NoMU Recipe Box

 

 

 They teased us with their Facebook campaign, but now it's out!

 

We just love this stylish recipe box from NoMU, published by Penguin Books SA, which is launching at the end of this month (that's now!)   

Each box is prefilled with 6 colour coded dividers (so you can organise your recipes by type) and 48 recipe cards to start off your collection.  Full of recipes that I want to make! 

Top up envelopes are then going to be available, each containing a further 8 recipes for each section.

I'm so glad our S.African sales team got this order!   Excuse me whilst I tuck in to my Pavlova with poached pears and pomegranate!

Florence Broadhurst Stationery Range

We have just produced this beautiful range of gift stationery based on the stunning designs of the Australian designer Florence Broadhurst. Produced for The Wild Colonial Company and using a mixture of materials and finishes, they just exude luxury and class.

Cased Journals using metallic inks, spot uv and embossed detail



Limp Journals bound with PU with debossing and foiling

Just say no - but not always

It's hard saying no. And also possibly counter-intuitive. But if I had a pound for every time I've said something along the lines of, "actually, I don't think your book, An Illustrated History of Central Uzbekistani Cookery will be a very commercial eBook/ePub/iBook/App", then I'd be more profitable than your average illustrated publisher.

After all, if a best-selling illustrated book (with average print runs that still keep parts of China very happy and busy) is going to cost the equivalent of those print runs just to turn it into a 7 units-a-week selling App – then the money-pit is obvious.

I don't doubt that books of pure text lend themselves to the world of digital. Indeed, having to pay my son's school an eye-watering amount of money for a couple of text books that he'd lost during his last year, made me curse the fact that he goes to a ‘traditional' school. But I'm an illustrated publisher – and I remain unconvinced by digital illustrated books.
Take children's books. Give your child an iPhone and they seek out games and ways to share. And whilst the content for those interactions often derives from stories, those stories were seldom written with electronic devices in mind. And they should be.

Indeed, as I write this, another supplier has just emailed me offering to turn books into Apps. Which is great if you want to turn your beautiful world of exploration into a digital jigsaw puzzle and colouring book. Or make another shopping list from your cookery collection. I've told them no, too.

So rather than just say no, maybe we need to look at the book differently.

This is what iBiblios has been doing for the past few months, and it's generating unanticipated levels of interest. Not metaphorically looking at books, but literally.

We've developed a technology that allows your smartphone to ‘read' the page – to recognise what's there and to do whatever it is the publisher wants. Look at a painting with your digital device, and the catalogue comes to you. Look at a music score and the music starts to play. Read words from a phrasebook to hear how they're spoken, or point at a map and see what's actually there. Whatever the eye can recognise, we can too, and it's all augmented by the publisher's own content.

Last month, we activated a fashion magazine in the Guardian, bringing videos, audio, information and special offers to otherwise static pages. And even we were taken aback by how successful it was – 180,000 copies were distributed, and the free App download led to over a quarter of a million videos being viewed within a week. It's not surprising that advertisers are beating a path to our door.

So instead of trying to turn a book into a digital book, we need to look at things differently. We need to take the content to the user – and to use the technology in ways that even the visionaries who brought us these devices hadn't envisaged.

Let's not try and force the square peg of our beloved 15th century technology into this digital Zeitgeist. The products that we will be buying for our tablets and phones might share their original content with books, but books they are not. As with our Visual Recognition technology, the best digital products will be designed from the outset for our iDevices and the book, in whatever diminished sales quantities the markets finally settle upon, will remain, gloriously, just that. A book.

Simon Rosenheim, Director, iBiblios

Book Stacks

 

 

We are just recovering from another Frankfurt Bookfair where, alongside launching our new digital division iBiblios to our European clients, we had on display these rather lovely 'book stacks'.

Each stack has simple and creative ideas for finishes and materials which we think help make the book a thing of beauty. There is nothing complex or wild here, just a combination of materials and finishes which we can do standing on our head! 
We prototyped two ranges - one in subdued natural tones and materials and one full of zing.
We had great fun putting them together - if you'd like to see more just let us know or take a look at our Board here to see the indivudal books!

 

 

Our First Big Digital Project Lands This Weekend!

Since our UK launch in April our iBiblios team have been immersed in a milestone digital project which comes to fruition this weekend!
In conjunction with Tank (the fashion, arts and ideas magazine) this weekend's Guardian includes fashion supplement O: Magazine where each page is activated by our visual recognition technology.  Guardian readers inside the M25 get to your newsagents on Saturday and experience the real thing!

For the rest of us, there is great video link show casing the technology here.

 

 

 

Pig! Johnnie Mountain

We recently produced this title for Duncan Baird Publishers and we can't get enough of it! The cover is a triumph of creative design - simple print and blind embossing onto imitation cloth but such a great effect and so striking. 

Moving inside the recipes are mouth watering, photographed beautifully, presented clearly - and most of all - achievable!



And last but by no means least, the addition of little piggy QR codes showing snippet videos of 'how to' guides for some of the recipes is a moment of pure genius.

 

 The design, content and dare we say it - printing - have all come together to create something really lovely and definitely fun!

Kylie Kwong Goes Soft

We have recently produced this rather mouthwatering book which uses soft touch lamination on the jacket. The contents are inspiring with beautiful photography and helpful step by step guides - which is just as well!

As part of the production process we looked at 3 different lamination treatments for the jacket. Standard gloss and matt as well as the soft touch. The results were pretty interesting and although difficult to capture in a photograph we do have samples which we can show. The gloss lam is very zingy and punchy whilst the matt clearly flattens the images and takes out the sparkling highlights. The soft touch sits between the two - retaining the lift and detail suprisingly well, given the soft finish.  Where it really comes into its own though is in the high quality feel that it brings to the printed sheet plus it's scuff resistant and doesn't mark like matt lamination.  It does cost more but earns it's keep by imparting luxury!

Unfortunately words and pictures just can't do it justice - touching is definitely believing!

 

Amazing Erasing!

These books / packs are absolutely spot on. They include a 48 page activity book, 3 double ended colouring pencils, sticker sheets and the undisputed stars of the show - 6 collectible erasers!

Each eraser contains so much detail and they are pristinely formed. We're very proud of them and think the whole thing looks ... lovely.

Produced for Silver Dolphin Books.

All Things Rubik

We have recently come across these wonderful range of Rubik's product - there is so much to choose from but here are a few of our favourites:

The Rubik’s Highlighters is a set of 3 markers that doubles as a clever puzzle thanks to its magnetic system. Once the user finishes highlighting, they can reassemble the 'cube' and put your logo back together again!.

The Rubik’s Pen is a challenge that’s fun to solve and provides a refreshing break for the mind. The sections of the cap rotate like a Rubik's Cube: you have to twist and solve them to remove the lid!

Protected by Trademarks and Design registration.

Twisted!

We have recently produced these quirky books for Fil Rouge Press and they are packed full of inventive ideas. Embroidery too cute for you? Not any more.... Baking too sugary? I think not! These books give in detail step by step guides to a 'twisted' work of art....

Maggot cake anyone?