Tuesday 6 January 2015

Jobs from the past - Number 63

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...

Metropolitan Hotel Brochure
2007 & 2009
This is definitely one of the most luxurious looking brochures that I have had the pleasure of being involved with over the years - it has an amazingly opulent feel which is almost entirely due to the cover.

The Metropolitan is a boutique hotel on London's Park Lane and is one of the international Como hotel group. The hotel has 144 rooms and suites and an exclusive COMO Shambhala spa and wellness centre.

The brand colour of the Metropolitan is a chocolate brown. Flockage Litho was the material chosen for the cover of the brochure to give the cover an extravagant, velvety feel.
The size of the brochure is 270x210mm, portrait. It has a 24pp text printed on a gloss paper (printer's house stock) but the cover is on Flockage Litho 300gsm. For those not familiar with Flockage, it is a flocked paper and board range with a soft feel that really does feel like velvet. The standard material is white and you can print (offset litho) onto it - either solid colour or CMYK images, no problem. The flock coating is on one side and the reverse has an uncoated finish.
Where the material used for the cover of this brochure differs is that on discussion with the printer, the flocked side was being printed in a single colour, the chocolate brand colour. Thanks to Tony Fenner's discussion with the printer about how the job was being produced, we were able to have a special making of the board produced using a self-coloured flock, it happened that there was a standard fiber colour close to the shade required ( ...this also saved money on overs and make ready sheets!)

On the outside cover, the logo is simply hot foil blocked in matt white foil, which looks beautiful.
Below are images of the text pages with beautiful photography by Martin Morrell.
The reason that the cover board needed to be the litho print quality as opposed to the Flockage Colours (which is not litho printable) is because the inside front and back covers were printed.
Above and below show the solid colour and reversed out type printed on the inside back cover.
The brochure is section sewn and has a spine thickness of 4mm.
Art direction and design is by Rashna Mody-Clark, who is a London based designer who has many years experience in editorial and print design. Print is by Matthews the Printers, based in Chingford. It was first printed in 2007 and re-printed on the same materials in 2009.

Thanks to Linda at the Metropolitan for sending me some file copies.
http://www.comohotels.com/metropolitanlondon
www.rashnamodyclark.com
www.matthews-printers.co.uk
Posted by Justin Hobson 06.01.2015

Friday 2 January 2015

Fenner Paper 2015 Diary

If you are a wonderful customer and therefore a deserving user of our papers, you should have already received your new 2015 diary in the post, here's a sneak preview, if you haven't yet received it.
As in previous years, the diary is 230x162mm, portrait and retains the popular 'month to view' format. The cover board is on a 'special making' of our Stardream metallic/pearlescent board with a linear embossing called Canneté. There are four different covers (on Lapislazuli, Onyx, Anthracite & Bronze) all on 285gsm and all printed offset litho in Pantone 877 silver.
 
The 40pp text is simply printed in one colour, offset litho, on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm. Superb opacity and a truly lovely writing surface makes this an ideal paper for a diary or notebook.
If you haven't yet received a diary and feel you deserve one because you use our paper, please email me.

If you aren't a user of our papers and just fancy one anyway! ...they are available for purchase, just e-mail me for prices.

justin@fennerpaper.co.uk
Posted by Justin Hobson 02.01.2015

Wednesday 31 December 2014

ITV Programmes 2014


ITV Studios is the UK's biggest production and distribution company, making distributing and selling over 40,000 hours of television around the globe. The worldwide business is growing fast and they now have studios in London, Paris, Stockholm, Cologne, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney and Hong Kong together with partners in other regions

ITV Studios don't just make TV shows for ITV, they make them for a wide variety of broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4, Sky etc.
 
This brochure shows the wide diversity of formats and programmes that they are responsible for, showing images and emphasising the company's capabilities.  
 Size is 220x170mm, portrait. it has a 4pp cover with 92pp text and is section sewn. The cover (above) is matt laminated.
The material used is our Neptune Unique FSC, which is a VERY high white, smooth uncoated paper which reproduces colour fabulously (well I would say that!). Cover is 350gsm, text 160gsm. An uncoated material, gives the publication an engaging 'booky' feel and given the variety of source material, makes the images work together well, whether commissioned photography is sitting next to a screen grab, it has a consistency in look and feel. Printed offset litho in CMYK with a special light blue grey (on the cover).
The spine is 13mm thick and the text is section sewn, as you can see from the image below:
Creative direction and design for this and all ITV Studios new marketing collateral and events is by Theobald Fox. Creative Director is Pete Owen. Production and project management is by Sam Stocking. Print is by Principal Colour.

https://www.itvstudios.com/
http://www.theobaldfox.com/
www.principalcolour.co.uk
Posted by Justin Hobson 31.12.2014

