Showing posts with label Xerox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Xerox. Show all posts

Thursday 18 August 2022

Maghreb

Les Terrasses du Ciel

This is the exhibition catalogue of a show by photographer François-Xavier Haage. The exhibition titled "Maghreb, Les Terrasses du Ciel" (Maghreb, The Terraces of Heaven) was first shown on June 30, 1987 and shows photographs taken during trips to Algeria and Morocco between 1985 and 1987. The exhibition was shown again in 2019 at Hang'Art in Paris.

The catalogue is a 28pp self cover publication printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm. The size is 230x190mm, portrait and is saddle stitched. As you can see from the image above, the pages just flop and roll over beautifully.
Offenbach Bible 60gsm has a very high opacity for it's light weight, but the show through can be used as part of the design...
Click on images to enlarge
The inside back spread (below) is the key as to where the images were taken
You probably won't be able to guess, or even believe, is that it's digitally printed! The job was printed and finished by digital print company Typecast Colour, based in Paddock Wood, Kent. It was printed on their Xerox digital press and the result is superb. For a limited run, printing digitally makes a project such as this viable - and on a a material like this, which many litho printers are scared of!...just look at the print result in the detail image below...
Designers Martí Peréz Palau and Carole Haage collaborated on the design of the catalogue.

https://le-hangart-restaurant-paris.eatbu.com/
http://www.typecast.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 18.08.2022

Friday 17 June 2022

Billy Tannery literature

 
Billy Tannery started with a discovery. Founders Jack and Rory found out that due to decades of decline in the British leather industry, many thousands of goatskins leftover from the food industry were being thrown away each year. So in 2016, building on centuries of local leather knowledge, they transformed a farm building in the Midlands into a small-batch tannery - the first to be built in the UK for well over 50 years.
This simple piece of promotional literature tells the story - Turning Waste into Worth. The finished size is A6 (148x105mm) but is simply a folded piece of A4 folding down to A6 - one of the simplest and most cost effective formats available, yet also one of the most effective. 
Click on images to enlarge
Below image shows the leaflet folded out to the A4 size spread...
...and what better paper to print this publication on than a paper made using 25% upcycled leather! Remake is the range produced by Favini and Remake is leather ‘upcycling’ on an industrial scale and represents the latest frontier in upcycling in the paper sector. This unique and innovative paper replaces 25% of wood tree pulp with leather residues. You can read more about Remake here.
Click on image to enlarge
In the detail image above you can see the visible leather fibres in the sheet. Below is the proud statement about the paper's provenance.
The publication is printed on Remake, Sand 120gsm It is printed and finished by Typecast Colour, based in Paddock Wood, Kent and was printed on their Xerox digital press.

Tuesday 6 April 2021

Billy Tannery Business Cards

Billy Tannery started with a discovery. Founders Jack and Rory found out that due to decades of decline in the British leather industry, many thousands of goatskins leftover from the food industry were being thrown away each year. So in 2016, building on centuries of local leather knowledge, they transformed a farm building in the Midlands into a small-batch tannery - the first to be built in the UK for well over 50 years! ...and these are their cracking business cards.
What better paper to print the publication on than a paper made using 25% upcycled leather! Remake is the range produced by Favini and is leather ‘upcycling’ on an industrial scale and represents the latest frontier in upcycling in the paper sector. This unique and innovative paper replaces 25% of wood tree pulp with leather residues. You can read more about Remake here.
Size of the cards is 53x85mm and are printed on Remake, Sand 380gsm.
Click on images to enlarge
In the detail image below you can see the visible leather fibres in the sheet and the proud statement about the paper's provenance.
The cards are printed and finished by Typecast Colour, based in Paddock Wood, Kent and was printed on their Xerox digital press. 

Posted by Justin Hobson 06.04.2021

Thursday 13 August 2020

Modernism on Sea

The De La Warr pavilion is on the seafront in Bexhill in Sussex and is an iconic modernist building by the architects Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff which opened in 1936. Following a major renovation in 2005, the pavilion hosts many shows, exhibitions and cultural events.
This is the booklet to accompany a talk titled 'Modernism on Sea' given by Stewart Drew, who is the current Director and CEO of the pavilion and who has overseen the recent development and transformation of  the Pavilion. The booklet documents the original concept for the building, the history, construction and events throughout the decades.
Click on images to enlarge
Size of the booklet is A6 (148x105mm) portrait and is saddle stitched. It is a 16pp self cover printed on Omnia Natural 120gsm.
The publication is digitally printed by Typecast Colour, based in Paddock Wood, Kent. It was printed on their Xerox digital press and the result is excellent. The great thing is the job just doesn't look and feel like a digital job, which is mainly down to the choice of substrate.
Click on images to enlarge
The 16pp, saddle stitched format, sits nice and flat.
Below showing front cover and outside back cover.
The publication is designed by Playne Design who have studios in London and Hastings. Creative Director is Clare Playne with production handled by Simon Hack. Print is by Typecast.

https://playnedesign.co.uk/
http://www.typecast.co.uk/ 
Posted by Justin Hobson 13.08..2020

Thursday 30 January 2020

Destination

Book artist Caroline Penn was asked to collaborate with thirteen other artists on a project, published by WhnicPRESS and launched at the Bristol Artist Book Event (BABE) at the end of March 2019. Project C is about inter-semiotic translation: the translation from images to words, and words to images and the paths that form between them. Each artist was given an anonymised book cover and asked to respond to it with another book form.  All of the resulting fourteen books are held within a slip case in an edition of 25 copies.

