An Advent Adventure

Today I received a superb little a superb little Christmas (Advent) book from London agency BOB Design. Beautifully presented, it arrived in a substantial red envelope and wrapped in glassine paper.

An Advent Adventure is 'a seasonal tale of Victorian villainy in twenty four acts' and is written by Jonathan L. Howard.

 

The size of the book is 115x85mm, portrait. It contains 200pp and is beatifully sewn in sections, with red thread, as you can see pictured below.

It features 'exposed' binding, beautifully folded sections, neatly sewn.



...and here's the clever bit, the text is made of folded, uncut sections, with the instructions to 'reveal one act per day, by tearing along the perforated top of each page' as you can see in the below picture:

On the inside of the folds is printed the story...

This is an exquisite piece of print 'even though it is not printed on lovely Fenner Paper' (as the note, below, states!) Although I don't know the actual paper used, it is an uncoated paper, around 80gsm, with a neutral white shade.

It has been produced by one of the leading book-binderies of the world, BuBu located near Zürich in Switzerland. Some years ago I visited Buchbinderei Burkhardt (BuBu) in Mönchaltorf and was amazed at the combination of the commercial bookbinding, hand bookbinding studio and digital book production. BuBu is an amazing business producing quality, long forgotten in some areas of the UK printing industry.

Design is by BOB Design. Creative directors are Mireille Burkhardt and Kieran O'Connor. Designers are Clara Goodger, Aaron Merrigan and Ed Rivers.

www.bobdesign.co.uk

http://www.jonathanlhoward.com/
www.bubu.ch

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.12.2013

CDG Literature

This is a new suite of literature produced for legal maritime specialist CDG. The publications are designed by Crescent Lodge who previously designed the CDG identity.

There is a main brochure and three complimentary, subsidiary publications.

Size for all publications is 260x220mm, portrait. The main brochure  is saddle stitched with a 4pp cover on Omnia 280gsm and 16pp text on Omnia 150gsm. The cover of the main brochure is hot foil blocked in metallic silver foil - no print at all. Not only does this approach highlight the foil but it's also a sensible budgetary option as it keeps the cover to just one process. The main brochure is printed offset litho.

 

The other three publications are all 4pp on Omnia 200gsm, printed digitally on an HP Indigo press.

The striking maritime 'mono' looking images are reproduced in three special colours, black, silver and grey which give them a depth and clarity, conveying their area of expertise in a serious and effective way.

Creative Director on the project is Lynda Brockbank and the designer is Malcolm Metcalfe. Thanks to Lynda for kindly sending me file copies.

All the publications have been printed Offset litho and digital HP Indigo by FS Moore at DG3.

 

www.cdg.co.uk

www.crescentlodge.co.uk

http://www.mooreprint.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 28.11.2013

Wood it be true

Here is an exceptional new range of greeting cards from innovative card publisher, Velvet Olive. This new series of cards under the range title "Wood it be true" combines type and illustration on these fun cards. The basis of all the cards is the use of  'tree rings' in the design (these rings, or the study of rings, is apparently called 'Dendros' ...I had to look this up!) combined with wood-block style type.

The cards are 4pp, 170x120mm, portrait and are printed on our new Crush Citrus 350gsm. This is our lovely new paper from Favini, made using agro-industrial residues from the processing of citrus fruit in Italy and replacing up to 15% tree pulp. You can read about it here:
http://www.favini.com/graphic_specialities/en/crush-prd-26.php

The cards are designed by Kathryn Fletcher, who is the founder of Velvet Olive. You can see the other beautiful cards in the range here: http://www.velvetolive.co.uk/collections/new-wood-it-be-true.
Kathryn started publishing cards in 2004 and she now supplies to a wide range of shops and boutiques including Paperchase and Waterstones.

The cards are printed by Graphite Creative who are based in St Albans. Now it's just worth pointing out that although these cards have a minimal amount of print (2 colours, offset litho) Graphite, who specialise in the production of Greetings cards, have a lot of 'in house' capabilities. These include die-stamping, hot foil blocking, blind embossing, flitter (that's like glitter), film lamination and they can also do film lamination with effects. A pretty impressive range of kit!

