September 13th, 2011 in Inspiration by Ian Baugh
Quoddy Workshop – Lewiston, Maine from Oliver Wilkins on Vimeo.
We love this video about products made by hand with love and pride.
Credit and respect to Dan Maillette, the craftsman, and Quoddy, the manufacturer. AnnaM found the video on core77.com. And check out Oliver Wilkin’s other excellent videos!
Cheers
Ian
September 9th, 2011 in Products & Services by Anna Breetvelt
To continue my rave on The Junction earlier in the year about image slicing and dicing, here are a few thoughts about designing a pressbook with particular consideration to keeping your mind (and your clients’ heads) out of the gutter!
Photojunction makes designing a Queensberry album very easy and FAST. But while the layouts look very similar on-screen between albums and press books – in reality these two products are vastly different.
When you’re working on screen it’s really easy to forget that a press book is, well, a book, and the pages don’t lie flat. Queensberry press books (like most other photographic books) are perfect bound, which means that a small amount of the inner side of each page is obscured in the gutter, or spine, of the book. It’s not unusual (common to many high quality books and magazines) but it is an important factor to consider when you’re designing.
Currently Photojunction has general ‘photosafe’ guides on Pressbooks, but unfortunately there isn’t an easy answer as to how much of a gutter to leave in any given book. The number of pages in the book, thickness of the paper stock and the size of the book are some of the factors that determine exactly how much of the page is obscured.
Photojunction takes care of most of the technical bits, but book designers train for years in the art of layout design, so here are a few gutter-minded tips about designing press book layouts.
1. Visually allow more white space for the inner margins of the page. Remember the tighter you make the white space, the easier it is to see any small discrepancies.
2. If you are wanting to have an image bleed into the gutter – make sure that there isn’t any critical information that could be obscured, like heads, hands or text.
3. If you’re using a Panoramic image, make sure there’s plenty of space either side of the gutter so it doesn’t look like your subject is ‘sinking’ into the centre of the book.
I hope this helps!
Anna
September 8th, 2011 in News by Anna Breetvelt
Thinking about the December holiday season already? We are. It’s our busiest time of the year, and because we hand-make all our albums to order, November and December can be very hectic – especially as we close down for three weeks over the NZ summer holidays.
Short story: If you definitely want your Album or Press Book before the holidays, we’ll need your order by the 10th of November (23 October if we’re designing for you).
Long story: We work really hard to get most if not all our November and December work out before the holidays, so even if you place orders in late November/early December we’ll do our very best to get them to you. The advantage of ordering earlier is that it gives us more time to make sure everything’s correct and ensure delivery.
Close-down dates
This year we close at 3pm on 22 December 2011 and re-open at 8.00am 16 January 2012 (a few of our office team will be back a week earlier).
January bridal shows
If you need sample albums for early January shows, please get your orders in early so you’ll have them before the close-down!
What you can do to ensure December delivery
• Get your order (and all image files) in to us before the 10th of November. Make sure you’ve included everything – no missing files or information (eg text for titles).
• Answer any queries, confirm your order and arrange payment as soon as you hear from us. Same if we find any problems with your image files.
• If we’re designing the album for you, sign off on the design promptly.
Remember, your order can’t go into production until this is all done.
Looking forward to a hassle-free December!
Anna
September 6th, 2011 in Inspiration by Ian Baugh
Like the Chinese gentleman who shared our table for Dim Sum at Aik Hoe, everyone in Penang seems to get by in at least three languages – Chinese, Malay and English. I do admire that in a person because, like most New Zealanders, I’m a monoglot.
That wasn’t the only reason I liked him, though. He was his own man. At 87, so he should be.
Share each dish, he told us, you’ll eat less and taste more. Start the day at five. Oatmeal for breakfast keeps you young – I’ve eaten it almost every day for fifty years. No cream or sugar. Work in your business every day [he has an electrical business with 150 employees]. Exercise your brain. Sleep well. You’ll be healthy like me.
I was talking about creativity, and how it’s built on hard work, tradition and craft. Qualities necessary to creativity, but not sufficient. Our friend was a clue to something else you’ll need: authenticity.
The other day Stephen reminded me of a video from Ira Glass, about how long it took Ira to sound like Ira (listen to it here; or be a devil and listen to all four parts).
Ironic, isn’t it, that finding your own voice should be so hard?
But until you do, you sound like everyone else. Or no one.
I have no choice but to be myself. Everyone else is taken.
Cheers, Ian
PS Today’s other lesson was that I eat too much black pepper. Bad for my eyes.
September 5th, 2011 in Inspiration by Ian Baugh
Heather and I have been in Penang for a few days, “recharging our creative juices”.
