Competition: Dezeen has teamed up with publishers Myrdle Court Press to give readers the chance to win books about Trenton Oldfield’s time spent behind bars after disrupting the Oxford-Cambridge boat race.
The Queen vs Trenton Oldfield: A Prison Diary was written by Oldfield during his 6 months in prison after jumping into London’s River Thames and delaying the annual university boat race between Oxford and Cambridge to protest against elitism.
“Trenton Oldfield was sentenced to six months imprisonment at HM Wormwood Scrubs for a peaceful direct action protest at the Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race,” said the publishers. “His aim was to draw attention to the unjust inequalities in British society being severely exacerbated by government cuts and a culture of elitism.”
Oldfield’s diary is published along with articles considering the architecture of prison buildings and the design of everyday items used by inmates.
The 308-page book includes a visual archive of prison material – from dishes and toiletries, to clothing and paperwork. It also contains a guide to prison resources and a transcript of Oldfield’s trial.
Competition closes 21 April 2014. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.
Xiong Liang is an illustrator from China’s Zhejiang province (south of Shanghai) and is now one of the most established picture book artists of the capital. Yet he never really…
The final day of Offset 2014 featured talks from Marian Bantjes, Richard Turley, Jeff Greenspan and I Love Dust (to name just a few), who provided some amusing, thought provoking and inspiring reflections on their craft.
After talks from Genevieve Gauckler and fashion stylist Aisling Farinella, Johnny Winslade and Ollie Munden from I Love Dust discussed the studio’s culture and its work for Nike, Karl Lagerfeld and London burger restaurant Meat Liquor.
I Love Dust designed illustrated interiors for the venue and its sister restaurants Meat Mission, Meat Market and Meat Liquor Brighton. Meat Liquor London is designed to “look like the building has been tattooed”, while Meat Mission’s murals reference religious iconography (a nod to the building’s former use as a Christian Mission site). Meat Liquor Brighton is inspired by Miami – “another seaside location full of colourful characters” said Winslade.
The pair also discussed a series of self-initiated projects, from a custom motorbike it designed with Boneshaker Choppers to celebrate the studio’s 10th birthday, to ‘Black Valentine’s’ voodoo donuts, coffee cups and coasters.
As well as surprising clients (and making their way on to art directors’ desks), the pair said these kind of projects allowed the team, and its new members in particular, to try out new styles and techniques.
What is good design?
Next up (and sadly clashing with what I hear was a very entertaining talk from John Burgerman) was a debate on the notion of ‘good design’ – what exactly is it and how can it be measured.
Hosted by Studio AAD creative director Scott Burnett, the panel included Johnny Kelly, Richard Turley, Oran Day from Dublin studio Atelier David Smith and Brenda Dermody, who teaches graphic design at Dublin Institute of Technology.
Dermody said good design could only be measured based on its context: it might be a project where someone has worked outside of their comfort zone, or something that is simply beautiful. “But if the designer hasn’t learned much from it, is it still good?” she asked. Day, who also lectures at DIT, said that when teaching students, it could be just as valuable to critique examples of bad design, and Turley said for a design to be ‘good’, it must provoke a visceral reaction.
Johnny Kelly’s The Seed
The panel also touched on whether the public is becoming more aware and critical of design, but Turley said it’s not the only discipline to suffer exaggerated critiques on personal blogs and social media these days, while Dermody said that public outcries over logos, marques or branding were often just masking discontent over the brand itself or a wider issue. “The design is just a soft target,” she said.
The group also discussed the importance of awards: Turley said he felt there was little value in them, other than impressing his bosses in America. Kelly said he had felt it made people take notice of his work, but claimed he had also noticed a culture of ‘this is definitely going to win awards’ among agencies. “It’s a bad place to start any project,” he said.
Day said that they’re still of value, even if there are many other ways to gain recognition online now, because of the positive psychological effect of receiving praise from your peers, while Kelly pointed out that they can also stimulate important debates within the industry.
Richard Turley
Richard Turley took to the stage again after lunch, discussing his work for Bloomberg Businessweek, his thoughts on editorial design and his work for The Guardian.
