Curious Iconic Craft

This is one of the most stunning projects produced last year on our paper. Read on and be amazed....!

For anyone interested in magazine design, Little White Lies and Huck would be two independent magazine titles that you'd be aware of and would probably collect. The agency The Church of London was founded on 5 January and Little White Lies first hit the shelves on 12 March 2005. After eight years, the founders Danny Miller, Rob Longworth, Paul Willoughby and Alex Capes stepped away from the agency and the titles. Danny Rob and Paul formed a new creative agency called Human After All.

Their leaving present to their fans was to produce a limited edition publication packed with insights into how the two titles have been put together, a fantastic resource for those interested in magazine design. The book is titled  Curious Iconic Craft.

They decided to fund the project by Kickstarter and you can see their entry on the link below - needless to say it was overfunded!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/humanafterall/curious-iconic-craft-designing-magazines-that-peop?ref=nav_search

The size of the publication is 245mm x 200mm portrait with 4pp outer cover, 2x2pp 'end papers' cover, tip ins and a 96pp text. The publication is what I would describe as a 'double-ender' - the cover and text read one way and then you turn it over and it reads the other way. The image below, shows the way the cover works:

The cover is printed on Omnia 320gsm, with a 'soft touch' film lamination and is hot foil blocked with a gloss black foil - looks and feels beautiful!

 

The reason for the book being produced like this is that one half the book is about Little White Lies and one half is about Huck.

 

The LWLies text section is 40pp and is printed offset litho in CMYK with a fluorescent pink pantone special. End paper (l/h side) is printed in pantone silver on  Zeta Linen Embossed,150gsm

The text pages are printed on Omnia White 150gsm and the result is simply stunning. Whether a photographic image, illustration or just solids, this paper really has performed - it is truly remarkable.

In the centre there are two 'tip ins' on Colorset Nero 170gsm section printed in silver PMS 877. Looks fantastic just printed in one colour silver and the line illustrations just work amazingly. Additionally there is a 16pp section printed in one colour on a light green 160gsm uncoated paper (Papago) for the 'learning section'. The whole publication is full of key insights and attention to detail, including: how to create a cover illustration, how to design a custom typeface, original sketches and behind-the-scenes work.

Birds eye view (click on image to enlarge)

The HUCK text section is also 40pp and is printed offset litho in CMYK with a fluorescent green pantone special. End paper (l/h side) is printed in pantone silver on  Zeta Linen Embossed,150gsm.

The publication is section sewn using black thread. Another lovely detail.

Curious Iconic Craft is published and designed by the studio by Human After All. Creative Directors are Danny Miller, Rob Longworth, Paul Willoughby. Production handled by Hannah El-Boghdady.

 

The book was printed and produced by Jigsaw Colour. The complexity of the publication with the endpapers, soft touch cover, with foil and "tip ins" made this a truly challenging project to deliver, but the print and finishing are both absolutely superb.

http://www.humanafterall.co.uk/
www.jigsawcolour.co.uk
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/humanafterall/curious-iconic-craft-designing-magazines-that-peop?ref=nav_search
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/curious-iconic-craft-human-after-all

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.03.2015

Collection 002

Faye Toogood is a British designer who's work has appeared on this blog before. Her work covers interiors, installation, furniture, fine art fashion and more!

This is the literature produced for the launch of their unisex outerwear collection. Eighteen unisex garments, all manufactured in Britain. Materials used are tough cottons and hardwearing linens. With names like the 'Farmer Jacket' 'Oilrigger Coat' and 'Plumber Overall' these garments hanker back to our hardworking industrial past.

 

This promotional literature is a small folded up piece measuring 70x100mm, folding out to 280x600mm.  

Beautifully concertina folded.

Folding out to...

Click on image to enlarge

It is printed Offset Litho in four colour process, one side only, on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm, giving it a lightweight feel but with a beautiful quality.

Creative Director is Faye Toogood and the designer on the project is Catherine Acornley. Printing is by Chadbon Printing based in London.

http://t-o-o-g-o-o-d.com/

www.fayetoogood.com.

chris.chadbon@btinternet.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 26.03.2015

Johnson Banks 21 years #2

To mark their 21st birthday, Johnson Banks has produced a series of four brochures. Johnson Banks was established in 1992 and is now a studio which has an international reputation.  I wrote about the first brochure titled 'Blue Chip and Commercial projects' here: 

http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/johnson-banks-21-years.html 

 

I'm writing about each of the four brochures individually. This post is about the one titled 'Charity and not-for-profit'.  As you can see from the images below, over the last two decades, they have worked on a wide range of large charity branding projects, advertising campaigns as well as working for some smaller charities.

