Tuesday 9 August 2016

Animail

Although not actually about a Fenner Paper product, I thought this was such a noteworthy project, that I must write about it....
Animail is a set of six animal stamps designed for the Royal Mail to appeal to children and adults alike. The creatures' hands, feet or tails are designed to fold around the edge of envelopes, giving them the appearance of holding on to the post.
Image courtesy of Osborne Ross
The instructions about how to fold them over the edge of the envelope is on the reverse of the stamp pack, pictured in the image below
The project commissioned by the Royal Mail was designed by our friends at Osborne Ross, a design studio based in West London. Design partners are Deborah Osborne and Andrew Ross You can read more about the project here:
http://www.osborneross.com/work/stamps/animail/index.html

Image courtesy of Osborne Ross
Postcards are also available to buy from post offices (which I did!). You see, design can be fun!
...and you maybe one of the lucky ones who receives some samples from us with an added bit of fun! As you can see, we've been monkeying about with these in our post room! (actually, I think that should be Orangutaning around)
http://osborneross.com/
http://www.royalmail.com/animailstamps
Posted by Justin Hobson 09.08.2016

Friday 5 August 2016

Ruder Finn Brand Manual

Ruder Finn is one of the world's largest independent global communications and creative agencies with dual headquarters in the U.S. and China. Founded in 1948 the company also has offices in London, Singapore and India.

The London office has recently moved and expanded their creative department and this is a project I was recently involved with - a very simple but effective piece of literature. Simply produced to explain their new branding internally, they decided that they would produce a piece of print rather than just distributing the information as a pdf.
Finished size is A5. The format is a long concertina, being an 8pp concertina fold. The flat size is 592x 210mm.
The material chosen is our Redeem 100% Recycled 80gsm. If you are not familiar with the paper, Redeem is at best, off white and 100% recycled and 80gsm, so the feel that the paper exudes is one of simplicity and purposefulness. Due to the small quantity required, it was printed digitally on a Ricoh press and the reproduction is superb.
Designed in house at Ruder Finn in London. Design Director is Alexandra Boylan, designer on the project is Jamie Buswell.

Repro, print and finishing is by Kent based Zone Graphics .
http://www.ruderfinn.co.uk/
www.zonegraphics.co.uk
Posted by Justin Hobson 05.08.2016

Thursday 4 August 2016

Look Up Launch

The other week I was fortunate enough to be invited to opening of a new gallery LOOK UP - however this is a gallery with a difference, it's an online gallery. Anyway, they had an actual launch party (rather than a virtual launch party!) with real beer. It was held at the Four Corners exhibition space in Roman Road, London E3 and it was a great evening.


Look Up is an online print store and a platform for artists who explore the creative potential of geometry, line, pattern and colour. The focus reflects a desire to celebrate artists who push the boundaries of their practice, exploring and experimenting with ideas and processes, and ultimately creating prints that bring colour to our lives. This new gallery is the brainchild of Steven Bateman who I met many years ago when he was the Archivist, Curator and Librarian at Pentagram.
Steven's aim is to sell affordable limited edition prints by established and up-and-coming artists alike. Currently he represents work from fifteen artists and it was great to actually meet many of the artists on the evening.
I wish Steven all success with the new venture and many thanks for inviting me along.

http://www.lookupprints.com/
http://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson on 04.08.2016

Tuesday 2 August 2016

Jobs from the past - Number 82

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 2011. 

Whistles Lookbook
Autumn Winter 2011
Between 2010 and 2013, many of the lookbooks produced by Whistles were printed on our papers and appeared on this blog, but I must have missed writing about this one! I'm sure you can see from the images below, it is a beautiful piece. Art direction, photography and reproduction is superb.
The size is 320x230mm portrait, saddle stitched. It is a 32pp self cover text on Marazion Ultra 90gsm, so the whole job has a deliberately 'floppy' feel.
Art Direction, design and production is by Simmonds. It just has a fantastic feel - it is difficult for me to say much more about it - just look at the images below, they speak for the job...
As with some of the previous Whistles lookbooks, many of the spreads alternate between CMYK in colour and four colour black and white images, and on some spreads there a completely blank pages which creates a luxurious feeling of space.
Click on images to enlarge
As I mentioned before, the Marazion Ultra 90gsm gives the book a deliberately floppy feel, the pages just turn over and flow beautifully.
 The book opens and sits nice and flat.
Art Direction and design is by Simmonds Ltd. Photography is by Kacper Kasprzyk and styling is by Francesca Burns. Print is by Push.
 
