I grew up in a family printing company and we were surrounded by trade publications and product catalogs - ranging from the paper industry to digital imaging (way back in the early 90s!).
Many of them were the usual sort of drab industry stuff you might expect in a non-sexy dying industry like printing. But a few of them, particularly from paper companies, were often beautiful works of art with some of the best graphic design I've ever seen combined (obviously) with absolutely immaculate selection of paper products throughout the publications. Just beautiful stuff.
A few of them were so great I read and reread them as a child just for the visual awe they inspired in me.
Sadly most of that stuff was tossed over the years, but I'd love to see even a digital archive of some of that material.
Wow. This was decades ago and I'm not even sure some of the companies are around, but I looked up current paper companies and the only one that seems to register is Hammermill which looks like was absorbed into International Paper Company and maybe Strathmore?
To be honest, I was young and most likely came into contact with brands of paper rather than the manufacturers and the rise of personal computing basically annihilated a lot of the industry.
I wish I even knew what the book type was called, they sat somewhere in between swatch books and manufacturer trade magazines. They'd come out once or twice a year, have a variety of paper styles bound together in books of all kinds of sizes, and usually had beautiful somewhat non-sequitur photography or graphic art throughout to demonstrate what printed material would look like on the paper, often with a smattering of very high quality text. The sort of bizarre juxtaposition of these paper products and this beautiful graphic design was an appeal to itself.
My favorite book was one that featured photographs of ancient and vintage childrens toys and games (I was a kid) and some informational text about each.
The contents of the older one has the DNA of the books I remember. The same kind of rambling text, then the paper samples with the state of the art printing and graphic design. By the 1980s these had taken on a more pop art style that was a bit like a more serious and toned down early Wired magazine house style.
Many of them were the usual sort of drab industry stuff you might expect in a non-sexy dying industry like printing. But a few of them, particularly from paper companies, were often beautiful works of art with some of the best graphic design I've ever seen combined (obviously) with absolutely immaculate selection of paper products throughout the publications. Just beautiful stuff.
A few of them were so great I read and reread them as a child just for the visual awe they inspired in me.
Sadly most of that stuff was tossed over the years, but I'd love to see even a digital archive of some of that material.