26 Characters

This is a very special publication published by 26, which is a writers' collective founded in 2002. The project is to celebrate and demonstrate the power of stories to inspire learning - especially for the young.

The size is 170x120mm portrait, saddle stitched. It has a 4pp cover and a 64pp text. There are five different colour covers, all printed on our Colorset 120gsm. The text is printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm, which combined with the light cover makes for a compact, light feel which flows beautifully in the hand as you turn the pages. As you will see from the images below, the reproduction of the illustrations is simply superb.

The writers who contributed to the project were each allocated a letter of the alphabet to start their poem with. To bring the poems to life and make the book visually exciting, 26 illustrators were invited to respond to each poem including the letter in their image, with great results...

It's worth pointing out that although the different colour covers had no definitive meaning, they were just run on different colours - it's a great way of creating a 'series' at little or no extra cost.

Design is by Clerkenwell based studio, Design by St. Creative Partners are Steve Fenn and Tom Pollard and the designer is Stef Bushell.

Printing is by Push and the repruduction on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm is truly scrumptious! You can read more about the project on the 26 website below

www.26.org.uk

www.designbyst.com

http://www.push-print.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 14.05.2014

Progressive Greetings 2014

Today, the Progressive Greetings Exhibition or "PG Live",as it's known, opens at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Aimed at the greeting card industry, it's open on 13th &14th May and here's the picture of our stand...

Our modest stand of 3 x 2 metres, features a whole pallet of paper and displays our boards that are especially suitable for greetings cards and as you can see from the display below, we now have quite a few!  Fenner Paper is proud to have been the first paper company to be granted Associate Membership of the Greeting Card Association (GCA), in 2013.

Our stand is designed by Vincent Design and also features a 'guess the number of sheets on the pallet' competition with the closest guess winning £500 worth of paper!

 

If you are a designer or publisher of greeting cards, please do come along and we look forward to welcoming you - we're on stand 506.

www.progressivegreetingslive.com

www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk
http://www.vincentdesign.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 13.05.2014

The Trianon Collection

This is the magnificent brochure for the new Trianon Collection from luxury brand Manuel Canovas, based in Paris. Trianon is a range of wallpapers and fabrics based on paintings, drawn in Chinoiserie style, by Jean-Baptiste Pillement in the 18th Century.

The size of the publication is 240mm x 170mm, portrait and is saddle stitched, printed on our StarFine White. 4pp cover on 300gsm and 8pp text on 200gsm. Printed CMYK offset litho and hot foil blocked in gold metallic foil on the cover.

StarFine is a quality, uncoated paper and as the images show, image reproduction is excellent. The detail of the wallpaper and fabrics is stunning - great detail for an uncoated paper, colours are bright and vivid.

The brass wire used for the saddle stitches is a really lovely touch - which brilliantly compliments the gold foiling on the cover.

Click on image to enlarge

Manuel Canovas is one of the Colefax group brands and this beautiful piece of literature has been created in house at Colefax & Fowler. Designer on this project is Rachael Ashley. Print production is by Pureprint handled by Richard Owers.

www.manuelcanovas.com
http://www.colefax.co.uk/
www.pureprint.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 09.05.2014

A Proper Shop

Here's an interesting shop that I thought you might be interested in having a look at: www.proper-shop.co.uk

Established by Paul Jenkins (creative director of Ranch) together with a partner, Proper has now developed into a fully- formed shop and website (following the success of a temporary Saturday shop).

Proper specialises in mid-century furniture and is based in the East End of London. 'Proper. is a neat summation of all things we sell in terms of quality; attention to detail, solid and interesting use of materials or perhaps a particular quirk of design. Our interest in furniture and lighting transfers to sourcing and commissioning all kinds of print material, graphics and photography, both period and contemporary. Where there is a designer’s mark we hope to provide you with a history and provenance on the piece, thus giving added interest and background.'

They have posters and printed material as well, although nothing on Fenner Paper ...yet!

Go and have a look: Proper Shop, Unit G.01 Northside Studios, 16-29 Andrews Road, London E8 4QF

or online: www.proper-shop.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.05.2014

Guardian News & Media sustainability report

This is the printed summary of the Guardian News & Media sustainability report. The whole report is available online http://www.theguardian.com/sustainability but this report is printed to give out to staff and partners.

The size of the report is 148mm square, saddle stitched and has a 4pp cover and 16pp text. The publication is printed on our Shiro Echo, White (200gsm and 120gsm) which is 100% recycled and also carries FSC certification.

  

 



Detail of illustration

The report is beautifully illustrated by Laurent Cilluffo, superbly evocative artworks make this a really special piece of literature.

http://www.laurentcilluffo.com/

The design, typography, illustrations and the paper choice combine to male this a truly engaging piece of literature.

