B&W success at 2009 Roses Design Awards

On Friday 23rd October it was the 2009 Roses Design Awards held in Nottingham. Particularly worthy of note is B&W Studio in Leeds as they collected five awards at the 2009 Roses awards, including the Chairman's award ...well done Lee and Steve.

have a look at their work: http://www.bandwstudio.co.uk/

The awards site:

http://www.thedrum.co.uk/events/61-roses-design-awards-2009

Jobs From The Past - Number 2

Regular followers will know that my first post of every month is a "job from the past" (see post on 01/10/2009), so that I can show some of the memorable jobs from times past.

Life 5/2/96 ERICSSON "you only have one life - live it"


This is an amazing job which still looks and feels as fresh as it did thirteen years ago! Produced in 1996 by Imagination for Swedish mobile phone manufacturer Ericsson. This was a piece of literature to accompany the trade stand at the CeBIT telecommunications show. The Creative Director was Stuart Jane and the Designer was Melissa Price with photography by the in-house team at Imagination.

The journal documents a working day in the lives of 7 European professionals and shows how Ericsson products "provide freedom, flexibility and control"! It is written in both English and German.

The job is 240x320mm Portrait, saddle stiched. It is printed on our Neptune Unique but has an unusual combination of weights with 4pp cover on 300gsm with 16pp on 200gsm and 20pp on 135gsm with an irregular order for the weights - works really well.

The job was printed by a company called Litho-Tech based in Kennington, London who at the time was one of the leading corporate printers in London if not the UK. Sadly like many printers of that era, the company no longer exists. It was printed offset litho in six colours. My notes aren't completely clear but I think the run was either 5,000 or 10,000 copies. Peter Roberts was the sales executive, Les Baker, the production manager and Paul Watson the Managing Director.

This was still in the very early days of using high quality uncoated text and cover materials for corporate communications but certainly Neptune Unique worked extremely well with the double hit vibrant green on the cover and gunmetal metallic silver special printed on the inside.

So where are they all now? The designer on the project, Melissa Price is at Cartlidge Levene. Creative Director, Stuart Jane is at Venture Three. Peter Roberts, who was the sales executive at printers Litho-Tech who handled the job, now runs his own print management company called Urban Life Support and Les Baker is now Works Manager at St Ives, Westerham Press. As for the others, if you know, let me know....

http://www.ericsson.com
http://www.imagination.com
http://www.venturethree.com
http://www.cartlidgelevene.co.uk
http://www.urbanlifesupport.com
http://www.st-ives.co.uk

we made this

Alistair Hall from "we made this" has just sent me pics of his new set of stationery and he's dead chuffed with it. The business card is foiled with matt silver foil on our Kapok 500gsm board and the comp slips and letterhead are on Episode IV, 115gsm (100% recycled)

And this lovely pic below shows the depth and clarity of the deboss (but on a white material)
Foiling and printing was done by Benwell Sebard (London)

All looks very, very smart ...thank you Alistair.

http://www.wemadethis.co.uk/

http://www.benwells.co.uk/

Land Securities - Studio Awards 2009

I popped into see Magpie's new studio in Shoreditch last week (it's a nice light studio) and was given a copy of a very nice job they've produced for Land Securities.

This publication catalogues the selection and work of three artists that have been selected and sponsored by Land Securities.

Scott O'Rourke, Petros Chrisostomou and Mike Tuck have been the fortunate recipients of studio space, funding and artistic freedom and this publication documents the show that they put on at the end of a year.

It's a beautifully produced 64pp catalogue (165x245mm) with text printed on Neptune Unique FSC 155gsm. The cover is foiled on a black self coloured black (Sirio, I think)

The three founders of Magpie are Jamie Ellul, David Azurdia and Ben Christie.

The book has been well printed by Gavin Martin Associates, especially given the diverse range of the artists media.

Studio photography is by Paul Grundy and Murray Scott

www.landsecurities.com

www.sw1gallery.co.uk

http://www.magpie-studio.com/

http://www.gavinmartin.co.uk/

An incredible story about paper ...from Space!

In February 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry from space over Texas. Seven astronauts lost their lives and because of the type of altitude and explosion most of the shuttle and contents were simply vaporised.

However, incredibly, paper survived ... and not just any paper, but parts of the personal journal of one of the astronauts, Ilan Ramon from Israel. Amazingly these charred remains floated down to earth and were found two months later in Texas swampland. The highly degraded and damp papers, written in Hebrew, were given to his widow Rona Ramon. She recognised that they were a personal account rather than technical references and they were passed on to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and Forensic science department of the Israel police for preservation and restoration.

Remarkably and in some cases character by character, sections of this remarkable diary have been reconstructed, the process having taken months and months of dedicated work.

To celebrate this miracle, a limited edition of "facsimile" diaries has been produced for the Ramon family in a boxed set which contains a replica notebook incorporating the found and restored sections of the journal and a booklet describing the reconstruction of the Space Diary.

It has been designed and produced by Ornan Rotem and Num Stibbe from Sylph Editions here in the UK. It is not published as a commercial project but as a labour of love as they are friends of the Ramon family.


It is not available for sale as this was very much a private project for the Ramon family but it is a privilege to be able to tell the story and show you the pictures.

It was an amazing job to have been involved with, the story being so fascinating but also incredibly sad as sections of this highly personal journal describe his private feelings about being in Space and how much he is looking forward to being reunited with his family after landing back on Earth.

The project was digitally printed by Good News Press on an Indigo digital press and was printed on Neptune Unique SoftWhite. The facsimile notebook has been bound using nylon cords supplied by NASA which is how the original notebook was bound.

http://www.sylpheditions.com/

http://www.goodnewspress.co.uk/

New ranges from Lagom

I have received two new ranges of Greetings Cards from Lagom.

The (predominantly) blue series called HYGGE are designed by Kelly Hyatt at Lagom and are printed in CMYK plus a special blue and a Gloss UV varnish .

The Monsieur Boudin series (below) is designed by LAB PARTNERS in San Francisco and features a very cute pooch, presumably called Monsieur Boudin! They are published in the UK by Lagom Design.
Both of these new ranges are printed on our uncoated OMNIA range (280gsm) - and for a bit of interesting product info, not only does it have a high bulk and tactile feel but unlike most uncoated products, UV varnish works really well! - if you want to see for yourself, you can always e-mail me and I'll send you an example...

www.lagomdesign.co.uk

Crispin Finn does it again!

I just received some more lovely samples from Anna Fidalgo at Crispin Finn. Silkscreen printed in one colour. Produced for the very talented illustrator, Emma Kelly.

The material used is our (lovely and oh, so competitively priced!) Matrisse 200gsm
I love the "Whilst you were out" note! as well.http://www.crispinfinn.com/
Emma Kelly: info@iliketodrawthings.com