Wednesday, 12 January 2022

Goal 09

#TOGETHERBAND is a global movement, uniting us all to share commitment to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) announced by the United Nations in 2015. These SDG's are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing.
Ethically made and sustainably sourced, each #TOGETHERBAND represents a different goal and 100% of the proceeds are donated. #TOGETHERBAND is the brainchild of British luxury sustainable brand BOTTLETOP, co-founded by Cameron Saul and Oliver Wayman, There are 17 friendship bracelets representative of each goal and everyone is invited to choose the goal that matters most to them and share it with someone important to them - How? Well, with every friendship bracelet purchase, you receive a second band to give someone close to you, helping spread the word...
This is the clever and beautifully designed packaging that contains the two bands. There is a slipcase in which there are two angled boxes held tight. Overall size of the slipcase is 80 x 80 x 20mm.
The angled boxes are fastened with a tuck flap, opening out as the below image...
...and then revealing the band itself:
Underneath the band is a 14pp information leaflet 70mm square folding out to 70 x 490mm.
The paper and board chosen for the wrap/boxes is our Shiro Echo, Bright White 300gsm, from Favini, which is 100% recycled, FSC accredited and carbon balanced. You can read more about Shiro Echo here. The leaflet is printed on Shiro Echo, Bright White 90gsm. As you can see from the images, the solid is superbly printed and the board has cut and creased beautifully.
Print and production is by Identity Printers with Paul Winter handling the project and they are just gorgeous - colours are bright and solids are superb, all printed Offset Litho

Posted by Justin Hobson 12.01.2022

Tuesday, 4 January 2022

Jobs from the past - Number 146

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...

Nougat Preview S/S 2005
This is one of those simple pieces of print which is just exquisite. It is the preview piece produced to excite fashion buyers and to let them know at which fashion shows around the globe they will be showing the new collection. From that point of view, it can simply be described as a piece of 'direct mail' but that term is generally applied in a derogatory way and really doesn't do justice to this project.
It is simply a 6pp creased and folded card. Deceptively square, it's actually 150x140mm, portrait. It is printed in one colour on the outside and CMYK on the inside.
So what is it exactly that I find so special about this job? It was one of the first ever pieces to use Omnia and what is amazing is the way it feels so beautifully tactile and uncoated and then the way it reveals the amazing images inside. The outside cover is a continuous vignette as a halftone going from 0 to 100%. This is ingenious as it graduates in a crisp even way across the front cover - the even-ness in part, due to the way the Omnia prints and retains the integrity of the monotone.
The cover opens to reveal part of a stunning image plus reversed out type on a great solid, which is, of course, the continued solid from the front and back cover. Printed on Omnia White 280gsm.
 ...and then opening the right hand page reveals the image in all it's glory:
Below you can see the way the continuous vignette works from Zero to 100% 
 and here is a detail showing the subtlety of the tint:
This project together with the Nougat look-books at this time were designed by BOB Design. The creative partners at BOB were Alexis Burgess, Mireille Burkhardt and Kieran O'Connor. Lexi now runs his own studio in East London, Burgess Studio.

The excellent printing was by Principal Colour based in Paddock Wood in Kent. It's also worth pointing out that this job isn't "sealed, varnished or coated" in any way and this is the main reason that it feels so good - you can actually feel the paper and the ink. Since the time this was printed (2005) there has been a trend to install presses with coaters and most pieces of printed literature are smeared with a coating or sealer which (although making the printer's lives easier) betrays the feel of the paper ...and (what a lot of printers fail to mention) it discolours with age - now that's definitely something worth thinking about!

http://www.nougatlondon.co.uk/
www.bobdesign.co.uk
www.burgess-studio.co.uk
www.principalcolour.co.uk
Posted by Justin Hobson 04.01.2022

Tuesday, 28 December 2021

Maggie's Xmas Card

Maggie’s provides free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends, following the ideas about cancer care originally laid out by Maggie Keswick Jencks. The first Maggie’s Centre opened in Edinburgh in 1996 and since then Maggie’s has continued to grow, with 27 centres at major cancer hospitals.
The image used on the card is of an apple installation by Rebecca Louise Law at Maggie's Culture Crawl held in 2014. 
Image copyright: Written Light Photography
The cards are printed on our Colorset Crimson 270gsm, our 100% recycled text and cover range. They are printed in halftone, offset litho in one colour, silver and hot foil blocked in matt white foil.

