This is an catalogue for an exhibition of work by Maryam Eisler titled "Searching For Eve in the American West".
Eisler photographed female models within the desert surrounds. As the academic, editor and writer Anthony Downey has written in his essay in the exhibition’s accompanying catalogue, this approach
‘answered the need to understand the discombobulating landscape through the reassuring presence of human figures. In its isolated and sparsely inhabited environs, the region is perhaps almost too much to experience on one’s own.’ Eisler is not the first photographer to be inspired by this wild landscape – others include Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Indeed, a statement made by Weston might equally apply to Eisler’s inspiration:
‘The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the things itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.'
Now this is already a pretty special project having won the category for the best catalogue design at the
British Book Design and Production Awards last year
The size of the catalogue is 395x260mm, portrait. The binding is a hybrid mixture of "swiss binding" and singer sewing, so the text is bound and glued to the inside back cover, enabling the text to sit nice and flat.
Detail showing the cloth tape along the spine:
Introduction by Maryam Eisler, followed by an Essay by Anthony Downey:
The 44pp text is printed on our Omnia 150gsm which gives it that dead matt, tactile feel but with great reproduction. All printed offset litho throughout. 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...
A wonderful collection of solid colours, all printed as specials
The images are printed in two blacks (as duotones) plus a yellow special integrated with the image, the result of which is superb, as I hope you can tell from the images....
...and here we go for a bit of a plug! - As you can see from the above images above, there is lots of colour and images with dark areas - loads of ink going down and it looks great on the Omnia, reproducing flat colours superbly whilst retaining that all important detail in the dark areas (in my opinion- but I would say that wouldn't I?)
Centre Spread with the singer sewn binding:
Detail of singer sewn threads:
Catalogue design is by Roger Fawcett-Tang of Struktur Design. It is beautifully printed and finished by Boss Print who are based in Acton, West London ...interestingly they are one of the few printers I know of who have "singer sewing" in house!
As I mentioned it won the award for best catalogue at the BBD&PA awards, which you can read about here:
https://www.maryameisler.com/
http://www.struktur.co.uk/
https://www.bossprint.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 12.07.2018
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