With many events going the QR code-scan/app route these days, there’s something particularly satisfying coming across a real, honest to goodness paper exhibition catalog. And then there are the catalogs created for the annual Chicago “showcase of typographic all-stars,” Typeforce, by that city’s Firebelly Design.
The 6-by-9 inch, 140-page volume they cooked up for Typeforce 3 in 2012 remains a high-water mark for this type of piece.
Let’s start with the multiple paper stocks:
- Domtar Cougar Smooth White
- Vellum Pink
- Vellum Fushia
- 60 Text, 80 Text and 100 Cover.
Add CMYK plus two spot colors. And because these were three different stocks, this required three different CMYK mixes to make certain that their reds were identical on each.
Then there is the hand-tooled-like embossing, the foil stamping, and the cover…
“…completely sealed by a hand-affixed wrap. To open the book and get to the contents, the reader must crack open the wrap. There are strategically sized and placed die cuts that allow the cover to achieve a clean snap only when bent.”
This is quite the work of paper art.
You can pick up a copy of the catalog direct from Firebelly here for $20.
