Simply beautiful

What does a business card do?

It is hard to argue that a good business card will guarantee lots of business and have potential clients queueing at the door! ...however, I remain convinced that a poor business card leaves little or no impression and worst of all may leave a bad impression.

This is a simple job about which I can't write very much because it is a business card, simply and beautifully produced.

The material is our Flora Tabacco in 350gsm (manufactured by Cordenons in Italy) which is a substantial board with a high bulk, an industrial look & feel and with deliberate "inclusions" or specks. This rough and ready looking material has been juxtaposed with some exceptionally fine hot foil blocking in a matt white foil - and it really is superbly done as you can see. The small lettering in a serif typeface has been well maintained and is a testament to the foilers ability to get the heat, pressure and dwell time on the foiling machine just right.

Design is by Emily Chicken. Foiling is by Birmingham based Tuckey Print.

www.guttfieldarchitecture.co.uk
http://www.emilychicken.co.uk/
http://www.tuckeyprint.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 26.10.2011

Studio Cookbook

Studio cookbook is a collection of recipes aimed to inspire social lunches at the workplace. The first edition is a collection from åbäke, Alex Bettler, Front yard company, Goodwin Hartshorn, Jerome Rigaud, Martino Gamper, Mind Design, Sara De Bondt studio and many more.

The book is 170x240mm, portrait with a 4pp cover and 32pp text. The cover and endpapers are cut 25mm short at the head. It uses "3 hole sewn" binding which is lovely.  It is printed on our range called Coriandoli which is our range which has multi-coloured "inclusions" (...in other words, bits!). The cover is on the lovely, bright, Coriandoli Solare, 250gsm and the text on Coriandoli Avorio, 130gsm.

The book has been printed and published by Hato Press, a specialist Riso printing and publishing house (if you want to know about Riso printing, have a look at:  http://hatopress.net/1/category/printing/ ).  It is designed by Ken Kirton Studio.

The book launch, or rather lunch, was held in July and gathered previous studios with new participants, to realise the form of the cookbook live at The Bökship!

...here are the pics of the event

Contributing chefs include:
Patrick Lacey (åbäke) in collaboration with Erika Wall
Jerome Rigaud (electronest)
Sarah Gottlieb (Household) and Dario Utreras
Holger Jacobs (Mind Design)
Sophie Demay (Department 21)
Holly Willats (Art Licks)
Patrick Coyle
PraxisPlay
Johanna and Elin (Studio Åh)
Matthieu Becker (Studio K)

www.hatopress.net/1/shop/studio-cookbook/
http://bokship.org/index.html
http://kenkirton.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.10.2012

ISTD Awards 2011

I was lucky enough to go to the ISTD awards on Friday evening and it was an excellent event. It was held at the The Museum of Brands and Packaging in London's Notting Hill. Now, I've never come accross this museum but as guests we were allowed to have a look around and I would suggest you have a look, especially if you are doing a packaging/branding project (http://www.museumofbrands.com/). As with all ISTD events, there is a real warmth, maybe because there is always an international element? or because people interested in type are friendly? ...I don't know.

Steve Fenn, Tom Heaton, Toby Burkill, Tom Pollard, Zoë Bather

There was no 2011 Overall Winner but there were 50 Awards representing design from 19 countries and 12 nationalities – 36 Certificates of Excellence, 14 Premier Awards, awarded for outstanding typographic achievement.

All the award winners deserve congratulations, but in particular, there are some people who I must mention:

Cartlidge Levene for the V&A  Ceramic Galleries  (... not on paper, but still great work!) http://www.cartlidgelevene.co.uk/

Raw for their lovely 11 out of 10 poster (printed by Adams of Rye), Studio 8 for Elephant magazine and the Central School of Speech & Drama identity and Paulus M Dreibholz for numerous awards!
http://www.rawdesignstudio.co.uk/
http://www.studio8design.co.uk/
http://dreibholz.com/

A piece that particularly intrigued me was  a book called Another Reason designed bu Al Mohtaraf, a studio based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia:

http://www.mohtaraf.com/

http://mohtarafbooks.com/m/al-mohtaraf-publishing,1.html

It was an excellent evening which showed a fantastic array of international typographic excellence. It is SO important for the design industry that we retain organisations such as the ISTD and we must take every opportunity to try and encourage membership, thus ensuring their continued viability. Congratulations to the awards team: Belinda Magee, Clare Playne and Gilmar Wendt - a huge amount of time and work goes into these events and it is fair that they should be recognised and applauded.

The awards catalogue perfectly illustrates the awards, the diversity of media and approach and an inspiring overview of international typographic design. It is 130x185mm, portrait, perfect bound. Printed on our Neptune Unique 300 and 170gsm.