But what does that mean? Creativity is like happiness. You can’t reach out and grab it directly, although we do believe that getting out of your comfort zone (I couldn’t think of another cliché, sorry) – and sleeping a lot – both help.
We’re staying in old George Town. It was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 2008, as the locals are proud to tell us. They’re also proud that Jimmy Choo was born into a family of local shoemakers, and apprenticed to a little shop just a few metres from where we’re staying on Muntri Street. His Dad helped finance his studies in London, where he came to the notice of Princess Diana and Vogue in the late ’80s.
I’ll never be seen wearing a pair of Jimmys, but suddenly they mean something more. Less Sex in the City, more the flamboyantly decorative crafts of Penang – real, not devised by an agency.
They have a voice and a backstory. I can imagine paying good money for them.
So, creativity: built on hard work, tradition and craft. Those certainly aren’t enough, but they can’t be by-passed.
Cheers
Ian
There used to be hundreds of shoe makers and factories in Penang, but sadly most are gone. Sadly? Inevitably, I guess.
August 19th, 2011 in Products & Services by Anna Breetvelt
With the arrival of Press Books and now Press Albums, we’ve got a very big range of products on offer.
In order to keep things simple and fresh we’re retiring a few of our less popular older material and mat colours.
Listed below are the colours that are now discontinued. For more about what ‘discontinued’ means and our policy on discontinued product options, sample upgrades and Swatch Book updates, click here.
COVER MATERIALS
Ed- Buckram Copper and Rose are also now discontinued.
MAT COLOURS
So it’s out with the old and in with the new, however these colours (apart from Silk Claret) will still be available for your customer orders until August 2012.
Cheers,
Anna
If you’ve been wondering where we’ve been lately, this is it!
We’re excited – even proud in an understated Kiwi way 
to announce Queensberry Press version 3.0.
We get to say “yes” to a lot of things you’ve been asking for, and well … we think you’ll like the prices!
So with that little fanfare please welcome Queensberry Press Albums. Press printed, flushmount or matted albums. Simple, affordable and gorgeous.
Here are some of the features:
Pages are either flushmount – unmatted and similar to our digital albums…
… or matted – overlay style in a clean cut page block reminiscent of Duo.
Images are printed on our Press paper range of Satin paper, Pearl, Nettuno or Tintoretto art papers, or our new photo-quality Kodak stock.
The Photojunction development team have been really busy too, and they’ve just released v1.53 to make it all possible. The resources you’ll need to design Press Albums will download automatically once you upgrade.
The new price lists are also available on our website. We think they’ll make good reading.
To top off our accountant’s anguish, and get the new press albums into your hands as quickly as possible, we have another half-price introductory offer.
Order any Queensberry Press Album before Friday 2nd September 2011 and pay half price on the original as well as the first duplicate if you want one. (NB offer applies to the new Press Albums only, not to Press Books.)
If you have any questions you can contact us by all the normal means. We’d love to hear what you think.
But don’t miss out on the half price special!
Cheers, Ian
July 25th, 2011 in News by Anna Breetvelt
Our previous special offer was such a great success, we wanna share some more Queensberry Press Book love. Here’s the deal:
Order any Press Book before the 4th of August, and we’ll give you an extra copy free. We’ll also send you a free Queensberry Pressbook sampler.
If you haven’t got a Press Book yet – now’s the time! Buy one for your clients and get a free sample for your studio.
To claim your second Press Book, just request it in the special instructions when you send your order through Photojunction.
Please Note – discount applies to the original book, including extras like Mayu Cases and Dust Jackets, but not to add-on packages, studio samples or additional duplicates, for which our normal terms apply.
If you have any questions you can contact us by all the normal means. We’d love to hear from you. Don’t miss out on the Press Book special!
We’ve just spent a great Monday afternoon browsing through the submissions for our Bragging Rights campaign, which closed last Friday. Thank you to everyone who participated!
We had a terrific response from friends old and new. Plenty of weddings of course, but also engagement shoots, family portraits, maternity, pets, you name it. Different countries, cultures, locations and styles.
So that was inspiring, but now comes the hard part – choosing!
We’re looking for twelve sets of images to showcase on our website, in our new season sample albums and books, and in our blogs and marketing pieces.
As Anna said, we’re not choosing just on the basis of image quality, either – all the more reason to say that some awesome photography is going to miss out.
We’ve been swamped with riches, thank you!
Cheers, Ian
The Queensberry phone server is down right now due to an external fault – no idea yet when it’ll be back up again, sorry.
We’ll let you know on Facebook and Twitter (links to your right).
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Ian
UPDATE: everything back to normal – Ed
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