International Women's Day

What better day to show you this amazing poster celebrating Beatrice Warde, produced as part of the Collections and Collaborations event at the St Bride Foundation.

Beatrice Warde (1900 – 1969) was a writer and scholar of typography. As editor and publicity manager for the Monotype Corporation, she became influential in the male dominated world of typography and printing and is recognized one of the few internationally renowned women typographers.

Warde wrote what is often described as a manifesto "This is a Printing Office" which is one of the most well known pieces of writing about printing and typography.

The poster was created by illustrator and teacher Pam Smy together with book designer and lecturer Ness Wood (together with Maisie Paradise Shearring they make up Orange Beak Studio), 

The A2 (494x420mm) poster is printed offset Litho in CMYK on Pergraphica Smooth, Natural 120gsm. It is printed by Boss Print (as were all the posters for the event) who are based in London.

The event was organised by another amazing woman in design Becky Chilcott, without whom the event would never have happened. The good news is that you can still buy one of these posters and support the St Bride Foundation HERE.

https://www.sbf.org.uk/

https://www.bossprint.com/ 

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.03.2021

Onloan

Two friends, Tamsin and Natalie founded Onloan which is an innovative fashion rental membership. Their shared mission is to reduce waste, curate brilliant independent designers and reignite a love of clothes without the guilt! They offer flexible plans so that members can access premium clothes from cult contemporary designers to wear and enjoy on repeat.

This printed promotional mailer is 150mm square and is a 6pp gatefold, with one short flap (115mm) as you can see from the birds-eye image below.

The below image shows the mailer opened flat (415x150mm) showing both sides.

It is printed on our Omnia and as you can see from the images, especially below, there is lots of colour and images with CMYK dark areas - and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing bright vibrant colours as well and the darker shadowy areas - all with an uncoated tactile feel. Unlike many of the publications featured on this blog, which are printed offset litho, this has been digitally printed on toner based digital press. The colours are strong and punchy and the whole publication has a matt, tactile look and feel - in fact nearly as good as litho. This is printed on our new Omnia 100% recycled, which is now in stock and we are in the process of launching.

Art direction and design is by Jenny Campbell-Colquhoun.

It is printed by Healeys, based in Ipswich. They are one of a handful of printers who are registered as a 'Carbon Balanced Printer' by the World Land Trust and can offer a totally carbon balanced printing service including the paper and all aspects of production and delivery.

https://onloan.co/

https://healeys-printers.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.03.2021

Jobs from the past - Number 136

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 and here's one from 2003.

The Fourth Estate Catalogue 

January-June 2003

The Fourth Estate is a publishers that many people will be familiar with. Founded by Victoria Barnsley in 1984, Fourth Estate built a reputation as one of the most innovative and eclectic imprints in the industry, with a reputation for publishing a wide variety of critically-acclaimed and beautifully-produced titles including many prize winning authors (Booker, Orange etc).

One of the things that made the Fourth Estate stand out from the crowd was their catalogues - they were simply amazing pieces of design and print! I was lucky enough to work on a few different catalogues in the late 90's and early 2000's. Every single one was different and brilliant. Good designers were commissioned, Bogue & Hopgood, Instinct, Pentagram, Rose Design, Frost, Neville Brody, Tom Hingston to name a few. In line with their reputation for publishing unconventional yet innovative titles, the design of the catalogue was equally eclectic.

The design and art direction is by Vince Frost with the superb illustrations by Marion Deuchars. This is a very special project where the creative direction, excellent execution of the images and high production values all come together.

The illustrations by Marion Deuchars were created using Carbon Paper. If you aren't familiar with carbon paper, it is the original way to make a copy on a typewriter, the impression from the top copy being made on an underneath sheet. So these wonderful illustrations are already second generation copies.

The size of the book is 225x160mm, portrait. It has an 4pp cover and a 88pp text and is printed on on our Redeem 100% Recycled 315gsm cover and 130gsm text.

The book is printed one colour, halftone, throughout and it is printed with all the imperfections that the carbon paper produces as you can see from the detail image below...

Most of the images are just illustrated on the left hand side but some of the pages are illustrated across the spread.

Pages 61-80 include just listings:

...and pages 81-87 is the backlist:

Below shows the 8mm spine with the neat perfect binding.

The 88pp text flows well and the pages turn nicely in the hand.

The covers and inside cover spreads are made using scans of the carbon paper used by Marion, which are composite images and look great.

Design and art direction is by Vince Frost. Illustrations by Marion Deuchars. Printing is by Principal Colour in Kent.

So, where is everybody now?.... Victoria Barnsley, founder of Fourth Estate, joined Harper Collins as CEO and Publisher in 2000 when it acquired her company, leaving in 2013. Marion Deuchars is a very popular illustrator and has recently published some instructional art books. Vince Frost left for the sunnier climate of Australia around eighteen years ago and runs Frost* in Sydney. Principal Colour are in Paddock Wood in Kent and Fenner Paper? ...yep, we're still here! 

https://www.4thestate.co.uk/

https://www.frostcollective.com.au/

https://www.mariondeuchars.com/

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.03.2021

Lunar

Tonight there is a Full Moon, this one is called the Snow Moon in the northern hemisphere, so what better day than to write about our range from Favini, called Lunar.

This range is very different to other pearlescent/metallic papers on the market, which are normally rather 'blingy' with bright shades. Lunar has seven subtle shades which are inspired by moonlight rays illuminating the dark with the shade range extending from glowing white and silvery shimmer to inky navy and pitch black.

