Alga Carta written about in the Financial Times!

A nice surprise last week was to find that Shiro Alga Carta had made it into the Life and Arts column of the Financial Times.

The full article (and recipe) is available on FT.com:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6528b1bc-e2e0-11df-9735-00144feabdc0.html

The leaflet referred to, reproduces the recipe written by Elizabeth David in December 1969. It has been reprinted by Sally Clarke to celebrate the publication of 'At Elizabeth David's Table' in October 2010 and for the patrons of Clarke's Restaurant in Kensington, where a week is being devoted to recipes inspired by Elizabeth David.

The 132x210mm recipe leaflet was designed and produced by Simon Rendall and printed in two colours on Alga Carta, Avorio 160gsm. The device is illustrated by Jon Gray.

http://www.sallyclarke.com/

http://www.ft.com/

Shiro Alga Carta is a paper manufactured by FAVINI using polluting alga harvested from the Venice lagoon, combined with FSC certified fibres. Algae blooms at the end of Summer in the Venice lagoon as the warm water combines with pollution. The algae must be harvested to maintain the lagoon's eco-balance (circa 5,000 tonnes of wet algae is removed annually). The algae (seaweed) is used partly as pulp replacement but mainly as a filler and this accounts for its unusual smooth feel and the random specks.

http://www.favini.com/

 

Posted by Justin Hobson 09.11.2010

Wrangler Bluebell - Fall/Winter 2010

This is the latest collection from Wrangler's premium men's line  - Blue Bell. As you might expect from their top range, this piece of literature is produced to the highest standard. Art direction, photography and reproduction is superb.

This project was produced in both an A3 format and an A5 format which is a bit ususual and a bit different. They both share the same images and number of text leaves - 24pp and are both singer sewn along the spine with blue thread. The text is printed on our Omnia 150gsm which gives it that dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction. Cover is printed on Colorset Nero 270gsm and is hot foil blocked in Blue metallic gloss foil.

Art Direction, design and production is by Studio Thomson. Both jobs have a fantastic feel - it is difficult for me to say too much more about it - see the images below, they speak for the job...

...and here we go for a bit of a plug!  - As you can see from the above images, there are lots of CMYK black areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia - I'm not going to use this a a platform to slag off other products, but there are one or two other papers on the market which people regard as being similar to Omnia - but there is no way that they print dark black images as well as Omnia and retain detail in the dark areas (in my opinion- but I would say that wouldn't I?)

The cover for the A5 version, has the addition of our Monoblack 1400micron board, mounted onto the front and back covers which gives the job a lovely solidity (click on image to enlarge):

Below: a close up of the singer sewing and the Monoblack, mounted on the cover.

The art direction is by Mark and Chris Thomson and the quality of the direction and photography (by Petrovsky & Ramone) is matched by the exceptional printing (and finishing) by Push.

http://www.wrangler-europe.com/

http://www.studiothomson.com/
http://www.push-print.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 05.11.2010

The President speaks - at Noon or Midnight?

Like many of you,  I received an e-mail with an invitation from the D&AD President to join with his asking a question in as many different languages as possible, as follows:

Dear Creative Person. I have a question for you.
In fact, I have a question for every single purveyor of original thought in the world. On 03.11.10 at 12.00pm GMT I will attempt to ask this question in as many languages as humanly possible.
Join me and please accept my invitation at the bottom of this email.
The President of D&AD

THE PRESIDENT SPEAKS TO THE WORLD IN AS MANY LANGUAGES AS POSSIBLE

Location: youtube.com/dandad 
Date: Wednesday 3 November 2010
Time: 12:00PM GMT


Now, I thought this was quite interesting but I also wondered whether it should be 12:00PM or not?  To me it just looked wrong. So I thought I'd have a quick look into it and it seems that there is no definite answer. Because the abbreviations a.m. stands for ante-meridiem (before the Sun has crossed the line) and p.m. for post-meridiem (after the Sun has crossed the line) it causes a problem because at 12 noon, the Sun is at its highest point in the sky and directly over the meridian. It is therefore neither 'ante-' nor 'post-' and it does cause some uncertainty!