Posted by Justin Hobson 02.08.2016


Thursday 28 July 2016

Holland Park Villas

Holland Park Villas is a residential development on a 2 acre site from in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. This gated development, adjacent to Holland Park boasts 68 apartments with 4 penthouses. The development is a joint venture between Native Land, Grosvenor, Hotel Properties Limited and Amcorp.

This is the luxuriously appointed sales brochure for the development. Size is 240x210mm, portrait and is section sewn. It has an 8pp cover with a 28pp text which gives it a 3mm spine.
The 8pp cover is printed inside with a solid metallic gold pantone, as you can see from the pic below:
Click on images to enlarge
The brochure is printed on our Omnia range. The cover is on 320gsm and the text is on 150gsm. As you can see from the images, there is lots of colour and images with the dark interiors looking great on the Omnia, retaining detail in the dark areas. The solid metallic look just beautiful, flat, matt and tactile.
Click on images to enlarge
The brochure is printed offset litho in CMYK plus metallic gold throughout and as I'm sure you can see from the images, the reproduction is superb.
Design is by London based branding agency Identity, Design Director is Lisa Roser. Print is by Crucial Colour, who are based in Crowborough.

http://www.hollandparkvillas.com/
http://identity-design.co.uk/
http://www.crucialcolour.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 28.07.2016

Tuesday 26 July 2016

Jimmy Choo AW 2016 Invitation

This is a very luxurious looking invitation to the launch of the Autumn/Winter collection for luxury fashion brand Jimmy Choo. The 4pp Invitation is 148x110mm, portrait and is made using our Flockage Colours 400gsm in Bordeaux. 
For those of you which are not familiar with this product, it is a flocked board which feels like a velvety cloth/material to the touch. It also takes hot foil blocking exceptionally well as the heat, softens the fibres allowing the foil to bed down nicely in the flock. 
Flockage is a one sided material - in the case of the Bordeaux, it has a coloured flock face and a Bordeaux coloured board reverse. For this project the board has been duplexed, bonding the two board faces together and creating an 800gsm board with flock on both sides - and most importantly, the edge is still a Bordeaux colour.
On the inside front cover of the invitation, a mirror is affixed, so you catch your thrilled reaction at having received the invitation! The gold tinted mirror is a piece of 3mm acrylic mounted onto the Flockage surface. The hot foil blocking is in a deep crimson shade.
As you will be able to see from the image below, the material has a twin parallel creased spine to allow for the thickness of the mirror, which works superbly. 
Art direction and design is by the 'in house' studio at Jimmy Choo and the designer on the project is Sinnie Chong. All aspects of production, including the duplexing, hot foil blocking and sourcing and mounting of the mirror was overseen by David Blakeman at Identity Print based in Paddock Wood - also worth pointing out that they are one of the few printers to have hot foil blocking 'in house'!
 
Posted by Justin Hobson 26.07.2016

Friday 22 July 2016

Royal Ascot Festival Guide

188 Bet is an international betting website based in the Isle of Man. They cover sporting events and also offer casino, poker and bingo online. As an online company, they rarely commit to paper, but for the occasion of Royal Ascot, they produced this festival guide for their customers, which also included some exclusive offers.
The outer folder is hot foil blocked in metallic copper foil with the company logo and is printed on Colorset Natural 270gsm
...which folds out to a 6pp folder like so:
The middle panel has a tipped on page which is printed on the same material as the booklet. On the right hand side there is an open sided pocket, with logo shaped die cut, which holds the booklet in place. Here is the booklet out of the pocket:
The booklet is 140mm square, it has a 4pp cover on Colorset Natural 270gsm, which is hot foil blocked to match the folder.
Inside is a 16pp text which is printed on our Stardream, Crystal 120gsm. Stardream has a pearlescent finish, which when printed on makes the whole image pearlescent.
...hopefully you can just about see the reflective pearlescent effect on the below image:
The brochure was produced and printed by Herts and Essex printers who are based in Hertford. The text is actually digitally printed on their Nexpress - which interestingly can print up to a size of 340x905mm.

https://www.ascot.co.uk/Royal-Ascot
https://www.188bet.co.uk/en-gb/
chris@hertsessexprinters.com
Posted by Justin Hobson 22.07.2016