Graphic designer Abram Games is one of 10 Britons celebrated in Remarkable Lives, a new set of Royal Mail stamps designed by Purpose
The Remarkable Lives series features individuals from the fields of sport, design, economics, heroism and the arts who were born in 1914. Games is featured in his studio with a framed poster behind him.
“The main challenge was to tell a story about the individuals’ lives within such a small environment. The solution was to source original portrait photographs that would tell a narrative about their subject through the backdrop, clothing or pose,” Royal Mail say.
Images were sourced from archives, estates and, in some cases, families. All were treated to give them a consistent ‘silver bromide’ feel.
Others featured include former Manchester City and Engand manager Joe Mercer
And theatre director Joan Littlewood
“The pack and first day cover insert are designed to resemble an Edwardian display cabinet and curated to showcase a rich collection of objects from the Britons’ lives, Royal Mail say. “A green felt background, archive pins for numbering and navigating the ‘objects’, and brass label holders for the headlines evoke the feeling of an historical collection on display.”
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.
Day two of Dublin creative conference Offset featured another packed schedule, with talks from Sarah Illenberger, Tom Hingston, Neville Brody and Richard Mosse, plus an exclusive video interview with Milton Glaser.
After a talk from Norwegian illustrator Bjørn Lie, who discussed the landscapes and visuals that inspired his illustrated childrens’ books and commercial commissions, Sarah Illenberger spoke about her work making sculptures, installations and editorial illustrations using a diverse range of materials.
She presented a series of 3D illustrations for German magazine Neon, including one for which she used vegetables, toilet roll and balloons to depict the results of a survey on sex and beauty:
And another for a feature on plastic surgery, for which she presented the subjects of classic paintings such as the Mona Lisa to plastic surgeons, asked them what changes they might make to their bodies and faces if they were living patients, and modified the artworks to reflect the results: an inventive and provocative idea.
Illenberger focused mainly on editorial and self-initiated project, as while she does create work for ad campaigns, she said this is mainly to pay the bills and fund her experiments. “Play is a huge part of what I do. It expands the mind and helps you problem solve,” she said.
She also spoke about a need to innovate to avoid being pigeonholed. After completing a papercraft project for the cover of Papercraft magazine, she was inundated with requests to create paper sculptures, culminating in a series of elaborate window displays for a Hermes store in Berlin, which took a team of six aroud four months to create. “It was fun, but that was the climax. I didn’t want to be known as ‘the paper artist’,” she said.
Since then, Illenberger has been regularly experimenting with new materials, including foam, fake nails, pretzel dough and rubber. She also created a series of objects using food, which were sold as prints and have been exhibited at galleries in Europe and Tokyo alongside installations including origami popcorn and lights that look like ice cream.
While she has an incredibly imaginative approach, Illenberger described herself as an observationist: while living in London, she took a camera with her everywhere, building up a visual inspiration library, and said she inspired by people like Paul Smith and Martin Parr, who find beauty or colour in surprising places. She also likes work to have a tactile feel and said that big budgets don’t necessarily make a great project, as this hand crafted feel can often be lost when an artist is given endless creative opportunities.
Tom Hingston
Next up was Tom Hingston, who spoke about his many creative influences and the key principles they embody which have shaped his work.
Citing Mick Jagger, Prince and David Bowie as inspirations, he said what makes those performers so successful is that they are uncompromising in their approach. “They are very different but they each perform with passion…it seems spontaneous but their is a clear intention in their work…an organised chaos…a desire to take you out of your world and into theirs,” he said.
He also noted the work of German painter Gerhard Richter and Czech photographer Miroslav Tichy, whose techniques provided visual inspiration for Hingston’s recent video for David Bowie’s I’d Rather Be High (see our blog post on the video here), and said he is inspired by the ways in which Martin Scorcese, Jean Paul Goude and Samuel Fosse explore their identity through their work (Fosse in his self portraits, Goude in his work with Grace Jones and Scorcese in films such as Mean Streets, which drew on his own New York upbringing).
This notion of embracing personal identity was the guiding concept for Hingston’s artwork for Grace Jones’ album, Hurricane, he said, which featured images of the singer inspecting a production line of chocolates in the shape of her own head. “The project was making a statement about Grace being entirely in control of her own identity,” he said (more about the artwork here).
Hingston’s third guiding principle was “be playful with the language of colour,” and he cited Paul Smith, Luis Barragan and Spring Breakers director Harmony Korine as creatives who use colour to powerful effect. For those of you who haven’t seen Spring Breakers, about a group of teens on holiday who become involved with arms dealers, the film uses colour as a narrative device, beginning with sunny blue skies and, as events take a darker turn, a deeper and more ominous colour palette.