Thanks to Kathryn for sending me the selection of cards.

 

http://www.velvetolive.co.uk/

http://www.graphite-creative.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 25.11.2013

Paul Smith S|S 2013

This is the gorgeous Spring/Summer look-book for Paul Smith. As you might expect from such a design lead retailer, this piece of literature is produced to the very highest standard with superb art direction, photography and print reproduction.

This look-book is A4, portrait, saddle stitched with a 4pp cover and 28pp text. The material chosen is our Omnia (280gsm and 150gsm) which gives it that dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction.

Art Direction, design and production is by Aboud Creative. The piece has a fantastic feel - solid flat areas of deep, dark blue work fantastically well. Lots of white space, giving the publication an airy spacious feel - it is difficult for me to say too much more about it - see the images below, they speak for the job... 

...and here's the plug for the paper!  - As you can see from these images, there is lots of colour and images with CMYK dark areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing bright vibrant colours, whilst retaining detail in the dark areas (in my opinion- but I would say that wouldn't I?)

The art direction is by Alan Aboud  and the quality of the direction and photography (by Neil Bedford) is matched by the exceptional printing by Chapter Press.

 

www.paulsmith.co.uk

www.aboud-creative.com
www.neilbedford.com
www.chapterpress.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.11.2013

Hull to be UK City of Culture 2017

Many times on this blog, I have referred to that other, well known, "Hull based paper merchant" referring, of course, to GF Smith & Son.

This morning at 8am, Culture Secretary Maria Miller named Hull as the  UK's next City of Culture, to hold the title in 2017. Kingston upon Hull is known for being the home of poet Philip Larkin, the Ferens gallery and the Truck theatre and the home of one of the better known paper merchants in the UK!

Congratulations to Hull, it's inhabitants, companies, arts organisations et al.

www.hullcc.go.uk
www.gfsmith.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 20.11.2013

RBB|Economics - Careers & Insights

RBB Economics is a specialist in the field of economics of competition law. Attracting and employing the best post-graduate level employees is essential to their business. This piece of literature is designed to inform and attract potential candidates to the business.

The size is A5, portrait and is saddle stitched. This brochure cleverly works from both ends, having two front covers. It is made around a 6pp concertina fold cover with each text material saddle stitched into each fold, as you can see from the picture below. This format enables the content to be separated, the more formal text of the 'careers' section with the more informal 'insight' section with images and quotes. Very effective.

The 6pp cover is printed on our StarFine White 350gsm, which is an uncoated text and cover range. The cover is printed CMYK plus two specials (blue and green) and hot foil blocked in matt white foil. Text is printed on our Marazion Ultra 135gsm and is printed in CMYK plus special blue. The 8pp 'Careers' section is just printed in single colour and the 12pp 'Insights' section has colour photography.  This project has a lovely engaging feel, the combination of uncoated and coated materials being just right.

Art direction and design is by Hatton Garden based consultancy, 400. Designer on the project is Liam Bonar. Print is by London printer Push.

www.rbbecon.com
www.400.co.uk
www.push-print.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.11.2013

Hatch Show Print

Yesterday evening Jim Sherraden, designer from Hatch Show Print (based in Nashville) gave a talk at the LCC in the Main Lecture Theatre.

The talk was organised by Alex Cooper and Rose Gridneff at the Letterpress Workshop at the LCC. Unfortunately I couldn't attend but they kindly sent me the promotional poster, printed 3 colour Letterpress, printed on our Redeem 100% Recycled 80gsm.(size 835x594mm)

This talk accompanied the first UK exhibition for Hatch Show Print at the Chelsea Space and runs until December.  http://www.chelseaspace.org/archive/hatch-info.html

Here's Hatch Show Print's website:
http://countrymusichalloffame.org/hatch-show-print-is-moving/

Posted by Justin Hobson 14.11.2013