Hasta La Ideas

Over the course of this year’s degree show season, CR readers will be guest blogging reviews of shows up and down the UK (and beyond). To start us off, Alex Szabo-Haslam and Michael Lindley of TruthStudio visit Sheffield Hallam University’s Creative Spark 2013 show

We attended the Creative Spark exhibition at Sheffield Hallam University, and were both impressed not only by the range of work across disciplines, but the quality of the work itself. What follows is a selection of projects which we felt, for one reason or another, stood out the most.

Alex Szabo-Haslam and Michael Lindley, TruthStudio

Adam Woolley & Gurtekh Singh
The double act of Adam and Gurtekh produced an advertising campaign for the Toys for Tots Foundation, a charitable organisation whose aim is to collect unwanted toys and distribute them to less privileged children in the community. The campaign shows a group of toys looking for a new home.

Becky Matthews
Becky had some wonderfully textured illustrations on show, but this 3D typeface for small children was my favourite. Becky used animals to further link the letterforms with their sounds – a sort of visual alliteration. Her website also shows a lovely illustration for James and the Giant Peach.

Chris Taylor
Chris’ delightful illustrations left us wanting more, and his prints really stood out at the show. Hopefully he’ll be updating his website with more work soon.

Daniel Reed
Daniel is musically-minded, something that really shines through in his design, and it’s worth exploring the work of this seriously talented designer further. His Behance profile shows examples of his beautiful typography and print making.

Dash Patel
As print designers we gravitate towards well-finished books, which is why Dash Patel’s work stood out. Dash’s self-directed cricket project hopes to communicate basic cricketing techniques to young players and their coaches. The book is hand made out of real red leather, sewn together, and the pages are finished with matt.

Eve Hodgkinson
With beautiful typography – and calligraphy, Eve’s work was a pleasure to view. Her striking biology textbooks, intended to make science more interesting, would look great on any shelf.

Jennie Clark
Jennie’s punctuation project, which explored how punctuation should be used, was beautifully made with interesting content. Her website shows a range of styles, and shows some great printed work.

Jenny Longland
Jenny Longland is a furniture designer. She created this wonderfully simple, beautiful sofa for compact homes, which extends to accommodate guests with a lovely sliding motion. Deceptively comfortable, Jenny explained she had picked up tips from manufacturers such as ensuring back rests were softer than the seats. Her attention to detail was evident in this superb project.

Joe Mason
We fell in love with Joe Mason’s low table, aptly named Reincarnate, the second we lay eyes on it. Lovingly crafted from various hardwood offcuts, it even has a secret compartment. (Alex’s note – Now, all I need do is persuade my partner to let me have it in the living room)

Lewis Gray & Esra Guldal
Lewis Gray & Esra Guldal – aka Smoking Robot, two motion specialists studying MDes Graphic Design, created a charming animation named Sasquatch, a tale of friendship, loss, and… fulfilment.

Peter Larkam
Peter, studying Mdes Product Design, created an elegant, branch-like modular lighting system which can be extended to climb up walls.

Siobhan Golby
Siobhan created this lovely project exploring the relationship between metrology and design. The project is a construction of golden ratio shapes, with colour choices informed by the fibonacci number sequence. Bold, colourful, and elegant, this piece caught our eye from right across the gallery.

Tracy Gelder
Tracy’s illustrations of spam and cuckoos greeted vistors on the way into the show, and the die-cut book jacket meant we had New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ in our heads for half an hour, which is a good thing.

Many thanks to Alex and Michael. If you would like to review a degree show in your area, please let us know here

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

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