Concensus on the web is that to avoid confusion, the correct designation for 12 o'clock is 12 noon or 12 midnight.

Now you know that, get on to YouTube (...at 12 noon) and find out what the message is!
www.youtube.com/dandad 

Posted by Justin Hobson 03.11.2010

Jobs from the past - Number 14

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 this one is from 2006.

Pencalenick House Brochure

Designed by Thirst in London, this is a beautifully produced brochure for an exquisite building. Thirst did the identity and this brochure for this architect designed house which is available for holiday rental. Architect, Seth Stein designed the house and it was constructed using local materials (it won the RIBA South West Award in 2009). This is a very high specification property and the rental price is comensurate with this standard! The brochure does a superb job at showing the property in an understated way which conveys the quality of the architecture and materials used.

Size of the job is 240x170mm, portrait, saddle stitched. The cover is a 6pp with the flap at the front and page 1 of the text has a 'throw out'. Therefore the spread above is the first spread seen which when opens then forms an 8pp double page spread, revealing the image as below... 

The 6pp cover is on Omnia 200gsm and the 26pp (because of the throw out) text is on Omnia 150gsm. The tactile uncoated material works well with the images of the natural materials used in it's construction whilst still doing justice to the fantastic photography.

Print production is by Nigel Powell at Turnstone Print Solutions.

http://www.pencalenickhouse.com/

http://www.thirst-london.com/

turnstoneprint@blueyonder.co.uk

http://www.sethstein.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.11.2010

University of the Arts 2010

This is one of the most beautifully simple jobs that I have seen all year. It is for the University of the Arts in London and is the book produced for the awards ceremony in July and lists every candidate on every course together with their awards.

Size is 160x230mm, portrait. The job has a 4pp cover with 112pp text with a spine width of about 10mm. One of the most unusual things is that the whole job is printed in just one colour - Pantone Gold (874, I guess). Not only is it unusual to see one colour jobs produced these days in any sort of volume (because the pressure always seems to be on using colour) but using a metallic on an uncoated substrate (Redeem 100% Recycled 240gsm and 130gsm)  is uncommon and yet, as you can see, it works beatifully, both on the text work and the full pages of solid with reversed out extremely fine lines.

Design is by David Preston Studio. It was produced in conjunction with Simon Goode at the Department of Communications and Development at the University of the Arts. Thank you Simon for sending me copies and the lovely note.

It was printed by Tradewinds who are based in Peckam in South London and I have to say, they have made a really lovely job of it.

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

http://www.davidprestonstudio.co.uk/

http://www.tradewindslondon.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.10.2010

Whistles S/S 2010

This is the Spring Summer 2010 lookbook for Whistles - (I've only just taken the pics which is why it's s bit late for the current season!)

The size is 240x340mm Portrait, saddle stitched. It has a 4pp cover (which is deliberately lightweight) on our Marazion Ultra 135gsm with a 24pp text on Marazion Ultra 90gsm which gives it a light, summery feel.

The spreads alternate between CMYK in colour and four colour black and white images, sometimes in a portrait format over the DPS. It's a beautifully produced job.

Art Direction and design is by Simmonds Ltd.  Photography is by Karim Sadli and Styling is by Francesca Burns.

http://www.whistles.co.uk/

http://www.simmondsltd.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 26.10.2010

HAPTIC

I've just received printed samples of this superb identity project for architects, Haptic.

Rules have been used to create letterforms (see above) which have then been translated into a fantastic emboss and deboss for the business cards, pictured below.

The effect on the business cards is created using a multi-level die which embosses and debosses in the same pass on the machine. Fantastically simple and amazingly effective - nothing more to be said!

Materials used are Matrisse Cotton 110gsm for the letterhead and Matrisse 320gsm for the business card.

Design is by BOB Design in London. Creative Director is Mireille Burkhardt.

Print and embossing is by Benwells in London.

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.10.2010