A dandelion head, a stem of wild grass bowing under its seeds. The plants in Old Kent Road Botanical grew along one of London's most polluted roads, from the central reservation to the edges of a Lidl car park, and photographer Max Catterall lifted each one onto a pale grey backdrop as if it were a rare specimen. The book is his collaboration with poet Jack Emsden. We printed this botanical photobook at A5 with a 3mm perfect bound spine: 32 inside pages of 115gsm uncoated in full colour, inside a solid yellow cover printed in ink on 300gsm uncoated board and matt laminated.
Citrine paper or citrine ink?
Within the hour of our first quote, Max replied with the question that shaped the cover. He wanted solid yellow with black type, so should we print the yellow or start from yellow paper? Harriet explained both routes. He ordered GF Smith Colorplan samples, settled on Citrine at 270gsm, and the quote that came back sat far above the rough guide Harriet had given. "These are dramatically higher than I was expecting!" he wrote, and he was right to ask.
The reason applies to any short run. GF Smith sells Colorplan in packs of 200 sheets that cannot be split, so a small job pays for the whole pack, and the sheets have to be specially treated before they will take ink on our digital press. Spread across a large run, that cost evens out. On a short first edition it can outweigh the printing itself. Harriet suggested printing the citrine in four colour onto our house uncoated board instead, and offered cover proofs to tune the yellow. Max's answer the next day: "Cover stock it is then!"
Thirty two pages on a 3mm spine
Max first favoured staples and moved to perfect binding once he saw the comparison quote. Thirty two inside pages is our minimum for perfect binding and gives a 3mm spine, square and tidy, though too slim to carry a title, which needs about 5mm. The front does the talking instead, with the title stacked in tall black capitals on that flat yellow.
Inside, 115gsm uncoated suits these photographs. The grey backdrops sit flat and calm on the page, and the green of a grass stem settles into the fibre of the sheet, the way a field notebook feels in the hand. Silk would have pushed the greens brighter and cooler, and lost that quiet, gathered quality. Matt lamination over the printed yellow stops the cover scuffing once it is on a bookshop shelf.
A first botanical photobook, approved before lunch
"It's my first book foray," Max told us, so Harriet offered a physical proof. He chose to go straight to the run, exported his PDF again with crop marks and sent it on the Thursday. The PDF proof reached him on Friday morning and he came back with one sharp question: a full page image on page 29 spilled into the bleed of page 28. Mike explained that anything beyond the trim line on the facing page is cut away, so nothing shows twice. Max approved the proof fifty minutes later, the books were finished on the Tuesday and DPD delivered them to Max on Wednesday afternoon.
For a plant photobook that did keep a coloured board, see Plant Portraits by Jerome Toole, bound in Colorplan Factory Yellow. Our photobook printing page covers sizes and stocks, and our cover template help for perfect binding explains building artwork around a 3mm spine. Got a run of pictures that wants to be a book? Email the file over and ask for coloured paper and printed colour priced side by side.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
