Villa Saletta

This is one of the most wonderful books to have appeared on this blog, it is quite simply stunning. Villa Saletta is a 1,760-acre estate in the heart of Tuscany, featuring an historic borgo, three luxurious holiday villas and a boutique winery. The estate was purchased by British investor, Guy Hands around 15 years ago and it is used both as a family holiday home and is also being developed with apartments and houses as a resort for Tuscany loving guests.

This superb case-bound book is bound in leather. The size of the book is 300mm square and has 284pp text pages given an overall spine thickness of 35mm.

The book which is subtitled 'History in the Making' is divided into seven chapters, explaining the history, the estate, the wine and produce and the vision for the future...

In the centre of the book there is a gatefold throw out showing a stunning panorama of the Italian countryside surrounding the Villa.

The one thing that has struck me about this publication is the space. It is unhurried and nothing is crammed in. Photography by Richard Waite is allowed the space to breath and it really makes the most of the wonderful images.

It is printed offset litho throughout in CMYK. The paper chosen is our StarFine, White 170gsm. StarFine is a quality, uncoated paper and as the images show, image reproduction is excellent. The solids chapter dividers, photographic images and the illustrations all look equally stunning - a great amount of detail for an uncoated paper.

One of the chapter divider spreads, the terracotta colour is made out of CMYK, not a solid special colour.

Image below shows the head and tail bands and the way the text moves. The edge of the book is gilt edged in gold.

The below image shows the thread in the centre of the 24pp sections...

Below image shows the ribbon marker and also the gilt edge binding.

The book is published by Terra Firma Holdings Ltd. Photography is by Richard Waite.

The truly stunning printing and production is by Stuart Van Den Bergh at Intaglio Communications who are based in London.

https://www.villasaletta.com/
http://www.intaglioltd.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 23.10.2018

Dermatology M

Dermatology M is an exclusive range of carefully designed topicals and cosmetic skincare creams, ointments and tinctures, developed by world-renowned dermatologist Mazin Al-Khafaji. Mazin is recognised as one of the leading experts in the field of dermatology and Chinese medicine, and for three decades has treated unusual and difficult skin, auto-immune and allergic diseases with great success.

This 2pp 'dispensary slip' is 175x112mm. Printed CMYK in offset Litho, these slips are laser printed in the dispensary. The material used is Shiro Echo, White 80gsm, which is very lightweight but has a wonderful feel in the hand.

Beautifully printed, the fine (small) type is crisp and sharp.

Branding and design is by Aloof and it was kind of Michelle to send me some file copies and a lovely note too.

Printing is by Dayfold, who are based in Dorset.

https://dermatology-m.co.uk/
https://aloof.co/
https://www.dayfold.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.10..2018

Namma by Kricket

Kricket is a modern Indian restaurant group with three restaurants in Soho, Brixton and the former Television Centre (White City). Founded by partners Rik Campbell and chef Will Bowlby, Kricket has recently expanded into the takeaway market, launching a new brand Namma by Kricket.

The partners were inspired by their travels across India and while they were in Mumbai they hired a couple of Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles. It was this trip that inspired both the takeaway brand and their dishes with a twist.

The Namma by Kricket branding is by &Smith and they created a suite of literature including this simple A6 postcard, showing a pair of Royal Enfield Bullets...

Designer on the project is Cécile Dumetier. The project is printed by Gavin Martin Colournet and is produced on their HP Indigo press, printed on our Shiro Echo, White 300gsm, which is an off white 100% recycled board, just perfect for the look and feel of this card.

https://www.namma.co.uk/
https://kricket.co.uk/
http://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 15.10.2018

The Photography Movement

The Photography Movement was launched in 2017 by best friends Scott Shillum and Steve Wallington after they had both lost close family and friends to suicide. It is a not for profit organisation, fostering a community spirit where individuals of all ages can discuss mental wellbeing through the medium of photography.

The Photography Movement in partnership with Canon, is curating a series of exhibitions at the Exposure Gallery from the 4th October - 13th December. The series will promote the benefits of using photography to support mental wellbeing, as well as raise awareness and funds for charity partners.

