Wim Crouwel Reprint
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- Jaline0
Great pictures.
- Spookytim0
Blam, I like you purely because your posts are easily much much longer than mine.
Respect.
Oh, and... "tl;dr"
- mimeartist0
Received my tube of delight this morning, worth every penny for the sweat that went into making it... just have to get it framed now
- Blam0
Helv
Its difficult to answer that one really as I didn't set the price structure for the 3 items you use as an example.
These books all belong to the designers who created them and they are their own personal file copies, so to some degree they are the price which the owner is willing to accept to part with it. I personally had nothing to do with the pricing structure of these items so I am not in a position to really comment on why, but not wising to duck your question I will try to give you some relevant information and please bear in mind it takes a lot of time to answer responses of this nature and not wishing to spend my lifetime on blogs or getting embroiled in lengthy dialogues about every single detail in how Blanka operates. Lets just say if you like what we do, then thank you, if you don't like what we do or what we sell, remember that thee is no one forcing you into buying from us and you have the last laugh by not giving us your custom.
Yes admittedly Process of printing was given away to a very select and lucky few people who were valuable clients of Team Impression, I myself was also one of those lucky enough to be given a free copy of it, but this particular book is at least 5 years old now, they were very beautifully designed and printed and obviously cost a considerable amount to manufacture, they were printed to a very short and limited print run and they they were never made commercially available anywhere and hence were very much sought after as an item. Now that they are in limited numbers and are becoming rarer to find there is more of a premium attached to this item and this appears now to be reflected in the price, its unfair to compare pricing to an item which was available several years ago at a much lower figure to the price it is set at today.
I was lucky enough to buy Wim Crouwel Mode en Module, ECM - Sleeves of desire and Karel Martins Printed Matter book at the time they went on sale and the fact that they now sell for over 20 times the original cover price, is just a fact of life really. Would i pay the price that they go for today, in these 3 instances, yes, because they are beautiful items. If you want a copy of something rare and are willing to pay the price then fair enough, if you think is overpriced or you don't love it enough then don't buy it. There are things that I personally would and wouldn't pay a lot of money for. I recently bought a copy of the 3 issues of Der Spiele from the Munich Olympics 1972 Organization report, and I paid quite a considerable amount of money for it, it's probably the most I have ever paid for a book. Some people would look at it and say it was overpriced in comparison to its original price [was it sold or was it given away to the Olympic members, who knows, I digress], but each to their own, i think it was worth every penny I spent on it and it gives me much joy to look at it. The same is true of my copy of Graphis Diagrams I also paid a premium for this and I have enjoyed every second of reading it over the many years i have taken it down from my book shelf.
Blanka has always tried to source and find print which isn't widely available elsewhere. We look to get items which are now out of print or are in short supply, like the Spin annual report which are beautifully designed reference points and make them available to other designers, but unfortunately because of this, there is also a slight premium involved in working this way, after all its not like you can log on to amazon or go into Waterstones to pick up a copy. And finally, with regards to the This Studio posters, like you say it is priced very reasonable and its a very beautiful poster, its nearly a third of the price of the Design Project book, yet the book, which you deem to be overpriced, has sold probably 4 times as many copies as the poster, yeah I know, go figure! So hopefully you can see or understand how hard it can be to second guess what will and wont sell and what value to attach to every item. We always try to make or sell beautiful items [albeit hard to find elsewhere] but we do think long and hard about every item and how we price things accordingly. Each item is different either because of the designers involved, the rarity of the item, the year that the item was originally produced and also the price it costs to manufacture, so each of these variables determines what value is attached to the final thing.
I hope this covers your points, sorry is not a more succinct answer but as you can see there are many factors to consider when pricing an item and I hope that we get it right nearly all of the time, As I said above in my initial post we do get lots of positive emails and we do have a steady amount of sales which tends to suggest we are getting it right in most of the things we do, Thanks for your feedback and hope this answers your questions.
- Very well put dude, not that you should have to justify it on here.Sane_Six
- uncle_helv0
Blam,
Thank you for that post regarding the poster (and the long painstaking process) and let me just begin by saying I think in the main, what you do is great, I like some of the coloboration projects you have organised, and I appreciate the hard work and effort it must take to do what you do, however I find it hard to agree that the pricing at Blanka is anything but a bit odd, for example...Design Project - Process of Printing (£55) — I got a copy of this from a Team Rep gratis, so where on earth did a cover price of £55 come from?
Dalton Maag - Type Specimen Book (£40) — If memory services me right I paid £5-£10 for this direct from Dalton Maag, and isn't it still available from DM?
