Jobs from the past - Number 34

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 Quentin Blake Gallery of Illustration - 2003

This is the introduction and sponsorship brochure for the Quentin Blake Gallery of Illustration - which has become the House of Illustration. The House of Illustration is the world’s first dedicated home for the art of illustration; from adverts to animation, picture books to political cartoons and scientific drawings to fashion design. The organisation puts on exhibitions, runs competitions, works with schools and organises events with some of the country’s leading illustrators. The main ambition is to create a permanent home to celebrate the past, present and future of illustration.

The size of the publication is 143x125mm, Landscape. It uses our Modigliani, Neve which has a "feltmark" texture similar to that of a watercolour paper which gives it exactly the right feel. Needless to say, the timeless illustrations are by Quentin Blake...

Of particular interest is the the way the job is bound. It has a 4pp cover (with a spine) on Modigliani, Neve 260gsm and a 24pp text on Modigliani, Neve 200gsm. The text pages are individual leaves bound with an elastic band (which is black and is made from "round" elastic) held in with a notch on the head and foot of the book. This enabled the brochure  to be easily updateable. 

Detail, showing rubber band and "notched" text and cover:

The project was designed by BOB Design. Creative Directors on the project were Alexis Burgess and Mireille Burkhardt. Lexi now runs his own studio in East London, Burgess Studio.

The job was printed by Reg Davis at Pica Press based in Tonbridge in Kent but he has since retired and the company no longer exists. The beautiful rubber bands were sourced from Switzerland as I recall!

http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/

http://www.bobdesign.co.uk/

www.burgess-studio.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 01.08.2012

White Cube Invitation

This is a beautifully simple invitation produced for the opening of the new White Cube Bermondsey space at the end of last year. This is the third space in London, located on Bermondsey Street in south London and opened to the public during the Frieze art fair in October. It is the largest of the gallery's three London sites, providing more than 5440 m2 (58,000 sq ft) of interior space on a site of 1.7 acres! The building dates from the 1970s and was primarily used as a warehouse before the current refurbishment. (designed by Casper Mueller Kneer Architects, based in London and Berlin). The building has been altered to include three principal exhibition spaces, an auditorium and a bookshop.

There were exhibitions in all three spaces at the opening of the new gallery: Structure   & Absence, Inside the White Cube and Cerith Wyn Evans.

The invitation uses an image from the Structure & Absence exhibition:

The following copy is courtesy of the White Cube website: 'Structure & Absence' was a group exhibition that featured the Chinese scholar’s rock as an organising device or motif. A selection of scholars’ rocks were installed in the galleries as unfamiliar objects, disrupting how we usually look at contemporary art. The rocks have a deep but ambiguous history in Chinese culture, acting as objects of both trade and contemplation. Although they are non-figurative objects, their suggestive forms also encourage the viewer to find likenesses of familiar things. Equally, the rocks demand close observation of their surface, structure and material. ‘Structure & Absence’ invited the viewer to bring this blend of imagination and observation to contemporary art. The exhibition was divided into three galleries, each featuring works with a particular visual quality. In the opening gallery, surfaces and surface textures dominated, and the work was characterised by organic forms and colours. The second room featured brighter, more saturated colours, forceful horizontal lines, with paintings and photographs by artists exploring geometric abstraction and the legacy of the Modernist grid. In the third gallery, shadows move in, structures break down and colours are either absent or muted: any dream of order becoming a potential ruin, weakened by entropy and erosion. The three galleries of ‘Structure & Absence’ thus formed a composition, with a rise, climax and fall, reminiscent of a typical dramatic or musical arrangement. ‘Structure & Absence’ featured work by Andreas Gursky, Wade Guyton, Eberhard Havekost, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Sergej Jensen, Jacob Kassay, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Gabriel Orozco, Eileen Quinlan, Sterling Ruby, Robert Ryman, Erin Shirreff, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Jeff Wall.

