Hasta La Ideas

For the UK edition of Jaron Lanier’s new book, You Are Not A Gadget, Penguin approached young designer Olly Moss to come up with a concept for its cover…

Lanier’s book, which is published in January by Penguin’s Allen Lane imprint, sets out to challenge the notion of whether the digital revolution has had a positive effect on the development of society and how individual creativity has been surpassed by a desire to work and create collectively.

Lanier, who coined the term ‘virtual reality’ in the early 1980s, also examines the constrictions placed upon human expression in the digital age: from the anonymity of Wikipedia, to the rigid templates of social networking sites and e-publishing. The latter directly influenced the design of the cover for the UK edition of the book, as Penguin art director, Jim Stoddart, explains.

“We were short on time to produce a cover – it was needed urgently for printing end of November to be ready for publication early February 2010,” says Stoddart. “We had the opportunity to use the Chip Kidd-designed cover being used for the American edition, but I’ve been keen to try out the very talented 22 year-old Olly Moss, having seen many of his sharp conceptual observations on the internet.

“Olly has come up trumps with a superb concept – and a brilliant realisation – of a mock e-book. It should look striking in bookshops, online and makes its own comment on the whole book vs e-book debate.”

As with John Berger’s 1972 classic, Ways of Seeing, the text for Lanier’s book also begins on the cover.

Among the many theories advanced by Neville Brody at his D&AD President’s Lecture last night was that 80s popsters Haircut 100 are responsible for the decline of popular culture in Britain today…

Brody placed the exact point at which he became disillusioned with popular culture at the moment when Haircut 100, all tucked-in Aran jumpers and perfectly coiffed, entered the charts. “After that,” he said, ” it all became about how you were styled, what clothes you wore and not what you had to say.” And from then on he never designed another record sleeve. Looking at the above picture, you’ve got to admit he had a point…

In a wide-ranging, if at times slightly dislocated, discussion with Adrian Shaughnessy, Brody touched on education, politics, culture and even graphic design. If at times it felt a bit like a Ben Elton gig circa 1986, with Brody blaming Thatcher and Reagan (alongside Nick Heyward’s mob) for society’s ills, it was a welcome change from the usual conference fare of “and here’s a project we did for x”. Brody is that rare combination of a designer with something to say about the world and the ability to articulate those thoughts.

On his landmark V&A exhibition in 1988, which propelled him to a certain level of ‘fame’ (famous, at least, in graphic design terms), Brody claimed that “it was absolutely not about a desire for celebrity” but “about trying to bring people to the ideas [behind the work]”. The exhibition was a commercial disaster for Brody’s studio in that it scared off potential clients. “People reacted to the profile and didn’t look beyond that to the work itself,” he claimed.

He was particularly forthright about design education, claiming that the whole system needed to be torn up, there is too much focus on training for a career (something that many would dispute given the constant complaints about graduates’ work-readiness) and that students are denied time with tutors and the freedom to experiment (a less contentious view).

Shaughnessy did a good job in trying to work in the questions Tweeted (‘Twat’?) in by CR readers and others which were displayed on a screen next to the two of them, but one of the more memorable came from an audience member who challenged Brody on the apparent “disconnect” between the views that he had been espousing on politics, the need to be ‘dangerous’ and his apparent oppositional stance and the work for the likes of News International, Kenzo and Dom Perignon that was playing on the screen behind him. Brody, who had earlier admitted that his “hypocrisy was plain to see” argued that “design is fundamentally a compromise”. That he needed to take on paying clients in order to fund work such as his Freedom Space installation for the Design Museum (poster shown below). Shaughnessy queried whether, back when he was designing record covers for Throbbing Gristle, Brody ever imagined himself working for Rupert Murdoch (his studio redesigned The Times), to which Brody replied “we’ll all be working for Rupert Murdoch eventually” and that, somewhat unconvincingly, it’s “all in the same space” of conveying and explaining information.

Brody was on firmer ground when discussing the role of the designer. He compared it to that of an artist in that ” you start with the end result and then manufacture the process to get there”. In other words, an artist may start with an idea about the world or a particular sensation that they wish to convey and then figure out what physical form could deliver or express that. Same with design. “The difference between art and design is that art is based on a commodity – what you end up with has a value in itself,” he said. “Design is a service industry.”

The designer, he later said, sits between information and understanding, being the vital conduit between the two. Thus, he said, designers had a vital role to play in the world, even if they sometimes failed to realise it.

He also touched on what he termed ‘design hooliganism’ – the ad hominem abuse that he and others have been subjected to online on blogs such as this one. Brody admitted that he found it hard to take at times, when people who had never met him made personal remarks that, had they made them to his face may have resulted in some physical confrontation. He traced it to the kind of ‘tall poppy syndrome’ that is a facet of public life whereby anyone with any degree of public profile is considered fair game.

