One week to go until London Packaging Week...

London Packaging Week, is coming to Olympia in London next week. Easyfairs launched Packaging Innovations London and Luxury Packaging London, 10 years ago,creating a meeting place for packaging designers, technologists and suppliers in the capital. This year, it is bigger and better - London Packaging Week – a series of four events bringing a new, sharper focus on packaging development for the capital’s key luxury and FMCG markets.

Each of the four events targets a specific community – and they will combine to create an inspirational event that will drive packaging innovation, business and connections at the heart of the UK’s luxury and consumer products markets.

We will be showing our range of luxury packaging papers alongside the PaperWise range, manufactured from agricultural waste. We will be sharing our stand together with the team from PaperWise in Holland.

Come and see us on stand B102 and if you would like to register (for free!) you can do that HERE.

https://www.londonpackagingweek.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.09.2022

Colorset range has 36 shades!

For those of you not familiar with Colorset, it is our range of coloured text and cover papers which is 100% recycled and more competitively priced than some other well known brands of coloured paper!

Click on images to enlarge

A few years ago we started to bring in our Colorset range in 350gsm, so we now have ALL colours in 120gsm, 270gsm and 350gsm - all in B1 size (700x1000mm). 

A few years ago we further developed the range with 8 new colours, making this a collection of 36 shades.

The new shades include five light shades and three deep shades. The new shades are Blush, Warm White*, Glacier, Storm, Hopsack*, Charcoal*, Spearmint* and Deep Blue (Note: four of the new shades with an asterisk* are virgin fibre)

...so there you have it, a range with 36 colours including SEVEN greys!

If you would like the updated swatch, please drop me an email and I'll pop one in the post justin@fennerpaper.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.09.2022

The paper market and energy crisis

Regular readers will have heard about paper shortages and massively increasing prices, which I have written about on this blog before. However, given the extreme price increases for energy last week, the situation is even more critical... 

I suggest you read the full Printweek article HERE.

As well as the paper mills listed in the article, the Lessebo mill in Sweden announced they would only be producing on a daily basis, depending on the energy costs for that day. Read the article HERE.

It's a very distressing situation and one that sadly affects all of us that are involved in design, print and paper. Please remember to discuss projects well ahead of time and also when talking to clients, suggest you build in a contingency in case the price of the project increases due to energy prices.

Posted by Justin Hobson 06.09.2022

Jobs from the past - Number 154

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...

Studio Nicholson S|S 2015

Studio Nicholson is a contemporary design studio based in London. Creative Director and founder Nick Wakeman is obsessive about beautiful cloth and draws influences from Japanese and Italian culture. The Studio Nicholson brand embodies a total design ethos using refined materials, which is conveyed in this beautifully produced lookbook for the Spring|Summer 2015 collection printed on our Offenbach Bible.

Click on images to enlarge

Size is 240 x 190mm, portrait. It is a 24pp 'self-cover' is printed offset litho in CMYK on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm, the lightweight paper works exquisitely with the images.   

There is a combination of images printed in full colour and images in 'monochrome' but which are also printed out of CMYK.

The above image is the centre spread. This publication is saddle stitched using a white coated wire which is a lovely touch and works well. A nice, well considered finish.

The image below shows a stack of spines with the white wire stitching (staples)

The whole publication is all printed on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm ...and it looks and feels absolutely gorgeous - it flops and folds in a delightful way when handling the publication as I hope these images demonstrate:

Art direction and design is by JJ Marshall Associates. Creative Director is Jethro Marshall.

Excellent print and finishing is by Principal Colour based in Paddock Wood, Kent.

https://www.studionicholson.com/

http://jjmarshallassociates.com/

www.principalcolour.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson .02.09.2022

Examination Paper for Paper!

There has been much in the news about examinations with the recent GCSE and A level results announced recently, so it was quite a surprise when I received an email from Simon at the London Centre for Book Arts asking how I would fare answering the below examination paper from 1978!

The exam paper from the London College of Printing came to light in the archive that the LCBA has inherited from the late Jane H. Reese who was a hand paper maker who ran the Nautilus Press and Paper Mill based in North Kensington in the 1970's 80's and 90's.

If I couldn't answer the questions on the paper, I can always look at my paper merchanting handbook to find the answers - 722 pages of paper merchanting information, given to me when I left the James McNaughton Paper Group 30 years ago!

Thanks to Simon for sending over the old exam paper, which is now very much a historical artifact!

https://londonbookarts.org/

Posted by Justin Hobson 31.08.2022

Photo quality on Astralux

ASTRALUX is the market leading range of cast coated papers and boards produced in Italy by the Favini Crusinallo paper mill. 'Cast Coated' papers and boards have an extremely high gloss, reflective surface on one side with an uncoated reverse and is perfect for photographic reproductions.

The photographs are for the former Prime Minister, David Cameron and are printed on Astralux 1 sided 350gsm. The size is 250x198mm. They are digitally printed in CMYK on a Ricoh 9200pro digital press.

As you can see, it's a high gloss finish and a perfect result.
 

You can read more about Astralux HERE

Posted by Justin Hobson 29.08.2022

Notorie

Notorie is a new stationery company that began with one thought... "what if we made a notebook that not only looks good but made you feel good? We're on a mission to prove that recycled is beautiful and we've created 20 unique notebooks to prove it."

Made using 100% recycled paper and eco-friendly inks, the notebooks are environmentally conscious at their heart and as you can see, a real feast for the eyes!

The cover and text are both printed on our Shiro Echo, White which is 100% Recycled and manufactured by Favini. The notebooks are A5 (210x148mm) size, portrait format and are wiro-bound using an antique copper wire...

The covers are digitally printed on Shiro Echo Bright White 300gsm duplexed to 600gsm, which as you can see from the image above, makes an excellent thick cover.

Text is litho printed on Shiro Echo White 100gsm. There's not a lot for me to tell you about the text pages, except to say that there are 140pages, which are ruled - in fact the colour of the rules is wonderfully quirky... it's a sort of mustard/terracotta colour.

Notorie is based in Kent and all the printing, collation and biding is produced locally in the county. They are a lovely set of notebooks and will enhance any desk! 

Thank you to Donna at Notorie for sending some notebooks for us to see for ourselves.

https://www.notorie.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 26.08.2022