G . F Smith: Lockwood Street Tour

Lockwood Street Entrance

Following the visit to G . F Smith's Paper City, a friend and myself were given the opportunity to have a personal tour of the paper merchant's Lockwood Street premises in Hull. We were guided around the factory by paper consultant Steve Taylor. This site has been home to G . F Smith since 1947 following the destruction of its former Hull and London premises as a result of WWII bombings.

Firstly, we were taken into a room exhibiting a range of packaging, publications, cards and other products which utilise G . F Smith's papers. These included pieces for the likes of Burberry, Mulberry, Glenfiddich, The White Company and Miller Harris amongst others, showing the company as a popular choice among some of the world’s most exclusive beauty, fashion and cosmetics brands.

Then, we passed through the sample room. Here, the swatches found in the Collection swatch book are available in A4 sample sheets, sent directly from the factory on request in every colour, shade, texture and weight from the Collection.

Following the sample room, we entered the factory floor in which all of G . F Smith's standard size stocks are held on pallets. We were even taken up in the lift to see how these were placed/removed during the daily operations of the factory. 

Next, we were introduced to a range of different departments and services provided by G . F Smith, including duplexing, envelopes, and packaging production, as well as the company's 'Make a Book,' 'Make a Frame' and photographic practises

Envelopes

The Hull based paper merchant has a specialist envelope team who produce envelopes both by hand or by machine. The majority of papers in the  G . F Smith Collection can be converted into seven standard envelope styles — DL Wallet, DL Wallet Window, DL Banker, C6, C5, C4 and 155x155mm. Additionally, customers can create their own own hand-made, bespoke envelopes from business card size up to A3. We were informed the envelopes are used by a number of large clients, including the Royal family.

Make a Book

G . F Smith's 'Make a Book' service allows customers to, as the name suggests, have a book made, hand-crafted by a team of skilled binders in Hull, and using the finest materials combined with the latest technology. By using premium quality photographic paper and silver halide printing technology, these books give photographic quality and vivid colour reproduction. Make Book uses Colorplan for the covers and for the endpapers, and you can specify any of 50 colours with a choice of 8 embossings. Additionally, you can personalise your book with foil blocking (available in 7 colours) or debossing on the front cover, back cover or spine. The books are delivered within seven working days of ordering or ten working days if you have personalised your book with foiling or debossing.

Make a Frame

Again, using premium quality photographic paper and silver halide printing technology that gives photographic quality and vivid colour reproduction, G . F Smith's 'Make a Frame' service allows customers to choose from Acrylic and Aluminium Wall Prints or specify one of over fifty Moulding styles with or without Mountboard. Also hand-crafted by a team of skilled framers in Hull, the frames use the finest materials combined with the latest technology. These are delivered within 7 days.

The tour of G . F Smith's premises in Hull was a wonderful opportunity to see how the operation is run, as well as to learn about all of the services they provide - of which there were much more than I had expected. While the tour was a fairly quick walk through of the different areas, it was greatly inspiring to talk to a number of employees, all of whom praised the company and had great pride in what they did there. As a designer very much inspired by print and tactile design, paper is naturally something I hold a keen interest in, and this visit to G . F Smith has only made my passion for paper stronger. I hope to keep this engagement with the paper merchant ongoing as I progress through level 6 and beyond. Steve Taylor supplied his business card at the end of the tour and encouraged this, which was great in regard to developing industry relationships and making contacts.

G . F Smith: Paper City

'In a world of transient communication and fleeting digital memories, paper offers texture and feeling, weight and sensation…'

Yesterday I attended G . F Smith's 'Paper City,' a 10 day celebration of colour and 'the freedom to play' for which leading artists and designers have been invited to play with the most fundamental creative material – paper.

 The event, which forms part of the wider celebrations for Hull as UK City of Culture 2017, has taken over the city's Fruit Market on Humber Street, and exhibits paper installations by some of the most exciting creative minds from the worlds of contemporary art, design and architecture – all using specialist coloured paper from Hull-based paper merchant G . F Smith's very own Colorplan range.

The creatives participating in Paper City are Adam Holloway, Max Lamb, Lazerian, Made Thought, Jacqui Poncelet, Joanna Sands,  Bethan Laura Wood and Richard Woods.

Additionally, the event coincides with G . F Smith's reveal of 'The World’s Favourite Colour.' After a global survey, the paper merchant has found and named the world's favourite colour to be 'Marrs Green.' The Fruit Market has a pop-up shop selling a range of Marrs Green products and collaborative pieces.

Paper City undeniably showcased the versatility of paper as a creative medium, and the breadth of possibility it provides. As a designer with a certain preference for print and tactile design, it was inspiring to see how the different creatives responded to the medium, be it through folding, hanging, or stacking the Colorplan sheets. The craftsmanship of all the featured installations was incredible, almost making it unbelievable that they had been created using only paper. The whole event had a creative energy that will most certainly impact the way I think about paper, as well as other mediums. It can be easy to focus on the limitations of mediums such as paper, though here at Paper City, the focus was firmly on the creative potentials.

Lazerian is a contemporary creative studio that manipulates established design concepts, created by British designer Liam Hopkins. Local Fish relates to Hull’s past and present relationship with the cod. It is made up of a four-metre-long anatomical paper model of a fish, central to the historic fishing industry.

'Local Fish' by Liam Hopkins of Lazerian.

Award winning brand identity development consultancy Made Thought, based in London, created a scale installation symbolising the way that the history of Hull and G . F Smith are interwoven and interlinked.The installation is a huge suspended tapestry of Colorplan paper, handwoven in the G . F Smith factory in Hull by its employees, which makes reference to the jobs, community and relationships that the company has create in the city during their 130-year history.

'The Fabric of Hull' by Made Thought.

For Paper City, Max Lamb has embraced the standardised stock paper sizes and weights produced by G . F Smith to create four pieces which might form a range of Colorplan 'furniture' – developing a potentially new standard weight of paper in the process; 35,000 gsm.

'35,000 GSM' by Max Lamb.

Jacqueline Poncelet's work has been developed through a system of cutting and folding, assembling and placing, using all of the colours in the Colorplan range. The floor-based installation creates a series of interesting and unexpected colour relationships, with intricate and irregular shapes – almost a three-dimensional painting that changes and develops as you move around it.

'Island Life' by Jacqueline Poncelet.

Bethan Laura Wood explores the relationships we make with objects in our everyday lives. Found in the unique location of an old smoke house, Bethan’s 'Paper Seaweed' gently hangs and sways to create a suspended world of colour and shapes. Combining the shapes of British seaweed with details from kite construction, Bethan uses the properties of laminated paper by cutting and twisting to transform flat sheets.

'Seaweed Kites' by Bethan Laura Wood.

Richard Woods’ architectural-scale interventions along Humber Street use standard sheet sizes of Colorplan paper to create graphic brickwork, building 'new' walls in an area of regeneration and redevelopment. The paper is also a material connection to the city and its history, a product that has been a building block of the city.

'Untitled' by Richard Woods.

For Paper City, Joanna Sands created an installation which uses the structural qualities of paper to create gentle curves that travel across the floor, using softer colours to enhance where shapes continue, meet and separate. She was inspired by the quality of light in Hull, reflecting and diffusing between the water, clouds and on to the land itself.

'Untitled' by Joanna Sands.

Apeiron Flow is an installation by Architect Adam Holloway that showcases the endless expressive potential of paper. Using principles inspired by nature to increase its structural stiffness, paper is algorithmically grown and crafted into an expansive and fluid sculptural form.

'Apeiron Flow' by Adam Holloway.

Marrs Green Pop-Up Shop