Mother of Pearl

 

Maia Norman is the Creative Director at Mother of Pearl and each season, she works with an acclaimed artist. Previous collaborators include Polly Morgan, Francesco Simeti, Gary Hume, Fiona Banner, Keith Tyson, Jim Lambie, Matt Collishaw and Carsten Holler. This last season, Amy Powney, the head designer at Mother of Pearl collaborated with New York based artist Fred Tomaselli to produce their collection and this is their beautifully produced lookbook.

The size is 260 x 185mm, portrait, perfect bound with an 8pp cover and a 40pp text. It is printed on our Omnia and has a 8pp cover on 280gsm and a 40pp text on 150gsm. Omnia is an extremely bulky sheet, so this has a solid, chunky, feel. It is printed offset litho, CMYK throughout, with the small M monogram being hoy foil blocked in gold foil on the outside front cover.

...and here we go for the plug about the paper! - As you can see from the images, there is lots of colour and detail in the images with CMYK dark areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing bright vibrant colours as well and keeping all the detail in the darker images, epecially the little detail shots below...

Original design concept is by William Hall with the artwork being produced 'in house' at Mother of Pearl. Photography is by Robert Wyatt.

The superb print is by Push ...and thanks to Danny Kirk at Push for sending me some file copies.


http://www.motherofpearl.co.uk/
www.williamhall.co.uk
www.robertwyatt.net
http://www.push-print.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.05.2013

365



This is a piece of CSR literature produced by Deutsche Bank who now have a system of regional newspapers showing how their global strategy is being applied at a local level by the bank and its people. The system has been developed by Studio 2br to extend its CSR communications beyond the normal production of a yearly report.

It is a 12pp format with a finished size of 470x315mm 'endorsement folded' to 235x315mm. The layout, content and photography makes this publication eminently readable, to the point that I found myself reading it (which can't be said about every file copy I receive!).

 

The material used is our Enviro-Tech 80gsm, which is 100% Recycled with good opacity and whiteness and was chosen both for this (because of the format) and it's environmental credentials.

Design is by Studio 2br. Creative Director on the project was David Shalam and the designers are Daniel Hayes and Dave Young. Print is by London based printer The Colourhouse.

If only all pieces of corporate literature could look as good as this...

www.db.co/uk

http://www.2br.com/
www.thecolourhouse.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 15.05.2013

Progressive Greetings 2013

Here's some pretty exciting news from Fenner Paper - we're exhibiting at our first 'trade show' at an exhibition called Progressive Greetings or "PG Live" as it's known. It's a show aimed at the greeting card industry and is is being held at the Business Design Centre in Islington on the 14th &15th May and here's the picture of our stand which I was helping to set up today.

 

We have a modest little stand of 3metres x 2 metres and we're showing our boards that are especially suitable for greetings cards and as you can see from the display below, we now have quite a few!

 

...as well as an AV presentation showing the way that our paper is stored, packed and blank cards are converted, we also took along a whole pallet of paper (...one of our new ranges, but more about that some other time!).

Our stand is designed by Vincent Design and thanks to Nick and Claire for all their help and support. If you are a designer or publisher of greeting cards, please do come along and we look forward to welcoming you - we're on stand 663.

www.progressivegreetingslive.com
http://www.vincentdesign.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.05.2013

Lulu Frost for Whistles

 

Lisa Salzer is the founder and designer for New York based jewellery brand Lulu Frost and this is their first collaboration with British fashion retailer Whistles.

This simple piece of literature, shows the jewellery off beautifully. It is a 16pp self cover and is 245x170mm, portrait. It is loose bound (no binding) and is printed on our Omnia 120gsm which feels and flows just right and the jewellery and lush greenery reproduce brilliantly  

Below image shows the loose binding with the centre spread:

Brochure design and art direction is by Whistles. Photography is by Baker and Evans. Repro, print and finishing are by Push.

http://www.whistles.co.uk/
www.lulufrost.com
www.bbde.co.uk
http://www.push-print.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 07.05.2013

Shock, horror ...it's finally happened!

 Well to most people it was always obvious and to some inevitable, but on Friday, the three companies which makes up the UK paper merchanting interests of the Australian, loss making conglomerate Paperlinx, started answering their phones using their new name.

Robert Horne, Howard Smith and Paperco will now be known as PaperlinX (surprise, surprise!)

...from this

to this....

You can read more about it here:

http://www.printweek.com/bulletin/printweekdailybulletin/article/1181216/paperlinx-rebrands-howard-smith-robert-horne-paperco/

 

This is actually a great shame for the paper industry and reflects the rather sad (and bad) state of the industry overall. I've written about it before on this blog:

http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/toby-marchant-exits-paperlinx.html

http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.com/2012/05/stardream-answering-your-questions.html

...including my legal "shot across the bows" from Paperlinx:

http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.com/2012/10/paperlinx-gets-stroppy.html

 



Posted by Justin Hobson 07.05.2013

Jobs from the past - Number 43

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 1999.