As well as the subtle shades, this is also a subtly tactile range as Lunar has 2 wonderful micro-embossed textures, Nexus and Mini...

Detail showing the Nexus micro embossing 

Detail showing the Mini micro embossing 

This is a paper to be experienced through the fingers. The subtle micro embossed patterns give a multi-sensory experience and charge your imagination adding that third dimension to any print design and luxurious packaging project.

To accompany the swatch, there is a printed showbook to demonstrate printing quality and finishes.

Size is 240x154mm and features the letterpress work of Typoretum (see above image). Typoretum are a creative letterpress printing and design studio based in Colchester in Essex. Cecilia and Justin (good name!) are annual regulars at the St Bride Wayzgoose where we always see each other. 

The showbook is superbly printed and finished and is 'French Folded' (see above) - this is where the folded edges are on the foredge of the book, as in the picture above. 

Design and art direction is by Silk Pearce.

If you would like a copy of the Lunar showbook and swatch, just ask me for one! Email justin@fennerpaper.co.uk 

https://www.favini.com/gs/en/

https://www.silkpearce.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 27.02.2021

Mother's Day is coming...

Sunday 14th March is just around the corner, so there is no better time than to show you some lovely cards produced on our lovely paper!

These handcrafted, embellished and personalised cards are produced on our Colorset, Natural 270gsm and the size is A5.

Our Colorset is 100% Recycled and the perfect board for these beautifully embellished with items hand mounted onto the cards  

The envelope is the star! ...a superb card needs to be accompanied with a lovely envelope and these matching bespoke C5 envelopes are made using Colorset Natural 120gsm.

Bombus was originally established as the personalised map heart company, creating bespoke and emotive gifts and accessories featuring memories, favourite places and heartfelt messages. They find the right map, just for you: "it could be the place you met, your home, a first date, a holiday destination, where you were born… a map of anywhere in the world." 

Above is an example of one of their handmade map cards but they also make a wide range of personalised map gifts. Everything is hand made in their studio which is located in an oast house in Kent and here is an excellent video showing their work...

..and remember, Mothers Day is just around the corner!

https://www.bombus.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.02.2021

Paper from leaves

Some interesting news from the world of Pulp & Paper...!

Valentin Frechka, a young Ukrainian scientist has created the first paper made out of fallen leaves. It was an idea he had while still at school and although still aged only twenty, he has developed the idea and run a successful industrial test.

While at school, Valentin won a gold medal for science at the 2018 Genius Olympiad in New York for his idea. He is now a student at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kiev and has teamed up with business partner Andriy Vartsaba to set up a development company, Re-leaf Paper, to evolve this new technology.

Please don't think that this is a readily available product from stock - IT IS NOT!  There are no samples available.

At present, it is an extremely interesting idea but the technology is still very much in the development stage and the industrial capacity to process the leaves would still need to be developed, but there is real promise that this may well prove to be a viable and energy efficient alternative to woodpulp for some grades of paper and board, especially for packaging.

It's great to have a good news story in this industry and also at this particular time when the world is occupied dealing with the Covid crisis. 

Our congratulations and best wishes to Valentin Frechka.

https://www.re-leaf-paper.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.02.2021

The Sublime Feminine

Maryam Eisler is a London based photographer and author. Her photographic work, the crux of which is centred around the Sublime Feminine thematics, has been sought in different places and environmental spaces, a personal journey of sorts during which she has tried to trace and visually revitalize this energy, embodied in the female form, as set against the grandeur of nature. Eisler is represented by Tristan Hoare in London and Harper’s Books in New York.

The size of the book is 240x165mm, portrait. The 4pp limp cover, which is beautifully hot foil blocked, houses the 'swiss bound' text. 

Swiss Binding is where the text is mounted onto the inside back cover with the front cover and freestanding spine. The below image shows the inside front cover, inside spine and page one of text with the binding tape covering the spine.

There is an introduction by Maryam Eisler together with an essay by Hannah Barry.

The 100pp text is printed on our Omnia 150gsm which gives it that dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction. All printed offset litho throughout. The piece has a fantastic feel - solid flat areas of colour work amazingly well - it is difficult for me to say too much more about it - see the images below, they speak for the job...

Click on images to enlarge

The book is 'section sewn' - you can see the thread in this section break pictured below.

...and here we go for a bit of a plug! - As you can see from the images, there is lots of colour and images with dark areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing flat colours superbly whilst retaining that all important detail in the dark areas (in my opinion- but I would say that wouldn't I?)

It goes without saying that the paper is just one aspect and if the quality of the images or the repro and the printing was not equally as superb, then the finished article would not be as amazing. The superlative printing is by Boss Print and you may remember reading on this blog that they won the category for the best catalogue design at the British Book Design and Production Awards in 2017 with another project for this same photographer. Below is a detail image showing the superb reproduction of the mono images.

The images are printed offset litho in two blacks (as a duotone) plus a yellow tint integrated with the images. The solid flat colours are all specials....

The section sewn and singer sewing makes the book flow easily in the hand.

Below image shows the detail of the section sewing. The Swiss Binding was completed in-house at Boss Print.

The book design is by Roger Fawcett-Tang of Struktur Design. It is beautifully printed and finished by Boss Print who are based in West London.

https://www.maryameisler.com/

http://www.struktur.co.uk/

https://www.bossprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.02.2021