#splendorgel

Sydney’s Corlette Design was recently awarded the task of rebranding Ella Baché’s entire range of collateral, and chose Spicers specialty papers as their base.

Created in 1936 in Paris by progressive pharmacist Madame Baché, the brand’s philosophy, ‘no two skins are alike’ marked an approach different from those of her competitors at the time. One of the oldest family-owned skincare companies in the world, Ella Baché was bought to Australia in 1954 by the wife of Madame Baché’s cousin, Edith Hallas. This year marked their 60th anniversary in the country.

The eminent skincare label wished to refresh its brand in Australia yet still stay connected to its French lineage. The Creative Director at Ella Baché, Faie Davis, worked closely with Camille Corlette and Kirsty Newell from Corlette Design to develop the new corporate and salon imagery.

And the results? Très chic.

Using the gorgeously French colour hues of navy and smoky grey, the creative team created a striking chevron. Polished and smart with a touch of luxuriousness, the juxtaposition of the chevron next to white is compelling.

“We were delighted to be approached by Ella Baché to rebrand their collateral,” says Camille Corlette, Creative Director at Corlette Design. “The whole process was wonderful, but my favourite part was developing the chevron. Each one is an individual piece. In fact, it was designed so that the cropping of each chevron is different. If you look at it closely, they all have a lovely twist when they turn. This meant the design work was very intricate, but undoubtedly rewarding.”

Using the sophisticated Sirio Pearl for the salon collateral and the dazzling Splendorgel for the corporate stationery, Corlette Design ensured a luxury result at a cost-effective price.

“We chose Sirio for the salon’s stationery as most of the print-runs will be digital, and the inks reproduced beautifully on the metallic paper. Splendorgel was chosen for its uncoated, bright white features, which we then coated in metallic inks, producing rich and deep colourisations,” Camille explains. “The navy blue we used was a bespoke colour created just for this project. We envisage that the chevron brand graphic will become just as important as the logo itself, thus it needed to be special.”

Indeed, the chevron design has already been incorporated onto the tailored cosmetic bags designed especially for the 60th birthday celebrations. This was in conjunction with a competition the company ran, offering one lucky customer a trip to France to indulge in a treatment at the first Ella Baché salon in Paris.

“We haven’t heard who the winner of the competition is yet, so we are still hopeful it is one of us!” laughs Camille. 

The elegant angular graphic will also begin to infiltrate throughout the Australian salons themselves, with feature walls being planned and uniforms being designed by fashion label Ellery. So look out for the chevron, coming soon to an Ella Baché salon near you… or in Paris.

Spotlight on Splendorgel

Splendorgel has long been recognised as the market leader for affordable, uncoated specialty papers. Now this remarkably smooth range has welcomed a heavy weight of 470gsm and additional A4 and A3 sizes in the 100gsm. Also available in indigo and toner based digital, Splendorgel’s high white colour will ensure a cool crisp finish to any project. High quality and versatile, Splendorgel ensures stand out results for covers, folders, business cards, catalogues, annual reports – the smooth list goes on!

When it came to deciding what paper to use to advertise the splendour of living in Crimson Hill, the obvious choice was Splendorgel.

Located on Sydney’s popular North Shore, Crimson Hill, Lindfield is an exceptional new community offering a mix of architecturally designed homes, modern apartments and spacious land lots.

To assist in promoting this coveted location, Alaina Short, owner and printing specialist from Seed Print Group, was inspired to use Spicers specialty paper Splendorgel to create the property brochure’s folder and cover.

“The creative brief was for a ‘stand out’, quality piece to stir interest in this high-end market,” says Alaina, who guided the design team for the brochure on stocks and finishes. “I’ve used Splendorgel many times, so I was well aware of its super smooth finish and printability.”

Apart from looking incredible, the paper also had to handle specific print dynamics. The property brochure’s folder and four page cover were formulated using Splendorgel 340gsm that had been printed CMYK, and featured a machine varnish plus deboss and a spot High Build UV.

“My client was over the moon with the result. All of the properties were sold off plan in the first two months, and the brochure definitely played a key role in this.

“Splendorgel just worked beautifully on the press,” Alaina continues. “I particularly love the High Build UV as it really gives the impression of bark on a tree, and being that Lindfield is surrounded by National Parks, it just works!”

Draft Magazine issue 005, featuring Brangelina by Jon Kessler

Martin Darby explains how Principal Colour set about printing a high quality project such as Draft Magazine. Which just so happens to be our latest giveaway: read on to find out how you can secure your copy of this rare magazine.

Draft is a beautiful high quality art and photography magazine that you printed between 2005 - 2008. It's aim was to publish previously unprinted work by emerging art practitioners, and it features stunning photographic and illustrative artworks. How did you make sure that these were beautifully presented in print? What techniques do you as a printer have at your disposal to ensure the best quality image representation?

We look at the type of pictures that are required for a particular job and then recommend a screen value (the number of dots per inch) that will produce the best result. We are also able to change the plate output (people would refer to this as a curve) depending on what kind of paper is being used. To give an example, for a job to sell houses at auction the reproduction of the houses might not be the most important aspect of printing - it's more important to print the job quickly. On the other hand we recently produced a poster for the Tate Gallery which had three stages of retouching (that’s adjusting the colour) to make sure the images were as close to the original as possible. We always cater for the individual requirements of each customer.

Ladybird books by Chris Brooks.

Photography by David Spero.

You used Fedrigoni papers in the printing of Draft Magazine. When high quality papers are used for a project how much of an advisory role does Principal Colour take on, and how do you steer a project in the right direction? Or do most designers come to you with an already firm idea of what they would like to use?  

It’s a bit of a mix really – some people have a strong idea of what they want, and some people rely on our expertise to advise them about what would work best. We will always suggest suitable papers for particular job types, for instance the job selling house at auction might require a quick turnaround and minimal outlay – so the job would be printed on a standard silk paper which gives good colour reproduction for a good price. However our recent Tate Gallery job was printed on a top of the range triple coated silk (it literally had three stages of coating) because the accuracy of colour reproduction was far more important than the price of the paper.

Artwork by Anthony Burrill.

Nursing Home by Jim Goldberg.

Photography by Matt Burgess.

Unfortunately Draft is no longer in print - did you notice a big drop off in the printing of this kind of publication during the recession? And how has business picked up since then - what kind of publications are you currently printing, and have their print processes or paper stock options changed in that time to accommodate different finances?

We are printing lots of interesting things at the moment but are awaiting permission to talk about them, so watch this space! 2008 was a massive shock to the print industry and we are still struggling to recover (although we are very happy to be busy at the moment). Since that period designers and customers have generally moved away from specifying particular paper stock in favour of the cheapest approach. I am glad to say that this appears to be changing again, so hopefully this is a sign of green shoots in both our trade and industry as a whole. 

Photography by Evan Brownstein.

Principal Colour have 50 copies of Draft Magazine issue 005 (produced during A/W 2007/08) to give away, each originally worth £15. It's a beautiful feast for the eyes, so why not drop Martin an email to secure your copy?

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