The invitation was printed on our Fenner Bright Silver, 300gsm which is a bright metallic silver board with a mirror like reflective finish. Hopefully you can make this out from the pic below:

The image is printed as a one colour halftone using fully oxiding ink (black) on the high gloss surface. Reverse is printed one colour. Print was handled by Danny Kirk at Push.

Design is by freelance graphic artist, Laurent Benner, who's based in London.

www.whitecube.com
http://formsofinquiry.com/contributors/laurent-benner

www.push-print.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.07.2012

Carrying the flame!

Today is the official start of the London 2010 (+2) Games ( ...as apparently I can't use the year date and the Oly*pic word together in this post!)

Anyway I thought I'd take today as the opportunity for a shameless plug for the new "Torch" campaign, launched to promote the new ASTRALUX swatches by Favini.

ASTRALUX is the market leading range of cast coated papers and boards produced in Italy by the Favini Crusinallo paper mill. The range goes from 80gsm - 350gsm in white and is also available in 27 shades (including metallics and pearlescents) and we have some beautiful new swatches. If you would like a set, please drop me an e-mail. 

Astralux is produced with 100% Green Energy, generated in the mill from hydroelectric power and is FSC certified. You can read more here: www.favini-astralux.com/

The promotional campaign and swatches are designed for Favini by Silk Pearce. Creative Directors are Peter Silk and Jack Pearce. Designer on the project is Ian Coote.

And just to clarify, we aren't sponsoring anything and I'm in no way trying to associate me/us/them or Astralux with the "up and coming season of events" due to officially start in London today!

www.favini-astralux.com/

www.favini.com

www.silkpearce.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 27.07.2012

make invitations

Each year, Make Architects produce an Annual which reviews and shows their work of the previous year which I wrote about in June:  http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/make.html

The invitation to the anniversary and book launch of 8 was printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm. It is A3 (297x420mm) folded to A6 size. The designers chose to make the invite more about the event itself rather than a Make project, which gives it a less corporate feel. The party was held at The Paramount which is on Level 31/33 at Centre Point and this is the view!



As you can see from the picture below, the invitations were personalised by handwriting the name of the invitee on the top left hand side.

It was designed and produced by Denise Ryan and Emily Chicken at Make and thank you for sending me copies and a lovely note:

A really lovely piece of printing on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm by Birmingham based, Tuckey Print.

www.makearchitects.com

www.paramount.uk.net

http://www.tuckeyprint.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.07.2012

Balfour Beatty Healthcare

This is a perfect example of a beautifully made promotional box which met the brief of being 100% recycled!

Manchester based design company Make Complex Simple, were commissioned to produce communication collateral by Balfour Beatty Healthcare, including a vehicle for USB sticks.

The solution is this paper over board case. Size is 225mm square with a 25mm depth, all produced using a combination of 100% recycled greyboard covered with our 100% recycled, Colorset Midnight 120gsm. Hot foil blocked in metallic silver foil.

Essentially, it's a 6pp gatefold case with the capacity tray on the middle panel. In the tray, there were various inserts produced for varying numbers of USB sticks, the example below is to take 4 sticks.

Design is by Make Complex Simple and the designer on the project is Paul Grogan.

The box production (which is truly superb) is by Gary Nightingale at Packaging Formats, based in Leeds.

So without wanting to make a MASSIVE plug for Colorset, there really isn't any other quality coloured paper range that is 100% recycled that could have worked on this project - just thought I'd mention it!

http://www.bbcap.co.uk/markets/healthcare/
www.makecomplexsimple.co.uk
http://www.packagingformats.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 19.07.2012

Toby Marchant exits Paperlinx

Yesterday, Paperlinx announced the resignation of its chief executive, Toby Marchant (did he jump or was he pushed?) For those that don't know, he's been the guy at the head of Australian based Paperlinx. If you're wondering what that's got to do with this blog and you - it's because they own Robert Horne, Howard Smith and The Paper Co -names of UK paper merchants which many of you will be familiar with. 

