Monday 7 November 2016

Ritz Hotel Brochure

Set in London's bustling Piccadilly, the Ritz is one of the most iconic hotels in the world. The hotel, which opened in 1906, boasts ornate rooms with Louis XVI-style decor and antique furnishings. There is a a palatial restaurant, a palm tree-lined courtyard for afternoon tea and a gaming room.

This is the "mini" brochure produced for the hotel and it is one of those projects where it uses paper (in this case the board used for the cover) to increase the quality and feel of the whole project. This is an excellent example of using a material, such as Omnia, for a part of a project which can just lift the whole of a publication and make it feel special.
Click on images to enlarge
Size is 99x210mm, Landscape and is saddle stitched. The cover is printed on Omnia printed only in the solid Ritz blue, together with hot foil blocking in metallic silver foil. The use of the Omnia gives a quality and texture that an ordinary uncoated or coated paper doesn't posses, plus the solid blue prints superbly on the Omnia. The 4pp text is printed on Omnia 320gsm and the 16pp text is on a house silk 200gsm. The image above shows the Omnia printed on the inside front and inside back covers. Detail image below...
Details showing the hot foil blocking on the reverse. Omnia, printed solid blue and foiled - superb.
Design is by the in-house team at The Ritz. Print is by Gavin Martin Colournet.

https://www.theritzlondon.com/
http://www.gavinmartincolournet.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 07.11.2016

Friday 4 November 2016

BRANDING - In Five and a Half Steps

Yesterday evening I was lucky enough to be invited to the book launch of Michael Johnson's new book: BRANDING - In Five and a Half Steps.
The launch was at the Johnson Banks studio in Clapham and there were lots of people, drinks and yummy food too.
After an introduction by the commissioning editor at Thames & Hudson, Michael spoke for a short while about the gestation of the book and how a chance meeting with the publisher at Wally Olins memorial, helped everything fall into place.
It was a cracking evening and great to see so many familiar faces from past and present at Johnson Banks, in fact here's the JB 'alumni' shot:
...and of course to keep this somewhat paper related, I should mention that the A5 invitations are printed on our Colorset 100% Recycled board in the brand new Chilli Red shade. The invitations are digitally printed, including the white on an HP Indigo press by Screaming Colour. Printed on Colorset White 270gsm and Chilli Red 270gsm and duplexed ..very nice
Thanks to all at JB for a great evening.

...and don't forget to buy the book, which you can do right here:
https://www.thamesandhudson.com/Branding/9780500518960

http://johnsonbanks.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 04.11.2016

Wednesday 2 November 2016

Jobs from the past - Number 85

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 here's one from 2003.

CGA Newsletter
The Clerkenwell Green Association was founded in the early 1990's as a registered charity. Situated in two landmark buildings in Clerkenwell, the CGA was established to help creative businesses flourish, provide spaces, workshops and exhibition spaces. Now renamed Craft Central it remains a destination for those involved in craft who want to get somewhere, make something happen and see things differently.

This quarterly newsletter was produced in the early 2000's and is a superb piece of design as it is so much more than a leaflet.
The finished size is 210x100mm folding out to 420xx600mm. Printed in just two colours - black and a special colour. The format and design grid stayed consistent with just the special colour changing each issue. Everything else was printed in black, with all the images being produced as monotone (greyscale) making it a two colour job, which also was economical.
The newsletter is printed on our Redeem 100% Recycled 80gsm, which is a neutral white recycled paper with craft feel that really worked well for this project with it's images of hand crafted makers and textiles. A beautifully simple piece of literature which just used all the elements correctly and is perfectly suited to the audience who appreciated the design and production values.
Click on images to enlarge
A particularly characteristic feature was the timeline giving the information about events and exhibitions ...see detail below
Design was by Johnson Turnbull, a graphic design studio based in the CGA's Pennybank Chambers building. Designers on the project were Chris Turnbull and Steve Johnson. Sadly, I have no record of the printer.

