Pentawards 2011

Now you don't see much about pacakging on this blog, because apart from a few pieces of quite specialist stuff, we aren't really involved in mainstream packaging.  However, I thought it would be worth drawing you attention to an international competition called the Pentawards ( ...no, nothing to do with Pentagram!)

Pentawards is the first and (apparently) only worldwide competition exclusively devoted to packaging design in all its forms. It is open to everybody in all countries who are associated with the creation and marketing of packaging. The winners receive bronze, silver, gold, platinum or diamond Pentawards according to the creative quality of their work.
2011 entry is open up to the 20th of May. You can read more at:  http://www.pentawards.org/

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.04.2011

Mad Hen - Case Study

This publication is the first in a series of "case studies" published by design company Mad Hen, who are based in Wales.

This case study is about Halen Môn Sea Salt which over the last decade has built up a profile as a premium, gourmet product.

The booklet is a saddle stitched, 12pp self cover, A6 (148x105mm) portrait produced on Omnia 150gsm.

Design is by Creative Director Sid Madge at Mad Hen. Omnia was chosen because the colour reproduction is superb as are the solids combined with the fact that this little job just feels 'special' - and as Sid says in his lovely note to me:  Omnia ...Yum!

It does occur to me that this is a great way of a design company getting it's own work out there. I know that these days, the emphasis is very much on websites but you still need to give a client a reason for looking at a site and a simple, clear precise publication like this is just the thing ...food for thought!
http://www.halenmon.com/
http://www.madhen.uk.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 26.04.2011

ISTD Typographic Awards - Call for entries

Over the last couple of weeks you may have received the very nice mailing, pictured below:

It is the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD) call for entries for the 2011 awards. The mailer is 145x195mm which folds out to a poster sized 390x580mm. It is printed in CMYK on one side only on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm.

Design and Art Direction is by Liam Bonar and Gilmar Wendt. It is printed by Gavin Martin.

Now the deadline is looming, so if you haven't got your entries ready, you'd better get on with it right now! they need to be in by 12th May 2011. There are 19 categories and the judges are Robert Boon, Simon Dixon, Tom Hingston, Lynda Relph-Knight and Astrid Stavro.

If you didn't get a mailer and would like to find out more about the awards, more details are available from www.istd.org.uk/awards

...and thanks to David Coates and the board for the kind note:

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.04.2011

Dorchester Collection 2011

This is the 2011 desk calendar for hotel group, the Dorchester Collection. It is a superbly produced calendar of the highest quality (as one might expect!)

The Dorchester Collection has a collection of hotels around the world from the Beverley Hills Hotel to Le Meurice in Paris to the Dorchester itself. Combined, the hotels boast 11 Michelin stars and it is the chefs (and the food) that are the stars of this calendar.

The size of the calendar is 148x200mm wiro-bound onto an extended "tent card" which is 25mm deeper.

The overiding feeling that you get with this piece is one of quality and prestige, which is down to the feel, quality of materials and processes used. The Calendar has been produced using a mixture of our Monoblack 1400mics (yes that's the black material - 1.4mm thick!) which makes a lovely sturdy tent and front cover. The cover is de-bossed and the tent card is hot foil blocked in a silver foil. The seventeen text sheets are printed on our StarFine White 170gsm and there is a 90gsm trace material interleaving the sheets. 

To celebrate the collections outstanding restaurants, photographer Joakim Blockström was commissioned to photograph each Michelin starred chef and signature dish in London, New York, Milan, Paris and Los Angeles. First and foremost it has to work as a functional calendar...

Design and (superb) art direction is by OMD Design and the Creative Director on the project was Chris Mettrick. The beautiful photography by Joakim Blockstrom ...and now we get to the print and production. This was a big project (65,000 copies in total) and required excellent print, finishing and logistics. It was produced by Gavin Martin and I have to say it is a really fantastically produced piece of print and finishing - for example the creases on the tent card have been "kiss-cut"  so they are really sharp and it sits up beautifully square, stable and erect. All in all it's a cracking job Grommit!

http://www.dorchestercollection.com/

http://www.omddesign.com/

http://www.joakimblockstrom.com/

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.04.2011

Warner Music

This document is for a strategic overview of the brand partnerships for Warner Music. They represent such artists as Alesha Dixon, Cee Lo, Plan B etc. It is A5 format and saddle stitched. It looks and feels great and yet the run was only 200 copies!

The job was printed on an Indigo digital press by Spring and the print result is fantastic. It is printed on our Marazion Ultra 300gsm (4pp cover) with a matt lamination and our Omnia (FSC) 150gsm for the 20pp text. Although Omnia was not developed for digital, it has been "sapphire treated" by the printer. This treatment is often applied to more unusual papers and provides a "key" so that the inks (which are different to litho inks) work on the paper surface. The great thing is the job just doesn't look and feel digital.

Spring Imaging Solutions made a lovely job of producing this piece and the black wire on the saddle stitches (staples) are a really lovely touch!

The review was designed in house by Rhiannon Jones (who I actually first met when I did a talk at Lincoln University)
...and thanks to Rhiannon for sending me a file copy and a lovely note:

http://www.wmg.com/

Spring Imaging Solutions: http://www.springimage.co/

Posted by Justin Hobson 15.04 2011

A touch of Sunshine!

Here's a lovely identity for Spring-time!

This is an identity for a laser cutting company based in south London called "Cut Laser Cut". The identity has been based around two geometric shapes and our Colorset Solar which is a very bright (almost fluorescent) yellow.

The brand encompasses everything from signage to interior, but is all based around this vibrant yellow.

 Even the files follow the colour scheme...

Below are the business cards (on Colorset Solar, 270gsm) - and if you enlarge the pic you can see the semi circle which is hot foil blocked with a gloss clear foil.

Design is by Linda Byrne at Alphabetical Order. Printed literature was produced by Furnival Press and foiling was by Benwell Sebard. Ed Reeve photographed the images.

...and I recommend having a look at the CLC (Cut Laser Cut) website, they laser cut into some amazing materials: http://www.cutlasercut.com/

http://www.alphabetical-order.co.uk/
http://www.editphoto.net/
http://www.furnivalpress.co.uk/
http://www.benwell.co.uk/

Posted by Justin 14.04.2011

MD Flacks - Invitations

This is a series of invitations for New York gallery MD Flacks. It is a gallery that specialises in Chinese Furniture from the Ming and early Qing dynasties (17th – 18th Centuries). 

The invitations, which are sent to a very discerning audience, need to reflect the quality of the objects themselves. The four invitations pictured below are for four different individual exhibitions: Brush Pots, Zitan, Marble, Roots and Rocks.

Each invitation is A3 size folded to an A6 finished size, with a detail of each subject plus examples of the items printed on the open spreads. 

They are printed on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm and they are particularly beautiful. Particular care has been taken over the quality of the photography and print reproduction. These are extremely fine objects and in many cases have subtle detail, grains and texture which need to be seen and appreciated by the collector, so the reproduction achieved on the Offenbach Bible is of paramount importance to the sucess of this literature. The subtlety of the paper's weight is an equally important part of the project.

Design and Art Direction is by Ornan Rotem at Sylph Editions. Print is managed by Robert Marcuson Bespoke Publishing.

http://www.mdflacks.com/
robert@marcuson.co.uk
http://www.rotem.eu/

Posted by Justin Hobson 12.04.2011