What is ...Round Cornering?



What is ...Number 10

Regular followers of this blog will know that in the middle of the month, I publish a "What is ....? post. The article covers various aspects of paper, printing and finishing in greater depth. However, many of these subjects are complex, so these posts are only intended to be a brief introduction to the topic.

What is ...Round Cornering?

Round cornering is a print finishing process which does "exactly what it says on the tin"TM! As you can see from the image below, the book has been 'round cornered'

Common examples of round cornering are books and invitations. Below is a hand round cornering machine - it's the one we have in our sample room - so, yes, we can even do round cornered dummies and samples!

The way it works is a right angled sharp blade, called a cutter is brought down under pressure and it literally 'shaves' off the square corner in one easy movement, cutting a radius corner. Just to give you a sense of scale, the book in the picture above and below is A5. The effect is both aesthetically pleasing and unlike square corners is less easily caught and creased.

Round cornering can also be used on casebound books and normally the cover is also round cornered, although the case (cover) normally protrudes outside, as below:

It's also quite commonly used on invitations. Below is an invitation for Marte Marce at Riflemaker which was printed on Flockage Litho 300gsm and round cornered - works beautifully with the image, design and material. Printed and finished by Generation Press.

One thing that readers may not be aware of is that there are different radius cutters available, so it is possible to have a tight radius or a shallower cut, as demonstrated in the pictures below: 

It is true to say that this is a 'print-finishing' process which very few printers have available in house and is normally put out to trade finishers. The above example is a hand finishing piece of equipment, but "serious" or heavy duty finishing is done by larger mechanical presses, such as this one:  

http://www.chilvers.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=43

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.10.2014

The Henries - 2014

Last week I was fortunate enough to go the 'Henries'. These are the awards for the greeting card industry (named after the inventor of the greeting card - Sir Henry Cole) - it's the greeting card industry equivalent of the D&AD Awards.

My colleague Sarah Glennie, actively works with greeting card designers and publishers and Fenner Paper is an associate member of the Greeting Card Association (GCA). At the Henries, we sponsored the award for the 'Best Art Range' which I had the pleasure of presenting.

More than 14,000 cards were entered in this year’s competition! The awards were held last Thursday evening with comedian Alun Cochrane hosting the awards ceremony at London’s Lancaster Hotel.

Photos by: http://www.eddiemacdonald.co.uk/

The winner of the 'Best Art Range' award is Wrendale Designs for their entry The Country Set and above are pictured Hannah and Jack from Wrendale Designs flanked by Alun Cochrane and me ( ...I'm not the one with the beard!)

You can see the award winning range here:
http://www.wrendaledesigns.co.uk/country-set/

Congratulations to all the award winners and to those nominated for awards - no mean feat with that number of entries! ..you can read more about the awards here:
http://www.thehenries.co.uk/The_Henries/The_Henries_2014.html

Posted by Justin Hobson 16.10.2014

Presence - Portraits by Edward Barber

Edward Barber is a photographic artist, specialising in images of people and their relationship to space and environment. Barber is best known for his portraiture, through major projects such as Peace Moves, All Dressed Up, In the City and 15:18 Teenagers in their Rooms. He has the rare distinction of being one of the few photographers to have their work displayed and in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Until recently Ed was the Director of Programmes for Fashion Photography at London College of Fashion and ran the BA (Hons) Fashion Photography course. He has now left full time lecturing and returned to life as a working photographer.

This simple piece of literature is to show a series of portraits. Titled 'Presence', because that is what all of the subjects have, it is a simple format showing eight portraits.

The format is a very simple 16pp broadsheet, designed in such a way that it opens easily and displays the maximum number of useable printed panels. Technically I believe it should be described as a '16pp parallel double fold'.

Size is 450x632mm, flat folding to 230x160mm, portrait. This birds eye view should give you the best idea of the format and the way it works.

