OFFSET are delighted to have G . F Smith as a partner for 2016 with an exhibition showcasing their catalogues over the last years. Attendees will find its location on the first floor mezzanine where staff from G . F Smith will gladly take you through the displays. We hope you enjoy this fascinating archive.

When George Frederick Smith set up his small paper merchant G . F Smith in 1885, little did he realise then the impact that the marketing of his growing fine paper collection would have on generations of graphic designers over the next 130 years. Paper samples then would be loose sheets simply marked with the name and weight of the paper. This way of promoting paper to customers was how most paper mills and stockists would try to encourage sales but through a journey to America and a twist of fate, G . F Smith were to become synonymous with the art of fine paper promotion. In 1890 in Springfield, Massachusetts a gentleman named Horace Moses who was the president of the Mittinigue Paper Company was producing an ever growing range of beautiful papers with fine textures, deep hues, deckle edges and rich colours.

Inspired by events such as the World Fair in Chicago in 1893, which gave impetus to fashion, textiles and architecture, Mr Moses saw great opportunities for his papers in all kinds of customers’ advertising material, but realised he needed a dramatic demonstration of their potential. He turned to a young designer and printer by the name of Will Bradley who owned the nearby Wayside Press and commissioned him to produce working demonstrations of his paper collections and with that step, Mittinigue Paper were the first paper mill in the world to initiate contemporary paper promotion and Will Bradley went on to become one of America’s leading designers and typographers. With his passion for Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement, Bradley’s designs encompassed decorative borders, whimsical figure illustrations and inspiration from French Renaissance drawings and Japanese woodcuts, and a myriad of beautiful sample books were produced to market the mill’s paper products.

Back in England, George Frederick had knowledge of these new and exciting papers and dispatched his son Thomas Brooke Smith, a salesman, to the USA to try to secure an agency to bring these papers to the UK, but Mittinigue sold via a merchant in Berlin, and access to Horace Moses proved difficult.   Undeterred, on a Sunday morning prior to his journey home, Thomas decided to visit the Moses household where he indeed, (perhaps through his initiative and persistence) achieved a short meeting with Mr Moses. The conversation was not going in his favour when suddenly a lady came into the room (Mr Moses’s wife) distressed to announce that an Aria they had arranged for guests at the local church that night was doomed as the organist had taken ill. This was Thomas’s perfect chance…he himself was an accomplished organist and offered to step in; the evening was a great success and Thomas was invited to stay at the Moses residence until his departure, with the promise to stock Mittinigue paper in England. Success followed success and this relationship exists until this day. Over the next century, G . F Smith would stock and market these American papers (Mittinigue would evolve into the world famous Strathmore Paper Company) alongside their own British produced paper ranges.

A whole procession of gifted artists including some of the world’s most revered designers such as Milton Glaser, Paul Rand and Saul Bass would lend their pen to sumptuous paper books of significant inspiration and these would be eagerly sought after by designers looking to specify wonderful paper. Over the years G . F Smith amassed a huge archive and in 2009 made the decision to take these hidden treasures to the design community. An exhibition of museum style display cases featuring decades of loveliness in paper toured the UK and Ireland (and most recently Milan). Designers and students were invited to exhibitions and talks and this potent mix of design for paper promotion, from the decorative styles so prominent at the beginning, to traditional, modern, post modern and contemporary styles of every description has given the creative community a peek into a beautiful past, present and future heritage. The desirability of G . F Smith’s fine paper collection is thus assured.