It’s also something that we dicsuss in the new issue of CR, aptly summed up in this venn diagram

And what of the vote? The audience had been issued with A4 cards (above) with ‘genius’ on one side and ‘wanker’ on the other and were asked to vote on which they thought Brody was at the end of the evening – something of a ludicrous choice, of course but I think Brody’s point was that public discourse encourages such extremes. You are either one or the other. Hero or villain. Lauded or derided. He has known both.

I didn’t personally witness the vote having had to make an early exit, but, for the record, I believe that ‘genius’ won out.

And talking of genius…

Founded five years ago by Alun Shooter and Matt Bagnall, Cambridge-based agency The District now employs six other staff – including recent arrival Tom Lovell who, regular CR readers may recall, is one of the graduates we profiled in our September issue this year. We ran a piece on the agency’s rather lovely gallery space, The Frontroom, in our November issue but wanted to also showcase some of its work.

Here is our full interview with Alun Shooter and some images of recently completed projects by The District.

Creative Review: Tell us about the genesis of The District

Alun Shooter: Matt and I met at small local agency and we realised we had a shared passion for all things creative and incredibly unhealthy pub lunches. There was a kind of unpretentious approach to Matt’s design and an ethos which matched mine. When the agency we worked for began experiencing financial problems, we decided to get together and founded The District from my kitchen and moved operations, for a short while, into my shed.

Above: identity for photographer Alex Bibby. “Our brief was to design an identity that is distinctive and recognisable which compliments the style and precision of Alex’s photography,” explains Shooter. “We designed a simple marque which nodded at his name but was also simple enough to be used on and offline. In print we used great materials which were hand foiled and embossed to express the quality of his work

CR: Where and what did you study?

AS: I had had a slightly untypical career after doing a psychology degree in Leeds, working in various business development and marketing positions latterly in the creative industry which I just loved being a part of. In my last role before The District I had moved across into a creative direction role.  Matt had a more traditional ‘creative’ career having worked for a couple of agencies following graduating from Surrey Institute of Art and Design. Nevertheless we weren’t your classic 10+ years in a big agency before setting up, we just loved what we did and thought, we can do this. When we look back we wonder quite how we did it in a pokey shed, always meeting at the clients and having various bust ups with our printer (desktop rather than litho), but after many 18 hour days things started to click. In hindsight I think being a bit naive helped.

The District were commissioned by Cambridge School of Art to design a newsletter for their students. The result was Create It – cover and spreads from issue one shown. “The first thing we addressed was size,” says Shooter. “In making the piece big and unbound we made a statement very quickly. We used a very simple grid and strong and consistent typography to give the piece real impact. Additionally we focused on using a lot of student/ tutor generated content to give the piece real context – what better way to shout about the success of the school than use the work generated there.  We also acting as editor in chief and gave the thing a tone of voice, which had a confidence to it – a kind of self assured-ness

CR: Tell us about your approach to work at The District…

AS: We work in three main areas, identity development, design for print and web and interactive design. We enjoy each in different ways. We now work on a range of clients in education, the arts as well as out and out corporate clients and we always try to bring something unique to the table. Our team has now grown and are a great bunch, with Tom Lovell, D&AD’s best in New Blood being the latest addition. Being relatively small it is so important to us that everyone has a hands on approach and is one of the team. Without sounding crass it does feel like a small family at times and this is good and bad! We have some pretty passionate discussions about projects.  We don’t just bang out work and see what we can get away with, we really care about every detail, such as the materials and finishes used, a transition on a website, how we say stuff. Challenging each other almost always ends in a better result (or a bloodied nose). Everyone in the team works on all projects – we never just throw small jobs to the intern, whether big or small as long as a project offers us something to get our teeth into we love to work on it. Another thing we have always been committed to is to get feedback from clients after each project. We have even resisted the temptation not to get feedback from clients where projects have not gone so well. The feedback has been on the whole very strong and we tend to be our own worst critics. It also helps identify any issues that have arisen during a project.

Work for Cambridge arts venue, The Junction. “We were commissioned to re-design The Junction’s monthly listings guides and their larger quarterly publication,” say Shooter. “For the monthly listings guide where images are few and far between we developed a design which was simple and typographic. We sourced lovely coloured stock from GF Smith to give the work an identity. Where longer lead times and better imagery was available for the quarterly publication we took a more image led approach and used interesting typography and flexible image areas to avoid the feeling of a heavily templated piece. Although for reasons of functionality it was actually heavily templated

After five years the things that have always excited us still do. We love it when we get an approach from someone who says they love what we are doing, whether a big client or a recent graduate. When a lovely piece of print comes back in boxes we still all stand around ready to sniff it. People have always been of interest/ important to us, hence the development of the follow us section of the site, where people can upload a picture of themselves to our site. It is a great feeling to think that someone from New York, or France, or wherever is enjoying what you are doing.  It makes it even more personal when you can see them. Whether it is good for business development or not it is rewarding.  And actually that is one thing we have learnt. If you do things thinking of whether they will develop business for you, you really are on a hiding to nothing. Just do what you do well and focus on that and the needs of the client and in our experience everything falls into place. You need to enjoy what you do and this will show.