The book is designed by Playne Design. Print is by Gavin Martin. It's well worth getting - you can buy the awards book through the ISTD website (£15, I think)

...and if you aren't a member, have a look http://www.istd.org.uk/ - it costs less than £10 per month - still excellent value!

www.istd.org.uk
http://www.museumofbrands.com/
www.playnedesign.co.uk
www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.10.2011

Vincit Qui Se Vincit

This is a beautiful prospectus for what looks like a very lovely private girls school in the Malvern Hills in the Midlands.

The publication is 210x280mm, portrait with a 4pp cover and 32pp text and is PUR bound. It is printed CMYK throughout plus two special colours (dark blue and gold) on our Omnia 280 & 150gsm. The cover has a silk finish lamination on the outside to prevent marking when handling. Interesting, because most people using Omnia would prefer the uncoated nature of the board but this is a sensible route given the fact that a dark blue is likely to mark against other lighter colours (however dry the ink is) and the lamination has worked exceptionally well on the Omnia.

There are also 4 x A5 size "tip-in's" on a 200gsm gloss coated which provides a contrast with the Omnia (see pic below).

...and as you can see from the picture below, the metallic ink on the Omnia, really looks metallic. On most true uncoated papers, metallics can simply look dead and like a flat colour. Metallics on Omnia, still look lively and have that pearly irridescent look. 

The propectus was designed Mosaique Design Consultants based in Tewkesbury. Art direction and design is by Phil Ellis and the account director on the project was Geoff Smith.  It's a very engaging piece of literature.

Printing is by Ortek printers in Walsall and they have made a superb job of it - colour reproduction is excellent - solid flat areas of colour work amazingly well as do the metallics. The job was handled by Graham Crisp and it was kind of him to send me file copies.

...and just to show my Latin O level wasn't wasted: Vincit Qui Se Vincit is the school motto and translates as "She conquers who conquers herself" (I use the female, as it is a girls' school - it also reads "he conquers who conquers himself").

http://www.malvernstjames.co.uk/

http://www.mosaique.co.uk/

www.ortek.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 19.10.2011

Sky Magazine Axed

Last week, BSkyB announced that they have axed the print edition of Sky Magazine. Now you might not particularly see why this is important or relevant to me or this blog - as we don't supply the paper for the magazine anyway!

However, when I tell you that this is the UK's largest magazine by circulation with an average readership of almost 7.3million, you can see why it's significant.

Richard Gray, managing director of Prinovis, which printed all of the Sky titles, referred to the decision in a recent interview with PrintWeek and highlighted its significance for the print industry:
"We do have to be concerned when companies such as BskyB, who understand the benefits that print can offer, make decisions about their marketing budgets that drastically reduce the use of the printed medium. BskyB’s decision should be worrying for the printing industry, not just Prinovis."

...how true
For the full article in Printweek:
http://www.printweek.com/bulletin/printweekdailybulletin/article/1098565/sky-magazine-axed-favour-online-mobile-comms/

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.10.2011

Biba

Most people will be familiar with the name Biba. Starting as a mail order company in the early sixties and becoming a global fashion phenomenon by the early seventies, Biba became one of the great symbols of swinging London. Biba closed its doors in 1975 but was relaunched in September 2010 (exclusively at House of Fraser).

A lookbook for the re-launch was designed and produced by London based creative agency, Exposure.

The size of the book is 235x170mm, portrait, perfect bound. The 4pp cover is on Notturno 300gsm (a black board) and is hot foil blocked in gold on the outside cover. The 52pp test is printed on our Omnia 200gsm which, although quite heavy for text, really works because of the gilt (gold) edge which runs around the page edges (if you click on the image, you should be able to see the edge).

...and as you can see from the spreads below, the Omnia has worked amazingly well with the solid black and images:

Art Director on the project was Simon Boniface. The photography is by Leandro Farina.

Print and print production including the superb foiling and gilt edging was by Chapter Press.
It is quite simply, one of those jobs that you look at and go WOW!
http://www.mybiba.com/
www.exposure.net
http://www.leandrofarinastudio.blogspot.com/
www.chapterpress.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 14.10.2011

Fabergé Promotional cards

This is a pair of promotional cards to accompany the Fabergé Horlogerie book (see post 30.09.2011). Produced in two sizes 190mm square and 142x175mm, printed on our Colorset Ash 270gsm. The images are just printed in one colour (black) offset litho, with a hot foil blocked Fabergé logo, in gunmetal on the outside. Simple and lovely.

 Design is anonymous. Print is by Push.

...and thanks to Justin at Push for the file copies and his note, complete with an artful rendition of the Fenner Paper Logo:

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 12.10.2011