Monday, 14 February 2022

Happy Valentines Day!

What better day than to look at this superbly produced book, titled 'Arrows of Love'...  This superb book was originally published to accompany the Quentin Blake exhibition titled Arrows of Love which took place in 2018 at the House of Illustration. This was an exhibition of Quentin Blake’s rarely-seen nudes consisting of 18 exuberant pencil drawings depicting women avoiding or embracing Cupid’s arrow. The original works are pencil on paper and were drawn circa 1974.

Having opened on Valentine’s Day, this exhibition reveals Quentin Blake's personal reflections on the joy, folly and sorrow of love with his characteristic humour. You can read about the exhibition here.
The size of the book is 265x220mm, portrait and comprises of 64pp plus endpapers. The text pages are printed on our Omnia, Natural 120gsm which gives the book a 'toned' look but which sympathetically reproduces the pencil illustrations.

The books starts with arrows...
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Birds eye view showing the sewn sections and the 'quarter bound' binding. Spine is 7mm
Detail showing reproduction of the pencil illustration....
This is a beautifully produced publication, which you can buy here. Printing is by Jigsaw Colour, who sadly are no longer trading but Paul Martin handled the project, who is now at Identity Printers.

https://www.quentinblake.com/
http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/home
Posted by Justin Hobson 14.02.2022

Thursday, 10 February 2022

Assila Hotel

Offering a rooftop outdoor pool and spa center, the Assila Hotel, part of the Rocco Forte hotel group, is located in Jeddah in the Makkah Al Mukarramah province.

The brochure uses the Rocco Forte branding by Pentagram.  The format is A5 (210x148mm) portrait and is saddle stitched. The 8pp cover is printed and hot foil blocked on Dali, Perla 200gsm and the 36pp text is printed on our Marazion Ultra 135gsm.
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Below shows a detail image of the 8pp cover showing the full width flaps.
The book is written and produced entirely in arabic and therefore it opens at what we in the west consider to be the back, so the image below shows the inside front spread.
The material used for the cover is our Dali range, which is a 'felt-marked' paper with a linear effect and a natural, tactile feel. If you click on the image below, you will be able to see the texture in the paper.
The 36pp text is printed offset litho on our Marazion Ultra 135gsm, chosen because of it's dead matt flatness which would reproduce the interior images well without a glossiness which would detract from the cool look and feel of the hotel.
Inside back cover with cover flap opened...
Below image showing that it sits nice and flat without 'gaping' in the centre of the spine.
The excellent print, repro and finishing is by Gavin Martin Colournet, based in London.

https://www.roccofortehotels.com/hotels-and-resorts/assila-hotel/
https://www.pentagram.com/
https://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 10.02.2022

Wednesday, 2 February 2022

Jobs from the past - Number 147

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 this one is from 2015...

Thomas Tait SS15 Invitation

This is the invitation to the Thomas Tait preview show for his Spring|Summer 2015 collection held in London this September. The previous year he won the inaugural LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers. Thomas Tait is originally from Montreal but now lives and works in London and graduated from the Central Saint Martins Womenswear MA course.

For this show, he has collaborated with Paris based visual artist Georges Rousse, who uses derelict buildings as his medium and paints on walls. Working with the artist, Thomas Tait has transformed his show into a living art space and this is reflected in this beautifully produced invitation.
The invitation itself is actually a 12pp loose bound (no binding) production. Size is 270 x 180mm and is printed on our Omnia 200gsm ...and it looks and feels just beautiful. It perfectly shows the images of the derelict spaces - lots of detail and excellent reproduction and great solids - no patchiness or mottle. It is totally in sympathy with the rough concrete interiors - tactile and engaging.
Centre spread.
The images above and below show how it is unbound and how well it works - it holds together beautifully ...and that is because it is the correct choice of weight of material - Omnia is very bulky and 200gsm works perfectly. If it were on the 280 or 320gsm it would be far too 'clunky' and would not hold itself together as a single piece of literature.
Below image showing the outside back cover where the event details are printed on the solid yellow.
You can read more about the event and collection here:

Field Projects, a London based studio, is responsible for the superb art direction and design. Creative Director on the project is Tom Watt. Unfortunately I don't know who the photographer is because they also deserve a credit!

