Wednesday, 10 January 2018

F&F Kids Collection

This is the latest kidswear collection from F&F. This season, the look is stylish trousers and dresses in corduroy, to printed long sleeve tees and shirts, not forgetting the latest on-trend cuts and washes in kids' jeans.

The format is A5 portrait and is saddle stitched with two wires. The cover is on Gmund Bier from that other well known, Hull based, paper company and is beautifully hot foil blocked in a pigmented, matt yellow foil.
The 20pp text (plus 2pp throwout) is printed on our Shiro Echo, Bright White, 120gsm which is 100% Recycled, made by Favini.
Click on images to enlarge
There is a "2pp throwout" at the back of the book, revealing miniature images taken on the same shoot.
The quality of the art direction, photography, repro, print and finishing is superb. The paper also happens to have performed brilliantly - fleshtones and close up detail looking superb, as you can see from the detail image below:
Shiro Echo 120gsm is quite bulky but 28pp sits well without the gap in the middle "gaping" too much.
Art direction and design is by London creative agency Odd. The excellent print, repro and finishing is by Gavin Martin Colournet, based in London E3.

https://www.tesco.com/
http://www.oddlondon.com/
http://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 10.01.2018


Monday, 8 January 2018

The May Fair

The May Fair Hotel was first opened by King George V in 1927 and offers over 400 luxury hotel bedrooms, including 12 suites, a discreet spa, a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant and a Casino. Located in Stratton Street in the heart of Mayfair the hotel also sports the May Fair Bar, breathtaking Crystal Room and opulent Danziger Suite, which between them have played host to some of London's most extravagant 20th Century society events.

This publication shows what the hotel can offer for the Christmas period, from private dining to events and parties. The size of the publication is an elegant tall thin format, which is 313 x 112mm, portrait.
This 12pp 'self cover' is printed on our Omnia 200gsm, which is the perfect weight - it doesn't need a heavier cover weight, it flows and feels good in the hand.
The book is printed Offset litho throughout in CMYK plus a metallic gold pantone 'special' ink. This is one very good reason that Omnia was chosen for this project. On most traditional uncoated papers, metallic inks can look flat and gold can just look a bit brown, but as I hope the images above and below demonstrate, the metallic gold type really does look metallic on Omnia.
The four colour imagery looks superb...
Image reproduction is paramount but it was also important that the publication also projected the tactility of the interiors and in the image below the detail of the table settings and the reproduction of the glassware. An ordinary feeling silk or gloss coated paper wasn't an option, so Omnia fitted the bill perfectly.
Printing is by Stuart Van Den Bergh at Intaglio Communications based in London.

http://www.themayfairhotel.co.uk/
http://www.intaglioltd.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 08.01.2018

Friday, 5 January 2018

GardaPat 13

Some exciting news to start 2018...
 
Fenner Paper are now the exclusive UK distributor of a coated paper range called GardaPat 13. Although this is a new product to us, it isn't a new paper, it has been produced for many years and is the top rated paper for use in the production of high quality photographic books by the well known publishers in Switzerland, Germany and Italy.
 
The paper is manufactured by Cartiere del Garda, a paper mill on the shore of Lake Garda in northern Italy.
New Gardapat 13 swatch
So what makes GardaPat 13 different to other coated paper?

To make it easy, I've summarised it in three points here:
  1. It is a genuine, dead flat matt finish.
  2. The "13" means it has a 1.3 bulk, so it feels much, much thicker than other coated papers.
  3. It comes in three shades, KLASSICA, KIARA and BIANKA
Simple as that, it's beautiful paper!

Gardapat BIANKA is the whitest shade in the range. The original KLASSICA has the warmest shade with KIARA having a more neutral white shade. Contrary to popular belief, studies show that using a higher white paper does not improve colour reproduction, so using a neutral white paper actually increases the colour gamut! Using a sophisticated and warm paper is pleasant for the eye to read and perfect for use both in literature for the arts and luxury brands. Both KLASSICA and KIARA are made without the use of Optical Brightening Agents (OBA’s)

The weight range is from 90gsm and goes up to 250gsm (Bianka only up to 150gsm). Now many of you reading this may be thinking 250gsm isn't heavy enough but you would be wrong! This 250gsm is 325microns thick. To put it into context a normal printers 'house silk' in 300gsm is only 280microns! ...therefore GardaPat 250gsm is as bulky as a 350gsm silk!
If you would like a swatch, drop me an email justin@fennerpaper.co.uk
 
http://www.lecta.com/en/cartiere-del-garda
Posted by Justin Hobson 05.01.2018

Wednesday, 3 January 2018

Jobs from the past - Number 99

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, but this is actually a fairly recent project...

