The St Austell Printing Company Calendar
Each year we team up with talented illustration students from Falmouth University to release the official St Austell Printing Company Calendar.
Since 2014, we’ve tasked the students to produce illustrations for each month, plus a cover based on a particular theme. This ties into the third year curriculum of their illustration course, and gives them the opportunity to work on a real, live project.
The entire production process takes place in-house, where thousands of the calendars are designed, printed and finished before being sent through our mailing and fulfilment department to clients and friends across the UK.
Since we started the collaboration, there’s been a real buzz around the calendar and that year’s theme. We’re always asked by clients when they are going to receive the next one, and which theme we’ll use next.
The calendar has proven to provide an excellent opportunity for the students to promote their work too. We have a large number of design and marketing agencies who receive a copy of the calendar each year, which has directly led to work for students.
Thank you to all the students for taking part in this years’ calendar project.
This year you can also buy copies of the calendar where all the money raised will go to Cornwall Hospice Care. You can purchase them from Cornwall Hospice Care Shops in the St Austell area and online here.
2019’s theme – Progress and innovation
All the artwork in this calendar was created by 13 very talented final year illustration students at Falmouth University. We asked them to create artwork based on the theme of “progress and innovation” for a number of reasons:
Cornwall is built on progress and innovation.
From tin mining, to China Clay production and fishing – the traditional industries which once defined Cornwall’s economy were fuelled by progress and innovation. From Trevithick’s Steam Engine hauling large amounts of tin, to Humphrey Davy’s Miners Lamp – innovations such as these originated in Cornwall – but went on to change the world.
Cornwall’s future is being built on innovation.
As traditional industries declined, Cornwall has innovated and it’s future is now being defined by a burgeoning tech and manufacturing sector, film production, fine dining, unique holiday experiences and the announcement of a brand new Spaceport.
Progress and innovation at St Austell Printing Company
SAPC is built on progress and innovation.
Progressing from a small copy shop in a Victorian garage, to becoming one of Cornwall’s biggest printing companies with a new sustainable printing factory.
In 2018 we invested in a brand new printing press, which uses brand new innovative LED-UV drying technology – a real progression for lithographic printing. We’re the first printing company in the South West to embrace this
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Cover: Emma-Rose Walker
The illustration portrays progress and innovation in Cornwall in a sweeping narrative from past, to present and the future. The illustration highlights Trevithick’s steam engine which helped fuel the industrial revolution, companies such as St Austell Printing Company embracing renewable energy, and the famous Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station who are developing the capability to support the exploration of Lunar and Deep Space for institutions and private enterprise.
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January: Lucy Rogers
The illustration is inspired by a Cornish inventor called Robert Were Fox the Younger, who lived in Falmouth and developed an improved compass for a gentleman called Sir James Clark Ross. Ross then took the compass with him on an expedition to Antarctica, surviving difficult conditions and discovering the position of the South Magnetic Pole – with the help of the new compass.
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February: Sophie Freestone
In The illustration is inspired by The Padstow Lobster Hatchery who launched the ‘Lobster Grower 2’ initiative. This enables European Juvenile lobsters to be grown in environmentally enriched sea-based containers that hang from ropes out to sea in St Austell Bay. This method of growing in containers greatly increases their chances of survival, as they are protected from the creatures they share their ocean with. In the long-term, the initiative will help develop a sustainable low carbon form of aquaculture. In 2019, thousands of ecologically conditioned lobsters will be ready for release into the waters around Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
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March: Jem Venn
Sharing a sustainability ethos with SAPC, our neighbours St Austell Brewery make efforts to be as sustainable as possible, including by installing solar panels and rainwater harvesting resources to their head office, distribution centre and one of their larger pubs. They only use energy saving light bulbs across their estate of pubs, restaurants and hotels. St Austell Brewery are a shining example of how a company can make effective changes to support the environment.
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April: Alina Everatt
In December 2017, Penzance was named the first town in the UK to hold the Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) Plastic Free Coastline status. Penzance has united against straws, bottles, takeaway boxes and disposable forks and 330 other towns have been inspired and aim to also achieve a “plastic free” status. Plastic waste and marine waste is a big problem affecting marine life and the environment today, so this first step by Penzance is a really positive one towards progression and change in the future.
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May: Joannna Lillie
This Illustration is inspired by the progress and innovation of food sustainability in Cornwall. The image references food box schemes such as The Cornish Foodbox, providing the county with seasonal, organic, local produce: reducing packaging, air miles and generally being kinder to the earth. Additionally, it is a celebration of projects such as Rocket Gardens, set up in Cornwall to make growing your own produce accessible and enjoyable for a more sustainable existence.
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June: April Halls
The Wave Project is a charity founded in 2010 in Newquay, the UK’s surfing capital. Their aim is to offer one-on-one surfing lessons for young people with mental health issues through encouraging them to exercise outside and gain confidence in themselves. Surfing is a very popular sport and this project has innovated to involve local surf enthusiasts who help participants improve their emotional health and reduce anxiety. The success of the projects means that the organisation now delivers new projects all over the UK, including Wales and Scotland.
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July: Georgia Mason
This illustration celebrates The Cornish Seaweed Company, based at Gweek who have innovated to provide sustainably harvested, local, edible seaweeds. These have been introduced to promote seaweed as an alternative food source that is healthy, nutritional, tasty and good for the environment.
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August: Luoana-Ruxandra Murariu
The illustration highlights sustainability and innovation through the use of locally sourced food, incorporating it in our daily use but also fine dining and traveling, thus encouraging less pollution and reducing the utilisation of single-use plastic packaging.
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September: Oskar Hasiuk
This illustration is inspired by a Cornish harvest through the characterisation of a farmer, and his innovative initiative to create his own bespoke combine harvester. The vehicle is a metaphor for progress in Cornwall, complimented by the meaning and importance of the harvest season which in turn enables Cornish lives to flourish.
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October: Jane Birbeck
The illustration is inspired by Goonhilly Earth Station who are part of an ambitious project to create a connected global radio astronomy network, powerful enough to explore truly fundamental questions about the nature and origins of the universe. The potential that Goonhilly represents, for future astrophysicists and for the sciences in Cornwall, is summed up by this quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson: ’We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out – and we have only just begun.’
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November: Jake Hawkins
The inspiration for this illustration is Henry Trengrouse, a largely unsung Cornish hero and inventor who saved thousands of sailors’ lives with his rocket powered ‘Bosun’s Chair’ rescue system; perfecting it became a life long dedication.
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December: Claire Holland
This illustration depicts an 18th century Cornish train with an eco-twist: instead of steam, leaves are flowing from the chimney. The people on board include Cornish inventors Humphry Davy, Richard Trevithick and Jonathon Hornblower. They are accompanied by innovators and campaigners for sustainable technology in Cornwall.
