Showing posts with label Hi-Artz Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hi-Artz Press. Show all posts

Friday 20 December 2013

Watchtower Blues

In 2008, Peter Saville was reported as saying that Record sleeve art, as a medium was dead. Maybe so in mainstream culture, but there are pockets of people in the creative arts who are still innovating and designing for the record sleeve. This is the sleeve for a 10 inch EP (45rpm) titled Watchtower Blues by The Shooting Stars, a new band described as a western 'n' rockin!

The size of the cover is 270mm square and has been produced by artist and letterpress printer Helen Ingham at Hi-Artz Press (who is also is one of the six band members)  ...and it houses a record in Green Vinyl - very,very cool...
Picture showing front and back covers:
The sleeves have been produced in two colour letterpress (red and green) - yes just two colours! look at the colours, overprinted colour and the tint graduation - pretty impressive stuff.

The sleeve has been produced on our Kapok 500gsm, which is a natural, brown coloured board, very stiff and slightly 'polished' on the surface. The sleeves are folded on one edge and the two other closed edges are sewn in a buff coloured thread:
Helen Ingham is an artist, illustrator and letterpress printer based in Luton. Helen also runs the letterpress workshop at Central St. Martins and is a regular demonstrator at the letterpress workshop at the St Brides Foundation. This record sleeve is just beautifully produced, a really lovely object. Thank you to Helen for sending me a copy.

You can see their debut on the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNyHQTbYGbY

Records available from:
http://www.rhythmrock-it.com/
Helen Ingham: http://www.hi-artz.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 20.12.2013

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Letterpress: Something to Say

 
On Friday, I was lucky enough to go to the St Brides conference titled "Letterpress: Something to Say"

This one-day conference set out "to explore letterpress as a means for delivering real content, be that a set of sharply thought-through design intentions; a re-imagining of the possibilities of the inky process itself; an analogue springboard to new digital visuals and environments; or a reconnection with the power of a simple press to communicate ideas. To step beyond the production of work to be merely admired and consumed, and to reclaim letterpress as a viable means of distributing a message; to tell stories; to galvanize our communities; to allow practice to resonate beyond the frames of our living room walls"

Speakers included Thomas Gravemaker, Ian Gabb, Jono Lewarne & Charlotte Hetherington, L’automatica (Barcelona), Anthony Burrill, Dylan Kendle (Tomato) and Gee Vaucher plus a presentation on the 6x6 project which is a collaboration between staff and students from six colleges with active letterpress workshops (CSM, Brighton, Camberwell, Lincoln, LCC, and Glasgow)
Ian Gabb from the RCA (above) delivering his excellently "shambolic" talk (...his words, not mine!)

Workshop demonstrations were held throughout the day. Richard Lawrence was working on a very interesting linocutting project that he took the time to explain to me.
Helen Ingham from Hi-Artz Press www.hi-artz.co.uk was also in the workshop giving demonstrations and working on projects.

Below is my modest little table of printed examples that I took along to show our papers in action:
 ...and who should have the table next to me, but my industry colleagues from that other well known, Hull based, paper merchant! Mark and Vanessa were good company and we enjoyed the day together.
 As we were in a side room, this is the sign I wrote (...exhibiting no bias at all!)
It was an excellent day and most important of all, it was a sell out. This is the third one day conference that they have run, so the lesson here is book early, to avoid disappointment. Congratulations to the organisers, Catherine Dixon and Rose Gridneff and thanks to them for inviting me along.

http://www.stbride.org/
http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/something-to-say
http://letterpressworkshop.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 13.11.2012