Projects inspired by this principle include Hingston’s work for Danish mobile brand Aesir, he said, for which he undertook a residency at a litho printing workshop in Copenhagen (one of only a few left in Europe) to learn the craft:
Richard Mosse
Following Hingston’s talk was one from Irish documentary photographer Richard Mosse, who recounted shooting plane wreckages, US army bases inside once palatial ruins in Iraq, and communities in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than 5 million people have been killed since 1998.
Mosse said he was drawn to the region because of the complexities of the conflict there. “It’s a profound tragedy but it doesn’t make it into the papers very often… [partly because] it’s a horribly complicated war, with various groups fighting each other and a remote, inaccessible landscape,” he said.
His series, Infra, features images of soldiers, communities and victims of civil war shot using Kodak Aerochrome film, which was once used by the military to detect camouflage and turns plants, trees and vegetation a vivid pink. The powerful use of colour creates a beautiful, surreal and unsettling effect:
In using the infrared film, Mosse said he wanted to defy conventional approaches to war photography, which is often shot in grainy black and white to avoid aestheticisng human suffering.
“To de-aestheticise is still a conscious aesthetic decision, so I thought why not just embrace it?” he said. “I was angry with generic photojournalism, and I wanted to smash it up…and find my own genre,” he added.
Mosse also worked with cinematographer Trevor Tweeten on a haunting 40 minute video installation, The Enclave, in which his footage from the region is displayed on six double sided screens in a darkened chamber, set to music by Ben Frost. The result is an intentionally disorientating and hugely compelling piece of work, and one which left much of the audience in awe.
Neville Brody
After a break for lunch, Neville Brody delivered a talk on the power and future of design, and the need for designers to take risks, defy convention and create meaningful, impactful work that people can engage with. He also showed examples of his work for the BBC, the Royal College of Art, Fuse, Wallpaper and the Anti-Design Festival.
“We are stuck in a place of fear – fear that we will lose our jobs, that we’ll lose our clients, or people won’t like our work…we’re in such a rush to get stuff out that we’re defined by input and output…but when we play and experiment and things go wrong, you get new ideas and ways of thinking,” he said.
Brody also expressed concern that the global nature of communications and the need for simple, universal messages was leading to homogenised branding at the expense of individuality and local identity. “Complexity and difference…are not the friends of brands, who want us all to think and behave in the same way,” he said.
Imploring designers to think about the value and potential impact of their work, adding “we do not exist in a vacuum, and our translation of invisible ideas can change the world,” Brody said it was vital that creatives “take risks, trying something new and empower others to do the same.” This was the driving fore behind the Anti-Design Festival, he said, which featured various experimental installations and artworks made “without market restrictions”.
An interview with Milton Glaser
Next up was an exclusive video interview with Milton Glaser by Steve Heller. Glaser, who is 85 and still designing, spoke about his iconic work for Pushpin, his iconic I Love NY logo and his love of making things.
“The desire to make things is a profound life time commitment. It becomes the most important thing in your life…[and] gives you a sense of being alive,” he said.
Glaser also expressed concern that today’s creative industry is growing increasingly concerned with making people think a certain way, rather than “making them aware of what’s real”, creating an industry more concerned with persuasion than communication.
He also questioned our obsession with branding – “the idea that it is the highest form of design is reprehensible,” he said. When asked what advice he’d like to give to the next generation of designers, he said that we need to abandon the notion of “the heroic, individual genius” and focus on working with others to create work with real social value. “There are very few geniuses – but we only need a few – what we need more is people working together,” he added.
It was a pleasure to hear Glaser’s reflections on his life and work, and the passion he still has for his craft after decades of designing. The film will be made available online (along with all the talks from the conference) later this year.
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.”
Alongside a relaunch of Ken Garland’s website, designer Joseph Marshall and writer Sarah Snaith have also created an online shop for Pudkin Books, the small publishing outfit run by Garland and his wife, Wanda…
Marshall and Snaith worked on making Garland’s extensive site at kengarland.co.uk viewable on mobile devices, but have also launched pudkinbooks.co.uk, from which visitors can view the series of 12 photography and illustration books the Garland’s have self-produced to date – and buy them, too.
‘a close look at fallen leaves’
Pudkin Books was founded in 2008 by Garland and his wife Wanda, an artist, with the intention of publishing books under the broad theme of ‘a close look at …’. Nine of the titles are of Ken’s photography with subjects as diverse as pebbles, trinkets, fallen leaves, the tall windows of Mexico, the rickshas of Bangladesh, fire hydrants, landscape sequences, street graphics of Brighton and the ‘buddy bears’ of Berlin.
