Drawn By Hand - Quentin Blake



Quentin Blake is one of the best-known illustrators of his generation. Drawn by Hand is an exhibition held at the Shiba Gallery of The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. The show looks at individual works he has produced in the past decade: book illustrations, etchings, lithographs, drawings and works done for hospitals in various and contrasting media.

As Quentin Blake points out in his introduction, all of the pictures in the catalogue were drawn by hand, though the later printing and dissemination often relied on modern technology - and that's the point of the show, he shows work done by scratchy pens, inks, watercolours, quills, etching, lithograph etc.

 

This is the catalogue for the exhibition by Quentin Blake.  Each section explores a different drawing technique.

 

The publication is produced in a sketchbook size. The size is 210x165mm, portrait and is saddle stitched. It has a 4pp cover on 300gsm and a 36pp text on 150gsm. The material chosen is our StarFine Natural White, which is a neutral white, uncoated paper and board range. The paper gives the project the correct look and feel of a sketchbook, sympathetic with the subject without being a pastiche. A particularly lovely touch is the "round cornered" corners - below:

Design is by Burgess Studio. Creative director is Alexis Burgess and the designer on the project is Dan Jones.

The excellent print is by Principal Colour - this is a really neat and tidy saddle stitched job and the round cornering in particular is smart.

http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/article.html?3680
http://quentinblake.com/
www.burgess-studio.co.uk
www.principalcolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 15.08.2013

Mr Guil

Last year, I featured some prints by Mr Guil and here are two new prints - Twilight Favela and Green Chicken produced on "our fantastic paper!" ( ...his words, not mine!)


Green Chicken

Guillaume Cornet aka “Mr Guil” is a London based artist working with illustration and painting (Camberwell College of Arts, FDA Illustration, 2009 The Arts Institute At Bournemouth, ND Fine Art, 2007) ...and this is what he does (taken from his website) "he explores notions of abstract geometry, influenced by surreal perspectives and architecture to construct sometimes monochrome but mostly colourful and vibrant visual spaces. His works tend to be filled with intricate characters positioning themselves in unexpected geometrical environments. Creating a humorous visual language he frequently depicts unusual and bizarre situations"

These prints are a mixed media: silkscreened and fully hand coloured with Letraset markers (image size 820x585mm) using our Colorset White 350gsm:


Close up detail of Green chicken

Twilight Favela

Do have a look at his website:
www.guillaumecornet.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 14.08.2013 

Nokia - People Made

This is a job that I've been meaning to write about for a while. It is the show catalogue for an exhibition at the Design Museum called 'People Made' - Nokia products that changed the world, which was in Oct/Nov 2011. The exhibition showed Nokia's approach to design, craft and manufacture, revealing untold stories behind some of the phones that have sold in their million over the last twenty years.   

The layout is simple and allows the images of the phones to work really well. Each phone with a scale picture on each spread (on left hand side). Printed in CMYK throughout, the section divider pages are printed in solids, also out of CMYK, - note the excellent blue solid above.

 

Size is 330x235mm, portrait. There's no binding or what is often described as "loose bound". It is a 40pp self cover on our lovely Marazion Ultra 90gsm. The deliberately lightweight feel allows the pages to flow freely and to sit flat, allowing for perfect read-overs. The material is perfectly chosen with the Marazion Ultra having a lightweight, matt look and feel but with the images reproducing beautifully with great clarity and detail. It's a very engaging piece of literature. Every time I show this to someone, they always point out their favourite phone ...it happens every time!

 

The catalogue was designed and published by Nokia. Art direction and design of the catalogue is by Amish Shah (www.work-in-process.eu). This is a beautifully simple catalogue which perfectly shows the phones and conveys exactly the right look and feel which engages the reader with the exhibits themselves. Print is by Pureprint.

 

http://www.exhibitioncontinues.com/pages/nokia-people-made-exhibition-installation-at-design-museum-london-uk

 

www.nokia.com

www.work-in-process.eu

www.pureprint.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 12.08.2013

Gareth Lockrane Septet Poster

This is an interesting poster produced for a one-off jazz evening at the Horseshow by the Gareth Lockrane Septet in March 2012. 



The poster is hand printed on a Letterpress proofing press and is created using a lino-blocks (x3) - in three passes. The poster measures 369mm x 593mm in a limited edition of 150 which are hand numbered. Printed on Colorset Natural 120gsm (100% Recycled). It is a beautiful poster.

