Rapha GT Shoes

Rapha was launched in 2004 with one mission: to create the finest cycling clothing and accessories in the world. Designed without compromise for the most discerning riders, Rapha products use the finest fabrics and components to create apparel and accessories that offer road riders unrivalled levels of performance, comfort and style. If you are familiar with Rapha you'll know that they stand for quality and as you might expect their literature is produced in an exemplary way.

This small publication is the care guide for the Rapha GT shoes, produced in partnership with Giro in California.

 

The book is A6 (148x105mm) portrait and is perfect bound with the spine measuring about 3mm. Cover is hot foil blocked in two colours.

The 40pp text is printed on our StarFine White 130gsm. As you can see from the above image, there are 6pp printed in their "Rapha Pink" a solid vibrant pink, which neatly divides the book, separating the English (in the front half) from the other three languages.

Click on images to enlarge

Printing is two colours offset litho. Design and typography is just beautiful. So simple, clear, clean and timeless quality. It reflects the ideals of the brand perfectly. German language section below

Design is by the Rapha in house design team. Print and finishing is by Gavin Martin Colournet..

http://www.rapha.cc/
http://www.giro.com/
http://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 12.02.2016

Collection 003

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

Collection 003 is Faye Toogood's new collection of unisex outerwear designed in collaboration with her sister fashion designer Erica Toogood. 

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

Click on images to enlarge

The large format concertina folds this way...

...and then this way:

The advantage on concertina folding is that you are reducing the stress on the paper and not trapping air in the folds, whereas if you fold paper on itself, on itself and on itself etc - you will get what is called a "Crow's foot" - if you don't know about this or haven't heard this expression, I wrote about it, at length, here: http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/what-is-number-4.html. This is a perfect example of a folded piece without a crow's foot!

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 10.02.2016

UK Mill Visit

Last Friday, I was fortunate enough to visit James Cropper, one of the last remaining fine paper mills in the UK. Located in the village of Burneside, on the outskirts of Kendal, they are situated in the Lake District, an area of outstanding natural beauty and one of our great national parks. James Cropper was established in 1845 and although now a PLC, the Chairman of the company is the sixth generation of the family to lead the company. 

This amazing mill has a combination of beautiful old stone buildings which have been combined with modern buildings and machinery. Unfortunately the weather on Friday was a bit grim, so the mill probably doesn't look it's best in these pictures!

The mill has four paper machines and is one of the world's leading coloured and textured paper producers. This is pretty impressive given that the UK paper industry, which at one time was a world leader, hardly exists nowadays - a very sad situation. Croppers are also staying ahead of the competition with their subsidiary Technical Fibre Products (TFP) which manufactures high specification non-woven products which have a specialist uses including aerospace and motorsport.

Here are a couple of pictures inside the mill, showing of one of the paper machines in production.  

Croppers manufacture paper for many companies both in the UK and around the world. They also manufacture directly for some of the fashion brands and high quality packaging markets. Most importantly, they have an increasingly wide range of mill branded products including Vanguard, Croxley Heritage, Porcelain, the new Carvetian Suede and many, many more...

My thanks to our hosts, Rob Tilsley, Tim Tidman and Chris Brown. We had a great insight to the mill's capabilities and look forward to supporting this British manufacturer wherever and whenever possible.

http://www.cropper.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.02.2016

Primark - Winter 2015

Adored by fashion fans and value seekers alike Primark is widely established as the destination store for keeping up with the latest looks without breaking the bank. They offer a diverse range of products, stocking everything from baby and kids, to womens, mens, home ware, accessories, beauty products and confectionery. Primark opened its first store in Dublin in 1969 under the name Penneys and today operates in over 270 stores in nine countries in Europe and growing with the first US store opening in Boston last year.

This is the lookbook produced for the Winter/Christmas 2015 season and there's only one word for it and that's STUNNING!

Size of the brochure is 250x180mm, portrait and the binding is singer sewing. The unusual format is a 4pp cover printed in CMYK, offset litho, onto our Stardream Copper 285gsm. Through die cut holes, you can see the inner 'flysheet' which is hot foil blocked with metallic gold foil, printed on Stardream Onyx 120gsm.

Stardream is the market leading pearlescent and metallic paper range produced by the Cordenons paper mill in Italy and the colours are striking.

You can see the fine quality of the image printed onto the Stardream Copper. Many people forget that litho inks are transparent, meaning that the image will take up both the colour and the pearlescent effect, and when used well like this, it is just stunning.  

