St Bride Student lecture

Yesterday, I attended a lecture day at St Bride's put on for students which was funded by the Wynkyn de Worde Society Charitable Trust. The speakers at the event were Alistair Hall (from We Made This), Sharon King-Chai (an author-illustrator and book designer) and Chris Bounds (from Carter Wong design). There were around a hundred students from universities around the country. I spoke to some from Kingston, University of the Creative Arts and University of Reading.

Alistair Hall gave a special insight into the way that the Ministry of Stories initiative started followed with an amusing set of anecdotes about the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies - truly this is an example of where design has helped changed people's lives for the better - over a thousand children helped with writing every year.  

Sharon King-Chai spoke about her career, from her arrival in the UK to getting work experience, her work designing album covers and her transition into the world of publishing. One slide in particular struck a note with me ...be nice

Doesn't matter who you are - being nice is the right thing. Even when you have to say NO, you can still do it nicely.

I took a few printed examples to show, to inspire students about the quality print work that is out there and what can be achieved.

It was a very interesting day and I'm sure the students that were there found it inspiring and useful. The print workshop was also open which gave people the opportunity to print some letterpress keepsakes to take home.

If you would like to stir the greymatter, how about going to the Type Tuesday event this evening, run by Eye magazine? The archive evening is hosted by Paul Barnes and there are half a dozen speakers talking about their favourite items found in St Brides. You can read about it here: http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/type-tuesday-archive-night-with-paul-barnes and you can buy tickets from Eventbrite - only £12.00. Go on, get out and feed the brain!

http://www.sbf.org.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.03.2016

Grosvenor in Mayfair

33 Grosvenor Street is a period townhouse reimagined as a headquarters building. The building’s contemporary new Grade A office accommodation is joined with listed period space to provide an a business environment in one of London’s most prestigious addresses, Mayfair. The building is situated on the north side of the street between Grosvenor Square and Davies Street.

This luxuriously presented brochure conveys all the attributes of the building is a tactile and engaging way. The size of the brochure is 285x216mm, portrait and comes wrapped in printed tissue, affixed with a label.  

The 4pp cover is hot foil blocked on sandgrain embossed, dark grey 350gsm coverboard, from the other "Hull based" paper merchant!

The construction is actually quite unusual. The text is 'singer sewn' and, because there is a translucent flysheet on tracing paper, the flysheet is affixed to the back of the text and then the back of the flysheet is then affixed to the inside back page of the cover. A good solution allowing the text to sit nice and flat.

Click on images to enlarge



The 32pp text is printed on Omnia 150gsm and is simply sumptuous. The text is printed offset litho in four colour process plus a 'special' colour which is a dark grey. The dark grey solid is grey and very solid - just right. Omnia was selected because it would work with the rich detail that is present in the images of the interiors but that would still give a natural look and tactile feel. As you can see from images, some of the photography has dark areas, but there is no loss of detail, which often happens when printing on a traditional uncoated paper.

Detail showing printed solid

The interiors look fantastic - the classical meeting the contemporary.

...and this is something that sometimes people miss - text on it's own (below) just looks, and feels, good printed on Omnia. The type stays sharp and the black looks very black.

Art direction and design is by London design studio Cre8te. The excellent repro, print and finishing is by CPI Colour with James Lager handling the project (inspire@cpicolour.co.uk)

http://www.33grosvenorstreet.com/
http://www.cre8tedesignuk.com/
http://www.cpicolour.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 04.03.2016

Jobs from the past - Number 77

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...

Just another seasonal trend...  September 2004

This was a self-initiated project by Leeds based agency, Vast. They produced this superb piece of work to demonstrate their skills in art direction, location and print production for the fashion industry.

The size of the publication is a very large 405x335mm - truly a piece of literature produced on a grand scale! Working with clothing from Gibson Menswear, the photography was shot on location in Scarborough by photographer Kevin Peschke.  

The publication is a 12pp loose bound (no binding) production and is printed on our Omnia 150gsm ...and it looks and feels just beautiful. It perfectly shows the images of the the clothing - lots of detail and excellent reproduction and great solids.

As you can see from the above images above and below, there is lots of colour and images with CMYK dark areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing bright vibrant colours as well and the dark shadowy images, retaining detail in the dark areas (...in my opinion- but I would say that wouldn't I?)

Printed offset litho in CMYK plus a metallic silver special. As demonstrated in the image below, the metallic ink on the Omnia, really looks metallic. On most true uncoated papers, metallics can simply look dead and like a flat colour. Metallics on Omnia, still look lively and have that pearly irridescent look. 

Click on images to enlarge

The images above and below show how it is unbound and how well it works - it holds together beautifully ...and that is because it is the correct choice of weight of material - Omnia is very bulky and 150gsm works perfectly. As a 12pp it holds itself together as a single piece of literature. The one thing I am unable to show here is the way it just flops in the hand - just right.

