Debossed Minibooks

The City Works is a London-based brand of urban-themed gifts, stationery and souvenirs, capturing the charming complexity of our towns and cities through intricate illustration.

Through quality craftsmanship and an attention to detail that is pervasive throughout every step of the production process, they utilise only the finest materials and most trusted techniques. Every cityscape is originally drawn by hand and then produced using the best method of reproduction, which in the case of these notebooks is embossing...

Cover on Crush, Lavender 250gsm

These enticing little notebooks are exquisitely de-bossed as the images below show, the detail is truly amazing:

Cover on Crush Coffee, 250gsm

Click on images to enlarge

The covers on these four books are each produced using our Crush range from Favini, the four colours are Lavender, Cherry, Coffee and Olive. Crush is made using made using 15% residues from the industrial processing of agricultural processing. The books have a 48pp text produced on Shiro Tree Free, Cream 90gsm. The books are 143x102mm, portrait and are singer sewn.

Detail of singer sewing (outside):

Detail of singer sewing (internal):

All their trademark ‘Debossed Minibooks’ have individually hand-pressed covers and are hand-sewn in-house. Their mark is beautifully debossed on the reverse.

With thanks to Rowan Ottesen at City Works for sending us these copies. You can find their products at many retailers and they are regulars at many craft markets including the Southbank Centre Strive Festival, Camberwell Arts Market, Renegade Craft Fair.

https://the-city-works.com/
https://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/crush-from-favini.html

Posted by Justin Hobson 15.01.2016

Caramel Baby & Child - Autumn/Winter

Eva Karayiannis, founded Caramel Baby & Child in 1999. Originally from Greece, she came to London to study the history of Art at Sotheby's, eventually establishing a business selling and ultimately designing children's clothes. Caramel Baby Child is known for its fresh silhouettes, distinctive colour ways and intricate attention to detail.
 

This is the lookbook for the Autumn/Winter collection. The format is a very simple 16pp broadsheet, which opens easily to read and displays a large poster type area, when fully open.  

Size is 594mm x 420mm  folding to 210x148mm. The birds eye view below should give you the best idea of the format and the way it works.

On the reverse of the concertina is this delightful pattern, creating a calm space without every square inch being crammed with colour photography - a very nice idea.

The paper chosen is our Omnia Natural 120gsm because it would work with the intricate 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 as you can see from images, some of the images have dark areas, but there is no loss of detail, which is what can often happen printing on an uncoated paper. The neutral shade of the Omnia Natural works just right with these images.

Art direction and design is by the in house studio at Caramel Baby & Child. Designer on the project is Kelsey Hutchinson.
Printing is by Gemini Print, based in Brighton.

http://www.caramel-shop.co.uk/
http://gemini-print.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 12.01.2016

Shakespeare Schools Festival

The Shakespeare Schools Festival is the UK's largest youth drama festival, offering students from all backgrounds the opportunity to perform Shakespeare on their local professional stage. Alistair Hall and his Clerkenwell studio 'We Made This' was commissioned to create a promotional pack of exercise cards to send out to schools. The brief was "to challenge, support and inspire teachers to inject some SSF style creativity into their classrooms"

They created a stunning box set of hot foil-blocked cards featuring quotes from Shakespeare's plays.

This size of the box (outside dimensions) is 160x222mm and the depth of the box is 16mm. The box is a two piece 'tray and lid'. The cards are all A5 (148x210mm), hot foil blocked and 'round cornered'

Click on images to enlarge

The cards are printed on our Colorset Light Grey, 350gsm (above) which is 100% recycled and the natural kraft colour below is printed on our Plexus 350gsm (below)

Click on images to enlarge

The quotes are set in bold, engaging lettering on the fronts of each card and are beautifully hot foil blocked ...just look at the image below:

Alistair says "the client's response was - They are beautiful! Thank you so much, I couldn't be more pleased" and it was lovely to have that passed on and to receive a file copy and his kind note

The superb execution of the project is by Benwells. They produced all the print, foiling and finishing of the cards - all of which is superlative. Paul Haslam at Benwells oversaw the project.

The exquisite boxes are produced by W. MacCarthy & Sons Ltd, who are based in Woolwich in South London.

This project is a truly outstanding piece of design, typography and print.

http://www.ssf.uk.com/
http://www.wemadethis.co.uk/
http://www.benwells.co.uk/
http://www.maccarthyandsons.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 07.01.2016

Jobs from the past - Number 75

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...

