Outside the Lines – Design Conclave 2024

Do you follow your own path? Are you yearning to break the mould? Do you like to colour outside the lines? We thought so. Pack your pencils and join us for the eagerly awaited St Bride Foundation Design Conclave 2024. In a building housing the machines and artefacts of the history of print and design we come together once again to explore the contemporary and cast a look into the future of our international creative community. 

Catch up with friends and colleagues and listen to this year’s tremendous speakers, traversing a typescape from digital to tangible media, criss-crossing augmented reality, illustration, album sleeves, brand design, zines, paper engineering, food and more than you could possibly imagine . . . 

‘One of the most inspirational design events of the year, always full of wit and wisdom, in the gorgeous surroundings of the unique St Bride Library. Not to be missed!’ Alistair Hall, We Made This ‘A designer’s dream day out.’ Bethany Plummer, Baxter & Bailey ‘An amazing opportunity to make new connections, learn and ignite your creative spark.’ Anna, DutchScot 

Attendees will also be able to explore the letterpress workshop and try their hand at printing. A copy of the conference poster designed by Jon Gray will be given to all in-person attendees. 

Schedule (in-person):

09.45am: Registration

10.30am: Conference Starts and Welcome Introduction 

10.40am: Micaela Alcaino 

11.15am: Charlotte Bartrop 

11.50am: Kate Dawkins 

12.30pm: Lunch 

14.00pm: Introduction 

14.05pm: Aoife Dooley 

14.40pm: Kelli Anderson 

15.15pm: Seb Lester 

15.45pm: Break

16:15pm: Introduction

16.20pm: Tudinh Duong 

16.55pm: Danielle Duncan 

17.30pm: Malcolm Garrett

18.15pm Conference Ends

18.15pm Conference After Party

21.00pm Party Ends

Principal Sponsor:
Sorkin Type

Sponsors:
Fenner Paper and
Fleet Street Quarter

It's all happenning on Saturday 28th September 2024 (and online too). In-person tickets: £80.00, £70.00, £60.00 

Event curation: Becky Chilcott. With special thanks to Sallyanne Theodosiou for the inspiration for this year’s theme ‘Outside the Lines.’

You can book your tickets HERE

https://sbf.org.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 10.09.2024

Jobs from the past - Number 178

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 - this project is from 2011, even though it is titled 2016!

Knight Frank - London 2016

This is a fascinating and beautifully produced book commissioned by leading international property consultancy, Knight Frank to visually communicate their predictions for London's commercial property market, in a project titled 'London 2016'.

Five years doesn't seen too far away, but the invitation to their September conference is worded as follows:
"In 2006, no one owned an iphone, Lehman Brothers' market capitalisation was $40 Billion and Bear Stearns' was $20 Billion, Iceland had a triple A credit rating, Twitter signed up it's 50th tweeter in July - think how different the world will be in five years time..."
(...that makes you think!)

Knight Frank commissioned London based agency YCN to produce the conference collateral, including this specially produced book to be given as a take-home pieces for select clients detailing the company's view of London in five years time.

The size of the book is 185x245mm, portrait. It is printed on SHIRO Echo, White (100% recycled) which has a "natural" off white shade and works well with the illustration and text. The book is made using two text weights 160gsm for the three throw-out pages and 100gsm for the main text made up of 45 "French Folded" sections.

The casebound book is covered in dark grey bookcloth and is hot foil blocked in silver.

All the text is "French Folded" as you can see below:

The creative team at YCN on the project is as follows:

Project Director: Alex Ostrowski

Art Direction & Design: Alex Hunting

The text features illustrations by Samuel Green and infographics by Chris Clarke

...and particularly remarkable (other than the paper, of course!) is that the job has been printed digitally by Pureprint on an HP Indigo press and the result is just superb. The solid colours alone compete with the quality achievable with offset litho. Simon Cooper at Pureprint handled the project.

 ...and a lovely touch is the rubber stamp used to personalise and number each of the 150 copies:

https://www.knightfrank.co.uk/
https://agency.ycnonline.com/
https://www.chris-clarke.co.uk/
https://www.pureprint.com/

Posted bu Justin Hobson 04.09.2024

Growing Through the Seasons

The "Growing through the Seasons" 2025 calendar, illustrated by Isla Middleton and written by Bryony Middleton, is a guide for gardeners and vegetable lovers. 

It features seasonal illustrations of fruits, vegetables, and flowers, along with practical growing tips for each month, including what to sow and harvest.

The calendars are produced on our PaperWise Natural 150gsm and 295gsm, which is manufactured from 100% agricultural waste - this is the stems and leaves left over the harvest and which is usually left in the field and burnt. You can read all about PaperWise HERE. As you can see from the images PaperWise is a natural shade and is completely unbleached and home compostable too ...a perfect choice for this calendar!

The calendar also includes a full growing chart at the back, providing an overview of the sowing and harvest schedule for the year. 

The calendars are 300mm square in size and are beautifully printed, offset litho by Ashley House Printing in Devon.

Although it's too late for this year, I believe there are plans for a 2025 version, so you can look on the website here: www.islamiddleton.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 21.08.2024

Updated Inclusion range...

Up-Cycling is an increasing trend in the paper industry. This means using waste materials, destined to be thrown away, to create new and valuable objects. Here, we value up-cycling and strongly believe reprocessing raw materials is of great importance to us all, as it will be even more so in the future! Two great examples are grass paper – made from grass waste – and coffee paper – made from coffee waste.

