K is for...

This is a beautiful little book, which is a personal project for printer and bookbinder Katherine Anteney sent to my colleague Sarah Glennie. Produced in an edition of 200 of which 140 copies went to the Oxford Guild of printers. 

Size is 156x124mm, portrait with a 4pp cover and 8pp text which is cut short on the width at 156x124mm and is printed Letterpress throughout using this fantastic letter K in woodblock type.

The cover is printed on our Colorset (100% Recycled) Solar 270gsm and the text is on StarFine Natural 100gsm. Below image shows the front and back cover spread out...

A particularly nice touch is the use of a pink staple on the binding - one steel and one pink 

A really lovely little job and thanks to Katherine for sending it to Sarah!

https://katherineanteney.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 10.09.2021

Lino King

When I started writing this blog back in 2009, it was because I wanted to share printed projects (mainly on our papers) with a wider audience than I can ever hope to visit personally. As this blog has evolved over time, a rewarding aspect has been showing work which has then inspired designers working in other areas. For example I have had a designer working in fashion promotion tell me they have been inspired by an article about a property brochure ... that's a satisfying feeling!

This project I believe will be one of those that will be of interest to all readers as it combines superb design, digital technology, hand embossing and wonderful use of colour.

Ashley Hutchinson is the designer and printmaker behind Ash Leaf Printmaking Studio. He produces limited edition lino and wood cut prints with a twist, as he incorporates embossing into all of his designs. All of the prints are embossed by hand using his three etching presses including his 1920s proofing press 'GEM'. Ash has been designing and publishing contemporary greeting cards for over 10 years.

This range of eight cards is called the Stardust Floral range. They are all printed on our Stardream range of pearlescent and metallic papers in 285gsm. Colours used are Opal, Rose Quartz, Lagoon, Vista, Azalea, Citrine, Fine Gold and Flame. Stardream is made by Gruppo Cordenons in Italy.

The 4pp cards are 145mm square

Showing anything in relief with my limited photographic abilities is hard, so it's easier for me to show the card printed on Stardream Opal 285gsm above ...and the inside of the same card below:

The embossing of the designs is truly outstanding but you'll have to take my word for it. It's also the colour combination of this range which I find so inspiring...

Production at Linoking is all in house. Printing is on a Canon inkjet printer and they are hand embossed.

As I mentioned earlier, the colour combinations is something I find inspiring - this purply/blue shade printed on the Stardream Azalea (below) is stupendous.

Sarah Glennie is my colleague who deals with our products that we sell into this market. The greeting card "industry" is quite a separate area of the creative world. It's interesting to me that there is so little crossover between the "corporate" design for print market and greeting card publishers who are responsible for putting the cards on the shelves in our shops around the country.

...anyway, I hope this article will inspire all creatives out there!

https://www.ashleafprintmaking.co.uk/stardust-floral-range
http://www.cordenons.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 26.06.2017

Gem Cards from Stooshie Design

Here is a project brought to you from my colleague Sarah Glennie...

Stooshie Design is a boutique greeting card publisher making high quality gem cards. The creative director and founder is Linda Carlin and they are based in the beautiful North Ayrshire countryside in Scotland.

The size of the cards is 125mm square and they are printed in CMYK on the outside with the inside left plain, so you can write your own greeting. The gems are then applied by hand after printing.

This new range of cards is printed on our ZETA Linen, Brilliant 350gsm and if you click on the images below, you'll just see the subtle linen texture....

Click on images to enlarge

The beautifully simple text and pricing details are on the reverse of the card.

Stooshie print and finish the cards all in house and you can read more about them here:
http://www.stooshiedesign.com/index.htm

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.10.2016

The Henries - 2014

Last week I was fortunate enough to go the 'Henries'. These are the awards for the greeting card industry (named after the inventor of the greeting card - Sir Henry Cole) - it's the greeting card industry equivalent of the D&AD Awards.

My colleague Sarah Glennie, actively works with greeting card designers and publishers and Fenner Paper is an associate member of the Greeting Card Association (GCA). At the Henries, we sponsored the award for the 'Best Art Range' which I had the pleasure of presenting.

More than 14,000 cards were entered in this year’s competition! The awards were held last Thursday evening with comedian Alun Cochrane hosting the awards ceremony at London’s Lancaster Hotel.

Photos by: http://www.eddiemacdonald.co.uk/

The winner of the 'Best Art Range' award is Wrendale Designs for their entry The Country Set and above are pictured Hannah and Jack from Wrendale Designs flanked by Alun Cochrane and me ( ...I'm not the one with the beard!)

You can see the award winning range here:
http://www.wrendaledesigns.co.uk/country-set/

Congratulations to all the award winners and to those nominated for awards - no mean feat with that number of entries! ..you can read more about the awards here:
http://www.thehenries.co.uk/The_Henries/The_Henries_2014.html

Posted by Justin Hobson 16.10.2014

Fenner Paper joins Greeting Card Association

Fenner Paper is proud to be the first ( ...and as yet, only!) paper company to be granted Associate Membership of the Greeting Card Association (GCA).

Established in 1919, the GCA is an independent not for profit organisation owned by its members. It provides wide-ranging information and specialist resources for publishers, artists and writers. The organisation offers help, advice and support, together with a range of membership services including courses run by members for members. 

Sarah Glennie and Sharon Little
of the GCA

Sarah Glennie (pictured on the left) is the person here at Fenner Paper who specifically works with Greeting Card designers and publishers - and it's worth mentioning that we work with all sizes of publishers ...literally from those producing cards on their kitchen tables upwards! Sarah says "We look forward to being a valuable and active member of the association, particularly supporting new and upcoming card publishers, to help them make the right choices for their card designs"

If any reader of this blog is thinking about starting to publish their own cards and would like some advice and information (things like sizes, envelope availability etc,) you can contact Sarah directly sarah@fennerpaper.co.uk

www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.07.2013