A new plan for 2024

 

 

As we launch the first ever Penfold Press Planner we can confidently assure you that there isn’t really anything else like it out there. Dan Bugg (Mr Penfold Press) initially had an idea for a planner many years ago. For a while he exercised his right to talk about something for long enough that it would surely happen. Then, at the beginning of 2023, he found himself with enough time to begin the process to actually make one. Dan fondly remembers using a planner at home when his kids were young. ‘We had one blu-tacked to the kitchen wall and the kids would write on it and we would write on it. In my mind this planner comes about from memories of that time.’

Being a sensible chap who likes to work collaboratively whenever he can, Dan invited in help in the form of old friend Emily Sutton and new friends: Kate Fishenden and Jonathan Mercer, who work together as Starch Green. ‘My brief to Starch Green was very loose. I wanted it to have columns and to use the Penfold Press branding that Studio Connie developed in 2022. Everything I do is about collaboration and this was 100% a collaboration. My ideas and their practical skills: knowing what would work, giving it a concept. They gave it more personality.’ He had met the Starch Greeners previously, at the Art Workers Guild and Bouncing off the Wall, in London, before contacting them about working on the planner. He thought that they all seemed to have a similar design sensibility. The idea went down well with Jon and Kate: ‘We were thrilled, it is exactly the sort of thing we wanted to have a go at.’

 

 

Dan had already worked with Emily on many a Penfold print and so she seemed the natural choice . The planner project ‘sums up what I’m trying to do,’ says Dan. ‘To make affordable art for people. This will be a lot cheaper than an original screen print by Emily but it uses all the same elements, it’s still an original print in 3 colours, just done as a lithograph rather than a screen print.’

Going forward (planning ahead!) the idea of printing a different planner each year seems a no-brainer. But Dan’s brain is already off and running with other ideas. ‘Initially it’s a planner but it’ll probably be a bit looser than that over the years, it might change. I think I decided on a planner because of the alliteration: Penfold Press Planner. I also wanted to make something functional but decorative, something you might want to collect. And I hope people will use it.’

For owners of a new Penfold Press Planner that will be the question - to use it or not to use it

 

Jane Audas