Opus Day

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The corporate brochures’ days may be numbered as more and more companies see the world-wide-web as the main communications platform for presenting their business. But a Guernsey company with a background in financial services has created a publishing niche that is bucking the trend. A publishing niche that is simply staggering.

The Kraken Group is a Guernsey based organisation with offices in such financial hotbeds as London and Dubai. However, it is their work in such destinations as Manchester, Barcelona and the United States that is establishing them as a company who are leaders in their sector.

The Kraken Financial Group was formed in 2002 by a senior team of Investment Bankers, Tax Specialists and Insurance Brokers. Initiually focusing on tax solutions, the company spearheaded by Karl Fowler, a former Managing Director of Goldman Sachs in London, has since expanded into provision of services in the Insurance and Investment Product sectors. Kraken began to develop relationships with high profile areas of media and sport including the golfer Nick Faldo who they established Faldo Management with to work closely with those representatives of the world’s leading sports men and women.

Through the natural development of the range of services offered to clients, Kraken Sport & Media was launched to develop commercial opportunities further. The company is the publisher of the Opus series. A publication that is not so much fit for a coffee table but is the size of one. Karl Fowlers has been working on this large-scale project for two years. "I collected books, and rare books, and I was a big fan of photography," he said. "So, for me, this is not work, this is passion."
So what is the ‘Opus’. C&W or Sure as they are now known have displayed a copy of the Manchester United Opus in the front of their town shop for a month or so and the Guilles Allez Library are also about to take delivery of a copy kindly donated by Kraken for the people of Guernsey can peruse the intoxicating mix of history, drama and photographic genius that oozes from the 850 pages.

“The Opus is the definitive history of the world's most famous football club”, say Kraken spokesman Paul Murphy from its base in Glategny Esplanade. “It is also probably the heaviest book currently published, weighing 34kg. It contains more than 400,000 words on the Reds by some of the world's leading sports writers, including Patrick Barclay, Hugh McIlvanney and James Lawton, 2,000 of the most iconic photographic images from the club's history and a specially compiled list of the Top 50 United players of all time” explains Paul.

The Manchester United Opus also includes interviews with some of the clubs great players, including Sir Bobby Charlton, Eric Cantona and Wayne Rooney as well as Sir Alex Ferguson. The first copy was signed by the entire current first team squad and auctioned in aid of Unicef fetching £250,000, which will also receive 5 per cent of all profits from all sales of the book. And the cost? Well, let's look at the cheaper end of things first. There is a print run of 9,000 containing the signatures of both Charlton and his fellow knight Alex Ferguson which would only set you back £3,000. You could spend more - £4,050 for one of the 1,000 versions which also include signatures from Eric Cantona and Bryan Robson.

“Our aim is to mix historic content with fresh content,” says Fowler. “Sir Bobby Charlton has never gone on record about that night in Munich. Now we have 5,000 words on what was going through his mind during that eight hours, with imagery that has never been seen before. It may be provocative, but it will stir the emotions - which is what we set out to do.”

Future Opus works will include one on Wimbledon for which 'Walter Iooss will be in the locker room for the men's and women's finals two minutes before they walk out on court'. And a Formula One Opus in which a remote activated camera will be positioned in a car for the Monaco Grand Prix. And a camera on the baseball hat of the person who raises the chequered flag. The publisher is getting into places, which no one else can get to.
Their contacts allow them access to the main players and once one of the main players becomes involved they all want to join in. Books on Arsenal, Ferrari, Barcelona, the Ryder Cup and the Ashes are in production, as is one on the Rolling Stones. And Disney. Nasa were so impressed by the Super Bowl Opus that they are keen for one on space travel. Fowler's ambition is a 'London 2012 Opus in every secondary school library in the country'. And then, in a rare moment of downsizing, he adds: 'Or certainly Greater London.'

In all the projects, Karl has been assisted by his creative director, Zenon Texeira, whom he has known since he was three and with whom he once worked the turnstiles at Coventry City FC.

Their approach to selling the opuses has been as innovative as the initial idea. 'We have been very selective with retail,' says Fowler. 'We are selling through Saks Fifth Avenue and Harrods, where there is an Opus reading room. And then there is Opus Space at a few airports: Dubai, Shanghai, Heathrow and Dublin.'

Essentially, they are cutting out the booksellers and selling the books as you might works of art. What will be fascinating is the prices that the opuses attract when they come to auction. One German collector is so confident they will rise he has ordered three NFL editions and asked for them to be held in storage until he deems it right to take his profit.

Edward Booth-Clibborn, who has published works on the Hermitage Museum and with Damien Hirst, is an executive consultant on Opus. 'There is a movement towards more expensive books and if they are successful they will change a lot of people's approach to selling illustrated books,' he says. 'What is clever is that they are aiming at the particular market of sport and there are some marvellous, marvellous things being done in sports photography.' The size of the books allows previously cropped photographs to be displayed in all their glory. CONTACT can testify to this. Imagine cinema display TV against the screen on your mobile phone and you get the impression of how dramatic the photography appears in an Opus.