Drawings that his daughter made between the ages of 14 and 16 make up ‘playing out’; John Laing’s watercolours are compiled in ‘chance and opportunity’; and Lana Durovic’s photographs of urban decay in ‘between and beyond’.
‘a close look at playing out’
The books are published in A6 format and printed on a digital press in restricted editions, usually of 100. “It is our firm intention to stick to this pattern, restricting ourselves to the short-run limitation of digital printing on demand,” say the Garlands. “We would rather publish many titles in small editions than fewer in large editions.”
All books are priced between £7.50 and £8.50. Three new titles in the ‘a close look at …’ series are also expected to launch soon.
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.
As the last few weeks have shown, with a new Wes Anderson film comes an opportunity for his fans to admire his aesthetic and design sensibility. Now a new compilation on Vimeo brings out the director’s love of ‘centred’ compositions and symmetry in his shots…
Fans of Anderson’s work will be well aware of the visual elements the director regularly incorporates into his films from The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, to Fantastic Mr. Fox.
The attention to detail that he invests in his latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel, was more than evident in our interview with the film’s lead graphic designer, Annie Atkins. And only the other day a tumblr of the colour palettes from various of his films was doing the rounds on Twitter.
But now Kogonada, a filmmaker who has made compilations of Stanley Kubrick’s use of ‘one-point perspective‘ and also considered Terence Malick’s use of fire and water imagery, has assembled a tribute to Anderson’s love of centred imagery, which appears in nearly all of his films.
Liverpool’s Everyman theatre reopened earlier this month following a £28 million rebuild by architects Haworth Tompkins. The new signage was designed by artist and graphic designer Jake Tilson, who also created two typefaces for the venue.
Tilson was asked to create an illuminated sign for the new façade and after meeting with the architects, decided it should reference the theatre’s original neon signage.
The brief was to create a basic lowercase a-z font with numerals but Tilson designed a full typeface, Merseyside Neon, based on the characters in the old sign, below.
“Designing a typeface from just a few characters is something I first did back in 2003 in the book 3 Found Fonts,” says Tilson. “The process is like a piece of forensic anthropology, reconstructing…from a few bones.”
To create the font and accompanying bold version, Tilson photographed each neon character from “every conceivable angle” under various lighting conditions before drawing and scanning them and researching similar typefaces.
“It became apparent that the design of the neon characters wasn’t an existing typeface, but came from the hand of a neon sign maker. So when I transposed the thin neon tubes into a typeface I kept the short line lengths and what looked like serifs, [but were actually] glass-cased electrodes,” he says.
Rather than create an exact replica of the existing neon sign, Tilson then worked with Haworth Tompkins and the signage firm to create an LED lit channel sign with a red perspex face.
“The original sign was bare neon tubing but it cast a significant glow, which made it appear larger. The new sign when seen from a distance looks almost identical, as the channel sign occupies the same physical space including the neon glow. [The LEDs are] a greener choice with lower operating costs,” he explains.
Keen to ensure the character of each letter would be preserved in the large-scale design, Tilson used cardboard prototypes and life sized print outs to determine final line widths and proportions.
“A full scale working prototype was made of the “e” to test onsite,” he explains. “From the bar and balcony (see above) the back of the sign would be visible so an extra element was added – a character, matching the old neon typeface, was cut out in holes to reflect red light back into the building…the reflection in the glass behind is of the old sign, a thin neon line,” he adds.
The new typeface has also been used inside the building, including the theatre’s basement bistro, and the glowing ‘e’ appears on labels for Liverpool Organic Everyman Ale, says Tilson.
The project is one of several collaborations between Tilson and Haworth Tompkins: he was also commissioned to create external signage for Battersea Arts Centre and is currently working on signage and way finding for the National Theatre.
Tilson used a stencil typeface to create BAC’s glass signage (above). He also worked with the centre to create a new logo, visual identity and internal signs inspired by the different architectural styles around the building. The sign for the grand hall, for example, is inspired by the frieze around the dome above it, while existing toilet signs have been retained.
“The main reason for creating different signs…was to reflect the way Battersea Arts Centre use their spaces for performance,” explains Tilson.
“As well as rooms they’ll use corridors, staircases and the surrounding streets as part of a performance. In many cases the rooms bare their original names, such as Council Chamber, Town Clerk’s Room, Porter’s Mess – so a generic design seemed inappropriate.
“I wanted to add to this sense of fiction and theatre, as if the building had been abandoned and taken over by a theatrical group. There were five styles of sign added to the existing signage that we left in place,” he adds.
National Theatre signage is a work in progress, but will be inspired by the original steel signs designed by Ken Briggs, who passed away last year. Tilson trawled the National Theatre’s archives in South London and has photographed and collated boxes of old signage as well as correspondence between the sign manufacturers and architect, Denys Lasdun.