Communicators in Business

The magazine, Communicators in Business, was published by the British Association of Communicators in Business which has subsequently become the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC).

The magazine was designed by the then, newly formed design company, Browns. The original founders, Graham Taylor, Jonathan Ellery and Mike Turner set up Browns in 1998 after leaving Addison and this was one of their first pieces of editorial design work.


Cover image by David Stewart

Now you may be thinking, "that bloke on the cover looks very familiar" and you'd be right! This was one of my first professional engagements as a professional model (unpaid, of course!) I happened to be in the Browns studio one day and their muse struck! - the next week I was in David Stewart's Clerkenwell studio with my interesting attire. As it turned out my trousers weren't short or odd enough, so I'm actually wearing Jonathan Ellery's trousers!

Image by Paul Lowe

Image by David Stewart



Illustration by Andrzej Klimowski

The publication is 340x245mm and is a 32pp self cover, printed on our Millennium Real Silk 150gsm. It was printed by Principal Colour in Paddock Wood, Kent.

It must be said that this was a really interesting piece of literature which championed the use of good writing and great design and photography - it was definitely a groundbreaking job - and in 2000, it was a finalist in the DesignWeek awards for Editorial Design/Magazines.

So where are they all now? Jonathan Ellery remains at Browns. Mike Turner left Browns and set up his own practice called Em-Project. Graham Taylor crossed the atlantic to establish a Browns studio in New York in 2003 and he is now Creative Director at The Protean Corporation in the US. The photographer David Stewart is now represented internationally!

www.ioic.org.uk

www.brownsdesign.com

www.davidstewwwart.com

http://www.em-project.com/
http://www.theproteancorp.com/

www.principalcolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.05.2013

Responsibility Matters

Shire plc is a leading specialty biopharmaceutical company. The company has grown globally, through acquisition, recently completing a series of major transactions that have brought growth and diversification in a company that employs over 5,000 people. Bostock and Pollitt have been working with Shire for ten years on brand communications. This piece of literature is mainly intended as an internal piece of communication and as such has a 'newsy' look and feel.
 

The format is 410mm x 285mm, portrait, has 8pp and is 'loose bound'. The paper used is Offenbach Bible 60gsm which is a lightweight material and lends itself to a newspapery feel. It has also been 'endorsement folded' (ie in half, as the above pic). The colour reproduction, in particular the illustrations by Giordano Poloni, are superb. Printed offset litho in CMYK throughout.

Art direction and design is by Bostock and Pollitt. Print is managed by Urban Life Support.

www.shire.com
www.bostockandpollitt.com
www.urbanlifesupport.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.04.2013

Nao Matsunaga

 

This is a catalogue for Japanese born artist Nao Matsunaga who studied at the University of Brighton (1999-2002) and the Royal College of Art (2005-07).

The publication has been very thoughtfully designed taking into account both language versions. The finished size of the catalogue is 210x140mm, portrait, saddle stiched. It has a 4pp cover and a 20pp text - and here's the clever bit -  the front cover, together with the first 6pp and last 6pp of text are cut short at 115mm wide, with the English text at the front and the Japanese text at the back.   

 

This picture, below,  hopefully gives you the best idea of what I've just described:

It is printed on our BrandX FSC 115gsm (this is part FSC virgin fibre and part recycled) which is matt coated. The material was chosen so that it would not be bright white reflecting the natural look and feel of the ceramics being shown but still be able to reproduce the images well. The cover is printed on Conqueror 300gsm and is hot foil blocked with opaque white gloss foil. Another really nice touch is the light red wire used on the saddle stitching.



Centre spread

Showing short pages in the back.

Design and art direction is by Luciana Newell of LBN Design based in Hackney. Photography is by Victoria Ling.

Print and production is by Will Pretty at Healeys Print Group who have done a beautiful job both in terms of the actual printing and repro (given the fact that some of the images are quite tricksy!) and the finishing, which is nice, clean and square.

www.naomatsunaga.com
http://www.marsdenwoo.com/matsunaga/nm1.htm

http://www.lbndesign.com/

www.healeys-printers.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 26.04.2013

UAL 2013

Just the cover makes the difference...

Here's a job that's definitely worth a look at because it uses paper (in this case the board used for the cover) to increase the quality and feel of the whole project.

