Kingsbury Press has produced the flagship commemorative publication for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, being the Official Platinum Jubilee Pageant Commemorative Album. This has been published by St James House group, a publisher specialising in high quality special editions. It has previously worked with Kingsbury Press on one of these publications, leading to the choice of production partner this time around.
The 688pp cased bound book contains photos from across the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, some black and white from the earlier years through the dubious quality of some of the colour imagery in the middle part of the period through the the high quality digital images from recent years.
SJH art director Anton Jacques says: “The challenge has been to get a good balance. The cover image, a photograph by Cecil Beaton, is a good example. We used RM Studios to retouch the scans to get the image to how it would have looked, then to get it approved. There was a lot of work involved in the images.”
The project began more than a year ago when the first selection of images from a wide range of sources was made. These were divided into decades then narrowed down to make sure that none was too repetitive. ”Kingsbury was fantastic, living up to their The Art of Print ethos. They had done a fantastic job for us on the History of Parliament book, so we knew they would be perfect for this book.”
Others had quoted for the job, with paper an element that a year ago would not have been considered an issue. The inside pages are printed on 150gsm silk rather than the 130gsm that the publisher has previously used. “We did not want to have any show through from the images used, and wanted to use a brilliant white paper so the images would jump off the page,” says Jacques. “We needed to do a bit of searching to find the right paper.”
As well as the so called standard edition, there is a limited VIP edition with the book presented in a clam shell presentation case. Kingsbury needed several iterations to test the five piece case to ensure it would be strong enough to hold the 5kg volume. There was also extensive testing of the foils and cover materials to be used says deputy general manager Sarah Kilcoyne-Guilliam. Once the final PDFs were received, it took a week and half to print the book. “It was a major part of our production for the last month,” she says. “There were different aspects to the project. As well as the book itself there was a carry case, guide to the pageant and a bookmark.
“We had to demonstrate to the publisher how we would plan the project and get the rowers through. This is one job where the delivery time was not moveable.”
The bookmark used a seed impregnated paper so that it can be planted by the reader to deliver a showing of wild flowers. The chosen paper is also an FSC grade, while Kingsbury’s factory is at the cutting edge of sustainability.
The aim was to get deliveries to central London for the launch event on Sunday. Practicalities meant shifting the delivery destination from The Mall to one of London’s leading hotels.
