Hasta La Ideas

The August issue of CR is going to be a Summer School special. We want to look at all the ways in which readers sharpen their creative skills via workshops or similar, or find inspiration in taking part in creative activities outside of their day-to-day roles. So, what do you do?

We want to know what you do to inspire and invigorate yourselves and the staff at your studios and agencies. Do you bring in external speakers for example? Do you take any craft-based workshops, such as paper-making or screenprinting?

We’re also looking for people who run workshops or courses for creatives – anyone who goes into agencies or studios or who runs workshops and courses themselves, whether they are on more ‘serious’ subjects like art direction or coding or more esoteric, fun activities such as toy-making, building a pinhole camera or learning calligraphy.

Here’s a few examples of what we mean:

At Pick Me Up this year, CR ran a felt-toy-making workshop with Felt Mistress

The Glasgow School of Yarn, run by The Yarn Cake

James Victore, Paul Sahre and James Wilker have run a series of summer workshops at the Art Directors Club in New York

Osborne Signs run traditional signwriting courses in Sussex

The London Centre for Book Arts runs an extensive programme of workshops on bookbinding, letterpress printing, papermaking etc

Alan Kitching’s renowned two-day Typography Workshop

Alexandra Taylor runs a very well-regarded advertising art direction workshop (eg here)

Decoded promises to teach anyone coding in a day

And, of course, D&AD runs an extensive programme of courses under its Workout scheme

If you’ve been on anything like this, anywhere in the world, or if you run such courses yourself, please let us know in the comments below. Please also let us know about anything you do internally at your studio or agency to keep yourselves inspired and energised

Pink Floyd fans may recognise the cover of our June issue. It’s the original marked-up artwork for Dark Side of the Moon: one of a number of treasures from the archive of design studio Hipgnosis featured in the issue, along with an interview with Aubrey Powell, co-founder of Hipgnosis with the late, great Storm Thorgerson. Elsewhere in the issue we take a first look at The Purple Book: Symbolism and Sensuality in Contemporary Illustration, hear from the curators of a fascinating new V&A show conceived as a ‘walk-in book’ plus we have all the regular debate and analysis on the world of visual communications.

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