While other talks this weekend have spoken about the importance of originality, or praised craft intensive projects, Turley spoke about creating powerful covers on a weekly basis, sometimes in just a few hours. Most of the ideas for his covers come from Google image searches, he said, adding: “a lot of what I do is copying. People are a bit angsty about the fact that you must have your own ideas, but I think it’s good to admit where we’ve taken things from.”
Of course, Turley didn’t mean he actually copies anyone’s work, but was referring to the fact that he is constantly seeking and adapting ideas that confront or inspire him – the cover of the election issue was inspired by the Halifax X, and the cover image for an issue on Bitcoin currency by an image of a unicorn he found online.
Talking through Bloomberg’s visual structure, Turley discussed his use of Helvetica and a grid structure based on multiples of 1.3 Despite these restrictions, however, he likes cover spreads to be as inentive and “expressive” as possible. “I dislike polite modernism…the Apple-ification of design,” he said. “Magazine design is really just about attracting attention: [cover spreads] are like little adverts, and you are selling the writer’s articles.”
Turley said working on the Guardian and its G2 supplement provided invaluable experience for his time at Bloomberg, and said the pressure of working for daily and weekly titles means “you have to become instinctive. It’s very immediate ad you can’t over think it,” he said.
Marian Bantjes
Marian Bantjes followed Turley and spoke about her need to “say something” with her work, showing examples of designs with embedded codes, concealed type and an installation for the Chicago Design Museum which spelled out the word sorrow in flowers, and died towards the end of the show.
“You have to make sure a project is worth the time and effort you will bestow on it,” she said, adding that she had a pet peeve for things like alphabet posters which are pretty but have little purpose. “If you’re going to the trouble of creating a beautiful alphabet, use it to say something,” she added.
Bantjes also discussed her monograph, Pretty Pictures (read our blog post on it here); personal projects including her yearly Valentine’s gifts and a recent project with Adobe, where she customised an Eames chair with wood veneer:
She also spoke about collecting and said that she often photographs sidewalks and hotel rooms: a poster she recently designed for the National was inspired by the structure of the skyline from her room in Hong Kong. “Grids and structure are a key part of my work,” she added.
Jeff Greenspan
Up next was freelance creative Jeff Greenspan, formerly a communication designer at Facebook, chief creative officer at Buzzfeed and creative director at BBDO.
Greenspan discussed how his self-initiated and side projects gave him the confidence to build a successful freelance career, and spoke of the importance of “finding your own individual voice and speaking it very loudly.” He is the creator of the ‘hipster trap’ (below), New York’s Tourist Lanes (which started out as a simple prank and attracted global media attention), and the Bush Booth (booths where people sick of seeing George W Bush campaign for a second term as President could voice their discontent at a video loop of him just listening).
Greenspan also created Selfless Portraits, a site where internet users are given a profile picture of another user somewhere in the world and asked to draw it, and “The World’s Most Exclusive Website“, a site where users must have a certain number of Twitter followers to access rooms, only to be met with another locked door. A satirical swipe at fame culture, those who did manage to access the site were offered nothing but confirmation of their followers, but the promise of exclusivity attracted Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber and Jerry Bruckheimer, among others.
Each of these projects were self-initiated yet became viral successes: Greenspan had the idea for Selfless Portraits when working at Facebook, but couldn’t persuade the company to fund it, and said if he’d approached brands with many of these ideas, he would have been turned down, yet they have attracted millions of hits and huge levels of user engagement.
“If people don’t trust me, I keep trying,” he said. “I refuse to listen to people who try to diminish that voice in my head. I know we’re not changing the world – I’m usually advertising pizza and coffee – but it’s important to be true to yourself,” he said. “If you start something, put energy into it and be bold with your ideas…then other people will join you.”
Chris Judge
The last talk of the day was delivered by Chris Judge, an Irish illustrator, former member of The Chalets and author of award-winning children’s book The Lonely Beast.