The below image shows the spines - with no stitches - nice crisp folds, perfectly executed, no cracking on the spines. 



Design and art direction is by Vast, the creative director is Matt Austin. Print production is by Bradford based printer, Spellman Walker -and the print result is absolutely superb.

 

I have pristine copies of this twelve year old job and it looks as good if not better than many jobs I've seen produced today. 

http://wearevast.com/
http://www.spellman.co.uk/
http://www.gibsonlondon.com/
http://www.kevinpeschke.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.03.2016

Are you a parent ...?

Here's an interesting project which I thought you might like to see...

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of some of the projects which I have featured which have been funded by Kickstarter. Lorna and Daniel Freytag contacted me about this fun project which is on Kickstarter right now.

In their words:
We're a mum and dad team called HeyWow! working from the small seaside town of Oban on the north-west coast of Scotland with our two little highland monsters (aged 2 and 4). Twelve months ago we had the crazy idea of creating our own personalised children's books, to bring a bit more WOW to kids lives. Our aim was to create something vibrant, well designed and exciting that parents could enjoy too! How hard can that be??? Ha! Nearly one year later (in between caring for the kids) and after lots of brain storming, cups of tea, sketching, tea, emails, business plans, photo shoots, more tea, Skype calls and many many late nights, we're now ready to reveal our first picture book... 'In the City'.


Here are some HeyWow links

Our Kickstarter campaign
www.heywow.co
www.twitter.com/HeyWowBooks
www.facebook.com/heywow

Posted by Justin Hobson 29.02.2016

Spa - Treatment Tariff

The Spa at the Gleneagles Hotel by ESPA is proud to be one of the "Leading Spas of the World". Launched by the exclusive Leading Hotels of the World group, this is the first global evaluation and certification programme for the spa industry.

This simple, well executed piece of literature is the tariff list for the treatments offered and works with the other pieces of Spa literature, such as the brochure.

Click on images to enlarge

Size is 195mmx 130mm, portrait and is a 6pp gatefold format.

 

First spread...

Folding out to...

The board used is our StarFine Natural White 240gsm. This uncoated paper is a subtle, neutral, white which perfectly suits the imagery and typography in the publication. Below is the tariff, pictured with the A5 Spa brochure, which I wrote about previously - a piece of seamless, quality branding for their publications.

It is printed offset litho in CMYK plus a special - gold, the result of which is subtle but works well.

Design is by Burgess Studio. Creative director is Alexis Burgess. Designer on the project is Tom Green. Printing is by Glasgow based 21 Colour.

http://www.gleneagles.com/
www.espa.com
http://burgess-studio.co.uk/
http://www.21colour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 25.02.2016

McQ Women



McQ, is the contemporary brand from Alexander McQueen which takes inspiration from street culture "evoking the varied and ever-evolving style tribes that spring up around Britain’s rich music and art scenes. Drawing on references from uniform and the military, core staples of the British wardrobe are re-imagined each season in new guises. Traditional techniques are used in contemporary ways, creating pieces that are both functional and beautiful"

Creative Director of Alexander McQueen and McQ is Sarah Burton. This is the season's lookbook for women.

The size of the publication is 450x320mm, portrait and is a 12pp self cover. It is printed on our lightweight Offenbach Bible 60gsm and is a beautifully designed piece of literature.

The lookbook is printed in four colour offset litho and is a superb example of printing on Offenbach Bible - superb solid coverage and deep monochrome images reproduced in CMYK.

Click on images to enlarge

Due to the lightweight nature of the paper it just flops beautifully, with a bewitching feel.

Design and art direction is by Rupert Smith who is a freelance art director based in London. This is an elegant and splendidly produced publication. To get these dark images to look this good on an uncoated paper is a real achievement. Print is by Rob Squires at Pureprint.

http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/gb/mcq

www.pureprint.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 23.02.2016

Freedom of the City of London

The Guildhall, City of London 

In October, I was admitted to the Freedom of the The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, which I wrote about here. As part of the link between the Livery companies and the City of London, I have now been admitted to the Freedom of the City at a ceremony at the Guildhall in London last Wednesday. Admission to the freedom is organised by the Chamberlain's Court and is accompanied with this lovely piece of calligraphy produced on vellum. Vellum is a thin, specially prepared calfskin, which pre-dates paper and has been used for documents for centuries.

Originally this certificate was effectively a 'licence to trade' within the city and was essential to do business from the middle ages up until at least the 19th century.

The short ceremony was conducted by the Clerk of the Chamberlain's Court, Murray Craig. Here I am being presented with my Freedom Certificate.

I went together with my family and it was a very interesting, special day. My thanks to Murray Craig for making it so interesting and enjoyable.

http://www.guildhall.cityoflondon.gov.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.02.2016