Above, identity for The Frontroom in its original mailer form. Also shown is an image of The Frontroom’s first exhibition created by Manchester-based Illustrator Chris Gray

CR: You guys came to our attention earlier this year because we got invites to attend shows at The Frontroom – an exhibition space in your studio. How did that come about?

AS: Last year, stacked with client work and busy with our family lives we decided we would empty our meeting room and develop a gallery space which invites artists and illustrators from the UK and beyond to take over the space for 2-3 months at a time. So far the likes of Chris Gray of Toy fame, Sheffield legend Matt Walkerdine and our very own Alex Curtis have got involved and interest is growing. It is a great excuse to get together with other creative people, have a drink and see some great work. Also everyone we have had there has really been a really nice person – they tend to stay with us for a week or so whilst they set up, so we all go out socially and get to know them.

At times it has felt like going down the park to play football before we have done our homework, but actually it has allowed us to work with people we just wouldn’t have got in touch with, just being a straightforward creative agency. And when I say people I mean people, clients and creative freelancers and this is hugely important to us. For us doing great work is all about the people not just in the agency but who we have in our wider network, so having the Frontroom as a way of meeting them rather than calling them out of the blue is a much better way to develop a relationship.

It also feeds into the overall space we work in, which is a homely kind of place we have put bits of work up, ours and other bits we like. We are currently working on our ‘backroom’ so we have a place to meet each other and clients, and obviously we have ‘The Frontroom’ which is a great place to show clients and generally get away from the studio.  As for Cambridge, we kind of settled here because our family and friends are around here, but actually it is not a bad place to be based – London is down the round and frankly these days you really don’t have to be next door to your agency to have a good relationship and do a proper job.

The District photographed by Owen Richards (who also shot this post’s lead image)

thedistrict.co.uk

The National Theatre of Wales has a new website, courtesy of Cardiff-based branding and digital agency Hoffi

Here’s the main interface for http://nationaltheatrewales.org

And once you have clicked through to a particular event…

Hoffi were awarded the project in July. They were asked to accommodate NTW’s existing online activities, including an online community with over 1,000 active members and also to work with the NTW brand language and imagery that have been developed by Elfen over the past year. Artistic director of NTW John E McGrath says: “Hoffi took a complex brief – a new national theatre company with strong ideas about it’s identity, a pre-existing social network and a graphic design team on board – and managed to do something that was uniquely imaginative while clearly in step with the decisions already in place.”

Elfen’s work for NTW involved developing the brand language, and its application on various media (brochure above and images below). Elfen’s Guto Evans explains that “The brochure is the inital publication to create an interest in the Theatre’s work, they want to involve the audience, writers and performers in the process of creating and influencing the first 12 months of the theatre’s productions.”

“As part of the development and initial research, and then creative
expression derived from National Theatre Wales’s brief, we took a physical journey, created spaces in the landscape and documented the process. We investigated how landscape influenced societies, and where society has shaped landscapes, later this process fed into the brand identity visuals.” The idea, Evans explains, is that these spaces are continually filled with different content, just as the theatre is.

CR readers, here’s your chance to quiz Neville Brody about his work, life, opinions on design and anything else for that matter

Brody is giving his D&AD President’s Lecture this Wednesday (November 25). Titled Neville Brody: Wanker or Genius? the lecture will actually be in the form of a discussion with design writer Adrian Shaughnessy. Although Shaughnessy no doubt has plenty of questions of his own prepared, he has also agreed to submit some on behalf of CR readers.

So, if there is anything you’d like to ask Brody about, here’s your chance. Just go on to Twitter and tweet your question using the hashtag #Brodydandad. If you don’t use Twitter, put your question in the comments section here and we will post it up for you.

On the night, the Twitter feed will be displayed on-screen so that everyone can see the submitted questions. This will also allow the audience to comment on the discussion as it goes along and ask their own questions.

CR readers can also claim the dubious distinction of being responsible for the title for Brody’s Lecture: it comes from some of the personal and somewhat vicious comments aimed at him following our stories about the D&AD New Blood campaign and his recent Wallpaper* cover (also here).

At the end of the evening, the audience will be invited to vote on whether they think Brody is, indeed, a Wanker or a Genius by holding up cards (one shown top, one below).

So, if you were one of the people offering up forthright opinions about Brody in previous stories here on the CR Blog, now is your chance to question the man himself.

UPDATE: The first two questions are up on Twitter. From Designer Dan, Is it true you were almost thrown out of the college for putting the Queen’s head sideways on a postage stamp design? From Permanent Studio, What font will your Epitaph be carved in?