Judge presented some charming, funny and bizarre illustration projects and discussed his forthcoming work for a teen novel by Kirsty McKay and an illustrated ‘danger manual’, Danger is Everywhere, written by comedian David O Doherty. He also talked about his spin-off Lonely Beast counting and alphabet apps, which were recently featured in an Apple ad campaign.
This was just a few of the events happening each day: the schedule also included a talk from Nobrow artists on getting published, a panel debate among Irish architects and one from a selection of Irish illustrators. Le Cool Dublin has also been running a series of stylus wars – interactive pictionary duels – as well as portfolio reviews, and their have been regular talks on building brands in various industries. With a line-up so diverse, it’s little wonder Offset has become a sell-out events with over 2,500 attending.
Creative conference Offset kicked off in Dublin this morning, with talks and debates on book cover design, animation, illustration, graphics and advertising. Here are a few of the highlights…
Sarah Mazzetti
Italian illustrator Sarah Mazzetti gave the first talk of the day, providing a look at her commercial work, self initiated projects and her creative process. She discussed making posters for music events at the Locomotiv Club in Bologna:
Creating a website, programme and installations for Welsh music and arts festival Green Man (top and below), which she was asked to do after her Locomotiv posters were featured on various design blogs:
And creating editorial illustrations for the New York Times, financial publications and publishing house Feltrinell, as well as Italian magazine Studio.
Mazzetti also runs Teiera, an independent publishing label producing comics and illustrated zines – including work by UK illustrator Ed Cheverton (featured in CR’s February issue).
Golden Wolf
Next up was Ingi Erlingsson, co-founder of London animation studio Golden Wolf. The studio was founded as an animation offshoot of design studio I Love Dust, but recently rebranded as a separate company.
As a teen he wanted to be a graffiti artist but Erlingsson decided to pursue illustration after his street art led to run-ins with police, he said. Before joining I Love Dust and Golden Wolf, he completed a spell at NY company Surround, where he worked on the music video for The Killers’ Mr Brightside.
Showing examples of the studio’s work for MTV, Cartoon Network and Nike Erlingsson presented the 10 ‘golden rules’ of Golden Wolf, including:
-Surprise people: If you do something unexpected or take people out of their comfort zone, will always get a better reaction. “Its all about mystery and intrigue,” he said.
-Don’t be an a**hole: “We’re a small company and love what we do,” he explained. “We don’t want egos to come into the equation.”
-Always over deliver: “If you do your best and excel clients’ expectations, they’ll come back.”
-Respect the almighty client: “When I was starting out, client felt like a necessary evil, someone trying to destroy ideas. But they are your most important collaborator, the people who can make or break a project and they do help,” he said.
-Invest in progress: if a client comes to you with an idea, you’ll probably want to go crazy, but will have to meet them somewhere in the middle. It’s a sweet spot for the client but doesn’t necessarily lead to progression for the studio, said Erlingsson – which is why Golden Wolf often runs self-initiated or self-funded experimental projects, which lead to more ambitious projects such as this black and white Kubrick-inspired animation featuring a cast of astronaut dogs for record label OWSLA:
Marina Willer
Pentagram partner Marina Willer’s talk began with a discussion of things that inspire her – including her upbringing in colourful and chaotic Brazil, living in London, and her twin sons’ curiosity about the world.
She spoke about her work for the Serpentine Gallery, which was recently shortlisted for the Design Museum’s Design of the Year award, as well as pitching for a Louis Vuitton project and rebranding UK charity Action for Children.
As well as a flexible typographic logo for the charity that can be arranged in various ways, Pentagram has designed a visual language based around the statement, ‘we can’t wait’. Print ads feature a series of phrases such as ”we can’t wait to grow up’ and ‘we can’t wait for your help’, communicating a sense of urgency but also children’s optimism about the future.
The project has not yet been implemented but has been approved by the company, and Willer says the aim was to create something that is “not depressing, but is serious.”
Willer ended with a look at a series of short films promoting architect Richard Rogers’ exhibition at the Royal Academy, exploring objects and ideas that inspire him:
Book cover design
At lunchtime, as well as a talk from Mike Perry, there was a discussion between Conor Nolan & David Wall, Max Phillips, Niall Mccormack & James Kelleher about book cover design in Ireland.