Size of the publication is 148mm square with a 4pp cover with a 32pp text and is perfect bound. It is printed on our StarFine White 300gsm and 150gsm. The spine is 4mm thick.

As you can hopefully see from these images, the printed result on this StarFine uncoated text & cover paper is superb. The whole project is all printed digitally on an HP Indigo press by Pureprint - simply a stunning printed result.

StarFine is not a 'digital' paper but it has been "sapphire treated". This treatment is a pre-coat and is often applied to more unusual papers and provides a "key" so that the inks (different to litho inks) adhere to the paper surface. If you would like to know more, you can read about it here:
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/what-is-sapphire-treatment.html

This project doesn't have a 'digital' look and feel like many digitally printed projects in part, due to the materials chosen.

Creative director is Michael Johnson, designers on the project being Kath Tudball and Julia Woollams.

http://www.johnsonbanks.co.uk/

www.pureprint.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 24.03.2015

Cutler and Gross

Cutler and Gross is a distinctly British eyewear brand, founded in 1969 by Graham Cutler and Tony Gross, who met at optometry school in Northampton. This idiosyncratic eyewear brand has been at the forefront of the optical fashion for the past 40 years.

This look-book for the Autumn Winter collection is a beautifully produced piece of literature, which has some gorgeous design cues, including the three hole-sewn binding.

Size of the brochure is A4 (297x210mm). It has a 4pp cover with a 16pp text. It is printed on Omnia 200gsm cover and 120gsm text. Omnia gives the uncoated. tactile feel but reproduces the fine detail of the glasses and the flesh tones superbly. Printed offset litho in CMYK.

Centre spread showing three hole sewn binding

There is lots of plain unprinted paper in the design, which gives the whole publication a lovely feeling of space - very uncluttered.

Below is the detailing of the three hole sewn binding.

And here is something that I hope will demonstrate the tactile nature of Omnia - the below detail image is where you can see the visible, natural texture of the paper and the way it reproduces images superbly.

click to enlarge

Design and art direction is by Exposure. Creative director is Robin Ek. Photographer is Marius W Hansen. Print production is by Principal Colour. 

 

http://www.cutlerandgross.com/

http://europe.exposure.net/

http://mariuswhansen.com/

www.principalcolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.03.2015

What is ...Sapphire Treatment?

What is ...Number 15
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 ...Sapphire Treatment?

This is something I often get asked about so hopefully this post will serve to de-mystify the subject for readers!

Indigo was founded by Benny Landa in Israel and in 1993 they launched the first Indigo digital printing press (the Indigo E-print 1000). It took many years to take a hold in the digital print market as it was up against very established competitors such as Xerox.

However, it works in a totally different way to the other toner based printers and in fact is an 'offset' process which is similar to offset litho.
I first saw an Indigo press when I visited DRUPA (a printing and graphic arts fair held in Germany) in 1995. I picked up the print examples and still have the original sales brochure!

The print result further improved with subsequent models and became an industry leader in digital quality print. In 2001 Hewlett Packard (HP) purchased Indigo and the press manufacturer became known as the HP Indigo. There has been much investment and many new models including the game-changing B2 format press...
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/hp-indigo-unveils-b2.html

Unlike other digital printing methods an Indigo press uses an ElectroInk which contains charged pigmented particles in a liquid carrier. Like other digital printing technologies, such as toner, ElectroInk enables digital printing by electrically controlling the location of the print particles. However, unlike other digital technologies, Indigo is still an 'offset' process where the ink is transferred from the plate onto a blanket and then onto the paper substrate http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx%2F4AA3-9326EEW.pdf



At the time when the Indigo press was first launched, the majority of papers were produced for offset litho or for dry toner. The results were a little hit or miss, although better for coated papers and the problem was that the ink was coming off and caused a particular problem around folded areas. To get round this problem 'Sapphire Treatment' was developed. This is a polymer-based solution which is coated on the sheet before the printing process. It provides a 'key' between the surface of the paper and the ElectroInk that binds the ink to the paper and maximizes ink adhesion. This 'treatment' or 'coating' is applied as a pre-coat before the paper is printed.


