achievement of winning the 2009 Printweek Student of the Year award! 
Posts