The country no longer has a book cover design awards scheme, and the recent recession has led to a decline in the number of books being printed, but there are still beautiful covers made here, said David Wall, whose studio recently designed a beautiful cover for Oliver Jeffers, which you can see more pictures of on their website:
There were some interesting discussions around the future of book design, in particular, how it will be affected by the growth in kindles and e readers, but Wall had an optimistic take on this.
While there may not be a need to print some kinds of book – such as more ‘throwaway’ mass market fiction titles – it may mean that books which do go in to print are more rewarding to work on: there will have to be real reason to print them, which presents amazing opportunities for designers who will be given a mandate to do something interesting, he said.
When asked about who wants to become a book designer these days, speakers agreed that there was still a huge interest in it among students and design professionals, and Wall said anyone could become one if their work was good enough.
“If you do good design people will come to you – if someone has taken initiative to set up a website and do beautiful book covers – if they’re 16 or 40/50, people will take notice,” he said.
Detail
After lunch, Paul McBride and Brian Nolan of Dublin studio Detail discussed the studio’s branding work for corporate and cultural clients, including an identity, campaigns and exhibition graphics for the Science Gallery:
And a visual identity and mapping system for Georgian garden Merrion Square, inspired by architecture of the period and a map from 1780:
As well as signage, wayfinding and iconography for Father Collins Park, a sustainable park with sports facilities, playgrounds and wind turbines.
Detail is also curating an archive of Irish design along with Conor & David, AAD and several other Irish studios. The archive will be a celebration of the country’s visual culture, they said.
Serge Seidlitz
Serge Seidlitz followed in place of Mark Bernath and Eric Quennoy of Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam, who were unable to attend.
Seidlitz talked about his solo exhibition at London’s Coningsby Gallery, illustrating a book on mental health by Ruby Wax and a project for Coca-Cola, which he described as ‘a nightmare’. He spent over a month designing around 3000 illustrations for the brand’s Share a Coke campaign, only to find out it was scrapped six months later.
He also presented posters and DVD packaging for F*ck for Forests – a documentary about a group in Berlin that sells erotic films to raise money for the rainforest:
And packaging for a soon to be launched range of ice creams from American brand Homer Hudson. Flavours include Death Row (chocolate and vanilla), Mo Dough and Prom Queen Dream, and Seidlitz has created some typically witty, colourful illustrations to match.
Fun is the guiding principle in his work, he said, and Seidlitz showed various early sketches of projects as well as the finished result, showing the craft, time and improvisation that goes into each.
Jessica Walsh
Jessica Walsh received a huge round of applause for her talk, which focused on the idea of play.
“I see my work as play rather than a job – and the more fun and play in my work, the better people respond,” she said, explaining how play is educational and helps drive innovation.
After teaching herself to code as a teen, Walsh studied at Rhode Island School of Design, where workshops included painting, sculpture and woodwork as well as digital design.
When working as an art director at Print magazine following an internship at Pentagram, Walsh had a strict budget and often had to create and shoot sets herself.
Both experiences have heavily influenced her work at Sagmeister & Walsh, she said, and she continues to experiment with tactile processes and raw materials. “Sometimes, you just need to get off the computer and make shit,” she said.
Walsh also discussed the need for play to have rules, however, and said that often, the best work thrives on creative constraints. If clients give her an open brief, she will devise a strict set of rules such as using a simple set of shapes or a monochrome colour scheme (see work for middle eastern brand Aizone, above. It took around 12 hours to paint models in each picture in the series).
Discussing the work that goes into persuading clients to back her ideas, Walsh said the key is to only present one concept – but make it great.
She also discussed the importance of fighting for an idea you believe in, taking risks and pursuing personal projects: her relationship experiment, 40 Days of Dating (in which she dated a friend for forty days, blogging about the experience, attracted millions of followers, and Warner Bros has since bought the film rights to the story).
