Preen Resort Invitation

Preen began life as a bijoux boutique on London's Portobello Road in 1996 and is now one of Britain's hippest labels. Design duo Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi count Kate Moss, Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron among their customers. Their Resort 2012 collection is based on a Japanese references being hand-embroidered, block-printed onto silk, and knit into intarsia sweaters.

This is the invitation for the launch of the collection in London at the Club at the Ivy (very fancy!). It's not an easy one  photograph satisfactorily - it's worth clicking on the images to bring them up to scale. The size of the invitations is A5 (210x148mm) portrait. It is printed in two colours (offset litho) in red and black on our Flora Noce 240gsm. For those not familiar with Flora, it has a natural "rustic" feel and this shade is a light buff colour and it has small wood shives in the sheet. The Flora has then been mounted/pasted on our exceptionally thick Monoblack 1400mics to give the finished item a black edge.

It works really well, but is really hard to demonstrate in a photograph!

...and here is the pic which shows the black edge:

Design by Studio Thomson. Printing and the finishing (duplexing) is by Xtraprint based in London EC2.

...and thank you for the note, Mark.

http://www.preen.eu/
http://www.studiothomson.com/

http://www.xtraprint.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.05.2012

Victoria Walmsley & Co...

Last week I popped in to see Victoria Walmsley, who recently left Blast, in her new East London studio. She shares space and collaborates with illustrator Owen Phillips and they are also members of  The Bread Collective.

Anyway, as you can see from the pic, they're very happy in their new studio space and I was happy when I was offered a mug of tea, which looked like they'd got in just for me (being six foot six!)

Thanks for the tea and best of luck with the new venture.

www.victoriawalmsley.co.uk
www.owenp.com
http://thedailybread.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.05.2012

Portsmouth Summer Show 2012

I can truly describe this project as pure Gold! This is the poster and invitation to the forthcoming University of Portsmouth, 2012 Summer Show. There is an A1 (594x820mm) poster on Colorset Solar 120gsm and an invitation (297x105mm) on Colorset Solar 270gsm. Both items are hot foil blocked only (no print) in two colours (metallic gold and pigmented white foil).

The design is by Michael Harkins, who is a senior Lecturer in Graphic Design and the course leader of the MA Graphic Design at the University of Portsmouth and I asked Mike to write some words to explain the project:

"The poster and identity for this year's Summer Show ties together many themes, as is usual in the work I produce. Firstly the show is the high point in the academic year, it is also the month where the sun reaches its zenith (in this part of the world at least), additionally we often refer to this month as 'Golden June'. This nicely fits in with the idea of the 'Gold Standard', especially this year being an olympic one, so there is a cultural echo here in the identity. This is a time of year when students are showing their best work, not for the sake of winning but completing. The circle also reflects the last element in the University logo (originally designed by Banks and Miles). This can also be interpreted as completing – leaving the University with achievement. Thus, on the poster the names of the courses within the circle have completed at this point in terms of the show. The gold foil and terrifically sunny Colorset Solar, also help to give a feeling of celebration and opulence in these somewhat austere times. Although in ethical terms, the production and paper were actually a cheaper alternative to printing at this size in two colour litho. There is also less waste in terms of make ready etc. with regards to the paper"

The foil blocking was produced at Reflections print finishers in London. Mike mentioned that Bill Fletcher at Reflections deserves a special thank you, as the job was not an easy one to produce due to the huge area of foil on the poster - it does look absolutely stunning.

The private view is this Friday (1st June) and is open for general viewing on Wednesday 6th - Wednesday 13th June at the Eldon Building at University of Portsmouth - you should go and you may see something golden!

www.port.ac.uk

www.ccichannel.port.ac.uk

www.reflections.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 29.05.2012

Print Club London

I was pleased to receive two lovely prints in the post from Print Club London. They are from a collection of prints produced at  PICK ME UP 2012 (the contemporary graphic art fair) at Somerset House in London at the end of March.
Print Club London's space at the fair was a journey through the print process, from the designers hand to the ink on the table all the way through to the gallery - a physical journey through the process of print. Visitors were invited to "PULL A PRINT" with help from the screenprinters.

They relocated Millers Junction, Print Club's new creative studio alongside the Print Club studios and gallery so visitors could walk through each stage of design with the resident artists. Each day the artists were working and printing allowing visitors to discuss the projects in progress and see print in action. Over 40 prints were especially designed for the show.

Designers included: Arran Gregory, Dominic Owen, Alice Hoult, Pure Evil, Hugh Barrell, Esther McManus, Margot Bowman, Rose Stallard, Tal Drori, Mr Gresty and many more!

