How it started…
Nobrow started in the winter of 2008 with the aim to provide an independent platform for graphic art, Illustration and art comics in the UK and abroad, to become a leading proponent of quality in book design and a standard bearer for original creative content in print publishing.
Given that the company started both in the midst of the financial crisis (Nov 2008) and in the supposed ‘dying days of print’, our books had to be somehow different. It wouldn’t be enough to champion new artists and content alone, the books themselves had to stand out, to ‘deserve to be printed’.
Over the course of the last few years we have striven to consistently publish books of the highest calibre and quality, both for their form and their content, working with only the best artists and illustrators in the world, whether fresh from art school or from the ranks of well-seasoned veterans. We publish books with their inherent qualities as objects in mind, to that end we do everything in our power to ensure that they look good, smell good and most of all tell great stories!
Part of the way we achieve this is by using only the best materials and printing methods in the design and manufacturing of our books. In fact, our printing methods make our library quite distinctive visually. We use a process called spot-colour printing, whereby pure Pantone colours are combined in separations to create some of the most vibrant and lucid artwork you will ever see in print.
Our Nobrow Press books are printed in runs of anywhere from 1,500 to 6,000 copies and are distributed to the four corners of the Globe. Recently, we launched Nobrow France, where we publish French editions of our most popular books. Hilda et le Géant de la Nuit, our first French language title, has already received widespread approval in the press and even made an appearance on French national television (Arte) at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’ Angoulême. Being at the heart a European company with staff members who are from Greece, Switzerland, England, and France we are multilingual and keen to represent the best in the graphic arts, not only in our home territory, but as far and wide as our capabilities can take us.
We also hand print some books, this falls under the rubric of Nobrow Small Press. The Small Press is our screen printing arm, where we produce books in editions of under 100 copies. In our print studio downstairs, we also work hard to publish art print editions, which we do with only the very best graphic artists in the world, including amongst many others: Jan Van Der Veken, Jon Boam, Ben Newman, Patrick Hruby, Golden Cosmos, Stuart Kolakovic, Gwenola Carrere and Eda Akaltun. All of the prints are numbered and signed/certified by the artists before being released for sale to ensure they are only of the highest production standards.
"I took the time out yesterday to pop along to Nobrow Shop and Gallery space in Old Street yesterday and it didn’t disappoint. Stuffed to the brim with brilliant examples of illustration, story telling and printed objects many of which are printed on-site through Nobrow’s self-publishing outlet. The gallery and shop space are at the front of their offices and with a sneaky peek you can see all the action going on behind the scenes during the day. It’s be really interesting if they did the odd day a year giving a short presentation or tour around their working screen printing rooms as well—maybe one for the future?"
We were advised to look at Nobrow, a publishing company in London, because we'd made this decision to have a space in which our studio would be located upstairs and a shop/gallery space downstairs and the space in which this company work is similar to that. This proves that the idea we have for our own studio space can be successful if we approach it in the correct way because this company is quite well known within the design world and have done really well off a similar idea. Looking at the images of how their shop space is laid out also gives us an idea on the sort of layout that works because it needs to be quite an open space so that everything can be enjoyed to its full potential. Keeping the space quite minimalist looks like the best approach because the work will form the 'decoration' and make the space a lot more exciting. I also really like the idea of a big open window space so that people can see inside and be encouraged to come in to explore further.
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