Mark Waites
Mother co-founder Mark Waites provided the final talk of the day, and also spoke about creative constraints, arguing that the best projects embrace restrictions.
Waites presented several examples of successful projects created by Mother despite challenging briefs – such as its ambient campaign for documentary London Ink. With a budget of just £150,000, the agency created a series of massive tattooed sculptures around London.
They looked impressive (and certainly made an impact), but figures were made as cheaply as possible, said Waites: they weren’t given eyes because it would be too expensive, and one was made to look partially submerged in the ground to avoid the cost of building a whole body. “The trick with doing things cheaply is not to let your audience know…you don’t have to lessen the quality of the execution,” he said.
He also discussed how failed pitches can lead to greater success – such as when Mother lost a Eurostar account to Fallon, but managed to persuade the company to invest in a film directed by Shane Meadows instead (read our blog post on it here). “If we’d have won that gig, the film would never have happened. Sometimes, no is the answer you need,” he said.
Waites said he was terrible at ‘blue sky thinking’, and finished by saying, “if you ask us to do anything, we’ll do nothing. The more problems we have, the more creative we become.”
While the price of Thornwillow Press’ hand-bound, limited edition letterpress printed books—meant to last more than a lifetime—can reach a couple thousand dollars, you can still get a taste of the brand’s dedication to quality and…
Terry Border se décrit à la fois comme photographe mais aussi en tant qu’humoriste. Il s’est amusé, avec sa série Wiry Limbs Paper Backs, à reprendre des couvertures de livres et à détourner l’objet en fonction de l’histoire que contient ce dernier. Un rendu réussi à découvrir dans la suite.
Our April issue is a photography special. In it we talk to photographer Nadav Kander abourt his new TV ad for Age UK; discuss the enduring appeal of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work with the curator behind a new retrospective; and also talk to four photographer’s agents about how they help their artists to make great work…
We also look at how the GoPro camera sells itself and how leanin.org and Getty are to change the perception of women in stock photography.
The April issue of Creative Review will be available to buy direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money, too. Details here.
On top of all that we talk to the client, agency and packaging designers behind the Marmite brand and have reviews of the Richard Hamilton exhibition at Tate Modern, the Muriel Cooper retrospective in New York, and Cape Town’s Design Indaba. At the back of the issue, Paul Belford wonders why it is so difficult to make a great poster for an exhibition.
Opening the issue, our Month in Review section looks at the controversy surrounding the new identity for the city of Amsterdam; spotlights an inventive digital subway poster from Swedish agency Akestam Holst; and examines the story behind the creation of the ‘ultimate selfie’ at this year’s Oscars.
In the columns, Gordon Comstock bemoans the lack of time for outside artistic projects in today’s ad agency culture; Michael Evamy looks at the new ‘inflatable’ identity for Darling Harbour in Sydney; while Daniel Benneworth-Gray dismisses the old ‘work/life balance’ adage in favour of embracing the fact that, as a designer, he has little need for other hobbies.
We also talk to Dave Sedgwick, the founder of the BCNMCR initiative that is bringing designers from Barcelona and Manchester together for another exhibition (work from which appears in this month’s Monograph, see bottom of post).
The features open with our photographer’s agent round-table – Mark Sinclair grills four of the best about just what their multifaceted job entails and how they help to get the best work out of the artists on their books. Plenty of advice for new photographers, too.
Eliza Williams talks to Nadav Kander about his work on a new commercial for Age UK featuring models aged between 0 and 100 – a behind the scenes shot by Calum Head also features on this issue’s cover (see top).
Jean Grogan interviews Clément Chéroux, the curator of a new exhibition on the work of legendary photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson.
And Rachel Steven talks to CR readers about their experience of the GoPro camera, and looks at some of the brand’s forays into content marketing via video sites and social media.
Antonia Wilson looks at a new initiative from Getty and leanin.org which aims to shift the ways in which women are portrayed in stock imagery.
And we also look at stock trends from the last 12 months – Shutterstock delve into their data to tell us what you’ve been looking for on their website.