“It’s a huge project: [we’re] re-designing the internal way finding, place naming, amenities and back of house signage and adding external signage to the building for the first time,” says Tilson.
“Both the Everyman and the National Theatre signage projects are as much about stewardship as they are about design. It’s not a piece of conservation, it’s more about preserving visual spirit,” he adds.
Photographer Carl Kleiner has shown his minimalist hand once again in a series of abstract compositions for furniture manufacturer, Herman Miller. The work reveals the various hues in the company’s new materials palette…
To refresh the brand’s three most popular solid colour lines for seating and workspace products, the direction was apparently towards the “expansive, celestial, and lighthearted,” say Herman Miller.
While Kleiner’s abstract compositions seem to have gone their own way (celestial?), they are nonetheless beautiful chunks of colourways which reveal his meticulous eye and hand – he also styled the shots as well.
CR has previously featured his work for Hembakat Är Bäst, Ikea’s 140 page coffee-table baking book, and also a series of images he made for the brand’s kitchenware.
“The [Herman Miller] team takes into account the workhorse neutrals and bestsellers, determines how colours might be affected by matte or gloss finishes, or how well it holds up against various materials such as laminates, plastics, and veneers, and then they systematically begin filling in the holes,” Amber Bravo writes on the HM site of the process of deciding its product’s colours.
“Their ultimate goal is creating a palette that appeals to the senses,” Bravo continues. “After all, nearly 85 percent of consumers believe colour accounts for more than half of their decision whether or not to purchase a product.”
More on the process behind Herman Miller’s research into colour, here. More of Carl Kleiner’s work is at carlkleiner.com – he is represented by Mink Mgmt in Sweden and Mini Title in the UK.
For the past two years, designer James Victore has been offering advice on life, work and creative fulfilment through his weekly YouTube series, Burning Questions. The project has built up a loyal following and even inspired some to make life-changing decisions…
Based in Brooklyn, Victore is an unashamedly opinionated creative. His clients include New York’s School for Visual Art, The New York Times and Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto and his work, both commercial and self-initiated, often engages with political or philosophical themes.
After publishing Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss? in 2010, a reflection on his work so far and graphic design today, Victore toured the US delivering talks and attending conferences, but realised he was speaking more about work/life issues than he was about design. This led to the idea for his weekly series, which regularly attracts more than 2,000 viewers.
“It was my wife’s idea,” says Victore. “I had begun writing more and spending more time traveling and teaching on stage to colleagues and at conferences. I was making my egress from being primarily a graphic designer. My wife…said, “You’ve got content and it’s gotta get out. Video is the way to do it.”
“I thought that was a wonderful idea, but who was going to play ME? I was afraid of looking bad on TV. My ego didn’t let me move forward. It took me a year to realise my mistake…It has been a bumpy start (figuring out the tech) and a frightening blast,” he explains.
In each video, Victore addresses a question from a different creative. Topics range from overcoming self-doubt to finding an individual voice or style and avoiding creative burnout. His advice is constructive, funny and candid: in response to a reader looking to find their style, he warns of the danger of looking to others’ for inspiration, or being swayed by trends. “Success isn’t autotrace – you can’t do it by following someone else’s stuff.”
He also stresses the importance of being passionate about what you do, trusting your own abilities and pushing boundaries creatively. “We all have fear and self-doubt but we don’t let it stop us. If I don’t push myself I get bored. If I don’t push my clients, then I’m not doing my job,” he says.
Victore says the response to his videos has been heartfelt and “overwhelming”. He also has a growing stack of ‘I quit my job’ letters from viewers who have been inspired by his unflinching honesty.
One reader, Harry, recently wrote to say: “Watching your talk made me realise a whole lot about what I do, why I do it and what I want out of it. I was chasing the wrong stuff and was completely unhappy. I just handed in my notice. I quit that job. Your talk was the massive wake up call that I needed.”
Of course, Victore’s aim isn’t to make all of his viewers quit their jobs but he does hope the project will help people re-assess what is and isn’t working in their lives. He describes the project as a ‘rallying cry for a creative revolution’, and believes we should all learn to say no “to the lack of creativity in our lives and work”, and stop relinquishing family time, health and sanity in roles we don’t enjoy.
“I’m starting a movement,” he says. “I want to be around fine, talented energetic people who give a damn.”
Victore also hopes his audience will find comfort in the fact that they’re not the only ones struggling with self-doubt or frustrations about their career.
“I think the vids work well for a creative audience, a student audience [and] just anyone who is interested in improving their lives, or understanding that their work and live CAN be a Gift – if they trust their gut and practice being themselves,” he adds.
See more of Victore’s work here, or watch more Burning Questions episodes on his YouTube channel.
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.
