Jobs from the past - Number 104

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 and here's one from 2015.

McQ AW 2015

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 and these fold out broadsheets were used as inserts for both the Men and Women's ranges.

 The finished size of the inserts are 210x280mm, folding out to 420x280mm, as below...

 …and then out to the full size of 420x560mm. Below is the Womenswear collection.

The broadsheets are printed on StarFine White 100gsm. Starfine is a quality, uncoated paper and as the images show, image reproduction is excellent. The detail of the clothing, fleshtones and on the detail images, even the fabrics is excellent - great detail for an uncoated paper, colours are bright and vivid and the solid black is superb. Menswear is below....

Produced on 100gsm, with the folds it has enough solidity to hold together well but also opens nice and flat and flows in the hand.

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 01.06.2018

REMAKE swatch

This is the new swatch for the wonderfully exciting REMAKE range from Favini. This paper really is unique as it is made partly using the discarded residue of the leather manufacturing process and is a revolutionary example of ‘upcycling’.

The dictionary definition of ‘upcycling’ is to reuse discarded objects or materials in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the origin. Remake is leather ‘upcycling’ on an industrial scale and represents the latest frontier in upcycling in the paper sector. This unique and innovative paper replaces 25% of wood tree pulp with leather residues.

Click on images to enlarge

Remake comes in six natural shades and in weights from 120gsm and with three shades available in 520gsm! Remake is not only a unique paper made of leather: it’s also 100% recyclable and compostable, and perfectly suited to luxury printing and packaging.

Click on images to enlarge

The residues, which are visible on the surface (as you can see in the above image) give the paper its distinctive look and its amazing soft and velvety feel. Remake contains 40% of post-consumer waste, is also FSC accredited and the leather by-products are sourced from traceable Italian origin.

Favini have also produced an "inspiration booklet" titled Up-Cycling. The book shows different print examples, including foiling, silkscreen, offset printing etc...

Favini won the top award at the European Recycling Awards last year. The awards are organised by the European Paper Recycling Council (EPRC) and the ceremony was held at the European Parliament in Brussels last October.

If you would like a swatch or print booklet, email me: Justin@fennerpaper.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 25.05.2018

The 4th Wayzgoose at the St Bride Foundation

Yesterday, I had a stall at the St Bride Foundation WAYZGOOSE. This is a term (unfamiliar to most people) that used to refer to an annual holiday in a print-works and was often an awayday to the coast or some other sort of day out, more often than not, paid for by the firm.

In this instance the St Bride Wayzgoose is a kind of letterpress 'bring and buy' sale.

Thirty tables displaying and selling many different items - everything from lead type to the Adana tabletop presses from Caslon, to secondhand book and printed examples of work.

Below is the table that I was allocated, where, as with previous years, I adopted a "throw it all on the table" approach! I took lots of offcuts and discontinued paper and board items. All paper and card sold by weight - 30 pence per 100 grams.

...and here is my new, beautifully crafted 'Weigh & Pay' signage 

It was sign-written by Helen Ingham from the Hi Artz Press, pictured below and I am really touched that she kindly produced such an exquisite sign. I am sure it will come in useful for many years to come!

I served at my 'paper stall' from 11am to 4pm  ...and by the end of the day I had raised a record breaking £247.00, all donated to the St Bride Foundation.

My thanks to Mick Clayton for organising the event and to all the staff and friends at St Bride.

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

Posted by Justin Hobson 21.05.2018

Jimmy Choo - Cruise 2017

Founded in 1996, Jimmy Choo is now an iconic luxury fashion brand defined by an empowered sense of glamour and a confident sense of style. This is the beautiful new brochure for the 2017 Cruise collection...

The size is 210x148mm (A5) portrait and is saddle stitched. The publication has a 8pp cover with a 28pp text.

The 8pp cover is printed on our Omnia 280gsm. Both the cover and text are printed CMYK plus a metallic gold pantone as a special. The front cover has a raised, embossed foil for the Jimmy Choo brandmark - which I hope I have managed to capture in the image below. Omnia is a very bulky sheet, so it embosses superbly, taking a deep embossing superbly.

Click on images to enlarge

It is printed offset litho in four colour process throughout. As always (...this is the plug for the paper!) the images look superb on the Omnia; the fleshtones in particular look absolutely stunning and the reproduction of the jewels and metallic images is great - keeping all the detail in those heavy areas of CMYK together with uncoated paper tactility which would be lost on other papers.

Click on images to enlarge

The detail on the handbags in the below image is stunning...

The size and combination of weights is just right and the book flows superbly in the hand. The text is printed on Omnia 150gsm.

The book is section sewn, with a nice flat spine which is also hot foil blocked.

Art direction and design is by the design studio at Jimmy Choo. The peerless print and print production is by Gavin Martin Colournet.

http://www.jimmychoo.com/

http://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 16.05.2018

Abram Games - Shakespeare Kickstarter

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about a publication featuring the work of Abram Games, which you can read again here.