We have an updated swatch showing the range:

Inclusion Coffee has a totally unique look and the obviously recycled character make it the perfect material for both packaging and printing applications that stand out. Upcycled coffee waste and 100% post-consumer recycled paper fibres give it a spectacular visual effect and an overtly recycled character. It has 5% residues from coffee processing added during the papermaking process. This content is comprised of coffee peel, which falls during coffee roasting and is sourced locally to the mill from facilities in Holland and Germany. 

Inclusion Coffee is now available in 100, 120 250 and 350gsm. It is made using 100% recycled, post consumer waste, with the addition of 5% residues from coffee processing, the resulting effect is really unusual as you can see from the image below (biro in shot for scale!) and every sheet is unique.

Inclusion Grass (below pic) contains 30% sun-dried grass and 70% post-consumer recycled paper fibres and is available in 120gsm text weight only...

The sun-dried grass is sourced from fallow land – which is left unplanted for a season resulting in a fast-growing raw material, protecting natural resources and the environment. The grass is turned into pellets which requires less energy, water and chemicals than the production of woodpulp. The grass pellets are produced in Germany ensuring short delivery to European paper mills, reducing CO2 emissions.

As you can see from the images above, the extraordinary use of these inclusions combined with 100% Recycled fibres ensure that every sheet of paper is truly unique - so be warned, the visual effect can and will vary from batch to batch!

Posted by Justin Hobson 12.08..2024

Jobs from the past - Number 177

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 - this project is from 2016.

Reach, Presentation, Service & Expertise 2016

Established by Albert Hill and Matt Gibberd in 2004,The Modern House is the UK’s foremost estate agency for houses and apartments of outstanding design and they have a passion for modern architecture. This is their company brochure (titled "The Art of Selling Architecture") which sets out to explain who they are, what they do and how they do it - Reach, Presentation, Service and Expertise.

Click on images to enlarge

The cover is simply hot foil blocked in black foil and nothing on the back cover - it's wonderfully minimal. Size of the brochure is 280 x 230mm, portrait and is saddle stitched. It has an 8pp cover with 160mm wide flaps. The cover is printed and hot foil blocked Fabrique Moderne, Grey 200gsm which has a lovely textured 'watercolour' look and feel.

The text materials chosen are a combination of Omnia White 120gsm and Tree Free Bamboo Cream, 120gsm for the text (black only) There are 28pp in total with 12pp on the Omnia.

Click on images to enlarge

As you can see from centre spread above, the images have reproduced brilliantly on the Omnia, with the combination of exterior and interior photography. The Modern House have used Omnia many times, so they know just how good the combination of tactile feel and excellent reproduction is. Detail of interior image below...

The correct selection of weights, means that the 28pp text flows beautifully

Black type looking good on the Tree Free Bamboo, Cream 120gsm - made using 75% bamboo and 25% cotton - that's 100% non tree fibres!

A lovely touch is the black wire used for the saddle stitching. Works beautifully with the hot foil blocking in black on the front cover...

The superb art direction and design is by Tom Watt at Field Projects. Print was by Push Print who went into administration in 2021.

https://www.themodernhouse.com/

http://field-projects.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 05.08.2024

Mailer and wall art in one!

Rampton Baseley is a market leading estate agent in South West London. Established in 2008, they now have five offices around the commons of south London and consider themselves experts in the local patch. This piece of literature is one of a series of promotional pieces - and this one is part mailer/door drop and part wall art!

The size is 148x140mm and is a 12pp concertina, folding out to 297x420mm.

You can see from the image below, the way it folds...

It is printed offset Litho in CMYK on our Omnia 120gsm, which gives it a lovely tactile feel and the images have reproduced superbly.

...and then on the reverse is revealed this superb piece of wall art...

Click on image to enlarge

It looks just brilliant on the Omnia.

...and the best thing about the map is the lack of branding, which as you can read below was well considered -  what a great idea!

Printed offset litho by Typecast Colour in Paddock Wood, Kent.

http://www.typecast.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.07.2024

Modern Poetry in Translation 2024

This is the latest edition...

Cover art by Liliana Dmitrovic

Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT) is a magazine, originally founded by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. The first issue, published in 1965 was a 12pp broadsheet printed on a Bible paper and cost 2s 6d! MPT presented poems by a wide range of authors, particularly from Eastern Europe introducing them into a wider circulation in English in the West. The original designer of the publication was Richard Hollis, continuing until 2004.

This issue titled ‘Bearing the Burden of Sameness’ spotlights the poetry of care. Featuring Rachel Rankin’s new translations of Brynjulf Jung Tjønn’s experiences of adoption in Norway, the myth of the Chinese river snail reborn in Tuoya Wulan’s version of Xinyang Wu, and Beth Hickling-Moore’s translation of Carla Nyman’s radically physical poetry of the body. Also: brand new translations of Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, Olga Ulturgasheva on Siberian animist poetry, and Jenny He interviews Fiona Sze-Lorrain. 

The magazine is 215x140mm, portrait. The 114pp text is all printed offset litho on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm and printed in 2 colour, burgundy and black throughout with an overall tint over some of the sections. Images are reproduced as halftones. The publication is perfect bound.

This is a really lovely piece of literature which feels good in the hand and is definitely one of those publications which invites the reader in. It flops and flows beautifully.

The perfect binding is nice and neat as you can see below...

Design is by Brett Evans Biedscheid. Print is by Wakefield based Charlesworth Press.

https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/

https://www.charlesworth.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 22.07.2024