Print production is by FE Burman, who are based is south London and they have made an excellent job printing on the Omnia.

https://www.thomastait.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 02.02.2022

Friday, 28 January 2022

2022 Calendar using Creative Print

I have been given a number of these individual calendars for the readers of this blog. They are available on a first come first serve basis, so if you would like a copy, please email me justin@fennerpaper.co.uk ...but you'll have to hurry!
The theme of this year's calendar is our seas and the sea life that inhabit our oceans. This calendar was conceived by the creative heads of advertising agency LMF based in Thüringen. Produced in collaboration with Quedlinburg DRUCK GmbH (printer) Koehler Greiz GmbH & Co KG (Paper) and Druckerei Erdenberger (UV print/finishing).
Size of the calendar is 810x 280mm is wiro-bound at the head and has 14 leaves, one for each month plus an introduction page and cover.
The calendar is printed on Creative Print, Diamond 210gsm, which is a 100% Recycled paper which we launched on World Environment Day in 2019. The range also is accredited with the "Blue Angel" environmental mark - which is fact the oldest environmental ecolabel, first awarded in 1978.
The print result is absolutely superb on this 100% recycled paper - with my limited photography skills I have tried to show the range of UV print finishes, with glitter, high build, textured and matt finishes...
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Summary page showing all the months...
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They are available on a first come first serve basis, so if you would like a copy, please email me justin@fennerpaper.co.uk ...but you'll have to hurry!

https://www.l-m-f.de/home.html#!home
Posted by Justin Hobson 28.01.2022

Tuesday, 25 January 2022

Paper shortages and increasing prices...

Here is some important background information from the print and paper industry...

In this interesting article published in Printweek today, they report on statistics by Intergraf who are to the Brussels-based umbrella organisation for European national printing industry associations (including the BPIF in the UK). They report "the situation is so acute that in some member countries 40% of the paper needed from mid-February cannot be obtained" 

I wrote an article on this blog in September about paper shortages. Now, as then, there are many reasons for the current supply issues. Last year, over a million tonnes of coated commercial and publication papermaking capacity was taken out of the market by StoraEnso (announced in 2018) with machines being converted to pulp and flexible packaging. Pulp prices have also increased sharply and energy prices have gone stratospheric!
Also, last year two StoraEnso mills in Kvarnsveden and Veitsiluoto mills ceased production (a further million tonnes of graphical paper production out of the market) and Zanders also stopped production - and these are just the ones I can recall!

...and to cap it all there is a a long running strike by the Finnish Paperworkers Union joined recently by UK workers too.

This is not just a European problem, it is a global phenomenon. Bloomberg has reported that shortages in the USA resulted in 100 million catalogues not being printed for the Christmas season.

So, it is hardly surprising that there are shortages, so please remember to discuss projects well ahead of time, otherwise you may be disappointed!

You can read the full PrintWeek article here... 
Posted by Justin Hobson 25.01.2022

Thursday, 20 January 2022

Searching for Eve in the American West

This is an catalogue for an exhibition of work by Maryam Eisler titled "Searching For Eve in the American West".

Eisler photographed female models within the desert surrounds. As the academic, editor and writer Anthony Downey has written in his essay in the exhibition’s accompanying catalogue, this approach ‘answered the need to understand the discombobulating landscape through the reassuring presence of human figures. In its isolated and sparsely inhabited environs, the region is perhaps almost too much to experience on one’s own.’ Eisler is not the first photographer to be inspired by this wild landscape – others include Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Indeed, a statement made by Weston might equally apply to Eisler’s inspiration: ‘The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the things itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.'
The size of the catalogue is 395x260mm, portrait. The binding is a hybrid mixture of "swiss binding" and singer sewing, so the text is bound and glued to the inside back cover, enabling the text to sit nice and flat.
 
Detail showing the cloth tape along the spine: 
Introduction by Maryam Eisler, followed by an Essay by Anthony Downey:
The 44pp text is printed on our Omnia 150gsm which gives it that dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction. All printed offset litho throughout. The piece has a fantastic feel - solid flat areas of colour work amazingly well - it is difficult for me to say too much more about it - see the images below, they speak for the job...
A wonderful collection of solid colours, all printed as specials
The images are printed in two blacks (as duotones) plus a yellow special integrated with the image, the result of which is superb, as I hope you can tell from the images....
...and here we go for a bit of a plug!  - As you can see from the above images above, there is lots of colour and images with dark areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing flat colours superbly whilst retaining that all important detail in the dark areas (in my opinion- but I would say that wouldn't I?)
Centre Spread with the singer sewn binding:
Detail of singer sewn threads:

Catalogue design is by Roger Fawcett-Tang of Struktur Design. It is beautifully printed and finished by Boss Print.
 
https://www.maryameisler.com/
http://www.struktur.co.uk/
https://www.bossprint.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 20.01.2022