April Fools...

As usual, there were some great April Fool's day gags around this year. John Dowling of Dowling Duncan forwarded the below spoof Creative Review article claiming that the use of non approved typefaces would be subject to a government charge in order to reduce the budget deficit.  It's a great piece of work and I particularly like the line "most of the regeneration of Shoreditch is built on the use of Helvetica"!

...and thanks to all those who wished me well on my invitation for the Royal Wedding, especially Pali at Johnson Banks who was first to spot it. I take my hat off to you all!

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.04.2011

APRIL FOOL!

Sadly, the below post (about the Royal Wedding) is an April Fool ...sorry!

Posted by Justin Hobson at 12.01 on 01.04.2011

Royal Wedding beckons!

This morning, I can reveal that I've been invited to the Royal Wedding on 29th April - how exciting is that!

...and as you can see below, I've already been for my morning suit and hat fitting (in the Fenner Paper van!)

Sadly, it's not because I have "blue blood" running through my veins, it's strictly a work related reason....

Most readers of this blog know that many people call me for recommendations about what materials to use, so I'm used to speaking to a wide range of people but even I was surprised when I received a call from Buckingham Palace!  Flight Lieutenant "Loof" Lirpa, the Prince's secretary and assistant, introduced himself by saying that I'd come highly recommended and he'd even checked out this very blog!

Due to security protocols, I can't reveal too much (or in fact anything) about the materials or processes used, or even the printer who did the job, so this isn't going to be a particularly revealing post - although I can say it's printed on a very white board.

As part of William and Kate's outreach programme, they wanted to invite some "ordinary" people and where better to start than some of the "tradespeople" who have been involved in all apects of the wedding and I was lucky enough to be one of the chosen ones.

Needless to say, I shall be checking out the paper used for the order of service sheets on the actual day!

Lady in waiting, Rt Hon. A.P. Rilf-Ool, sending out the invitations

...all I have to do now is remember the date!

Posted by Justin Hobson 01.04.2011

Rowley Atterbury - Printer

© Granville Davies
http://www.gdphoto.org.uk/

Rowley Atterbury, founder of the Westerham Press, has died this week aged 90.

I was fortunate to have met Rowley a few times at the start of my career in the paper/printing industry and I enjoyed our meetings and still have a letter he wrote me (about "bottom liners" ... he derided printers that sold too cheaply)

Many of you reading this may be wondering why I am writing about this person who many of you will never of heard of. Quite simply, he was one of the most important people in printing, design and typography in the last sixty years.

Rowley Atterbury served in the RAF in WWII and after a short stint at publisher Faber & Faber, he set up the Westerham Press in 1950. I remember him telling me that he set up in the building that had been the old sergeants mess at Biggin Hill aerodrome (but I may have got that wrong).


Beatrice Ward 1932

Rowley was passionate about printing and of course back in those days printing meant letterpress which was hot metal and therefore print and type (and design) were much more closely linked. He was an advocate of quality and worked and corresponded with the outstanding designers and typographic designers of the time including Beatrice Warde, David Kindersley, Robert Harling, Ruari McLean, Jan Tschihold ...to name but a few.

In those far off days of the 1950's, Letterpress printing was virtually the only print processes and the way in which all books, newspapers or any other kind of print could be put together. The transition to electronic type generation was complicated and, at the outset, very difficult. It came about not least because of Rowley Atterbury's pioneering attitude.

He became involved with a US based company called Rocappi (Research on Computer Applications to the Printing and Publishing Industries) Inc. which was researching into computerised data processing. Rowley Atterbury was a director of Rocappi along with mathematician Colin Barber and through the British Printing Corporation (BPC) they developed computer generated tape which was the first step on the road to automated typesetting and data processing.

An exhibition catalogue for the Goldsmiths' Company in 1965 was the first publication set using the Rocappi system ...the computer-generated tape making it possible to output three columns of type simultaneously without intervention of human hand (as opposed to one column by hand).

In 1965 Westerham Press moved into a state of the art, purpose-built factory in Westerham. There's a chapter in Rowley's book "A good idea at the time?" about the design of the factory being formulated around three core requirements:

• An office to organise and control the output of the factory
• An air-conditioned unit in which computers, cameras, scanners and filmsetting devices could operation in suitable conditions
• A large open-plan machine shop, tall enough for a web offset press with a gas dryer, for the process of printing on paper and finishing the work with various binding production lines. This area to be air-conditioned and humidity-controlled.

