Making Faces

STERN PRO www.canadatype.net

Calling all typophiles - if you want to see this, you'll have to be quick!

Next Tuesday (5th November) at St Brides in London, there is a screening of a really interesting documentary with an introduction by the project instigator, Richard Kegler.

US based type foundry P22, commissioned Canadian type designer, Jim Rimmer to create a new type design (Stern) that became the first ever simultaneous release of a digital font and, hand-set metal font in 2008. The skills needed to create a metal font are known by very few people and Jim Rimmer was possibly the only individual who designed and cast typefaces in metal as well as in digital format. The opportunity to document the processes of the historic with the contemporary was grasped and this film was made. Sadly Jim Rimmer died in 2010. Here's a trailer for the film:

You can read more about it here:
http://makingfacesfilm.blogspot.co.uk/

Details for the screening are as follows:
Tuesday 5 November 2013 from 6.30 to 8.30pm, film screening at 7.15pm in the Bridewell Hall, St Bride Foundation. Tickets £10, Students (bring NUS card) £6

As well as the screening, there will also be live demonstrations from Ruth Rowland in calligraphy, Oli Frape in hand-lettering, Helen Ingham and Richard Lawrence in letterpress and lino printing and Peter S. Smith in wood engraving in the workshop where you'll be able to have a go and find out more about their practices ...and I'll be there too!

There are still tickets available ...but it's on TUESDAY, so don't put it off, come along: www.stbride.org/events

www.p22.com
www.canadatype.net
www.stbride.org

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.10.2013

Big Book Parade 2013

This is the invitation to the showcase of new books from Harper Collins. Billed as 'The Big Book Parade', the function was held at the Crimson Bar at The Soho Hotel in May.

The size of the invitation is 145x975mm which concertinas down to 145x195mm. It uses our Modigliani Candido 260gsm, which has a "feltmark" texture similar to that of a watercolour paper which gives it exactly the right feel working with the beautiful illustrations of Brett Ryder (Heart Agency) commissioned to reflect the wide and diverse range of titles 'on parade' at the event.

Design and art direction is by Zoë Bather.

The invitations are printed offset litho in four colour process, machine creased and hand folded. Print was handled by Alan Mountain at Forward Print (sales@forward-print.com)

www.harpercollins.co.uk
www.zoebather.co.uk
www.heartagency.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.10.2013

Write to your MP

Now you might or might not be interested in this but basically this article is about choice.

Businesses are increasingly restricting access to paper bills and switching customers to e-billing. This issue affects everyone, and particularly the vulnerable in our society.

My attention was drawn to this by the Two Sides campaign, which is an initiative by companies in the Graphic Communications Supply Chain including forestry, pulp, paper, inks, publishing and printing -the common goal is to promote the responsible production and use of print and paper. www.twosides.info

Two sides are supporting the Keep Me Posted Campaign which is trying to persuade government and large organisations to ensure they are giving customers the right to choose how they receive important information. Here's a video:

If you would like to support this campaign, please visit the site and use the letter template to send to your local MP. 

 

http://www.twosides.info/UK/Keep-Me-Posted-Campaign?n=&m=1042
www.twosides.info

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.10.2013

UEL Fashion 2013

This is the show catalogue produced this summer for the graduating students of the University of East London, fashion courses and is a really lovely piece of literature. The new head of fashion at UEL is Dorota Watson. This is her first year in the position and she had a high level of involvement in the production of this piece of work.

  

The desired effect was that it should be layered with slightly transparent "voile" effect, so our Offenbach Bible was chosen as the text paper.

 

Size is 275x200mm, portrait and the text is a 76pp self cover printed four colour throughout on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm. The outside has a tracing paper wrap, printed in one colour.

Particular care has been taken over the print reproduction of these images - subtle detail, weave and textures which need to be seen and appreciated, so the reproduction achieved on the Offenbach Bible is of prime importance.

Needless to say, just the type on the Offenbach Bible looks great ...but then it should, as it's designed for type, both sides  ...as in a Bible!

Design and production is by Vicki Fong, who is a senior lecturer at UEL. Print is by Lefa Print who are based in Sidcup, Kent.

 

Thanks to Joe Hunter, Senior lecturer in Fashion Futures at UEL, for asking me to go and discuss the project in the first place.

www.uel.ac.uk/adi
www.vickifong.co.uk
http://www.designagainstcrime.com/team/joe-hunter/
http://www.lefaprint.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.10.2013

Cardpress Launch

Last Thursday I was invited to the launch of the new Cardpress project by Print Club and Urban Cottage Industries (UCI). Cardpress combines Print Club London's original silkscreen printed artworks with UCI's letterpress printing which starts with hot metal casting on their newly restored Linotype type casting machines.