Spin - Strategic Rail Authority Report (£40) — Isn't this an Annual Report? so how can it have any retail value (other than that it's been designed by Spin) or any value at all to anyone but a shareholder?...but then the A1 poster by This Studio (£20) which put into context seems well underpriced, but in reality is probably the most reasonably priced item! (why is this so cheap in comparison?)
Sorry to bring this up again, but you have to appreciate why people may initially feel (without explanation) that the pricing is just plucked out of the air!
Respect.
- you have done a lot of investigating this morning!ian
- Not really ian, I just have a few bits of what they sell, and I didn't pay anywhere near what Blanka charge!uncle_helv
- gramme0
Now the Vignelli print, that's something I would've bought. Beautiful.
- Leigh0
I'm not sure if you saw the reprint New York City Subway Diagram by Vignelli Designs Inc the other week.
500 prints signed for the price of $300, It was online for one day and it sold out.
I tried to purchase it but they wouldn't ship to the uk... anyway i've now been looking on ebay to purchase this print and one went for $689
http://cgi.ebay.com/2008-NYC-Sub…
and another went for $732
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vignelli-NYC…
so for me this Vormgevers reprint for £100 is cheap as chips!
- Duane0
Well done Blam! I've already purchased one, but this write up makes me even happier that I did. You should be commended for your perseverance and the careful attention that was paid to the details.
Coincidentally, just a day or so before Blanka announced this poster, I happened to see an original in the Architecture & Design exhibit on the 4th floor at the MoMA in NYC. I'm not sure if it's part of the permanent collection but it reappears there often. The fact that it was in MoMA let me know how hard it would be to obtain an original. See image below from Xavier Encinas Flickr stream.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rum…
The poster employed a grid that continued to be used by the museum for designing posters and catalogues for nearly 25 years. Crouwel had the grid sheets printed in advance in a light grey - so for the poster he made the lines visible and created the letterforms inside the grid line. The systems he used are quite fascinating. You can see some of the resulting layouts below.
http://www.blanka.co.uk/Design/W…
http://blogs.walkerart.org/desig…
- Blam0
Firstly, thanks for everyone's positive comments on this poster. We have recieved lots of emails from people who have bought this already and who are happy that we have managed to persuade the designer to make it available again. I have noticed that there are a few comments on this post regarding the pricing of this item. I do understand your points that £100 for a poster is a lot of money for some people. I myself would have to think long and hard about spending a £100 on a poster as opposed to putting food on the table to feed my family so I understand some people's frustration on the price of this item.However let me try to explain. If you were to try and buy an original copy of Vormgevers, it would cost you in excess of £1000 and you would probably have to spend 18 months of scavenging, if not longer, to find a copy of it. When you did find a copy of it you would then become embroiled in a bun fight or bidding war to secure owning a copy, believe me as I speak from experience. I also want to share with you the process we have had to go through to make this happen. When we were originally granted permission by Wim Crouwel to produce this poster it was impossible, at the time, to access the original artwork so Wim suggested the only route available was to redraw it on our computer. This would have been a nice solution as, with modern advances in technology, it would have been a relatively easy process to manage, much simpler than the problem Wim faced in 1968 of drawing this with a rotring pen and a parallel motion. After some consideration, it was felt that this would not be a true reproduction of the poster as the original has certain hand drawn inconsistencies such as pen skips and line width differences and other subtle yet beautiful imperfections which all make up part of the thumbprint of the original and are significant in making it the truly original and unique poster that it is. So we decided rather than just rushing this poster out, we would source the original and meticulously recreate the poster exactly as it was intended by the designer and not make a cheap watered down homogenized and sterile version of what I personally consider to be a design classic.
After 15 months of trying to locate a copy of the poster we finally succeeded in finding an original where it would be possible to restore the poster back to the condition it is now in. This process has taken us to Wales twice to find a camera capable of making a reproduction of this item. The first scan of was a 300mb grey scale image but it did not contain enough of the information of the very fine detail of the poster so we returned to Wales again to have a 700mb scan of the image made. This involved a 700 mile round trip to ensure that this was carried out in the precise manner we needed.
After the scan was made, it was necessary to retouch some of the vertical lines in the black area of the print which meant masking out each individual line by hand, this involved creating over 1000 masks so that we could make the line printable again [due to dot gain ink spread on the original]. We also we had to retain any of the imperfections and character of each individual line. This process took approximately four hours every day for three weeks to give us a final print ready original. We ran over 20 proofs during this process matching it to the original print and ensuring that we had an exact replica of the item.
