The smallest printed brochure

„The smallest printed brochure by KOPA so far – an original art project“

Brochures in the printing house KOPA are frequent, and there are not many questions or doubts related to its production. Many would agree that it is a perfect format for art magazines, advertising publications and other projects, regardless of their purpose. It can be said that brochures are very frequent at KOPA and its production is hardly surprising. Yet this time, it was a little bit different because the exceptionally small format of the brochure caused some challenges.

Size of the brochure: 60x54 mm;

Specifications of the brochure: 64 pages + a cover, perfect-bound brochure, uncoated paper

Design Week, the most important design event of the year, took place recently. For the eleventh year in a row, in the middle of spring, artists gather in the streets of the biggest Lithuanian cities. Designers’ ideas that lie somewhere get to see the daylight, and everyone has a chance to see the best, most beautiful, most artistic, and most functional objects made by Lithuanian artists. The concept of design is very broad, and it has long been agreed that it is much more than the external look of the product. It is a separate direction of thought which includes form, function, aesthetics, philosophy, and lifestyle.

KOPA’s attitude towards design is serious. Sometimes clients come to us because of original projects which, in terms of technology, are not simple, yet it often becomes an inspiring challenge for all the members of our team. The same happened this time.  Svetlana Batura is a great photographer and dancers, happy newlyweds, characters of mysterious and fantastic stories, as well as theater actors are captured by her camera lenses. Works of the photographer, to some extent, are mysterious, elegant and clearly express emotions. Sometimes Svetlana defines her works by an original term, poetography. This is seen in her photos as they appear and exist on the edge between photography and poetry. 

This special feature is seen in the newest project by the artist, and KOPA’s team helped to materialize it. During the collaboration a rather untraditional, yet very interesting, publication came about – the smallest, perfect-bound brochure ever produced by KOPA. 

The project had to succeed from the very beginning as there was not enough time for experimenting or reprinting of the brochure because of the planned presentation at the Design Week. Thus, every detail had to be planned in advance and every risk had to be evaluated before preparing the files for printing. The first important step was to choose the proper type of paper and its thickness. In this case, paper had to help to express the main artist’s conception of the brochure, that is, to recreate the dance movement when turning the pages. When choosing the right paper, we looked at many publications printed on coated and uncoated paper of various thickness, however, we thought that the most stable paper was the uncoated one and we assumed this would give us a desired result. 

Movements from Tintinno Media Production House on Vimeo.

The second challenge was the preparation of a very small publication which did not meet any of the minimal parameters of the machines. In this case, we had to be creative and thoroughly think of how we would fold, bound, and cut the brochures. 

And, of course, another challenge was the coating of high-quality monochrome black background on uncoated paper. Here, our newest printing machine, Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106 5 LE-UV, showed its advantages. Because of fast drying, the dye did not soak through paper, therefore, the image remained brighter, and we were able to cut and fold the brochures instantly (in comparison to the standard offset, this would be possible only in 3 or 4 days). 

Brochures of five types was one of the focus of the Design Week events. Svetlana Batura opened her exhibition – a dance-photography series which focused on the movement, body plastic, and structure. The exhibition included a few dimensions: photography exposition, a performance by a dancer from the dance theater AURA, and the brochures printed at the KOPA printing house. Two of the brochures represented classical ballet, while the other three reflected modern dance. The author of the publication had this idea when she was reminiscing of the books she had drawn in childhood, which was like a first look at the origin of animation which makes objects move. With the touch of our hands, photos of the animated dances also showed how much strength an outwardly simple movement needs. The beauty of dance unfolds only because of serious efforts and training.

We are glad that we have overcome these challenges and made this project happen. And the smile of the author and kind words to the KOPA crew prove this. The artist has plans to present the publication in a festival in Germany. We wish Svetlana more interesting and creative projects in the future and to be always inspired!