Image Courtesy of POSCO Inc
http://www.poscoinc.com/default.aspx

It is a clear, colourless, odourless liquid, so it isn't something that particularly lends itself to exciting images! ...it literally comes in large containers and drums such as pictured here. So the next best thing is to show you the type of coating machine that applies this type of coating. Below is an example of a dedicated coating machine but coating can also be achieved on an adapted offset litho press.

The image below shows the detail of the machine, which is a series of rollers which evenly spreads the liquid coating.

So basically, pretty much any paper can be treated/coated to make it suitable for printing on an HPIndigo press ...so who does the coating?

Some paper merchants have their own coating facilities (as we do at Fenner Paper) ...however our coater is not suitable for mass production, so larger batches are sent to specialist coating companies. One such company, called ACCEL, is based in the Midlands and is an HP Indigo Authorised Media Treatment Centre. They coat for many merchants and printers for the HP Indigo sheetfed market.
http://www.acceluk.com/

However it is important that you don't think that everything printed using this technology needs treating! There are nearly 4000 media, which are certified substrates (papers and plastics) -made by mills and manufacturers which are ready to print on an HP Indigo with no additional treatment. The chemicals have been added at the manufacturing stage at the mill and the products have been successfully tested and approved by HP Indigo certification centres at the Rochester Institute of Technology and in Singapore. At Fenner Paper, we carry some products which are 'HP Indigo ready' such as Stardream and Shiro Echo. However, even with 4000 approved products that still doesn't cover all the materials that people would like to use, which is why having the ability to pre-coat using sapphire treatment is essential to making the digital printing offer, truly flexible.

I understand that to many people this will seem like a tediously technical, boring subject. However, as digital printing becomes more prevalent in the industry, it's a good idea to have an understanding of some of the issues. Below are further links that you might find useful.

http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/commercial-printers/indigo-presses/overview.html
http://www.acceluk.com/
http://www.michelman.com/Printing-%26-Packaging/Digital-Printing/HP-Indigo-Solutions/

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.03.2015

Discover better - Green Park

...just the cover makes the difference!

Here's a project that is exceptional, because of the way the cover is used to add to the quality and feel of the whole project.

Green Park is a business park located close to Reading.  Managed by Oxford properties, Green Park extends across 195 acres of landscaped parkland encouraging biodiversity. More than 50 bird species have been ‘twitched’ there, while Longwater Lake, a 1,200 freshwater lake bisecting the site is home to an abundance of fish and invertebrates. All Green Park buildings have solid ‘green’ credentials and there is a 120 metre wind turbine designed by Foster + Partners generating 2.3 megawatts of power annually.

This publication is to promote the development for Oxford properties and has a deliberately 'notebookey' look and feel. The size is 252x190mm, portrait and is perfect bound with an 8mm spine.  The cover is printed on Colorset Lime 270gsm ( ...which is 100% recycled - in line with the development's eco credentials) and is hot foil blocked in matt white foil.

The cover has a tactile, engaging, notebook feel, it features two bound ribbon bookmarks, rounded corners and a pocket on the inside back cover.

The below image shows the capacity pocket on the inside back cover, complete with 'thumbcut' - beautiful detailing.

This image shows the way that the pocket is also round cornered. Excellent.

The 80pp text is digitally printed on an uncoated sheet, as the budget dictated, although there was a subsequent run which was litho printed and section sewn. The cover gives it a quality feel and keeps it miles away from the naff "glossy" brochures which are often produced for property companies - the cover sets the tone and feel for the whole publication

Another lovely detail is the grey elasticated band which goes round the whole book, attached on the back cover and looks great.

Below image shows the detail of the rivet and where the elasticated loop attached on the outside back cover, which is also hot foil blocked.

Design is by Purpose and the design director on the project is Lee Manning. Production was managed by Jim Campbell.

Print is by Boss based in West London - incidentally they are one of the few printers who have hot foil blocking 'in house'.

http://www.greenpark.co.uk/
http://www.purpose.co.uk/
https://www.bossprint.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.03.2015