Design is by the in-house design team at The Guardian. Production handled by Leon Abrahams.

Print is by Cantate, a division of the John Good Group and thanks to Jason Maclaren at Cantate for sending me file copies.

www.theguardian.com/sustainability
http://www.laurentcilluffo.com/
http://www.cantatecommunications.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 06.05.2014

Jobs from the past - Number 55

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...

Photography Editions - Chris Boot - Spring 2007

Chris Boot was a prolific publisher of photography books and this was the catalogue they produced to send to book shops, retailers and press about their new editions. Before  starting his own publishing imprint, Chris Boot was previously a director at Magnum Photos and editorial director at Phaidon Press.

This is a very special catalogue and is always admired when I show it to people. The reason is that it is one of the most modest pieces of print but has enormous impact. The size of the catalogue is A6 (148x105mm) and is a 64pp self-cover, saddle stitched,  portrait format and is printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm. As a result it has a compact light feel but as you will see from the images, the reproduction, doesn't disappoint.

Spreads with the publication details are in dispersed with spreads using the amazing images which appear in the books themselves. Below is an image by Keld Helmer-Peterson from the book '23 Colour Photographs'

The catalogue is divided into five sections using a colour coded, printed foredge.

One of the points of interest about this catalogue to be made is about the economics of the project. Things have changed recently with Royal Mail and pricing in proportion but back in 2007, postal weight was the absolute key to keeping costs down. This 64pp catalogue weighs just 30 grams! - incredibly light, which meant that the postage cost for sending out this catalogue was just 23pence (probably even cheaper using mailsort). Another crucial factor is that as a 64pp A6, the whole job is printed on ONE sheet of SRA1 paper - yes, just one sheet! Most important is though, it has a fantastic, quality feel about it and has reproduced these images amazingly.

The superb art direction and design is by Glenn Howard and David Hawkins at Untitled http://www.untitledstudio.com/

Printing is by Push and is superlative. Reproduction is outstanding. In particular the coloured section bars running along the foredge are spot on, so great care has been taken with the finishing.

It appears that Chris Boot is no longer publishing books under his own imprint, however he is now an executive director of the Aperture Foundation based in New York. Aperture is a not-for-profit foundation, providing a network for the photo community and its audiences.

www.aperture.org
http://www.artbook.com/chrisboot.html
http://www.untitledstudio.com/
www.push-print.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.05.2014

My visit to...

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to visit one of the few remaining hot metal 'trade' typesetters that services the letterpress community. Based just outside Brighton, The Elrod Press was established in 1986 by Andy Taylor who has a wealth of experience as a compositor in Fleet Street, trade typesetters and publishing houses.

Andy has a number of typesetting and letterpress printing machines in his extremely well appointed garden workshop!

Intertype C4

In pride of place is the Intertype typesetter which is based on the Linotype system. The machine sets a whole line of text at a time, called a slug, making for easy handling and page make up. This particular Intertype is one of the last produced, so is equipped with the latest technology and has also been adapted to use US depth matrices meaning they can offer an even wider range of typefaces.


Intertype keyboard

...and here's the legend himself, Mr Andy Taylor, standing next to his Intertype. 

Below is a picture of the Ludlow Typograph, which casts a line of type from hand assembled matrices. A remarkable machine in remarkable condition.

Ludlow Typograph

Drawers of matrices for the Ludlow

..and below is the Elrod strip caster (after which The Elrod Press is named). This caster can manufacture leads, rules and spacing materials in any width from 1pt up to 36pt and any length up to 24 inches and he supplies many small/home letterpress printers with these sundry items as well as type. It's also worth noting that print finishers often don't know where to get spacing material - they often need the 2pt leads but this machine can make them - and do it economically.

Elrod Strip Caster

During my visit to The Elrod Press (yes that's me in the pic), Andy kindly gave me the opportunity to strike the keys and set my own lines of hot-metal on the Intertype, which after many goes, I finally managed to achieve three successful slugs.

One of the most remarkable things about this mechanically sophisticated machine is the way in which, after the casting, the matrices are returned to the channels in the magazine - I took this short video to show how accurately the machine works:

As well as the typesetting machines, The Elrod Press also has a selection of letterpress printing presses and undertakes commissions for customers.

Press hall at The Elrod Press

All in all it was a most enjoyable morning. A great experience and I'm most grateful to Andy for being so generous with his time and the several cups of tea - and for telling me the correct, Fleet Street, derivation of the expression 'winkle bag'!

If you have a need for hot metal typesetting (maybe you have a little Adana hand press?) and require hot metal setting or some sundries such as leads, rules and spacing materials, do get in touch with The Elrod Press.

http://www.theelrodpress.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 30.04.2014