Monday 29 December 2014

Pocket Book by Jack Beveridge

I received a superb little a superb little Christmas book from London agency BOB Design. This beautifully presented, package arrived in a substantial envelope and wrapped in silkscreen printed (in two colours) tissue paper.
As you can see from the wording below, BOB set a design brief - re-inventing the book as an object isn't an easy brief!. ...and then producing the end product.
...which is this amazing, pocket book.
This 160pp casebound, notebook is around 130x120mm, formed into the shape of a pocket. Covered in red bookcloth, it not only forms the basic shape but also is rounded so that it follows the contours of the cheek in the back pocket!
The whole thing is exquisitely made - all aspects of the binding are perfect - the V shape in particular is a triumph.
Below is a close up of the leather tab and the sewn sections (10x16pp sections) - this is a truly exquisite piece of binding.
The silkscreened poster, which tells the story of the whole project also incorporates thumbnail sketches of the students designs.
Close up of the thumbnail sketches:
The book is produced by one of the leading book-binderies of the world: BuBu. A few years ago I visited Buchbinderei Burkhardt (BuBu) in Mönchaltorf  near Zürich in and was amazed at the combination of the commercial bookbinding, hand bookbinding studio and digital book production. BuBu is an amazing business producing quality, long forgotten in some areas of the UK printing industry.

Jack Beveridge graduated in the summer with a first class honours degree and you can find him here:
www.jackbeveridge.com

Creative directors at BOB are Mireille Burkhardt and Kieran O'Connor.

www.jackbeveridge.com
www.bobdesign.co.uk
www.bubu.ch
http://www.kingston.ac.uk/undergraduate-course/graphic-design/
Posted by Justin Hobson 29.12.2014

Wednesday 24 December 2014

Maggie's Christmas Card

I received this lovely, simple, Christmas card for cancer care charity Maggie's.

Maggie’s provides free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends, following the ideas about cancer care originally laid out by Maggie Keswick Jencks. The first Maggie’s Centre opened in Edinburgh in 1996 and since then Maggie’s has continued to grow, with 17 centres at major cancer hospitals.
The image used on the card is of an apple installation by Rebecca Louise Law at Maggie's Culture Crawl held in 2014. 
Image copyright: Written Light Photography
The cards are printed on our Colorset Crimson 270gsm, our 100% recycled text and cover range. They are printed in halftone, offset litho in one colour, silver and hot foil blocked in matt white foil.

Reverse of card
The below image shows the detail of the white foil:
Design is by Malcom Clarke. Print and foiling is by Aldgate Press, based in London E1.

www.maggiescentres.org
http://www.writtenlight.co.uk/
http://www.aldgatepress.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 24.12.2014

Monday 22 December 2014

Alexander Lewis - Resort 2014

This is a beautifully simply lookbook for London based fashion designer Alexander Lewis. Half American, half Brazilian, his education took him around the world, before working for Vogue and then began working on Savile Row, at Norton & Sons and later E. Tautz. It was in London he learned about pattern-cutting, fit and how to turn a design into a beautifully crafted piece of clothing. After establishing his own design consultancy, he launched his own womenswear line in 2012.
This is the lookbook for his Resort 2014 collection. and as I said in my introduction, it is beautifully simple. Size is A5 (210x148mm) portrait and has a 4pp cover on our Colorset Nero 270gsm, which is simply hot foil blocked with matt white foil.
Image reproduction is paramount but it was also important that the publication also projected the tactility of the actual clothes, so a gloss or silk coated paper wasn't an option. The material chosen was our Omnia, which would beautifully reproduce the photography with the delicate weave, intricate patterns and subtle pastel colouring superbly - not forgetting the fleshtones ...and it looks brilliant!  The 52pp text is on Omnia White 150gsm, printed offset litho in CMYK throughout.
Below is a close up of Look19, the dress appears to be made from a material with a shimmery look, almost pearlescent - Omnia has reproduced the image superbly.
Omnia is a very bulky paper, so even though it is only 52pp, the Omnia 150gsm gives it a 5mm spine thickness. As with all quality publications, it is 'section sewn' and here is a close up showing the spine and end of the book with the sewn sections:
Art direction and design is by Alexander Lewis. Photography is by Thomas Lohr.
Detail of matt white foil

Printing, foiling and finishing is by Jigsaw Colour, who are based in South London and is excellent.


http://www.alexanderlewis.eu/
http://thomaslohr.com/site/
Posted by Justin Hobson 22.12.2014

Thursday 18 December 2014

Seasonal packaging on Stardream

This is not only a lovely, yummy, Christmas gift - it is also a wonderful printed example of packaging produced on our papers! Vincent design produced their very own limited edition selection box. Firstly, they sourced locally handmade chocolates from Sylvia and Terry based in Romney Marsh. Next, they had to design the custom packaging, which required a festive, seasonal look and feel.
However, because this was a limited run, litho printing was out of the question. As a result, the material chosen was our Stardream Quartz 285gsm which is HP Indigo ready. The beauty of this product is that it has a pearlescent, metallic shimmer but can be printed digitally to great effect and for short run lengths.
The lid was printed on the Stardream Quartz 285gsm. The box made up very cleverly, with the printed insert covering the joins and flaps on the inside of the lid. The unprinted base with the custom cut outs to hold the scrumptious confectionery is made from Stardream Sapphire, with Orion embossing in 285gsm.
The size of the box is 270 x 150x 45mm and is a nice sturdy little package. Print production is by Principal Colour based in Paddock Wood on their HPIndigo digital press.

With thanks to all at Vincent design for the yummy box ...and the chocolates as well!

www.vincentdesign.co.uk
www.sylviaandterry.com/
http://www.principalcolour.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 18.12.2014