The 36pp text is printed in four colour process (offset litho) on Shiro Echo, White 120gsm and the printed result is exquisite. Is it the quality of the image, the repro, the printing or the paper? Well the honest answer has to be it's all of them

As you will see from the picture below, the men's range is also includes going from the back cover towards the spine

Images showing the detail of the singer sewn spine:

...and the inside

Primark's international Headquarters are in Dublin and the UK offices are in London. Art direction and design is by London creative agency Odd. The superb print, repro and finishing is by Gavin Martin Colournet, based in London E3.

http://www.primark.com/en/homepage
http://www.oddlondon.com/
http://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.02.2016

Jobs from the past - Number 76

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...

Duke Special Songbook 2 - November 2011

Duke Special is a songwriter and performer based in Belfast. A songwriter with a romantic style and a warm, distinctly accented voice, he has distinctive long dreadlocks, eyeliner and outfits he describes as "hobo chic". His live performances have a theatrical style inspired by Vaudeville and music hall, and often incorporate 78s played on an old-fashioned gramophone, or sound effects from a transistor radio. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Special)

This songbook was published in 2011 by Duke Special and contains the words and music to 30 of his songs.

The book is 297x215mm, portrait and is limp bound, however it's deliberately designed to look like a songbook from the past, in fact almost to look like just the text that may have come separated from a casebound book. It has an 88pp text and has a 2pp tipped on cover with "exposed binding" which has been beautifully executed, as you can see below. The spine is 8mm deep.

To compliment the aged feeling, the papers used throughout are our Shiro Echo, White 100gsm for text and 250gsm for the cover. This paper has a neutral white shade, not cream, and it works perfectly with the text and pencil illustrations. It is printed offset litho throughout, two special colours on the cover and one colour black, throughout the text.

Inside spread

Click on images to enlarge

The below image shows the yellow coloured thread used for the binding.

Design is by Sparks Studio based in London. Creative partners are Gary McIlwaine and Michael Gough. Artwork and illustration is by Tim Millen based in Belfast.

I still have the nice note from Gary at Sparks Studio, who kindly sent me this file copy.

The Songbook was printed in Belfast by an unusually named printer called Northern Whig Limited. The Northern Whig was originally one of Ireland's oldest newspapers, founded in 1824. The Whig published continuously until the paper closed in 1963 and afterwards, continued as a commercial printer. Unfortunately the firm ceased trading in February 2012.

You can buy your own copy of the Songbook here:
http://www.dukespecial.com/memorabilia/item/songbook_volume_2

http://www.dukespecial.com/
https://www.sparks-studio.com/
http://www.timmillen.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.02.2016

Mulberry Christmas

Inspired by the cool of the city and the craft of the countryside, Mulberry is known for its classic fashion sense and strong links to British craft and design. Founded in 1971 in Somerset, England, the brand is globally recognised for its signature natural leathers and English design influences. Mulberry has Design Headquarters in London, and two flagship factories in Somerset, close to the Roman city of Bath. Mulberry goes from strength to strength, creating an international reputation for super-desirable products with a playful English sense of eccentricity and quality.

This is the outstanding piece of literature produced for the Mulberry Christmas promotion.

The finished size is 224x160mm and is printed offset litho in CMYK with hot foil blocking in metallic gold foil.

This project is a strange format to describe, so I hope this birds eye picture will help. The cover is 6pp plus a pocket on the inside back cover. The text is a 10pp concertina, the end page of which is inserted into the pocket

Below image shows inside front cover (which is a flap) and page 1 of text on right hand side

...the next image (below) shows the flap open, revealing the image of the small 'clipper' bag in black:

More birds eye images to help explain the format...

The images below, shows the concertina text, fully extended

Click on images to enlarge

The paper used throughout is our lovely Omnia text and cover range - 320gsm for the cover and 150gsm for the text. As you can see from the images, there are many metallic tones together with deep colours and dark shades - lots of heavy ink coverage going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing the metallic in the images amazingly and those bright vibrant colours, whilst retaining detail in the dark areas as shown in the image below. Flat, matt and tactile. 

The hot foil blocking is inspired and it endorses the quality of the brand.

The sublime art direction and design is by Mulberry. Designers on the project are Jack Foreman and Tom Speirs. The truly exceptional repro, print and hot foil blocking (in four languages!) is by CPI Colour with James Lager handling the project (inspire@cpicolour.co.uk)

http://www.mulberry.com/
www.cpicolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.01.2016