Yesterday evening, I was invited to the private view, which was an exhibiting the results of a series of workshops run at the London Academy of Excellence (LAE) in Tottenham.

Steve Wallington, one of the founders, pictured below...

https://www.thephotographymovement.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 11.10.2018

Warner Edwards Garden

This garden at the Chelsea Flower show is inspired by Falls Farm, Northamptonshire, where every bottle of Warner Edwards Gin is distilled. The farm is situated on the remains of medieval terraced gardens, now a beautiful stepped grass landscape, which is represented discretely in the Warner Edwards Garden’s topography. Bee-friendly plants reflect the farm’s apiary, and thyme and lemon balm, which are highly aromatic, can be used in garnishing gin and tonic.

 

This booklet explains all about the garden, the designers, the layout and the plants which are used. It is printed offset litho in CMYK throughout with hot foil blocking on the cover.

The 4pp cover is printed on Flora Tabacco 240gsm and the 12pp text is on Flora Noce 130gsm. As you can see from the image below, the Noce is a slightly lighter shade than the Tabacco used for the cover.

The size of the booklet is 148x105mm, portrait and is singer sewn with green thread.

Click on images to enlarge

Above shows the centre spread with the singer sewing in the spine and below you can see the outside spine. A superb piece of sewing...

Flora, is a part recycled text and cover paper with a deliberately recycled look and feel with specks and inclusions, so it looks deliberately flecky and specky. Flora is produced with 30% post consumer de-inked waste, together with 60% of virgin FSC pulp 10% cotton fibres, which gives the paper a wonderful tactile feel. See the image below to see the detail...

Click on images to enlarge

Design is by London based agency Hue & Cry. Designer on the project is Kate McPartland. Print is by Leycol.

https://www.warneredwards.com/
http://www.huecryagency.com/

http://www.leycol.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.10.2018

Jobs from the past - Number 108

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...

Association Gallery Leaflets June/Sept 1999

The Association of Fashion & Advertising Photographers (AFAP, although it later became AFAEP when editorial photographers were embraced) was originally founded in 1968, changing its name to The Association of Photographers in 1993.

 

During the late 1990's the AOP had their gallery and exhibition space at 81 Leonard Street, EC2 and the gallery manager was Alex Steele-Mortimer. Being a self funded 'trade body', resources were extremely limited, although the subject, brief and raw material was fantastically creative.  Alex commissioned Frost Design for the promotional leaflets for quite a long period. They stick in my mind as being incredibly simple, yet because of their powerful use of cropped, interesting images, single colour print and quality paper they had a consistency and quality that stands high today.

The finished size is 210x95mm (roughly a DL format) and is 12pp, folding out to a flat size of 210x570mm.

The format of this leaflet works particularly well as the text concertinas into the folded spine. This works particularly well for this type of leaflet as because it effectively creates a spine and the foredge of text - some leaflets fall open in all directions! This is neat and tight and as a result feels less like a leaflet and more like a piece of less throwaway literature.  Picture below shows the way the text folds into the spine....

Click on images to enlarge

Text on the inside reads at 90degrees to the outer. Some people may disagree but I find this a very easy to read and inviting publication.

The paper used is Matrisse 140gsm and is printed just one colour Offset Litho. The crop of the images used on the covers was alwsy good with this series of publications and this is no exception. Photography by Craig Samuel.

Creative director was Vince Frost who now runs Frost in Australia.

Print was offset litho by The House Of Naylor, one of the last printers based in Clerkenwell, they are no longer in existence.

http://www.the-aop.org/
http://www.frostdesign.com.au/

Posted by Justin Hobson 01.10.2018

The Print Show 2018

Last week I visited the Print Show at the NEC in Birmingham. It was an interesting show and there were dozens of companies from ink manufacturers to software, finishing equipment, digital and press suppliers ...and even one or two paper companies too!

One particularly interesting section was "Traditional Print Masterclass" are, where I caught up with my friends from the St Bride Foundation - Mick Clayton below operating a handpress.

...and Nick Hand from the Letterpress Collective in Bristol together with his Printing Bike, which I've written about on this blog before. I'd never actually seen the bike and it really is a beast.

https://www.theprintshow.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 27.09.2018