 

Designed by Matt Willey and printed with Bill Bragg, as you can see below - a very "hands on" process! 

 

The posters are on sale (£20 plus p&p) with all proceeds going to Dorothy House Hospice Care. You can order them from this link:

http://www.mattwilley.co.uk/The-Gareth-Lockrane-Septet-Poster-1

http://www.dorothyhouse.co.uk/
www.mattwilley.co.uk
http://www.billbragg.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 09.08.2013

Print Club London at Somerset House

On a beautiful sunny day last week, I visited a studio in Somerset House whilst watching all the kids having a  good time splashing about in the 55 fountains that make it one of the coolest places in town, I spied an exhibition that was on by Print Club.

Dalston based silkscreen studio, Print Club London collaborated with Film 4 to curate a screen print poster exhibition in the newly opened West Wing Galleries. The exhibition shows 16 new silkscreen prints by illustrators from the UK, Europe and USA. Each print is inspired by each of the films screened this year by Film 4 in the courtyard at Somerset House .

Here's a video, about the show and the artists:


I took some pics of the show. All the prints have been produced in limited editions of 200, signed by the artist and are available to buy at £40 each.



MOL - Crazy Stupid Love



Holly Wales - The Red Shoes

Anthony Burrill - The Way Way Back

I met Claudia, who's one of the technicians at Print Club, who was looking after the cash register and she let me wander round taking a few pics. The exhibition will be open daily from 1st -21st August.

http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/print-club-london-summer-screen-prints
http://www.film4.com/whats-on/summer-screen-2013
http://printclublondon.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 07.08.2013

Whistles - Spring|Summer 2013



This is the lookbook for the Spring/Summer collection from Whistles and it is a superlative piece of literature. Art direction, photography, design, repro and print all combining to make this job look and feel really special.

 

The size is 240x180mm Portrait, saddle stitched. It is printed on our Omnia and has a 4pp cover on 200gsm and a 20pp text on 120gsm. The weights are just right - Omnia is an extremely bulky sheet, so this works perfectly, opening nicely with the pages turning well.

 

As always (...this is the plug for the paper!) the images look superb on the Omnia; the subtle summer shades and the reproduction of the black and white images with their darker areas and heavy ink coverage - keeping all the detail in those heavy areas of CMYK together with uncoated paper tactility which would be lost on any other paper.  The other important thing to note is that unlike most uncoated products, you can successfully gloss UV varnish on this paper (with a single hit) and it works really well - as you can see in the below pic...

 There is a 4pp price guide, also printed on Omnia 120gsm (and also Gloss UV varnished)

Art Direction and design is by Simmonds. Creative Director is Chris Simmonds, designer is Kate Swingler. Photography is by Ben Toms and Styling is by Katie Shillingford. Repro and print, which is superb and the UV varnishing, which has excellent registration/fit, is by South London printer, Push.

http://www.whistles.co.uk/

http://www.simmondsltd.com/

http://www.push-print.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 05.08.2013

Jobs from the past - Number 46



Regular followers of this blog will know that my first post of every month is a "job from the past" so that I can show some of the really good work from years gone by and here's one from 2007.

Franklyn Rodgers invitation

Black British photographer Franklyn Rodgers has amassed a body of work both personal and commercial, which is breath-taking in its volume and level of accomplishment. The invitation featured here is both a private view invitation and a promotional piece of literature for his first monograph ‘The Philosophy of Strangers’ published by Autograph ABP.

These incredible images simply draw you into the detail of each person and make no mistake, these are beautifully reproduced prints (there is another one in the series but unfortunately I don't have an image for it. although it is equally stunning).

 

The unfolded size of the invitation is A2 (594x420mm), folding down to A6 (148x105mm). As the invitation is unfolded, the information is revealed.  The photographic print is printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm, printed offset litho in four colour process. The reproduction is simply stunning.

Design is by Studio8. Creative Directors were Zoë Bather and Matt Willey. Print production is by Principal Colour and they really are an amazing example of what can be achieved on this paper. 

 

http://autograph-abp.co.uk/

http://www.franklynrodgers.com/

www.zoebather.co.uk
www.mattwilley.co.uk
www.principalcolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 01.08.2013