As many readers of this blog will know, this month the St Bride Foundation celebrates their 125th anniversary. To coincide with this, they are running a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the Foundation to fund a year of special events (throughout 2021) and most importantly the beginning of a project to digitise the extensive Library enabling the collections to be shared with the global audience they deserve.
It brought to mind a fantastic project for the St Bride Foundation which I was involved with last year which I never wrote about but now having plagiarised (with permission!) the excellent blog article by Alistair Hall of
We Made This, here it is...
Fourteen artists, designers, writers, illustrators and musicians were asked if they would collaborate in pairs to each create a poster designed to celebrate and highlight the rich and varied collections held within the St Bride Library and the building itself. The
Collections and Collaborations project culminated in an evening to celebrate their work and the items from the collections that inspired them. The private view, held last May, included a series of short lectures from some of the collaborators about the process behind their work.
The collaborators are:
Catherine Dixon & Mick Clayton
Pam Smy & Ness Woo
Bob Richardson & Alistair Hall
Tom Gauld & John L. Walters
David Pearson & Paul Barnes
Anil Aykan & Jonathan Barnbrook (Fragile Self)
Tom Etherington & Keith Houston
There are 7 posters in total, each printed in an edition of 60, all printed on papers supplied by Fenner Paper and all printed Offset Litho by
Boss Print ...and what a set it is!
Designer, writer and teacher
Catherine Dixon worked with freelance type compositor Mick Clayton, who manages the St Bride Print Workshop. They went the extra mile – well, several extra miles to be honest – and letterpress printed their creation in the print workshops at the library, onto
Shiro Echo, White 160gsm. It features a collection of ‘lost words’ from the printing trade.
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Book designer Tom Etherington, from Penguin Press, working with author Keith Houston, who wrote the fantastic books
Shady Characters and
The Book, created this fantastic print...
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The image above doesn’t really capture the brilliant way it’s been printed though. All the grey text is actually printed in black on the reverse side of the poster, showing through the semi translucent 60gsm
Sixties stock, as you can see here:
The type on the above poster is set in
Commercial Type’s Thorowgood Grotesque and Caslon Doric Wide.
Anil Aykan & Jonathan Barnbrook from
Barnbrook Studio are also musicians and have just released their first self titled Album ‘
Fragile Self’. They took a set of song lyrics from a
broadside they found in the library, and created this contemporary version, featuring a bespoke typeface...
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I discussed the poster with Jonathan and the concerns about the dark image and how it was important that the reproduction retained it's detail, which is why we decided on using Omnia 150gsm, which would reproduce the image without losing clarity.
Illustrator and teacher
Pam Smy teamed up with book designer and lecturer
Ness Wood (together with
Maisie Paradise Shearring they make up Orange Beak Studio), and created this print based on the work of
Beatrice Warde, printed onto
Pergraphica Smooth, Natural 120gsm.
Illustrator
Tom Gauld was paired with
John L. Walters, author, musician, and editor of
Eye magazine. John wrote a piece about the experience of visiting St Bride Library, and Tom created this stunning print around it. It’s printed onto
Gardapat 13, Klassica 115gsm.
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Here’s a detail...
Book designer David Pearson, worked with type designer Paul Barnes from Commercial Type, showcasing some more types from Commercial Classics. The posters were printed onto different shades from our
Colorset range in 120gsm, the below image printed on Colorset Solar...
...and last but by no means least, here is the poster by Alistair Hall and Bob Richardson. After research in the Library, Alistair was inspired by the incredible elongated sans serif typefaces fom the
R D DeLittle “Eboracum” Letter Factory. The finished result uses the Colophon Foundry’s recently released
Coign type family and was printed on our
Creative Print Champagne 170gsm |
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The below image shows the set of posters for sale during the launch evening. Some of these posters are still available and you can buy them
HERE. Each poster has been produced in a limited edition with all profits going to the St Bride Foundation.
The project would never have been possible if it were not for the support of
Boss Print who donated the printing, which was no small thing. Also, I must mention
Becky Chilcott, the organiser, without whom this event would never have happened and my thanks again to
Alistair Hall for allowing me to use the images and copy from his blog.
During this crowdfunding campaign, what better way to remember why the St Bride Foundation is such a valuable resource? - right in the heart of London and worth YOUR support. At the time of writing, the
crowdfunding campaign stands at £36,000 of a £50,000 total with 15 days to go ...so please pledge your support right now! ...and tell your friends - remember many £10 or £20 donations will all help get to the target.
So what are people doing now? Arcadia has gone bust this week. Sadly Ortek Printers went bust back in 2017. Gill Patchett is now a freelance Art director and Designer ...and Fenner Paper? yep, we're still here doing good stuff!
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