Today is World Rainforest Day

As today is World Rainforest Day what better day to have a 'Throwback Thursday' and show you this amazing job for the Rainforest Action Network produced in 2007...

 At This Rate is a printed publication produced to highlight the scale of the destruction of the world's rainforests.

Click on images to enlarge

Design is by Studio8, Matt Willey and Zoë Bather were designers on the project. The amazing photography is by Giles Revell.

Inside front cover spread

The size of the job is 220mm x160mm portrait and has an 8pp cover with a 24pp text.

The book forms a series of spreads which really show off the stunning photography of the skeletal leaves, which look so much like aerial views of cities and make the spreads very powerful. Below is "Every day we lose an area larger than all five boroughs of New York City"

As mentioned before, it is best described as an 8pp cover with a 24pp text, but the text is actually formed by a long concertina (with one join) and the 8pp cover, which has a 10mm capacity spine actually works as a "dustjacket" as you can see in the birdseye pic, below...

It was constructed like this for reasons of both economy and ecology! The whole job actually comes out of one B1 sheet of paper meaning that it was relatively economical from a printing point of view and it was also not wasteful which is in line with the clients aims and objectives.

On the reverse of the long concertina, which is hidden from view, is an image taken around the outside trunk of a tree from a tropical rainforest...

It is quite simply a stunning job both from the concept, design, photography, format, printing and finishing. It deservedly won 2008 DesignWeek award for Editorial Design.

The images were offset litho printed as a Tritone with a high density black ink. The repro and superb print is by Granite, who have since gone bust. The material choice is Neptune Unique FSC 200gsm which not only printed fantastically but was also the environmental choice by having Forestry Stewardship Council certification, which was more unusual for fine papers in those days.

https://www.worldrainforestday.org/

https://www.ran.org/

https://www.gilesrevell.com/

http://www.gilesrevell.com/projects/environment/

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.06.2023

'Until the Last Oak Falls'

Today a Kickstarter project was launched which is well worth a look and is worthy of your support...

Adrian Fisk is a photographer/film-maker; his work has featured in the world’s top current-affairs periodicals and he works for top advertising, design and PR agencies and major international brands. He spent five years documenting youth counter-culture against the 1990s socio-political backdrop of environmental protests, illegal raves and anti-globalization. 'Until the Last Oak Falls' contains a collection of powerful, compelling and important photographs, many never seen before, that he made documenting the early days of the British direct action environmental movement from 1995 - 1999.

An essay written by Jay Griffiths (author of Why Rebel) will feature facsimiles of printed protest ephemera from the 90’s. The book will be 160pp and the size is 170mm wide by 240mm high. This format ensures minimal paper wastage and a maximum page size from industry standard paper sheets. You can read lots more about the project HERE.

Design is by Zoë Bather and Linda Byrne.

Launched today with a £16,000 goal ...it's only with your support that this book will happen. Go on - you know you want to!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/untilthelastoakfalls/until-the-last-oak-falls?ref=discovery&term=adrian%20fisk

Posted by Justin Hobson 06.10.2021

Jobs from the past - Number 143

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 projects from years gone by and this is from 2014.

The Big Book Bonanza - 2014

This is the  'The Big Book Bonanza' catalogue which showcases the new Autumn releases from HarperCollins publishers. Throughout the publication are wonderful psychedelic Kaleidoscope style illustrations by Emily Forgot. 

Size of the catalogue is 210mm square, saddle stitched. It is printed on our Omnia - 4pp cover on 320gsm and 32pp text on 150gsm.

Click on images to enlarge

The choice of material for this job was important, the reason being that the strong illustrations on the divider pages meant that it had to print solids really well but there's also lots of great commissioned photography included, so it was important to have a material which worked for both without compromising either and as I hope these pictures show, it looks really good.

Click on images to enlarge

The other very good reason that Omnia was chosen was the use of metallic gold pantone 'special' ink. On most traditional uncoated papers, metallics can look flat and with gold can just look a bit brown, but as I hope the below image demonstrates, metallic gold really does look metallic on Omnia.

Design and art direction is by Zoë Bather.

