OUGD504 - Studio Brief 01 - Stock

For my publication I started to consider which stock would be appropriate to use.

'Gloss is considered better suited to full-colour reproduction of images, but it's shine can interfere with the readability of the text. For this reason a matt stock offers a workable compromise when reproducing both image and text.' - Ambrose / Harris

4 different types of stock were experimented with in the making of my publication. After visiting Fred Aldous and realising that most of the stock they had was thicker than 120gsm it soon became apparent that this stock would not be suitable for the inside pages of my publication. It was also fairly expensive at £3 or more per A2 sheet. However they did have a lot of stock that I could potentially use for the cover. 

Going back to the digital print room at uni I decided to do a couple of test prints with the satin, glossy, matte and recycled papers. 

Satin - High quality paper with clean, crisp, bright finish. Unfortunately the drawback with this paper was that it doesn't print double sided meaning it would not be suitable for my publication. This type of stock would be suitable for photo books or one off wall prints. 

Glossy - The glossy paper was 80gsm so quite flimsy and thin and seemed like it would appear cheap when used in a publication. You could also see the images from the other side of the paper coming through. If it had been a bit thicker it would have been more appropriate for this publication, however as I wanted it to have a more quality and aesthetically pleasing feel for my publication I decided against using this stock. 

Matt - This was a lot more durable and gave a nicer finish. The images did not come through the paper onto the other side when printed back to back and they appeared glossy on the paper. The thicker stock also felt more high end and nicer to flick through. The bright white paper didn't discolour the images making them appear crisp and bright. 

Recycled - This paper had a slight yellow tint to it which made my images go an off greeny colour. It was also very thin and creased easily. It did not give a good finish and looked like it would make the publication look cheap and tacky. 

Following this research I decided to use the 120gsm matt white paper for my publication as it was the most suitable paper that the college produced for the design and did make the images look bright and engaging. If the book was going into an actual industry standard print run the design does lend itself well to this kind of paper so the stock would remain the same, if not slightly more satin.