An exciting week of Paper & Print

Originally written and published on 27 April 2012

How do you make paper interesting?  Well, leave it to papermakers GF Smith and you’ll discover it’s not only fascinating, but fun too!  For the whole of this week they have occupied the basement of Victoria House on Southampton Row in order to show us all how quality paper is actually created and what beautiful products can be made from it.

The exhibition, called Beauty In The Making, was designed to "celebrate 'the making’ as an art form in its own right” and was free to enter.

One of the event’s collaborators, It’s Nice That, have posted some excellent photos and a commentary on the event.

Downey & Co, printers of fine & elegant stationery, joined in by bringing along a few tabletop hand-presses for printing out sample cards that everyone was eager to have a go on.  Downey’s helpful and enthusiastic print experts were on hand to assist and answer questions.

For lovers of lettering and the printed word, Monotype displayed (under glass of course) an exciting array of original pencil and ink workings by the renowned Eric Gill illustrating the development of his typeface masterpiece, Gill Sans.  There was also a papier-mache bust of Mr Gill by Ann Pillar in attendance.

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There was plenty more to occupy the time from envelope-folding to speakers on a range of paper and print related subjects.  There was a lot of interaction with both people and things.

Rarely do I find exhibitions this much fun and GF Smith know how to treat a guest…they send everyone off home with a nice natural fibre bag printed with bright blocks of colour, chock full of their paper samples to play with later!

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LINKS
G F Smith :: Downey :: Monotype

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