Hasta La Ideas

Graphic designer Simon Cook has collaborated with silk scarf designer Lucy Jay to create an unusual series of pocket handkerchiefs…

Cook was featured in our graduate special issue last September, following his graduation from the graphic design course at Nottingham Trent University. He has produced a number of new projects since then, and also held an exhibition of his work at Concrete Hermit, but this is first foray into handkerchief design.

Cook and Jay have produced six different designs for their handkerchief range, all of which are shown here. The designs are printed onto 100% silk crepe de chine, and are 22×22 cm in size. They are £24 each, and available online on Cook’s website (stoneandspear.bigcartel.com), or Jay’s website (lucy-jay.com). They are also on sale at the Design Museum shop. Happy sneezing!

CR in Print

Don’t miss out – there’s nothing like CR in print. Our August Summer Reading issue contains our pick of some of our favourite writing on advertising, illustration and graphic design as well as a profile of Marion Deuchars plus pieces on the Vorticists, Total Design, LA Noire and much more.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine and get Monograph.

Hoping to broaden the appeal of fencing in the run up to the Olympics, studio Shaw+Skerm has designed a great visual identity for a campaign to help promote the sport in the UK…

British Fencing approached the London studio to create a visual identity for Go/Fence, the organisation’s program that helps introduce people to the sport. It is hoped that the work can then be fully developed into a brand.

It’s a timely move. The Olympics will undoubtedly trigger interest in many minority sports and the Go/Fence initiative is naturally keen to capitalise on fencing’s increased exposure next year.

One of the aims of the new identity is to try and change the perception of the sport as an elitist activity and make it appealing to both younger participants and veterans alike. A difficult job – but we think the designers have pitched this one perfectly.

In an unfussy piece of design, which plays on the notion of the ‘slash’ as both a visual symbol and dynamic action, Shaw+Skerm has managed to capture the excitement of the sport but also move it away from its rather traditionalist image bound up in parries, thrusts and touchés. Here, it’s all about the angles with the ‘slash’ echoed in the typeface, even in the positioning of the text on a business card (shown, top).

“A core proposition – i/Fence, We/Fence, You/Fence, Go/Fence – enabled us to develop a brand which targets a wider audience through a consistently pro-active message,” say the designers. “The Go/Fence identity incorporates a modified slash; in reference to a sword which is featured in the logotype. This device has become central to the visual look and feel for the brand. A flexible, visual language that creates instant stand-out from it’s competitors.”

Following a soft launch last month, Shaw+Skerm has art directed a photoshoot and is continuing to design communications materials including event collateral, brochures (note the recurring ‘slash’ device), postcards, badges, certificates and apparel. They have also drawn up a set of brand guidelines (the identity also works really well in white out of black) which will be used by internal resources and affiliates, with a full launch due in September.

More of Shaw+Skerm’s work at shawandskerm.com.

For at least a year, we’ve received the occasional artwork or print in the post from a design studio in Gloucestershire by the name of onepointoh. It turns out it’s a small operation run by Stephen Allen out of a studio at the bottom of his garden. We caught up with him to find out a bit more about his practice…

Stop, Look & Listen, two-colour screenprint on 1250 micron Everest Off White Mount Board, 330mm x 148mm. Detail shown top and below

Creative Review: Tell us a bit about onepointoh.
Stephen Allen: onepointoh.co.uk is me, Stephen Allen, with occasional creative direction from my partner Rachael. She is designer as well, and has just started a blog called Soil and Ink soilandink.co.uk which refers to her passion for gardening and printmaking. I find working completely on my own very difficult, so its great to be able to talk about ideas.

A Small Christmas Protest, self-promotional seasonal greeting campaign

When Rachael and I left Bath Spa University, both on a graphics degree, we bought a screen printing bed and started our own business. We had no idea what we were doing, but made a success out of combining design and short run printing. To try and cut a long story short we dipped in out of working for ourselves and other design agencies and retailers until 2001 when I was given a break by the creative directors, Luke Williamson and Yan Elliot, then at Mother, to pitch creative ideas for a new Coke campaign. They really understand and value design and know how to get the best out of the people they’re working with, which isn’t always easy in advertising.