Abram Games is acknowledged as being one of the 20th Century's greatest image makers, his work is now a fascinating record of social history. For over 60 years he produced some of Britain’s most memorable images including the war years as Official War Poster Artist producing over one hundred posters. He was the designer of the Festival of Britain emblem and his clients included the United Nations, London Transport, British Airways, Shell, the Financial Times, Guinness and of course book jackets for Penguin books. He also created the first animated BBC on-screen ident in 1953.

One of the spreads in my article included this poster that he produced for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre centenary appeal in 1975, featured on the left hand spread below:

The poster was hailed a huge success by the RSC and as far as Abram's family knew at the time, he considered the job completed. But thanks to an exciting discovery we now know that Abram’s intentions for the much-admired image went far further than a poster. After his death in 1996, Abram's daughter and archivist, Naomi Games, happened upon a mock-up he had made of a flickbook based on the poster image. As she turned the pages of the book Shakespeare's face gradually appeared, one play at a time. From the designs she could see that her father had even experimented with getting Shakespeare to wink!

...so please join in the Kickstarter campaign and help make this piece of print a reality:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2109961696/abram-games-the-shakespeare-project

Posted by Justin Hobson 11.05.2018

Linda Kitson - Drawings and Projects

This is the catalogue for last years' exhibition at the House of Illustration. Linda Kitson’s line drawings have recorded seminal moments in British history. This exhibition and catalogue charts a lifetime of putting pen to paper including her drawings on the front line of the Falklands War, as the first woman artist commissioned to accompany troops into combat. The reportage works on show lead up to her most recent, innovative ventures on the iPad. The exhibition was curated by Quentin Blake, who has known Kitson since she was first a student at the Royal College of Art.   

The size of the catalogue is 240mm square. There is a 4pp cover and 48pp text all printed on our Omnia. An important factor for the publication was to capture the narrative and the sensitivity of the work, whilst ensuring there is no compromise on the reproduction of the artwork. Omnia was chosen as it would faithfully reproduce the artworks whilst still lending the tactility of the original uncoated materials used.

Click on images to enlarge

Cover is printed on 320gsm and the 48pp text is printed on Omnia 150gsm.

Omnia performed brilliantly throughout the publication, ensuring that the fine detail in many of the illustrations was reproduced superbly. In stark contrast is the last spread which is one of Linda Kitson's iPad pieces, which quite literally jumps off the page!

The book is section sewn with a nice square spine..

The catalogue has been beautifully printed and finished by Jigsaw Colour.
You can read more about Linda's exhibition here:
https://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/whats-on/past-exhibitions/linda-kitson-drawings-and-projects

www.jigsawcolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.05.2018

Jobs from the past - Number 103

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 and here's one from 1996.

Vaughan Oliver and v23

Graphic Works 1988-1996

 

This is a broadsheet/poster produced for an exhibition of Vaughan Oliver's work shown at the University of Northumbria in 1996. Vaughan Oliver, under the studio name of v23, is the designer who was responsible for the graphic output of record label 4AD between 1982 and 1998. This included work for many bands  and artists including Mojave 3, Lush, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, Pale Saints and Throwing Muses. He also worked for other artists, outside of 4AD. 

Size of the publication is 420mmx148mm, folding out to 840x592mm and is concertina folded, a great format to show a huge amount of work.

Concertina folding....

The below image shows the outside, fully folded out flat. The image is printed in just once colour (black) offset litho printed as a halftone ...don't forget, back in 1996 one colour print was still considerably cheaper than four colour. As you can see a good, well printed halftone image, with the correct manual reprographic treatment can look amazing, as this image does.

Click on images to enlarge

On the inside, there's a real treat, 49 graphic images, the majority of which are record sleeves plus calendar and brochure artworks.

Click on images to enlarge.

This side is printed offset litho in CMYK plus something that was quite unusual at the time, which is an overprint using a metallic, tinted varnish, which is not opaque and the v23 monogram is printed over every image, as you can see in the below detail images...

This project was produced on a sheet that we had only just introduced in 1994 called Redeem 100% Recycled, which I hope you'll have heard of by now! Back then it was new but had exactly the right look and feel to for this very industrial, utilitarian feel to work with the images. It is printed on Redeem 100% Recycled 130gsm.

It's a large format job which has a huge impact, yet it folds down to a manageable size and was economical to produce - a really great use of material, print and format.

The job was printed by a company called Penshurst Press based in Tunbridge Wells. Sadly the company is no longer around. Alan Flack who was the "minder" that actually physically printed this job left Penshurst Press with Martin Darby to form their own printing company called Principal Colour and they are still based in Paddock Wood in Kent.

 

http://www.principalcolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.05.2018