Middlesex University literature 2015
This is a series of publications produced for Middlesex University by Silver Leopard. The agency were approached to undertake a brand strategy piece of work leading to a revised and relevant visual language. This concluded in a complete and thorough set of guidelines for print, digital and environmental treatments.
 
I've written many articles on this blog which include the phrase "...just the cover makes the difference!" and it is certainly the case for these three publications. All the covers are hot foil blocked on our Colorset 100% Recycled cover board. 
Click on images to enlarge
The Undergraduate Guide, which is the prospectus is an A5, portrait, 76pp publication. The 4pp cover is hot foil blocked in matt white foil on our Colorset Bright Red, 350gsm, with the diagonal die-cut, which is a graphic device used throughout the publication.
8mm thick spine:
Click on images to enlarge
The larger 164pp Graduation publication is 245x162mm, portrait, perfect bound. The cover is hot foil blocked in metallic gloss silver foil on our Colorset Dark Grey 350gsm.
The 148pp Postgraduate Guide is also A5, Portrait and perfect bound. The 4pp cover is hot foil blocked in matt white foil on our Colorset, Nero 350gsm, also with the diagonal die-cut.
Below shows the detail of the diagonal die-cut
Click on images to enlarge
Detail of the matt white foil on the cover:
Image showing the spines of all three publications.
The printing was handled by a print management company on behalf of the university, so unfortunately I don't know the printer or foiling company.

You can read more about this project here.  Silver Leopard continues to act as brand guardians for the University and are involved in many premium outputs including website design, UG and PG prospectuses, campaigns, open days and recruitment.

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/
http://www.silverleopard.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 03.01.2018

Wednesday, 27 December 2017

Django Django on Colorset

Django Django are a British rock band and I've only just seen these striking posters produced for their second album Born Under Saturn, which was released in 2015.
This poster is A2 size (594x420mm) and is silk-screen printed in two colours onto our Colorset Deep Orange 270gsm, which is also 100% Recycled.
 
The posters were screen-printed by Gary Parselle at Brighton based silkscreen studio, The Private Press.
 
...Awesome
 
Posted by Justin Hobson 27.12.2017

Thursday, 21 December 2017

Jimmy Choo AW 2017 Invitation

If you were to think of impossibly high heels, a world renowned brand and a celebrity following as long as your arm, I'm sure you would think of Jimmy Choo. Founded in 1996, they are now one of the undisputed kings of footwear for the fashionable woman and more recently man.

This is a very luxurious looking invitation to the launch of the Autumn/Winter 2017 collection in Milan. The 2pp Invitation is 148x148mm, square is made using our Flockage Colours 400gsm in Black.
 
The front of the invitation, is hot foil blocked onto a British Racing Green shade board, but the exceptional effect on the Flockage Black on the reverse.
For those of you which are not familiar with this product, it is a flocked board which feels like a velvety cloth/material to the touch but which remarkably you can actually "flatten" the pile by use of a  "heat de-boss". In this case the Leopard skin pattern is "heat de-bossed" with a superb result.
Flockage is an expensive material, but because of the small quantity used and the fact that only one process is being used on it (and waste is therefore minimal) a luxury, high impact impression can be achieved for a relatively low cost.
 
To give these invitations extra weight (and gravitas), they have been duplexed together with a black board with the total thickness being over 3mm.
Art direction and design is by the 'in house' studio at Jimmy Choo and the designer on the project is Sinnie Chong. All aspects of production, including the duplexing, hot foil blocking and heat debossing of the Flockage was done by Add Creative, a production company based in Hong Kong and they also made the matching envelope. I think both the green board and the black inners were sourced locally in Hong Kong.
 
Posted by Justin Hobson 21.12.2017

Monday, 18 December 2017

Thread Business Cards

Thread is a studio specialising in design for a wide variety of clients from the art and cultural sector. Thread is the design studio of Michael Windsor-Ungureanu ...and these are his very simple and effective business cards.
I wrote about his new studio brochure earlier in the year but I hadn't realised that very cleverly, he printed his business cards at the same time ...very economical!

Front...
Size of the cards is 85x45mm, there are three different coloured cards, all produced on Colorset - a mix of Ash, Lemon and Deep Orange, all printed offset litho in one special pantone (PMS 072U) blue.
 
Reverse...
For those of you not familiar with Colorset, it is our range of coloured text and cover papers which is also 100% recycled and more competitively priced than some other well known brands of coloured paper! There are 26 colours including black and white

Design is by Michael Windsor-Ungureanu. Printing is by Bowmans based in Leeds

http://www.threaddesign.co.uk/
http://www.bowmans77.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 18.12.2017