Roman Holiday

Last week I was fortunate enough to be on holiday in Italy visiting Rome and Pompeii. On one of the days which was rather wet we were at a bit of a loose end. I saw a town called Amalfi on the map and remembered (by chance!) that there was a handmade paper mill there. So we hopped in the car and off we went to see a paper mill that was established in the 13th century - real medieval stuff!

It is situated half way up the mountainside on which the town of Amalfi is situated. At one time there were 16 paper mills on the mountain making use of the fast flowing fresh water streaming off the mountain to make paper and power the water wheels. The mill itself (which is now preserved as a museum) is carved out of the solid rock. This is a picture of the mill entrance:

The inside of the mill, hewn out of the rock:

The vats of pulp/water for handmade paper production:

Now, here's a truly amazing thing - the mill installed a "Hollander Beater" which is a machine which was a 18th century Dutch invention, to more efficiently break down fibres (rags) for papermaking - rather than beating them with a hammer with sharp spikes. This mill invested in this new technology and the machine was installed on 18th November 1745 - and this is the machine, still powered by the water wheel which I saw actually working , pictured below:

In the 19th century, the mill made inverstments in the new fangled paper machines which are shown below - although they are not currently in production (they only make handmade papers now), they work on the same principle as all modern paper machines.

On the picture below, note the saw in the foreground, which is the way in which the sheets were cut off the (very slow) machine and also in the background, the way that they created extra room for the machine by cutting further into the mountain:

...and to prove I was actually there, here I am with the machine in the background:

If you are in the area, it is definitely worth a visit.

http://www.museodellacarta.it/ingresso2.asp?l=2

http://www.amalfiguide.it/what-see-amalfi-coast/amalfi/paper-museum

Posted by Justin Hobson 25.04.2012

Artomatic - back again.

Some of you will remember Artomatic, a very creative print/production house based in London from 1983-2003.
I wrote about them on a previous post about an amazing job they produced called "ilikeprinting":  

http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/job-from-past.html

The person behind Artomatic, Tim Milne has now returned to London and Artomatic is back up and running again. He sent me a link to an interesting job that he's just produced ...on dollar bills!

 

There's no point in me re-writing the piece, so please have a look at the following post, you won't be disappointed: http://www.artomatic.co.uk/blog/2012/4/16/billion-dollar-babies-mailer.html

www.artomatic.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.04.2012

Converging Paths

Award winning theatre company Slung Low are making five new performance pieces for five North Yorkshire Festivals: Coastival, Swaledale, Grassington, Harrogate and Ryedale. A series of new pieces based on the novel "The Ground Remembers" by Matthew David Scott. Set in unusual and unique locations, the shows re-examine how audiences go and see a piece of theatre.

The creative solution explores the notion of ‘real magic’ and plays on the common water theme through refraction. Lee Goater, working with photographer Mezz Davies captured a combination of site specific location photography and studio shots. Layers of sediment are suggested through the use of stacked typography, line work and photography. A series of six A5 cards folded to A6, held together in a card wallet has been produced as one of the collateral items.

The slipcase is lasercut on the face:

The pic below shows each of the cards together with the poster/flyers. The cards and slipcase are produced on our Redeem 100% Recycled 315gsm.

Design and art direction is by Lee Goater. Print and finishing, including the lasercutting was produced by Sheffield based Evolution Print.

You can read more about the project and about Lee's other work on the following blog: http://www.septemberindustry.co.uk/lee-goater/

http://www.convergingpaths.co.uk/
www.mezzdavies.co.uk
www.evolutionprint.co.uk
www.leegoater.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 19.04.2012

Jo Malone - Corporate Inspirations

Jo Malone is a London based company renowned for British bespoke fragrances for Women, Men and the Home. The brand is renowned for it's products being immaculately wrapped in a signature cream box with black corners - packaging which defines quality and an understated style.

With these values in place, it's unsurprising that the company's literature is of equal quality and this really is a beautiful brochure. Titled "Corporate Inspirations", it sets out their offering for corporate gifts and events.