Following several years doing advertising work I felt I needed to develop more to stay fresh. I guess it’s different when you’re within an agency setting because you have a designated structure – but being freelance, nothing like that exists so you have to set your own goals. I decided to fulfil a long standing ambition to build a studio and set back up our printing equipment.

The onepointoh studio now resides at the bottom of Stephen and Rachael’s garden. Very nice it is too.

CR: Is this the point at which you started to regularly send us artwork through the post?
SA: Yes. It felt like I was starting all over again in design terms.  After spending 10-15 years designing in a certain style, I came back to screen printing wanting to illustrate more and integrate typography into the work. I like the restrictions that screen printing puts in place, just by the technique. It helps me concentrate more on the detail of a design and then find creative ways of solving a technical issue. The current revival of printing is great, and I’m aspiring to be as creative as the people at the Pick Me Up shows and other great print collectives that seem to be appearing all the time.

Two screenprints. You is printed on 315gsm Acid Free Heritage White Stock at 700mm x 500mm in an edition of 60. &Me is printed on the same stock but is 210mm x 300mm, again in an edition of 60. Sold as set of two prints only via onepointoh.co.uk

CR: As well as working on your own projects, you’re still working for ad agencies and big brands, right?
SA: Yes, I am just working on an idea for a collaborative screen printing project where each printmaker overprints the last persons work, which promises to be really interesting, and I’m creating a new typographic totem pole print on plywood for a forthcoming show at advertising agency AMV BBDO, as well as continuing my more traditional design work.

See more work by onepointoh at onepointoh.co.uk

Sara De Bondt studio has just completed a series of exterior signage supergraphics for the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes…

Having developed a revised visual identity and website for the gallery in 2010, the new exterior work covers three facades of the building, and makes use of key graphic elements from the rebranding project.

According to the gallery “different permutations of coloured squares, with solid, hatched and dotted finishes have been used in varying scales, representing enlarged versions of the gallery’s visual identity, as seen across this website.”

A time-lapse video of the installation of the exterior graphics can be viewed here.

Project delivery by Sign-a-Rama, the mural artist was Sarah Hodgkins of Charlotte Designs. All photography by Derek Wales.

CR in Print

Don’t miss out – there’s nothing like CR in print. Our August Summer Reading issue contains our pick of some of our favourite writing on advertising, illustration and graphic design as well as a profile of Marion Deuchars plus pieces on the Vorticists, Total Design, LA Noire and much more.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine and get Monograph.

Last week, I questioned whether Kickstarter was the appropriate ‘marketplace’ for Dario Antonioni’s “Botanist Minimal,” suggesting that the bench had somehow transgressed the scope of Kickstarter as a crowdfunding platform. After all, the concept is already realized in full and Antonioni is simply raising funds to, er, jumpstart retail production.

Of course, I’m not one to challenge his choice of funding (especially if/when it hits the $20K mark)… much less the team at Kickstarter, who effectively co-sign on any projects that make it to the campaign stage (i.e. go live). Nevertheless, it’s worth examining Raleigh-based T-shirt purveyors CityFabrics, who are arguably in a similar situation with their campaign for “Wear You Live.” (Ironically, “Botanist Minimal” is offering T-shirts as lower-tier rewards, a typical reward for large-scale projects.)

First things first, the design itself is pretty nice: while I don’t agree with some of the cropping decisions, the “figure/ground” effect is atypical enough to feel fresh, imparting just a bit of abstraction to otherwise familiar imagery. The “thumbtack” pin is also a nice touch.

The best part about this small business project has been the interaction with our community. This type of map is so simple that it allows anyone from elementary school students to grandparents the ability to visually tell a story about their place. This Kickstarter project is an attempt to share our civic-minded, story-telling tools with more and more people. It’s our belief that the more people talk about their place, the more people will be involved in their community.

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