Jobs from the past - Number 54

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...



The Republic of Letters - Winter 2009

News from The Republic of Letters is a literary broadsheet. This is issue 20,  published jointly by The Republic of Letters and Sylph Editions. The journal was founded in 1997 by writers Saul Bellow and Keith Botsford, with each issue consisting of texts from both new and established authors. These vary from full-length novellas to short texts and poetry. Edited by Keith Botsford.

The size is 300x235mm, portrait and is a 24pp self-cover. The publication is all printed offset litho in one colour only (black) on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm...

Click on images to enlarge

...and it looks and feels absolutely gorgeous - it flops and folds in a delightful way when handling the publication.

Click on images to enlarge

There are many posts on this blog, showing work printed on Offenbach Bible which has lots of four colour, solid colours and really demanding printing. Arguably, this job, with black type printed both sides, is exactly what the Offenbach Bible is produced for. Genuine bible papers, are produced with exceptional opacity, good strength and archival quality. This publication shows just how good the opacity is and is just as demanding as many jobs which are covered in colour and images. The type looks exquisite - surely the combination of the typeface, the printing and the paper.

There are superb illustrations throughout the magazine by Izhar Cohen, detail below...

The project is designed and art directed by Ornan Rotem and Num Stibbe at Sylph Editions.

Print production was by Print Station and the job was printed (and very neatly finished) by Typecast Colour in Paddock Wood, Kent.

http://www.sylpheditions.com/
http://izharcohen.com/
http://www.typecast.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.04.2014

Transcending Reality

This is a beautiful catalogue produced for a major exhibition of the work of Tai Xiangzhou in New York , earlier in the year. These exceptional paintings are rendered in just black ink. Excellent reproduction was absolutely paramount.

The size is 230x305mm, portrait. It has an 4pp cover and a 22pp text, including three throw-outs. The material choice is perfect - it is Omnia Natural 200gsm cover and 150gsm text. The "neutral" white shade works well with the ink paintings which are reproduced out of four colour process (CMYK) plus a special green.  The material and the image work perfectly together with the subtle tactile nature of the Omnia and the shading of the paintings.

 There are three throw-outs, necessary to show the works in sequence:

The binding is two banks of three hole sewing (see below) - in a natural thread, suits the book and subject perfectly.



The project is designed and art directed by Ornan Rotem and Num Stibbe at Sylph Editions.

Print and finishing is by Principal Colour in Paddock Wood.

 

www.chineseporcelainco.com

http://www.sylpheditions.com/

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 14.08.2012

Cyril Mann - Tribute Exhibition

This is a beautiful invitation for London art gallery Piano Nobile, to the private view of the Tribute Exhibition of the work of Cyril Mann (1911-1980)



 It is a 6pp invitation 210x255mm. Cover pictured above, opening like so (below)

The inside open spread, below, shows some of the works which are either oil on canvas or oil on board.

 This pic shows the outer spread:

The invitation is printed on StarFine Natural White300gsm which is a very "neutral" white shade - in fact it hardly looks off white at all! Being so neutral means that the shde of the substrate neither warms the images up or in the case of a bright white material make them too stark and bright. It has a lovely look and feel.

At the same event another "Nobile Folio" which is the series published by Piano Nobile and Sylph Editions was also launched. Called "St Pauls from Moor Lane" it is printed on Omnia, but I'll write about that one another time!

This project is art directed and designed by Ornan Rotem at London based Sylph Editions with production by Num Stibbe. Print is by Principal Colour in Paddock Wood.

 

http://www.piano-nobile.com/

http://www.sylpheditions.com/

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.01.2012

MD Flacks - Invitations

This is a series of invitations for New York gallery MD Flacks. It is a gallery that specialises in Chinese Furniture from the Ming and early Qing dynasties (17th – 18th Centuries). 

The invitations, which are sent to a very discerning audience, need to reflect the quality of the objects themselves. The four invitations pictured below are for four different individual exhibitions: Brush Pots, Zitan, Marble, Roots and Rocks.

Each invitation is A3 size folded to an A6 finished size, with a detail of each subject plus examples of the items printed on the open spreads. 