Size is 186mm square, perfect bound with a 4pp cover and 28pp text with four "throwouts" making 36pp in total.

and this spread shows one of the double gatefold spreads ("throw outs"):

Art direction and design is by the Jo Malone design team. The publication is printed on our Neptune Unique FSC which is a high (very high) white with a lovely smooth surface. Cover is on 300gsm and 160gsm. Print production is by Mark Pitman at Pegasus Colour.

www.jomalone.co.uk
http://www.pegasuscolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.04.2012

Colorset recycled paper gets recycled!

Here's a truly recycled story that's been recyled again...

 

A couple of years ago, London design company No Days Off printed their stationery and posters on our Colorset White (100% Recycled) 120 & 270gsm. It even appeared on one of my early posts:
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/no-days-off.html

Having just moved to a new studio last year, London-based No Days Off needed to get new stationery printed. Being designers, they naturally saw an opportunity to refresh their own identity. But what to do with all the redundant old business cards and letterheads? Recycle them, of course...

Patrick Duffy from No Days Off explains...
"We wondered whether we might be able to do something a bit more interesting than just sticking [the old stationery] in the recycle bin and buying in a load of new paper - In our minds, the simplest thing to do was to just pulp all this old paper and make it into new paper, and then print our new stationery on that," Duffy continues. "Direct recycling, cutting out the middle-man. Easy, we thought...

"It all seemed pretty abvious to us, but like all seemingly simple ideas, it proved to be less than straightforward. Most of the people we approached said they couldn’t do it. But then Justin at Fenner put us on to Jim Patterson of Two Rivers Paper, and all our paper pulping prayers were answered"

and even better than that, they even made a video of the paper being pulped and made at the Frogmore Paper Mill in Hemel Hempstead (by James Boughen). I urge you to have a look as it's great although due to my own technical ineptitude, I can't seem to embed the clip in this blog E blogger doesn't seem to like vimeo!)

Watch the video on this link:
http://vimeo.com/35561862

You can read more about the stationery here:
http://nodaysoff.com/blog/?p=904

Letterpress printing is by Adams of Rye.

It's worth pointing out that as a result of this great idea, we didn't get an order for any paper, but hey, it's still a lovely story....

http://www.adamsofrye.co.uk/

http://www.tworiverspaper.co.uk/

http://www.nodaysoff.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.04.2012

Diamond Jubilee Exhibition at the V&A



Photo: Cecil Beaton 1960 

If you weren't aware of it, there is currently an exhibition at the V&A featuring portraits of Queen Elizabeth II by royal photographer Cecil Beaton. The exhibition celebrates Her Majesty in her roles as princess, monarch and mother and coincides with the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.

You can read more about it and see some of Beaton's amazing (and iconic) images here:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/cecilbeaton/

If you were wondering if this was just a pleasant public information announcement, you'd be wrong!  I thought I would use it as an opportunity to show the lovely posters produced for the exhibition which are printed on our lovely Omnia 150gsm and which (as you can see below) faithfully reproduces Cecil Beaton's work...

The other thing to point out is that the image is "gold laden" and even though an uncoated feel was required Omnia was chosen because of the way images reproduce - including gold made out of CMYK (not specials) and still look gold, whereas on other uncoated papers it would just look a bit mustardy brown! (in my opinion). The poster size is 510x760mm.

 

Design is by the V&A in house studio. Print is by Principal Colour.

 

...and you'd better hurry as the exhibition ends on 22nd April.

 

http://www.vam.ac.uk/

http://www.principalcolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 11.04.2012

It's Nice That is 5

Last week, It's Nice That, celebrated their 5th birthday with the launch of their new site. Designed by INT Works and built by With Associates, the new site is the third generation of the It’s Nice That site.

Do have a look... www.itsnicethat.com

It was great to be invited to share in their celebrations - they asked friends, collaborators and anyone who's helped along the way, to the pub to toast their birthday. So last Thursday evening after work, a pretty sizeable gathering met up at the Barley Mow in Curtain Road to celebrate.

Not the best picture of the year, but it gives you the flavour... it was such a balmy evening, nearly everyone was outside! 

Congratulations to everyone at Its Nice That, especially to Will and Alex who had that dream 5 years ago, got their heads down and stuck to it ...Happy Birthday

www.itsnicethat.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 10.04.2012