12 Days of Christmas: Cambridge Imprint

The Selvedge 12 Days of Christmas 2020 competitions are open! From 1 – 12 December you can enter to win each and every one of our 12 prizes by visiting our competition page. Every day while entries are open we will look at each prize in more detail. Today it’s the Cambridge Imprint Printing Block Set – we have three to give away, worth £150 each. Cambridge Imprint is a small paper-making business in Cambridge, England, designing and printing patterned paper. They are known for their beautiful colours, joyful illustration and typography, a lively, hand-drawn aesthetic, and meticulous attention to detail.

Cambridge Imprint is a design partnership of painter Claerwen James, textile artist Jane Powell and ceramicist Ali Murphy. They use simple hand-stencilled screen-printing to create their original designs, and spot-colour lithography to replicate that studio process in manufacturing the final paper product. The result is a matte paper of unparalleled intensity and clarity of colour. “We are evangelists for paper and the wonderful versatility of this ancient material. The tactile satisfaction of making a mark with pencil, ink, or paint; the way it absorbs and holds colour; the way it can be folded, sculpted, cut and glued; its surprising tensile strength and durability.”

We have three of their large printing block sets to give away, each worth £150, containing eight ink pads, twenty printing blocks and blank cards to print on, all in a Cambridge Imprint patterned paper-covered box. The blocks range from simple hand-drawn spots and circles, through flowers, leaves and moons, to folk art-inspired patterned birds, stars and horses. They work together in combination and are simple but powerful tools for the exploration of repetition and rhythm in design.

For more information visit www.cambridgeimprint.co.uk

To enter the 12 Days of Christmas competitions, visit Selvedge competitions. Entries close 12 December.