Reverse of card
The below image shows the detail of the white foil:
Design is by Malcom Clarke. Print and foiling is by Aldgate Press, based in London E1.

https://www.maggies.org/
http://www.aldgatepress.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 28.12.2021

Tuesday, 21 December 2021

Panettone Wrap

This is a lovely project which was produced a couple of years ago at Christmas time. I received a call from Richard Davey at London based printer Leycol, who asked if we could supply a 60gsm in a red and black paper. We discussed the project further and it turned out that paper was to be printed with a metallic gold text and sent to Italy to wrap the traditional Panettone cake for sale in the Wildwood Deli.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a readily available red/black 60gsm stock paper available from one of our supplying mills and the quantity wasn't enough for a 'mill making',  so I suggested that he could successfully print a solid colour onto our Offenbach Bible 60gsm and the metallic gold text with excellent results. I sent Richard a printed sample of a McQ project to show how well a solid could work.  
The sheets were printed on a B1 Heidelberg offset litho press, in a solid pantone (not panettone colours!) colour plus a metallic gold and as you can see, the paper has printed beautifully. The size of the finished sheets are 550x750mm.
Not only does Offenbach Bible print beautifully, it also is very strong and "scrunches" beatifully! making it ideal for this type of wrapping, where a tissue paper (which you wouldn't be able to Litho Print) would actiually not be strong enough ...and here is the finished packaged article
Couldn't resist trying a slice!
Thanks to Richard Davey for giving us the opportunity to be involved with this very tasty project!

http://www.leycol.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 21.12.2021

Thursday, 16 December 2021

Orla Kiely - Colour Block Stem

This is a limited edition print designed by Orla Kiely titled 'Colour Block Stem' and these pictures were kindly taken by Harvey Lloyd Screens during the printing.
They are beautifully silkscreen printed in four colours on our Creative Print, Champagne which is 100% recycled.
They were printed last month and went on sale last week. Within 2 hours of launching the print last week, the edition sold out!
http://harveylloydscreens.co.uk/
https://orlakiely.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 16.12.2021

Monday, 13 December 2021

Fenner Paper 2022 Diary x4!

If you are a wonderful customer and therefore a deserving user of our papers! ... you will be receiving your new 2022 diary in the next week or so and here's a sneak preview...
Four diaries? Well, just one diary but there are four different covers! ...which one will you get? This year we have collaborated with both the St Bride Foundation and the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD).This year’s cover was designed by Andrew Long and printed by the St Bride Chapel, St Bride Library’s workshop team.
The diary itself has been designed by David Coates, independent designer and board director of ISTD. The internal pages are typset in Foundry Unie from The Foundry Types. As in previous years, the diary is 230x162mm, portrait and retains the popular 'month to view' format. The 40pp text is simply printed in one colour, offset litho, on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm, which has a superb opacity and a good writing surface making this an ideal paper for a diary or notebook.
The cover is printed in three specialson our NEW PaperWise, made using 100% agricultural waste and completely unbleached. The above shows all four cover designs, front and back covers. The design was inspired by Chaostype, a process invented in the late nineteenth century by Cincinnati printer John Franklin Earhart that relied upon the unpredictable and random qualities of hot lead chaos. Below are some test sheets produced back in the Summer...
Andrew Long together with the four different covers in the St Bride Library workshop...
My thanks to all the collaborators and thanks also to Commercial Type for the use of their Commercial Classics catalogue for use on the cover design. They are recreations of historical typefaces inspired by the punches, matrices, specimens and smoke proofs held at St Bride Library. 

If you are one of our worthy clients (!), you should be receiving one of our diaries in the post but if you would rather have it sent to your home than the office or if you want to make sure you are in our address book, drop me an email: justin@fennerpaper.co.uk
 Posted by Justin Hobson 13.12.2021

Friday, 10 December 2021

Nat-ional-Re-con-struct-ion Book Launch

Nat-ional-Re-con-struct-ion is a self-promotional project by Studio Sutherl& exploring the visual and verbal language of flags and national identity.
"Flags are a potent symbol of national identity: an example of visual communication in its purest form. Their shapes represent the land, sea and sky. Suns, moons and stars. Solidarity, religion and freedom. Their colours represent physical and emotional attributes. At a time when the world is riven with nationalist tensions, global challenges and diseases, it’s a small flag raised for play and creativity."
On Wednesday evening, Jim Sutherland hosted a book launch at D&AD where he spoke about the project together with writer and poet Nick Asbury.
...and there was a whole table of flags to be cut up and reconstructed
Jim Sutherland gave a talk explaining how the project began and it's evolution through D&AD workshops to the eventual production of the book.
The Nat-ional-Re-con-struct-ion book is 115 x 200mm, Landscape and is digitally printed in a limited edition of just 200 copies with 50 different cover designs.
The text is digitally printed (HP Indigo) on our lovely Offenbach Bible 80gsm.
"Nat-ional-Re-con-struct-ion explores the visual and verbal language of flags and national identity. This book is an excercise in deconstruction and reconstruction. At a time when the world is riven with nationalist tensions, global challenges and diseases that respect no borders, it is a small flag raised for play and creativity."
The book is beautifully printed and bound by Boss Print.

It was a wonderful evening and so good to get out and meet people physically again. There are still copies available, so you can still buy a copy HERE.
Posted by Justin Hobson 10.12.2021