This is the 2013 guide for the University of the Arts London which includes Camberwell Colege of Arts, Central St Martins, Chelsea College of Art and Design, the LCC, the London College of Fashion and Wimbledon College of Art. The size is 240x170mm, Portrait, perfect bound with a 96pp text

As you can see, the black is predominant in the design and it was important to have a deep black, which often would require a coated material. However the look and feel of the whole catalogue called for an uncoated stock that was tactile and engaging but still requiring a dense black to be printed. Omnia 200gsm was chosen because it had the right feel and would reproduce the black almost as good as a coated paper. The material for the main catalogue was a printers "house recycled uncoated offset" - which was a choice dictated by cost.

 

This is an excellent example of using a material for a part of a project which can just lift the whole look and feel and make a piece of literature feel special. The Omnia has given this job a quality feel and keeps it miles away from the look and feel of a naff "glossy" type cover which can often be used for a prospectus.
 

Art Direction is by Pentagram. Design is by Benedict Richards (a UAL alumni). It was produced in conjunction with Simon Goode at the Department of Communications and Development at the University of the Arts and thank you Simon for sending me copies.

It was printed by Tradewinds who are based in Peckam in South London.

 

http://www.arts.ac.uk/

www.pentagram.co.uk

http://www.benedictrichards.co.uk/

http://www.tradewindslondon.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 23.04.2013

Storm Thorgerson

It's rare day when you hear the term "graphic designer" on BBC Radio 4, and rarer still when it's on the main news, but this evening came the sad news that Storm Thorgerson, graphic designer, died today aged 69, having been ill with cancer.

His work was synonymous with the band Pink Floyd and he was a childhood friend of the band members. His most famous album cover artwork was almost certainly Dark Side of the Moon with the cover showing a prism spreading a spectrum of colour but he also worked  for Led Zeppelin, The Alan Parsons Project, Peter Gabriel, Muse and the Cranberries amongst many others.

Design: Hipgnosis   Year: 1973
Art directors: Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell
Artwork:George Hardie

He began his career with UK design group Hipgnosis, founded in the late 1960s and his distinctive style made him one of the music industry's most recognisable artists. He later ran his own design group, Storm Studios.

Our thoughts and best wishes go to his family and friends.

www.stormthorgerson.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.04.2013

Waddesdon Wine

Waddesdon Manor is the historical country seat of the Rothschild family in Buckinghamshire and home to Waddesdon Wine, the official distributor for the Rothschild collection of wines.

This branding project includes a bottle wrap, printed using reproduction maps of the vineyard areas.  The material used was our Offenbach Bible 40gsm, which is light enough to be used as a lightweight, tissue type wrapping material and yet can still be printed offset litho in four colour process.

The identity for Waddesdon Wine was done by Paul Belford Ltd and includes a wide range of printed collateral, including boxes and a brochure and features this W device.

Design and photography is by Paul Belford Ltd with creative direction and photography by Paul Belford and Martin Brown. The Offenbach Bible 40gsm was printed in CMYK by Robert Young at R.Young & Son.

www.waddesdonwine.co.uk
http://www.waddesdon.org.uk/
www.paulbelford.com
http://www.ryoungprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 16.04.2013

Transformation

This is a particularly nice piece of literature for an award winning architects Shepheard Epstein Hunter and showcases their work where they have redeveloped and transforned existing buildings in an imaginative and positive way.

The overall size is 215mm square with an 8pp cover and a 28pp text. However, it is put together in an interesting way as the saddle stitched text is 210mm square and it is glued into the inside back cover with freestanding spine - imitating what is often referred to as 'swiss' bound (although that is a perfect bound finishing process). This is a simple but very effective solution when well finished and has the added advantage of creating a spine where there would otherwise not be one on a saddle stitched brochure. If you click on the image above, it should enlarge and you can see what I mean.

The Omnia has taken the solid green beautifully, giving the cover a lovely tactile feel. The images and CGI renderings, all printed in CMYK work superbly as well. Cover is on Omnia 320gsm and text is on Omnia 150gsm.

Design is by London based consultancy, Found Design. Creative director is Paul Spencer. The job has been beautifully printed and finished by Orchid.

http://www.seh.co.uk/
http://stevenpidwilll.uberflip.com/i/96522
www.founddesign.co.uk
www.orchidprint.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 10.04.2013

Mucho

Today, new Mucho has been launched, together with their website. This new creative agency is the result of Mucho combining with Dowling Duncan.

The partners are Marc Català, John Dowling, Pablo Juncadella, Rob Duncan, Tilman Solé with their respective studios in New York, Barcelona, Berlin, San Francisco and London. It's a tight network of smaller, more boutique, studios with a global outlook.

I've been fortunate to have worked on projects with Rob and Pablo back in their Pentagram days and more recently with John Dowling who's work for Robert Welch and the University of Lincoln has also appeared on this blog.

 

Congratulations and best wishes to all the partners for the future.

http://www.wearemucho.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.04.2013