The below image is the first spread:

which concertinas out to show the series of four images titled 'The Dancers' [Please note above and below the printed image which you can just see appearing to the bottom and side]

In what is effectively the centre spread, two images The Artist and The Actor are shown - again you can see the image below on the left hand side:

The broadsheet opens to reveal this amazing full size image 'The Interior Designer'. The paper chosen is our Omnia 120gsm because it would work with the rich detail that is present in the images but that would give a natural look and tactile feel. It is printed offset litho in four colour process (CMYK) and the black and white images are particularly impressive as the tone is consistent.

The reason I keep referring to the way that you can see an image 'poking out' is because the fold is asymmetrical and allows 10mm to show, which is a brilliant way of revealing that there is something more to come without giving anything away ...very clever!

Concept and design is by Ed Barber and Danielle Inga.

The printing and finishing is by Jigsaw Colour and is excellent. Always a challenge for a printer when the client is a photographer!

http://edwardbarber.net/
http://concreteed.blogspot.co.uk/
www.jigsawcolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.10.2014

1973 Letterpress Collection

This is a superb new range of greeting cards from greeting card designer, publisher ...and now printer - Nineteen seventy three!

Based in Brighton, 1973 bought their first Heidelberg press over a year ago and are now in full production with many different designs.

The 4pp cards are 170x120mm, portrait and they are printed on our Colorset 100% Recycled 270gsm in the Natural shade. the Colorset is just perfect for letterpress as it's high bulk and compressibility allows the impression to sink into the board.

Here is a selection from the range. Some are just printed in one colour, although most designs are printed in two colours, sometimes incorporating something unusual such as a fluorescent ink.

...the picture below shows the detail of the card titled 'Paradise letterpressed' and is an ingenious design, printed in 3 colours.

...and the image below shows the texture of the board with the fluoro orange sitting in the Colorset Natural 270gsm beautifully:

You can see the whole range here:
http://nineteenseventythree.com/collections/the-letterpress-collection

www.nineteenseventythree.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 10.10.2014

ISTD Awards Book 2014

The ISTD 2014 awards catalogue perfectly illustrates the awards, the diversity of media and approach and an inspiring overview of international typographic design.

The cover is beautifully hot foil blocked in a combination of white and gloss black foil. The size of the publication is 185x130mm, portrait and is section sewn. The 8pp cover is printed on our Notturno 300gsm (which is our black range from the Cordenons mill in Italy - 90gsm up to 700gsm).

 

The below picture shows the 8pp cover with the 17mm thick spine - 176pp which makes quite a chunky little book.   

The hot foil blocking goes around the outside cover onto the flaps on the inside front and back covers.

The 176pp text is printed on our Omnia, White 150gsm which has reproduced fantastically - giving all the images used to show the award winners a huge amount of detail, while still making a tactile book that feels good in the hand.

It must be difficult to get an awards book like this to hold together in consistent way, showing the wide and diverse work in an interesting way, without it looking too formulaic. This book is well laid out and most readable.

Art direction and design of the awards book is by Playne Design. Designers on the project are Ade Mills, Clare Playne and Andy Scarles.

 

Photography for the awards book is by John Reynolds http://www.clickclickclick.net/

 

The excellent printing, foiling and binding is by Banbury Litho  www.banburylitho.co.uk

 

The awards book is now for sale "A three year snapshot of design (1 May 2011 to 4 June 2014) of work entered from around the world by designers who have used typography as an integral part of their design solution. An inspiring sourcebook of typographic excellence"

The price is only £20  http://www.istd.org.uk/shop/2014-awards-book

 

www.istd.org.uk
www.playnedesign.co.uk

www.banburylitho.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.10.2014

ISTD Awards 2014

On Friday evening I was lucky enough to be at the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD) awards held at the wonderful De La Warr pavilion in Bexhill on Sea. It was a wonderful evening at this amazing location. The De La Warr pavilion is a modernist building by the architects Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff which opened in 1936. The enlightened town council opened this new space which was to provide culture and entertainment for the masses – a people‘s palace.

Following renovation in 2005, the pavilion hosts many shows, exhibitions and cultural events. On Saturday their new Magnum exhibition just opened:  http://www.dlwp.com/event/magnum-photos-one-archive-three-views

The evening started with drinks on the rooftop terrace, which was delightful as it was a beautiful evening.