The evening began with a screening of Linotype:The Film which was held at the atmospheric Rio cinema on Kingsland High Street, Dalston.

I have reviewed the film in a previous blog post and I can only add that it was even better the second time around! http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/linotype-film.html

Me in Millers Avenue

After the film, we simply crossed the road and into Millers Avenue to the party venue at MC Motors, which is next door to Print Club. But this was a lot more than a groovy party at a great location for over 800 people! Guests were plied with mojitos, beer and freshly cooked pizza together with a DJ and a great party atmosphere ...and most importantly there was a working Linotype hot metal casting machine working. Phil, Dave,Stan and other UCI technicians demonstrated the Linotype. Partygoers were transfixed watching these beatifully crafted machines clicking, whirring and creating lead type. The following pics should give you a flavour of the evening:

Beer

Linotype Machine



Stanley Wilson founder of UCI, showing the lead ingots used for casting



Guests were invited to get their fingers inky by having their own line of linotype text, produced in front of their eyes, and then printing that line themselves on an Adana hand press.

Cardpress is a personalised greetings card business with a difference - it combines Print Club's original silkscreen printed artworks with UCI's type-casting and letterpress printing to create a retro take on the modern concept of online personalised cards. The first designs are by Pure Evil, Alice Stallard, James Joyce, Margaux Carpentier, Anthony Peters and Rose Stallard.

Kate Newbold-Higginson, director of Print Club London, said: "UCI's manual ethos is close to the way we work. It’s really exciting to combine contemporary illustrators with traditional machines. Because we work with layered files too, the process we go through translates well to their machines. Though there’s still a bit of a learning curve - they are learning our way and we are learning theirs."Cardpress customers input their line of text on the website when ordering the card; the text is then cast on a linotype machine in Metro Medium 18pt and letterpress printed to the inside of their chosen card.

Thanks for the invitation to a great party and I wish Print Club and Urban Cottage Industries the best of luck with their new Cardpress venture.

www.urbancottageindustries.com

www.printclublondon.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.10.2013

Graphic Masterworks

Graphic Masterworks: A Century of Design is a landmark exhibition held at Christie's in London of highlights from the archive of poster collector and connoisseur, Martijn Le Coultre. Exploring developments in graphic design between 1894 and 1988, it features artists selected for their revolutionary use of typography, layout, production and colour, and for their influence and synthesis with avant-garde movements such as De Stijl, Bauhaus, Constructivism and Expressionism. 

 

This is the beautifully produced private view invitation which features a section of a lithograph by Joost Schmidt from 1923. Size is A5, portrait and is a single card (2pp) made by printing and then duplexing our Omnia 320gsm  to make 640gsm - which is 900micron thick - a truly substantial invitation! The front of the invitation is printed CMYK. 

Another point to mention about the front of the invite is that solid area printed red is over-printed with a gloss UV varnish. (...just worth pointing out that Omnia is one of the very few papers with an uncoated look and feel that you can successfully UV varnish on to with one pass and it looks excellent). The reverse of the invitation is printed in CMYK also:

This invitation is about the short educational course run by Christie's Education. The auction itself was held on October 2nd.

 

Design is by the in house team at Christie's. The superb print, varnishing and duplex finishing is by Identity, based in Paddock Wood, Kent.

 

A truly excellent example of a beautifully designed and executed invitation.

www.christies.com

www.christies.edu

http://www.identityprint.co.uk/10



Posted by Justin Hobson 17.10.2013

Minecraft meets real life

For those not in the know Minecraft is a computer game (and phenomenon) which allows you to build and create your own places and spaces. Having only been released in 2011, it has been amazingly successful with over 33 million copies in circulation. Minecraft is a creative platform allowing players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. Activities in the game include exploration, gathering resources, crafting, and combat.


However, as great as virtual worlds are, we live in the real world!

In a bid to get kids off their screens for a couple of hours, Pigeon Pop Ups hosted a children's workshop called Minecrafting  as part of a series of community workshops in June. Kids were given the opportunity to build their own character heads based on the key characters in the game - and they used some of the very best materials available - our Colorset 100% recycled 120gsm.

The final pixelated creations, in a real world environment - I can spot Colorset Solar, Tuscan Brown, Sandstone, Mango...

Pigeon Pop Ups are run by Kirsty Thomas from Lovely Pigeon and the pop up shop and work-shopping space is based in the seaside town of Anstruther on the East coast of Scotland. It looks like it was great fun and quite messy! Thanks to Kirsty for sending the pictures of our paper in action.

http://lovelypigeon.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 15.10.2013