Each of these three areas to be independent and capable of development and expansion as techniques changed, without affecting the other two units. How many printing companies would formulate such a grand plan today?
It was not until the late 1960s, when the price of lead became very high, that letterpress printing became obsolescent  and Westerham Press invested heavily in offset litho ( ...in a factory designed for letterpress printing but with the versatility to change over to Litho)

He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA)  and in 1984 he was awarded the Bicentenary Medal, which over the years has also been awarded to such luminaries as Terence Conran, Wally Olins, Deyan Sudjic, Christopher Frayling, John Sorrell et al. This alone gives some indication as to just how important to our industry he was. He was also a member and one-time president of the Double Crown club and was involved in a huge number of bodies and organisations in the design and printing industry. He wrote Ruari McLean's obituary that appeared in The Guardian in 2006.

Westerham Press was acquired by the financial printing group Burrups in the 1980's (I think?) and subsequently absorbed into the St Ives group and still exists as it's own entity within the group. Rowley Atterbury stayed active in print in the 1990's with the Letterpress equipment that he kept along with his son Francis Atterbury. Francis continues the family tradition, running the Hurtwood Press who are consultants in fine art printing.
He was a goliath in our once great printing industry. He will be sadly missed.

http://www.hurtwoodpress.com/
http://www.westerhampress.co.uk/
http://www.printweek.com/news/1063003/Westerham-Press-founder-Atterbury-dies/

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.03.2011

Egypt Revealed

Here's a particularly lovely publication produced for the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The Ashmolean has the distinction of being Britain's first public museum and is home to the University of Oxford's collection of Art and Archeology. This piece of literature is to showcase the forthcoming Egyptian galleries.

It is a A4 portrait, saddle stitched, job with a 4pp cover and 20pp text. Although in many ways this is a conventional format (A4 portrait), the simply executed cover is a real feature of the piece. Printed on our Colorset Ash 270gsm in just single colour (monotone) black and hot foil blocked with a matt white foil. Simplicity itself but it really sets the tone of the publication. The text is printed CMYK on a standard coated 150gsm silk.

Design is by London based design company William Joseph and the creative director on the project is Stéphane Harrison.

http://www.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/

http://www.williamjoseph.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.03.2011

Amanda Wakeley SS11 - Invitation

This is the invitation for the Amanda Wakeley SS11 show at London Fashion Week. The invitation folds out showing thumbnails of the clothing combined with African inspired imagery.

The size is 570x410mm folding down to 95x210mm and is printed just one side on Offenbach Bible 60gsm.

Full size image below:

Yet another excellent example that demonstrates the versatlity of Offenbach Bible. A lightweight material that prints superbly well and if well folded can make an invitation a thing of quality and great interest and still fold down to fit in a DL envelope and go in the post for 25 pence!

Design is by Sticky Creation and lead designer on the project was Tom Roberts. Print is by Gavin Martin.

http://www.amandawakeley.com/
http://www.stickycreation.co.uk/
http://www.gavinmartin.co.uk/   

Posted by Justin Hobson 29.03.2011

Oxford Thinking

Here's yet another one of the pieces shortlisted  for the DesignWeek awards the other week. Designed by NB:Studio in collaboration with Michael Wolff, this piece of literature relaunched the University of Oxford's fundraising campaign report. In the Designweek awards brochure the job was described as "a fresh, modest and quirky editorial style captures the spirit of the university - with the report raising £250,000 in the first two weeks alone"

Size is A4 portrait (you don't often see that on this blog!), endorsement folded to A5. It is a 12pp self cover printed on Redeem 100% Recycled 70gsm which gives it a light newspapery feel, but as you can see from the images below, it has really worked well with the photography.  

The centre 4pp which deals with the money aspect of the publication has been printed with an overall solid "wash" of a Financial Times pink colour and features as more of a supplement.

Sadly it's didn't win the category it was shortlisted for (direct mail) but happily for NB, they won the award anyway for another job they did! (called: This Year 2010)  However it wasn't on our paper, so I'm not going to write about it! haha!

Design is by NB:Studio and Michael Wolff

Print is by Gavin Martin

http://www.nbstudio.co.uk/

http://www.gavinmartin.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.03.2011