They are printed on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm and they are particularly beautiful. Particular care has been taken over the quality of the photography and print reproduction. These are extremely fine objects and in many cases have subtle detail, grains and texture which need to be seen and appreciated by the collector, so the reproduction achieved on the Offenbach Bible is of paramount importance to the sucess of this literature. The subtlety of the paper's weight is an equally important part of the project.

Design and Art Direction is by Ornan Rotem at Sylph Editions. Print is managed by Robert Marcuson Bespoke Publishing.

http://www.mdflacks.com/
robert@marcuson.co.uk
http://www.rotem.eu/

Posted by Justin Hobson 12.04.2011

Nobile Folios

I have just received a copy of this really exquisite piece of literature published by Sylph Editions in association with London art gallery, Piano Nobile.

This new series of publications are Monographic explorations of 20th and 21st Century masters. Each booklet explores one painting and one painting only. This picture by Mark Gertler is called 'Bathers 1917-1918' and is set alongside a story called 'Trees at a Sanatorium' specially written for this publication by Shaun Lewis.

There are several facets to this job which it is impossible to appreciate without actually handling the job. The size of  240x282mm just feels right (can't always explain that one!). It has an 8pp cover and a 32pp text. The material choice is perfect - it is Omnia Natural 200gsm cover and 120gsm text which again just 'feels' right. The material and the image work perfectly together with the subtle tactile nature of the Omnia and the brushwork of the painting. The binding is three hole sewn BUT with two lots - which looks great in the red thread.

The publication comes beautifully packaged in a folio box made using our Rib-Tone 1 sided. Comptletely unprinted (and therefore quite economical) the box is held closed by a locking tab and personalised with a belly band - the whole package looks great.

The project is designed and art directed by Ornan Rotem at Sylph Editions with assistance by Num Stibbe and in this job, even the typeface gets credited! 'set in Hoefler and Frere-Jones's Verlag, an affable Modernist typeface, drawing its inspiration from early 20th century rationalist geometric designs such as Futura'

The superb print and finishing is by Principal Colour in Paddock Wood.

http://www.piano-nobile.com/

http://www.sylpheditions.com/

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.10.2010

An incredible story about paper ...from Space!

In February 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry from space over Texas. Seven astronauts lost their lives and because of the type of altitude and explosion most of the shuttle and contents were simply vaporised.

However, incredibly, paper survived ... and not just any paper, but parts of the personal journal of one of the astronauts, Ilan Ramon from Israel. Amazingly these charred remains floated down to earth and were found two months later in Texas swampland. The highly degraded and damp papers, written in Hebrew, were given to his widow Rona Ramon. She recognised that they were a personal account rather than technical references and they were passed on to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and Forensic science department of the Israel police for preservation and restoration.

Remarkably and in some cases character by character, sections of this remarkable diary have been reconstructed, the process having taken months and months of dedicated work.

To celebrate this miracle, a limited edition of "facsimile" diaries has been produced for the Ramon family in a boxed set which contains a replica notebook incorporating the found and restored sections of the journal and a booklet describing the reconstruction of the Space Diary.

It has been designed and produced by Ornan Rotem and Num Stibbe from Sylph Editions here in the UK. It is not published as a commercial project but as a labour of love as they are friends of the Ramon family.


It is not available for sale as this was very much a private project for the Ramon family but it is a privilege to be able to tell the story and show you the pictures.

It was an amazing job to have been involved with, the story being so fascinating but also incredibly sad as sections of this highly personal journal describe his private feelings about being in Space and how much he is looking forward to being reunited with his family after landing back on Earth.

The project was digitally printed by Good News Press on an Indigo digital press and was printed on Neptune Unique SoftWhite. The facsimile notebook has been bound using nylon cords supplied by NASA which is how the original notebook was bound.

http://www.sylpheditions.com/

http://www.goodnewspress.co.uk/

Ellipsis

This is a lovely collection of publications. Ellipsis is the latest series of publications from publishers Sylph Editions.

The books are published in a series of three presenting a trio of contemporary writers.

Text is all "french folded" sections printed in two colour on Offenbach Bible. The 8pp cover is printed on Avebury Recycled Wove 170gsm. Size is 215x120mm. They have a lovely light "airy feel".

The are held together using a "belly-band" also printed on Avebury.

Design is by Ornan Rotem.

www.sylpheditions.com