Stewart Drew

We were welcomed by Stewart Drew, Director and CEO of the De La Warr Pavilion, who explained why they were so pleased to be part of the ISTD awards and to have an association with the society - they also hosted the judging in June.

As with all ISTD events, there is a real warmth and friendliness, which may be because of the international dimension or maybe the society just attracts the nice people in the world!

The dinner and awards was held in the wonderful restaurant with the panoramic windows looking out to sea.

These international awards attracted entries from 25 countries across a wide range of graphic design disciplines. In total there were 84 certificates of excellence and 20 premier awards made - awarded for outstanding typographic achievement. Although, not everyone could make it the awards, there were many people who had travelled long distances, including Wing Lau from Australia and Astrid Stavro together with Pablo Martin from Design by Atlas in Spain, who left laden with awards!

Bryan Edmondson from Sea, collecting a Premier Award (for Pencil to Pixel/Monotype exhibition) 

Andy Altmann (Why Not Assoc)

This year was the highest number of awards made, but this reflected the far higher number of entries. For the first time the Overall Winner was a joint award, going to MM Koehn for a book titled Eros Und Thanatos and Why Not Associates for their 'Comedy Carpet' in Blackpool in collaboration with artist Gordon Young.

http://whynotassociates.com/recent-work-2/the-comedy-carpet/the-work

All the award winners deserve congratulations and it was lovely to see some projects which had been produced on Fenner Paper materials, particularly Air W1 by dn&co, which I've featured on this blog and which was awarded a certificate of excellence:
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/airw1.html

It was an excellent evening which showed a fantastic array of international typographic design 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.  ...and if you aren't a member, have a look http://www.istd.org.uk/- it costs less than £10 per month - excellent value!

Congratulations to the awards team: David Coates, Belinda Magee, Clare Playne and Freda Sack - 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 - and I shall write about that next!

The results are now all online here: http://www.istd.org.uk/awards/awards-results

www.istd.org.uk
www.dlwp.com
www.playnedesign.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 06.10.2014

Jobs from the past - Number 60

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...

Quartet: 27.01.06

This is a stunning piece of literature produced for an event at the museum back in 2006.  Quartet: Four Literary Walks Through The V&A Quartet contains commissioned short stories by Nicholas Royle, Lucy Caldwell, Peter Hobbs and Shiromi Pinto.

Inspired by the V&A and its collections, the four stories in ‘Quartet’ were annotated with directions, mapping the routes described in the writers’ narratives and thus enabling readers to follow the stories as they moved through the museum.

Size of the publication is 307x255mm, portrait. It is totally unbound, just folded and loose, which given the materials just looks and feels right. Matt and Zoë, who were the designers on the project wanted an interaction between the pages which ties in the words with the layout and different floor levels in the museum. They wanted a lightweight material and a high amount of show-through which of course is NOT what our Offenbach Bible does - it has the most amazing opacity for such a lightweight sheet of paper. I suggest the use of a 'high density' black ink or what is soemtimes termed 'double density black' - this is normal ink, except it just has a higher percentage of pigment (colour) so results in a deeper black - thereby ensuring maximum show through - and a nice solid black as well! The picture below shows the way the design and type was structured to work through the paper.

The 4pp cover is printed on StarFine Natural White 200gsm, which is a good match to the shade of the Offenbach Bible. The text is all printed on Offenbach Bible 60gsm.
Below you can see the schematic which links the stories and their position in the museum.

Detail of the schematics:

The routes were also made available as downloads for Sony PlayStation Portable consoles as the show was upported by Sony Playstation

You can read more about the project here:
http://www.mattwilley.co.uk/Quartet-Four-Literary-Walks-Through-The-V-A

Design is by Studio8 where the Creative Directors were Zoë Bather and Matt Willey. Sadly, Studio8 closed in May 2012 and Matt and Zoë now work on their own projects, many of which have also appeared on this blog. This piece of work was awarded both Type Directors Club (TDC53), 2007 Citation for Typographic Excellence and an ADC 86, 2007 Merit (Corporate & Promotional Design)

This piece was printed in two colours, offset litho, by Principal Colour.

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.10.2014