The catalogues are printed offset litho in four colour process plus metallic gold special. Print production was handled by Alan Mountain at Forward Print (sales@forward-print.com)

www.harpercollins.co.uk
www.zoebather.co.uk
http://www.emilyforgot.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 03.10.2021

Size | Format | Stock is 10 years old!

The publication Size|Format|Stock was first published ten years ago. This is the booklet that I wrote in collaboration with Zoë Bather at Studio8. Originally written to leave with students after I've given a talk, it has since become a firm favourite with many graphic designers both in the UK and abroad.

The 2019 edition is the fifth printing and in total I've printed and distributed over 30,000 copies! ..through colleges, by post and also through Grafik and Eye Magazine.

The booklet is A5 portrait saddle stitched with a 4pp cover on Colorset, Chilli 120gsm and a 16pp text printed on Offenbach Bible 60gsm.

If you would like a copy, just email me and I'll pop one in the post to you: justin@fennerpaper.co.uk

www.zoebather.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 15.03.2019

Studio Culture

Studio Culture is the publication produced by this year's graduating students from the Kingston School of Art at  Kingston University's Art and Design Faculty.

To accompany their end of year show, they produced a publication which is a visual diary of ideas in their final year, an insight into the way they worked and played, emphasising the studio culture which has been developed on the course.

There are two publications. There is a fold out broadsheet (above). The size is 225x160mm which folds out 640x450mm. This is used both as a poster and also has the details of all the individuals on the course. The folded broadsheet is inserted into the main 'Studio Culture' booklet as you can see in the below image...

Click on images to enlarge

Above is the front cover and below shows the front and back cover opened out. The size is 232x165mm, portrait and is saddle stitched. It is a 64pp 'self cover' publication.

The paper used for both parts is our Shiro Echo Bright White 90gsm. Shiro is a 100% Recycled text and cover paper from Favini and as I'm sure you will be able to see from the images below, it prints beautifully. The publication is printed offset litho in CMYK throughout.

Click on images to enlarge

It's a very interesting insight to the final year of the course. It is well written with articles by students and tutors.

Click on images to enlarge

Centre spread:

...even though it's a 64pp, because it's on 90gsm it flows beautifully.

Design is by Ellie Game, Caiah Morash, Harriet Payler, Karen Tsang, Amber Ng. It was Ellie Game who dealt with the paper (me) and also with the print production with Paul Martin at Jigsaw Colour printers.

This really is an excellent publication and so much more engaging than most 'end of year show' publications. This is a far more insightful piece of literature.


http://kingstongraphicshow.co.uk/
http://www.jigsawcolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 05.10.2017

FLUX

FLUX is a new magazine for lawyers which is published as a collaborative project between LexisNexis and the Cambridge Judge Business School. The publication celebrates diversity and women in law, and focuses on outstanding contributions to the legal industry within in-house and top law firms, on both a national and international level

Cover illustration by Jason Ford

Size of the magazine is 280x210mm and is printed on our StarFine White, with a 4pp cover on 240gsm and 48pp text on 130gsm giving the publication a 5mm spine. StarFine is a quality, uncoated paper and as the images show, image reproduction is excellent. The solids, photographic images and the illustrations look stunning - a great amount of detail for an uncoated paper, colours are bright and vivid.

The magazine is produced by YBM who are specialists in magazine publishing and content. The editor is Mira Katbamna. It is printed offset litho in CMYK throughout by London based Park Communications.

The superb art direction is by Zoë Bather. The design reflects the accessible tone of the title’s features and interviews. The use of illustration throughout the publication, probably more than images, create a gentle pace but the title pages use an energetic mix of solid colours and typography. I noted all the illustrators, who are: Ben Kirchner, Holly Wales, Olivier  Kugler, Allan Sanders, Hanna Melin, Jason Ford

Another interesting feature is the use of Gloss UV varnish on the title header and illustration (by Jason Ford) on the front cover (pictured below). A single hit of gloss UV varnish has worked really well and just gives the cover a point of difference,

The magazine is produced by YBM. Editor is Mira Katbamna. Art direction by Zoë Bather. The excellent print is by Park Communications, who are based in East London.

https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/home/
http://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/
https://ybm.co.uk/
http://zoebather.co.uk/
http://www.parkcom.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.09.2016