Finally after 18 months of wanting to make this item available, we sent the finished proof to Mr Crouwel in Holland who informed us he was truly happy with the original and that we had retained many of the hand created features of the original. This done, we had to now decide on how to edition the poster and how to price it. As I have said above at the top of this email, we think long and hard about how much we charge for every item on Blanka, as it mortally wounds me when we are accused of being overpriced rip off merchants. It is my personal desire to bring great work to people who truly appreciate it and I get a lot of happiness out of doing this from the very kind emails I receive thanking me for my endeavors to make these type of things happen. We also have a company philosophy where any profits we make we share equally with the artists involved and I believe this is a good thing as the people who buy our posters are not only getting enjoyment out of owning something beautiful to look at but they are also investing back into an industry which I strongly believe in. I was a practicing graphic designer for 15 years and I stand beside this ethos passionately about promoting good work and passing money back to the artists within the industry. Also when pricing our items, we also take into consideration what the current market price is and also what is a fair price comparison for our items. As an example, I will give you a couple of comparisons - the First Peter Saville poster which he designed for Factory records was reprinted a couple of years ago. The edition of this poster was in 500 units and this was priced at £100, the 500 units sold out very quickly - you can probably pick up an original, albeit very rare, for about £600. As a second example, Jamie Reid regularly re prints and re editions his design of Never mind the bollocks - Sex Pistols poster. These are usually in editions of 200 and are priced at £500. When the edition sells out, the artist relicenses it in another colour and then sells another edition of the item. Again, you can collect an original depending on its condition for £500 - £750. You may be able to get a cheaper version on ebay but then can you be absolutely sure of its authenticity or even the condition it is in?
Bearing all of this in mind, I think Vormgevers is a much older poster and, due to its age and the value with which it is regarded, is probably a rarer item to find. We could have mass marketed this poster, brought the price down and flooded the market with posters but we have carefully considered making a proper size edition so that we can make it available to a limited amount of people who greatly desire it but also not to detract or devalue from the very few people who are lucky enough to own a very rare £1000 original of this poster. After this edition is sold out, it will be no more. So for those who want a copy, get it while you can and for those who deem it too expensive or don't like it then thats fine too.
To summarise, I think the pricing structure on this item to be completely fair when compared with the pricing of other items within the industry. I sincerely do think we have structured this exactly right. In the first 48 hours, it sold just over 40 copies making it one of our most successful items so i think I have to look at this rather than the criticism or cynicism or whatever you wish to call it and take strength from the numerous emails I have received for fighting slowly and carefully to make this happen rather than be disheartened by those who knock what Blanka does. I hope that at least a few of you have taken the time to read this and have a better understanding and appreciation of what we try to achieve and also how carefully and diligently we work to bring you beatiful print to enjoy. Rant over, thanks for listening, Blam at Blanka
- Appreciate the explanation.Jaline
- that is some lord of the rings type shit... crazy.. thanks for the effort and keep up the good work...neue75_bold
- When you take a step back and don't project hate, your explanation posts are fantastic.flavorful
- Thanks for the back story, it really does give it even more character - which I probably didn't think possible before, haha.flavorful
- neue75_bold0
my colleague saw him yesterday morning in a bar, he texted me and asked "Is Wim Crouwel still alive? If so, he's sitting at the next table and I fear he doesn't have much time left."
Probably right though, even in Heletica he looked like he weighed about 30 kilos...
I think he's been one of the most influential european designers of our time, a majority of the great UK studios of this day and age have been majorly influenced by his work and approach. Like him or not, his work has proved more relevant now and when he was active, especially in the mid-60's with Total Design, than most...
- jamble0
I really don't see what's so impressive about that poster.
- mimeartist0
i got the idea mag with him in it last week... and that was £32.50 for a magazine! Worth it though as it has loads of stuff in it
- ha! i bought that yesterday from magma.Leigh
- I have that too James it cost me £25, admittedly expensive, but I see it as more book than mag!uncle_helv
- Jaline0
Whatever. It's like any seemingly over-priced piece of art. It is worth millions to someone.
- Yaff0
yep, he's great and a master of his time. but, fuck paying 100 quid for a reprint of a poster.
- gramme0
meh
- uncle_helv0
Put him into context though gramme... what he was creating was pretty avant garde, compared to the apparent sterile, austere design of the International Style of that time.
He took the spirit of modernism and fused it with typographic experimentation... functionalism and aesthetics in perfect harmony.
A true L E G E N D!
- gramme0
Call me tasteless, but I just never really picked up what Crouwel was putting down. Semi-legible, grid-locking, geometric typography has never done anything for me.
Now our friend janne, he's a zebra of a different stripe altogether.
- drgs0
i dont see whats so extraordinary about it
- In it's day it was (and still is) probably the embodiment of Modernist graphic designuncle_helv