Chris Turnbull still has his design studio and letterpress workshop in Pennybank Chambers and the studio is now called Turnbull Grey.

http://www.craftcentral.org.uk/
http://www.turnbullgrey.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 02.11.2016

Monday 31 October 2016

Lunch & Learn at Curious

http://curiouslondon.com/Curious is a creative and branding studio based in the heart of Covent Garden in London. Their work is for a diverse range of clients from property and insurance to beverages and electrical goods. Every month or so, they invite a speaker from different area of the creative industry to talk about their work and inspire the creative team. Previous speakers include Michiel Cremers, Peter Flade, Adam Hinton and Tim Milne ...and this month, it was me!
Curious designed a series of ten A3 posters, which were displayed around the studio, so everyone was aware I was coming and wouldn't miss out!
The talk was on the subject of 10 reasons why paper choice is important and I illustrated the subject with 10 amazing pieces of work from my amazing world at Fenner Paper!
Each of the posters had one of the ten reasons behind the turned over paper corner:
 ....which was reminiscent of our old logo! ...top marks to Gary Smith (Creative Director) for remembering
After the pizzas arrived, over the next hour, I spoke about ten different projects, where (in my opinion) paper and the selection of the right paper had really made a difference to the end project. Below I am talking about the Towerscan project - an art project which involved the printed item also making a 3D model of the tower block.
...and below, a spectacular project for Walt Disney called "That's Donald" produced by Pentagram in 1994.
That's Donald was profiled in an article in Creative Review in May 1994, also appearing on the front cover ...and yes, you've guessed it, I still have a copy in the archive! 
I thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope that racing through these ten amazing projects didn't give anyone indigestion. You can read more about it here.

Thanks to Gary Smith for organising it and all at Curious for making me so welcome, and thank you for my lovely (excellent quality) tote bag...
http://curiouslondon.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 31.10.2016

Friday 28 October 2016

Gem Cards from Stooshie Design

Here is a project brought to you from my colleague Sarah Glennie...

Stooshie Design is a boutique greeting card publisher making high quality gem cards. The creative director and founder is Linda Carlin and they are based in the beautiful North Ayrshire countryside in Scotland.
The size of the cards is 125mm square and they are printed in CMYK on the outside with the inside left plain, so you can write your own greeting. The gems are then applied by hand after printing.
This new range of cards is printed on our ZETA Linen, Brilliant 350gsm and if you click on the images below, you'll just see the subtle linen texture....
Click on images to enlarge
The beautifully simple text and pricing details are on the reverse of the card.
Stooshie print and finish the cards all in house and you can read more about them here:
http://www.stooshiedesign.com/index.htm
Posted by Justin Hobson 28.10.2016

Tuesday 25 October 2016

Olly Burn Photographer

Olly Burn is a London based photographer and this piece of print is his superbly produced promotional brochure printed last year. 

On his website, Olly Burn describes himself as "lucky to be shooting in some of the world’s most beautiful and challenging locations" ...and this piece of literature certainly goes to prove that point, with locations including Jamaica and Cuba.
The size is 420x297mm, portrait, which is a very large format but gives the images an amazing amount of space. The book has a 4pp cover with a 44pp text and a 'dustjacket' forming a double sided poster wrapping around the cover. The below image shows the inside of the wrap, with the outside of the folded wrap on top.
The below image shows the actual 'cover' underneath the wrap which lists the projects and assignments profiled in the book.
Click on images to enlarge
A beautiful feature is the 'singer sewn' binding using green thread which matches the text colour on the cover.
Wrap, cover and text are all printed on our Omnia which gives it that dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction. Wrap is on 120gsm, cover on 200gsm and 44pp text on 150gsm 

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...
When I was taking these images for the blog, I saw something on the spread above that I thought was on the page and went to brush it away - however it was in/on the printed image. Mud, which appears so three dimensional in both the image and the printed result that it really looks amazing, as I hope the detail below demonstrates: 
Click on images to enlarge
"All my photography revolves around interaction and capturing genuine moments. The interaction between myself, my subjects and their environments is what inspires me to take pictures." — Olly Burn. You can read more about this project on his website here.
Below image shows outside back cover (on left) with the jacket on the right.
Below shows detail of inside centre spread showing singer sewing.
It's always difficult on this blog to give a sense of scale! -so below is the brochure next to a 2 litre bottle of spring water...
Choice of the paper weights is just right, allowing it to flop open and flow in the hand.
Singer sewing gives it a crafted feel and allows it to open fully, making the best of the large format spreads.
Design and production is by Mark and Chris Thomson at Studio Thomson. The exceptional repro, printing and finishing is by Push print in London.

http://www.studiothomson.com/
http://www.push-print.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 25.10.2016