...and here are the lovely prints they kindly sent me:

Rose Stallard

Alice Hoult

These prints and all the prints produced at the show are produced on our Redeem 100% Recycled 300gsm.

If you don't know about Print Club London, you should! They are a silkscreen print studio - basically you can be a member, turn up and print! simple as that. Have a look:  

http://www.printclublondon.com/studio/

Thanks very much to Kate Newbold and Rose Stallard for the prints.

http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/pick-me-up-2012

 Posted by Justin Hobson 25.05.2012

Stardream - answering your questions.

Since my post on Tuesday (below) about our new Stardream range, I've had quite a few e-mails asking for swatches (thank you - they are on the way). I've also had quite a few comments both on the blog and e-mails asking how we've ended up being the stockist.

So, how come we are now the UK distributor?

Well, there's a bit of a story here but basically up until now it has been stocked by the (once mighty) Robert Horne Group.

These days Robert Horne is a division of the loss making Australian based Paperlinx (as is Howard Smith and Paper Co). Unfortunately Paperlinx is in a financially perilous state which has been much reported in the press. There have been rafts of redundancies and other cuts which culminated last November, when Robert Horne announced that it was closing it's entire branch network.
http://www.printweek.com/news/1106823/Robert-Horne-centralises-sales-Northampton-regional-sales-offices-close/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

Subsequently, Italian paper manufacturer Cordenons, approached us to see if we would be prepared to work with them and improve the availability of Stardream for designers and printers in the UK. We thought about it, said OK and here we are!   

It's a tough time in the print and paper industry at the moment and although in this instance Robert Horne's loss is our gain, it's important to remember that this is against the backdrop of things being very hard in the paper/print industry. I'm sure there are many other mills also contemplating their distribution arrangements.

The following links show some backround about the Robert Horne/Paperlinx situation:
http://www.printweek.com/news/1122504/Paperlinx-sells-its-Italian-business-Lecta/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

http://www.printweek.com/news/1120351/Paperlinx-suspends-interest-payments-its-Step-up-Preference-shares/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

http://www.printweek.com/news/1115540/Paperlinx-investors-bid-oust-chair-appoint-representative-director/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

http://www.roberthorne.co.uk/
http://www.paperlinx.com.au/
http://www.cordenons.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.05.2012

Stardream ..some exciting news!

As most regular readers will know, I don't write this blog to shamelessly 'flog' our papers and I rarely just plug our products ...but I'm going to now!

I'm very pleased to announce here that we (here at Fenner Paper) are now the UK stockists of STARDREAM.

For many of you, Stardream will need no introduction, it's the market leading pearlescent and metallic paper range produced by the Cordenons paper mill in Italy. Many people have become fans of the light irridescent finishes and the dual sided deep metallic finishes which do truly shimmer.

...and it comes in 31 shimmering shades! 

Stardream is used for a wide range of applications, including cover, presentation folders, Invitations, greetings cards, luxury packaging and a whole host of other stuff that I haven't thought of!

As well as being available in the 31 shades, it comes in a good weight range. All items are available in 120gsm and 285gsm with some of the most popular items also available in 340gsm board and a 110gsm one sided (particularly used for luxury packaging - paper over board boxes and casebound covers). And if that weren't enough, the range also includes three embossings, Orion, Seta and Cannetè.

You can see the whole range here: http://www.cordenons.co.uk/

..and here's our lovely new swatch...

One of the most important things about these ranges is good availability and we certainly don't want to disappoint! So, we have put every single item of the mill's stock range into our warehouse here in Tonbridge, so availability should be truly excellent (- we hope!)

Here's a picture of the Cordenons mill and paper machine in Italy:








...and there's even a picture of me shaking hands at the mill on our new agreement, with the mill's (special) agent Terry Wakeman.

If you would like to receive one of the new Stardream swatches, just email me (justin@fennerpaper.co.uk) and I'll pop one in the post.

http://www.cordenons.co.uk/
http://www.gruppocordenons.com/en/

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.05.2012

Post Office in Pictures ...take 2!

...oops! nearly forgot. Further to my post on Friday, also in the envelope is another piece of the exhibition literature. 

Size is DL (210x99mm) portrait. It is a 6pp gatefold also printed on Omnia but on 120gsm this time.

As with the invitation, the dark, rich mono images have reproduced fantastically well on Omnia - a real richness in the black areas which still retain lots and lots of detail - something that you wouldn't normally achieve on a standard uncoated paper.



As with the post below, design is by Cai and Kyn  ...and in the envelope was a lovely note from Cai.

Print is by Orchid Print.

http://www.postalheritage.org.uk/
http://www.caiandkyn.co.uk/
http://www.orchidprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 21.05.2012