Four colours carry Pantone Fashion: a hot orange, a magenta pink, a mustard yellow and a pale studio grey. Spread after spread, Izzy Burrin’s fashion final major project gives one model one backdrop, with two portraits side by side inside crisp white borders, so turning the pages is like flicking through a swatch book full of people. On our presses her files became a stapled A5 booklet: 24 inside pages printed on 170gsm gloss, wrapped in a 250gsm gloss cover finished with gloss lamination, four colour throughout.
A white cover that gives nothing away
The cover is a calculated risk. Izzy left it white apart from the title, PANTONE stacked over FASHION in airy, widely tracked serif capitals at the head of the page, so the colour only lands when you open it. Under the studio lights the gloss lamination throws back a soft sheen, and the white stays bright and wipeable.
The board weight was our suggestion. One of Izzy’s quote requests asked for lamination on a lighter 170gsm gloss board, and Mike quoted 250gsm instead, with a note that the cover needed to be “250gsm minimum for lamination”. A heavier board takes the film flat and stops a slim booklet curling at the corners.
Uncoated first, gloss in the end
Izzy’s first two requests through our online quote builder were both uncoated with matt lamination: a 300gsm cover over 115gsm pages, and 170gsm all the way through. She asked us to explain the difference: “Would it be a case that the first one would have a slightly thicker cover to the inside pages and the second one would be the same thickness throughout?” She had read it correctly. Harriet priced both and set out the trade off we explain to every photographer: silk or gloss reproduces a screen image most faithfully, while uncoated feels softer in the hand but soaks up ink and flattens contrast.
A week later Izzy asked for gloss, and for colour blocking that is the paper we would have chosen. Uncoated stock would have dulled that magenta and muddied the orange. On 170gsm gloss the backdrops stay flat, loud and even, and skin keeps its detail. At 170gsm every page carries enough heft to stand up to the cover, so the booklet feels like one considered object instead of stiff card wrapped round flimsy pages.
Two staples and one PDF
Wire stitching suits Pantone Fashion. A pair of wire staples driven through the centre fold holds every sheet, the booklet opens flat across each pair of portraits, and stapling copes with anything from eight pages up to seventy two, provided the total divides by four. At 28 pages including the cover, a glued spine was never on the table, because a glued paperback wants 32 or more inside pages, enough paper to build a 3mm spine.
The binding also decides how you build the file, and this was where Izzy paused. With her artwork nearly finished she asked whether to send “the front cover, front inside cover, back cover and back inside cover as a separate file to the inside pages”. Harriet answered five minutes later. A stapled booklet goes to press as a single PDF, every page on its own and in reading sequence, front cover first and back cover last, since the cover is just the outermost sheet. Only perfect bound books and hardbacks need a separate cover spread built round a spine. Our wire stitching artwork guide shows the page order.
Orange, magenta, mustard and grey
Inside, the layout is strict. Every portrait sits within a white border rather than bleeding off the edge, which frames each colour like a sample and keeps faces well clear of the fold. On the orange spread a model in a patched orange shirt stares down the lens beside a second pose, hands raised to the neck. On the pink, a black feathered jacket flares against magenta. On the yellow, round sunglasses with pale yellow frames and two open palms face a chin in hand, eyes to the ceiling. A dedication comes first: “For my family, thank you for everything. My love for fashion began with you.”
Monday night files, Friday afternoon delivery
The final PDF arrived by WeTransfer on a Monday evening, and an invoice from Mike followed later that night. Izzy paid straight away, then checked on Wednesday morning that it had landed. Mike confirmed it had, and that we were aiming for Friday. The booklets left us on Thursday, and on Friday morning Mike sent the Parcelforce window, between 3 and 4 that afternoon. Izzy’s reply was three words: “Thanks so much!” Mike also asked her to get in touch when her course’s degree show catalogue was ready, because we wanted to print that too.
For a fashion project on a bigger scale, look at Expected, a Northumbria University fashion final major project, and browse our lookbook printing options for shoots of your own. Tell us your colours and your page count, and we will help you pick the paper that does them justice.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