Caroline wanted the form of her book to reference dictionaries and an unfolding train journey, hence the choice of Offenbach Bible, a double-sided, single sheet of Offenbach Bible folded into a concertina, and sewn into a cover.
Click on images to enlarge
The finished size is 173x124mm with the 8pp concertina text folding out to a 494mm length. You can see from the below image how the text folds into the 4pp cover...
Concertina text fully extended...
Given the lightweight nature of the Offenbach Bible, you probably won't be able to believe that it's digitally printed! The job was printed and finished by print company Typecast Colour, based in Paddock Wood. It was printed on their Xerox digital press and the result is excellent. For a limited run, such as this (25 copies) printing digitally makes a project such as this viable.
Click on images to enlarge
The above image shows the '5 hole sewn' binding, which is hand finished, as is the hole punching. Below shows the text fully extended:
The Offenbach Bible is enclosed within a Pergamenata paper cover which was all put into a loose cover, with the photo of the train in snow, supplied by WhnicPRESS. The other 13 artists also had their books enclosed within similar printed covers. All 14 books were then put into a slip case, see below...
Image courtesy of whnicPRESS
This was a lovely project to be involved with and many thanks to Caroline for taking the time to send me a copy of the finished publication and a handwritten note.
https://carolinepenn.com/
https://whnicpress.tumblr.com/
http://www.typecast.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 30.01.2020

Tuesday 17 March 2015

What is ...Sapphire Treatment?

What is ...Number 15
Regular followers of this blog will know that in the middle of the month, I publish a "What is ....? post. The article covers various aspects of paper, printing and finishing in greater depth. However, many of these subjects are complex, so these posts are only intended to be a brief introduction to the topic.

What is ...Sapphire Treatment?
This is something I often get asked about so hopefully this post will serve to de-mystify the subject for readers!

Indigo was founded by Benny Landa in Israel and in 1993 they launched the first Indigo digital printing press (the Indigo E-print 1000). It took many years to take a hold in the digital print market as it was up against very established competitors such as Xerox.

However, it works in a totally different way to the other toner based printers and in fact is an 'offset' process which is similar to offset litho.
I first saw an Indigo press when I visited DRUPA (a printing and graphic arts fair held in Germany) in 1995. I picked up the print examples and still have the original sales brochure!
The print result further improved with subsequent models and became an industry leader in digital quality print. In 2001 Hewlett Packard (HP) purchased Indigo and the press manufacturer became known as the HP Indigo. There has been much investment and many new models including the game-changing B2 format press...
http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/hp-indigo-unveils-b2.html

Unlike other digital printing methods an Indigo press uses an ElectroInk which contains charged pigmented particles in a liquid carrier. Like other digital printing technologies, such as toner, ElectroInk enables digital printing by electrically controlling the location of the print particles. However, unlike other digital technologies, Indigo is still an 'offset' process where the ink is transferred from the plate onto a blanket and then onto the paper substrate http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx%2F4AA3-9326EEW.pdf

At the time when the Indigo press was first launched, the majority of papers were produced for offset litho or for dry toner. The results were a little hit or miss, although better for coated papers and the problem was that the ink was coming off and caused a particular problem around folded areas. To get round this problem 'Sapphire Treatment' was developed. This is a polymer-based solution which is coated on the sheet before the printing process. It provides a 'key' between the surface of the paper and the ElectroInk that binds the ink to the paper and maximizes ink adhesion. This 'treatment' or 'coating' is applied as a pre-coat before the paper is printed.

Image Courtesy of POSCO Inc
http://www.poscoinc.com/default.aspx
It is a clear, colourless, odourless liquid, so it isn't something that particularly lends itself to exciting images! ...it literally comes in large containers and drums such as pictured here. So the next best thing is to show you the type of coating machine that applies this type of coating. Below is an example of a dedicated coating machine but coating can also be achieved on an adapted offset litho press.
The image below shows the detail of the machine, which is a series of rollers which evenly spreads the liquid coating.
So basically, pretty much any paper can be treated/coated to make it suitable for printing on an HPIndigo press ...so who does the coating?

Some paper merchants have their own coating facilities (as we do at Fenner Paper) ...however our coater is not suitable for mass production, so larger batches are sent to specialist coating companies. One such company, called ACCEL, is based in the Midlands and is an HP Indigo Authorised Media Treatment Centre. They coat for many merchants and printers for the HP Indigo sheetfed market.
http://www.acceluk.com/

However it is important that you don't think that everything printed using this technology needs treating! There are nearly 4000 media, which are certified substrates (papers and plastics) -made by mills and manufacturers which are ready to print on an HP Indigo with no additional treatment. The chemicals have been added at the manufacturing stage at the mill and the products have been successfully tested and approved by HP Indigo certification centres at the Rochester Institute of Technology and in Singapore. At Fenner Paper, we carry some products which are 'HP Indigo ready' such as Stardream and Shiro Echo. However, even with 4000 approved products that still doesn't cover all the materials that people would like to use, which is why having the ability to pre-coat using sapphire treatment is essential to making the digital printing offer, truly flexible.

I understand that to many people this will seem like a tediously technical, boring subject. However, as digital printing becomes more prevalent in the industry, it's a good idea to have an understanding of some of the issues. Below are further links that you might find useful.

http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/commercial-printers/indigo-presses/overview.html
http://www.acceluk.com/
http://www.michelman.com/Printing-%26-Packaging/Digital-Printing/HP-Indigo-Solutions/

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.03.2015