Fedrigoni UK launches annual calendar harnessing the power of generative design
Paper Solutions Design Solutions Print Solutions
Fedrigoni UK has partnered with design studio TM and printer FE Burman, to produce its 366 2024 calendar.
Since the initial launch in 2017, the company has collaborated with design studio TM (TsevdosMcNeil) to unite creatives across the UK for the annual publication. This year's partnership with printer FE Burman uses the latest HP Indigo digital print technology. The technology has allowed 731 creatives to harness the power of generative design — meaning every single design submitted to the project looks different in each book.
Fedrigoni 366 commemorates the 2024 leap year with a generative design created by creative coder and designer Oswin Tickler using HP Spark. Printed on Sirio Ultra Black in white and one special colour, the prints have been tipped in by hand to each copy.
Assigned to one of two palettes (orange or green) designers were invited to consider how shuffling a range of colours could influence their design. While they could use the full palette of ten colours, it was up to each designer to decide how many in total would be used in their own design. Used for the first time at this unprecedented scale, the HP Mosaic tool applied algorithms to randomly shuffle colours within each design to make different combinations in each book.
Danny McNeil, creative director, at TM, said: ‘There is something really special about the link between all the designs this year. The restrictions around colour mean that there is a consistent visual thread that runs through all entries.’
Beyond this, a generative code has been used to randomly shuffle colours in every other part of the book – from the outer jacket to the inner divider pages, no colours are the same from one book to another. These designs are printed on a range of specially treated white papers from Fedrigoni’s Digital for HP Indigo printing collection.
Ambra Fridegotto, marketing manager, Fedrigoni, explained that the calendar is ‘known for its sense of community and a creative outlet for those who take part. To have been able to extend this invitation to over 60 creatives from 19 countries across the globe has been amazing. Digital printing is fast and efficient, but we wanted to show how it can also be incredibly creative and diverse, both with the content and with the paper selection.’
She continued, ‘We have a swatch dedicated to stocks suitable for HP Indigo printing, which makes the paper selection process much easier. The hardest part for us was narrowing down which papers to use but we managed to choose a variety of white stocks with different shades, textures, and features. I also love the small surprise we added for the leap year using Sirio Ultra Black.’
Ade Onabanjo, director, FE Burman, commented: ‘We are delighted to have been involved in this boundary breaking production. The complexity of handling over two million files speaks for itself, but more broadly it demonstrates the ability of the industry, to harness both design skills and the latest algorithmic software, collaboratively to produce innovative, imaginative products.’
Profits from sales this year will be donated to Save The Children.