In Crit, Adrian Shaughnessy enjoys a detailed retrospective in New York on the work of pioneering US designer Muriel Cooper…
And Rick Poynor takes in two London exhibitions dedicated to the work of British artist Richard Hamilton. Rachel Steven also reports back from Design Indaba in Cape Town.
Finally, this month’s Monograph (spreads shown below) features a selection of the artwork produced for the BCNMCR show, bringing together the work of design studios from Barcelona and Manchester, which opens next week.
The April issue of Creative Review will be available to buy direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money, too. Details here.
Beginning life as a BBC radio comedy series, Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy went on to exist in many different forms, including a text-based adventure game in 1984. Thirty years after it was released the game has been recreated online by BBC Radio 4 Extra…
This isn’t the first time the HHGG game has been resurrected. It was made available on the BBC’s website for the game’s 20th anniversary back in 2004, dramatically increasing traffic to the Radio 4 website and winning a BAFTA along the way.
But for the 2014 edition the old Flash game has ported to an HTML5 version, it boasts a larger interface, additional keys and functionality. And being flung into the era of social media, the game itself also issues tweets based on the actions of users playing it (if they are signed in).
And the gameplay is, apparently, just as fiendish. There’s a brilliantly geeky warning on the new webpage, coldly stating that, “The game will kill you frequently. It’s a bit mean like that.” Saving as you go is advised.
Richard Harris, quoted from douglasadams.com, explains the genus of the original HGG game, which game out the same year as another text-based classic (at least in my school), L: A Mathemagical Adventure.
“When Steve Meretzky of Infocom got together with Douglas Adams to create a game based around the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the result was never going to be less than interesting and more than likely insane,” Harris writes. “So it proved – the Hitchhiker’s Guide adventure game was one of the best-selling games of its era, selling some 350,000 copies. In 1984.”
Original screengrab from the first HHGG game. From gameinformer.com
“Then graphics games came along and the computer using portion of the human race forgot all about 500,000 years of language evolution and went straight back to the electronic equivalent of banging rocks together – the point’n’click game. Infocom and most of its competitors went to the wall – signalling the arrival of the post-literate society.
“But something strange has now happened. The internet has become an integral part of millions of lives. People have learned to type again and are taking an interest in interacting, via their computers, with other people and with content.”
The full history of the game, including Rod Lord, Sean Sollé, Roger Philbrick and Shimon Young’s work on the first online incarnation, can be read here. And when you’ve cleared aside a few hours, play the new version here.
The original radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from 1978 is currently streaming on the iPlayer.
Evolving technologies have required the publishing industry to become a business of creative thinking. So, in her new publishing venture called Minor Matters, Michelle Dunn Marsh takes a page from Kickstarter…
The last two years of Vincent Van Gogh’s life proved to be an intensely creative period for the troubled artist – and it’s this clash between his art and mental state which is the focus of artist Barbara Stok‘s moving new graphic novel, Vincent…
The second in publisher SelfMadeHero‘s Art Masters series, Stok’s account begins in 1888 when Van Gogh leaves Paris for Arles in the Provencal countryside.
Any sense of stability Van Gogh achieved during this time was aided by his strong relationship with his brother Theo, who remained in Paris and supported the artist – emotionally and financially – throughout the rest of his life. Some of the famous letters which the two exchanged appear in Stok’s graphic novel.
There’s a kind of wide-eyed simplicity to Stok’s drawings – all block colours and thick lines – and the stunning landscapes of corn fields which inspired Van Gogh’s later works are given the same treatment.
Works such as Sunflowers and Wheat Field With Crows are all restaged in the novel, with Starry Night’s conception explored via another of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother.
The artist’s breakdowns are also treated with the same deftness, but Stok’s real triumph is to get the reader so on the side of Van Gogh that his struggle to establish a studio for himself and fellow artists – with help from Paul Gaugin – becomes very moving.
According to SelfMadeHero, future volumes in the Art Masters series will include books on the lives of Picasso and Dalí. More of Barbara Stok’s work at barbaraal.nl. Vincent is available from SelfMadeHero; £12.99.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