Toby Marchant started as a paper merchant in the UK, eventually becoming Managing Director of the loss making Modo Merchants (now closed down). He jumped ship at the end of the 90's to the profitable Robert Horne Group and after overseeing years of declining profitability, he was promoted (!) through the ranks of  the parent company, Paperlinx, ending up as CEO (...nice work!)

For Paperlinx, which a decade ago was worth more than (Aus)$2 Billion (-yes, you did read that correctly), there are many issues - it now has a market capitalisation of only (Aus)$25 Million (Source: Sydney Morning Herald) - having recently sold off operations in South Africa, Italy and Eastern Europe, it is contending with hostile shareholders trying to reverse several years of corporate losses and it's bankers. Suppliers appear to be withdrawing products; Zanders have withdrawn Chromolux, ArjoWiggins have stopped supplying their recycled ranges, Cordenons have withdrawn their Stardream range and suppliers are struggling to get credit insurance cover. Other executives including Malcolm Lane-Ley, Managing Director of Howard Smith and The PaperCo is also leaving at the end of this month.

Robert Horne Paper was the revered company in the UK paper industry, as a supplier, customer and employer. I was fortunate enough to meet Kenneth Horne in 1995 and I even bought the book he published "Somebody said that it couldn't be done" which documented his three decades at the helm of the company founded by his grandfather - and make no mistake, it was a great company. It will certainly be sad for the UK industry if the end result of Paperlinx involvement means that this and the sister companies simply disappear.

Hundreds (if not thousands) of jobs have been lost in the UK paper industry in recent years. I hope that Toby Marchant, who is set to receive a "banker style" golden goodbye of one year's salary (after only 2 years as CEO) will reflect on this whilst lying on his sun lounger!

http://www.smh.com.au/business/news-takes-a-page-from-paperlinx-20120717-228fo.html
www.paperlinx.com
http://www.printweek.com/bulletin/printweekdailybulletin/article/1141767/paperlinxs-toby-marchant-give-interim-chief-executive-dave-allen/

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.07.2012

28th September Update
Printweek reports today that Marchant ended his employment with Paperlinx on a salary of £363,545 after he took a 15% voluntary pay cut on 1 April (April Fools day!) this year. Tobes gets 12 months salary as part of his "mutual" decision to leave the company. On top of this, he was given £26,000 in accrued entitlements to bonuses for completed asset sales in 2011/2012 and £21,648 to compensate for untaken annual leave. I'm sure everyone in Northampton will be pleased to know that he'll be comfortably off in his retirement.
http://www.printweek.com/news/1152474/Paperlinx-AGM-postponed-chairman-leaves-prematurely/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

===============================================
10th October 2012 - Important update
A link to an Australian website run by a Paperlinx shareholder has been REMOVED from this post, following a legal notice sent to me by a solicitor acting for Paperlinx Limited.
I have written about this on the following post:
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/paperlinx-gets-stroppy.html
===============================================
As with everything written on this blog, the views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to Fenner Paper Company Ltd!

Penthouse - Wellington House

Wellington House in Buckingham Gate, London SW1 is one of London's most prestigious addresses. This is the literature especially commissioned to sell the penthouse appartment (which, incidentally, comes with the roof terrace!)

The cover which is litho printed with leaf illustrations and hot foil blocked in silver and white foil uses a linen embossed brown board supplied by that other, Hull based, paper company! Size is 190x265mm portrait and is saddle stitched.

However, it's the text where the job really starts to shine! ...printed on our Omnia 150gsm.

Centre spread:

Interestingly, the brochure only has a 4pp text stitched in, with the 6pp "plans" section forming a roll fold which has been stuck into the inside back cover using a tab stuck parallel to the spine (below)

...rolling out to it's full extent:

Design is by NB:Studio. Creative Directors on the project were Nick Finney and Alan Dye. Designer was Eng Su. It has been beautifully printed, foiled and finished by Gavin Martin.

www.wellington-house.com 

http://www.landsecurities.com/

http://www.nbstudio.co.uk/

http://www.engsu.co.uk/

http://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.07.2012