From our very first conversation about the printing of John Madere: Portraits of Design, printer Sandy Alexander took great care to consider every detail and anticipate every challenge before we got on press. Photographers work in the RGB (red-green-blue) world, which is a very broad spectrum capable of capturing nuances within every tonal range. When a printer converts an image to CMYK (cyan-magenta-yellow-black) for color printing, all the tonal “information” is compressed. The effect can be somewhat muddy or plugged up if the printer doesn’t make adjustments to compensate for this. On this project, Sandy Alexander needed to work with John Madere’s photos at full size and also with miniature versions, which I’ll get to.
Communication is key, because the photographer’s intent may be open to interpretation. Art Bush, director of Business Development at Sandy Alexander, has technical finesse plus an artistic sensibility within his soul. He studied photography early in his career, and this shows in his questions and his solutions. Bush and Larry Westlake, executive vice president at Sandy Alexander, were confident that the piece could be printed straight CMYK on Kromekote — no tricks, no touchplates, no fluorescent inks. We did not even do a press proof, because they felt their proofing system provided an accurate indicator.
What a phenomenal press check! The images were absolutely jumping off the paper. It was amazing to see. Even the printer was excited. We had several first-sheet OKs, meaning no adjustments at all were required. Pam McGuire, Print Production manager from Mohawk, kept writing “First Sheet OK” on the sheets, which is a big point of pride in the pressroom.
The cover is printed on Kromekote C1S, meaning that the paper is cast- (triple) coated on one side, matte- (single) coated on the other. The outside cover is printed on the cast-coated side. The inside front cover is simply introductory text reversed out of a double-hit black solid. The type is Bodoni, and the printer — and the paper! — held the thin serifs beautifully. The inside back cover also has a solid black background, showing thumbnail-size “reductions” of John Madere’s photos. If the images had really just been reduced, they would have lost their clarity. Art Bush was masterful at opening the photos up to retain the maximum detail. “John’s Notes” appear under each photo, reversed out in very small Helvetica. The type looks remarkably crisp.
The printer suggested a Soft Touch aqueous coating for the inside covers. I thought this was brilliant, but I was concerned that it wouldn’t be possible to get a dramatic effect on the C1S. It worked beautifully.
What more can I say? Sandy Alexander’s attention to detail, and Kromekote’s extraordinary printing fidelity, made the press check unbelievably easy. Even the pressmen who have “seen it all” were excited by the results.
Lynda Decker has been president and CEO of Decker Design in Manhattan since 1996. She is so glad she accompanied John Madere to see Stefan Sagmeister’s exhibition at Deitch gallery two years ago.
You can order your very own copy of John Madere: Portraits of Design right here. You can enjoy John Madere’s new blog right here.