Open to Learn - Pearson 2010

Pearson is a company with 150 year old history. Most recently they have been regarded as a publishing company which has now been restructured, becoming the world's largest education company.

Open to Learn is a publication produced at the time of their re-branding, to introduce Pearson as a learning company. Subtitled 'Pearson in Ten Lessons', the introduction is by Dame Marjorie Scardino, who was then CEO of Pearson.

The booklet is an A5 portrait, limp bound with an 8pp cover and a 24pp text (plus a 'throw out') - making it 26pp text.

One of the really interesting facets of this job is that they produced four different coloured covers. Just simply by picking up on the lead colours used throughout the publication. Both the outside covers and the inside of the 8pp covers were changed, two of the colours are shown below...

Below image shows inside front spread:

Click on images to enlarge

The paper used is our Neptune Unique SoftWhite. The cover is 300gsm and text is 155gsm. The choice of paper was particularly important for this publication. As it was being produced by a publisher, it had to have the right 'booky' feel which also meant that an off white shade and uncoated tactile feel was desirable - and as you can see from the design, a coated paper would not have been right.

The below image shows the throw out...

Click on images to enlarge

This project was part of the new Pearson brand identity which was completed by Interbrand in London. The team that worked on the identity is as follows: Creative Directors: Ian Styles/Chris Davenport/ Simon Thompson Design Directors: Ed Bolton/Arielle Breit Copywriter: Chris Davenport Graphic Designers: James Holland/David Lismer. You can read more about this project on the following link:
http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/design-casestudy/pearson-pearson-brand-identity-14858105/

Print was managed by Peter Roberts and Emma Dixon from Urban Print Support - who are self styled "print guardians to brand guardians" - they work for many agencies and end clients to bolster their print production knowledge. Print is by Gavin Martin Colournet.

All in all a very well executed project - a really, really well produced piece of literature.

https://www.pearson.com/
http://www.interbrand.com/en
http://www.urbanprintsupport.co.uk/
http://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 05.01.2016

Simon Winnall

Simon Winnall is an advertising photographer, specialising in lifestyle and portraiture work for brands and ad agencies across the world. Here are just some of the names he has worked with: BMW Coca-Cola DHL Honda LG Nescafé Nivea Oriflame Panasonic SFR France Sony Vodafone Volvo BBH Brave DDB Huge Inc Leg Paris Leo Burnett McCann Erickson Nexus/H Ogilvy Sapient Nitro VML Sao Paulo ...and the list goes on!

 

This piece of promotional print is to show new work and it is a particularly engaging piece of print. The size is 150mmx 200mm, landscape format. There is a 4pp cover which is unprinted, just simply debossed with his name on or Colorset 100% Recycled Light Grey 270gsm.

The 16pp text is 'singer sewn' in a bright red thread - beautiful detailing.

The text is printed Offset Litho on our Omnia White 150gsm, the results of which are superb. The look and feel of the whole publication is very uncoated and tactile but there is absolutely no loss of detail in the images.

Click on images to enlarge

The spreads look superb with the mono images in particular, really rocking:

Image showing inside detailing of the singer sewing:

Photography, design and production is by Simmon Winnall. Superb print is by London based printer Push.

http://www.simonwinnall.com/
www.processphotography.com
http://www.push-print.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.12.2015

Christmas card by S-T

Thank you to everyone who has kindly sent me cards this Christmas. I've received a wide selection of really lovely designs and beautifully produced cards, not all on our paper, of course! ...but many are.

 

This one particular card, I did think I would write about, because not only is it printed on our Colorset Bright Red 270gsm (100% Recycled) but it is printed in an unconventional way. The card is designed by London based studio, Design by St. The size of the card is A6 (105x148mm) landscape format and is hinged at the top of the card.

Click on images to enlarge

The card is printed in just one colour - white. The result is fantastically effective and I looked at it to see how it has been achieved:

Was it matt hot foil blocking? Silkscreen? HP Indigo digital white?
...Nope, none of the above!
In fact, it was printed by a Scottish printer called Kestrel Press based in Irvine. They have a digital press which is toner based and this is the result - in just one pass! The result is truly superb and as I discovered from speaking to Graeme Ferguson at Kestrel, achieved at a much more economical price in comparison with the processes I listed above.

Creative Partners at Design by St are Steve Fenn and Tom Pollard.

http://www.designbyst.com/
http://www.kestrelpress.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.12.2015