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29.06.09
Everyone starts somewhere
There’s rather entertaining mini-exhibition that D&AD have put together where a host of well known designers and ad-men have dug out slightly dodgy early work, with accompanying captions. It’s called Everyone starts somewhere and is on show at New Blood this week, or online here. Johnson banks’ Michael Johnson was asked to find something early and embarassing from the back on his plan chest: here’s an over-worked agency brochure from the late 80s, followed by some choice exampes from other designers. 
Michael Johnson Prior to working at Sedley Place I had been out of England for a couple of years, and returned to a design community in the thrall of the new typography from the likes of the Why Nots and Octavo. I fancied myself as an expressive typographer too, and set about turning what should have been a straightforward brochure into a typo-tour-de-force. Only snag was this was pre-computer and every page had to be meticulously hand rendered, then typeset, then re-rendered and re-set. It took four months, and eventually Sedley Place fired me. Can’t blame them really, in retrospect. 
Mark Farrow This was my first sleeve for Factory Records. I used to work in a really cool record shop on a Saturday. Everybody involved in the Manchester music scene bought their records or just hung out there, seven-inch singles covered every inch of wall space, it was an inspiration in itself. I became friends with the boys who eventually became the Stockholm Monsters so it was natural for them to ask me to design their sleeve when they signed to Factory. At last a Factory Records sleeve, I cannot explain how much I wanted to design one. The type came from an old book I found in the studio where I was a junior in my day job. There wasn’t an entire alphabet but there were all the characters I needed. Much photocopying and paste up followed, then it was down to Granada studios to nervously present my idea to Tony Wilson. I told him I couldn’t decide which colour I preferred, he suggested I do both, how very Factory. I’ve kind of expected that attitude of every client I have had since. 
Nick Bell Inspired by the Dutch graphic design of the time, this overwrought theatre poster was my very first commission on going it alone after a year working for Siobhan Keaney in 1988. Without a budget, I shot the image myself using the flat of a friend (Howard Milton’s sister) whom I used to cat-sit for in Battersea. The limited wide-angle on my lens meant I was balanced precariously on top of a stepladder. The name of the playwright ‘Yeats’ on a piece of board was wired to the tripod (also on top of the step-ladder) and reflected into the lens by a small vanity mirror I was holding close to the camera – it also reflected in the venetian blinds. Photoshop children don’t know they are born! The model was one of my flatmates – we shared a dilapidated hovel in post-boom busted south London. 
Simon Waterfall When I should have been eating sweets and cutting class to go down the Arcades in Brighton, me and my bezzer mate started a Computer Games company, called Silicon Genetic Ltd. It sounded important and professional but this was an age when everyone worked out of their garage and bedrooms, swapping “tapes” in the playground and buying magazines each month for any tips on how to make these plastic boxes work. We played and later programmed games for Commodore 64 and Amiga, they were the most expensive things we had ever owned and treated them like altars where we would over time, sacrifice our social skills, childhood and skin complexion. We had lunch meetings in the Grand Hotel in our school uniforms and eventually had an office with about nine staff, this is one of the rare few games we made that actually went to market, and one of the few that sold! We were sixteen.
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24.06.09
More than half is wasted
There’s that infamous quote attributed to everyone and anyone about ‘half my advertising is wasted but I don’t know which half’...* Long and tedious train journeys this week revealed that perhaps more than half is wasted when it comes to underground adverts. Of course when you’re stuck on a platform you’ll often read the large posters facing (or cross-tracks as they’re known). But when you’re inside a carriage, you can’t see them, so you don’t. Travelling to and from Clapham Common this week we noticed at one stop how perfectly the Kennington sign sat framed in the window of the carriage. Then it occurred - look around and the symbols are placed exactly at the height to be easily read through carriage windows, about a third of the way up the wall, so customers know which stop they’ve reached. Logical really, and just something you take for granted. 
Now try to read an ad through the window and what do you see? Er, ‘borghini?’. 
Maybe some trainers? 
Or some orange flowers? 
Turns out that ‘borghini’ was actually part of an ad for English newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, the trainers were Skechers and the Orange flowers were actually Easyjet. My point is, of course, that advertisers could probably get way more bangs for their bucks if they placed important information, websites, logos et al about a third of the way up their poster. Of course that doesn’t correspond with most agencies’ view of where a logo should go (usually a happy variant on that familiar art direction theme, ‘buried in the bottom corner’). Here’s an example from our travels. Quite a nice ad for MBT trainers, logo bottom right. Ad ignored inside carriage. 
Of course what these ads would look like logos, URLs and end-lines hovering halfway up the poster remains to be seen. But at least they would be seen. * Usually attributed to William Lever, as in Lever brothers: ‘Half my advertising money is wasted. The problem is that I don't know which half!’
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19.06.09
Piece of cake
In April we mentioned an odd project that fell out of this year’s Design Auction, when young design company Teacake offered their design services for free on a project of the bidder’s choice, a lot that drew the attention of the marketing team at Land Securities.
We offered to show the final product here on Thought for the Week, so as promised, here we are, with a few of the original ideas for good measure. The brief was for a poster set for the Land Securities environmental conference, themed ‘Past, Present and Future’. Some of Teacake’s early ideas covered these kind of themes... 
...then an idea based on traffic lights emerged as the design dark horse, especially when coupled with the idea of printing the posters together, pre-perforated for easy separation. 
The idea that won through was of a building block image set that hinted at the theme in the way the images modulated (the ‘future’ poster is at the top of this post). 
Land Securities client Tom Foulkes seems upbeat about the process - ‘it wasn’t the easiest of projects - lots of stakeholders, from varying backgrounds with various vested interests’. He admits that he wanted to use the traffic lights idea- ‘I thought that the perforations and running all three posters together was a really interesting idea and helped to reinforce the 'traffic light' concept. I thought the graphical route of past, present and future was a little safe but still very nice. I think the route we chose was excellent and has created three stunning posters.’ So, there you go. Well done Teacake, and all from a random bit of bidding at a student auction. When we heard about the lot we heard a few alarm bells and wondered what could possibly happen, but actually it seems to have had a happy ending.
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16.06.09
Behind the seen
Stroll down London’s Dover Street and this rather imposing chap will stare out at you from the window of Philip Mould’s Gallery. If you’re a regular Antiques Roadshow viewer (and more people watch it than they might admit), Mould himself is a regular expert providing on-the-spot provenance, insight, yarns, and yes valuations too. Anyway, go inside the gallery (if they’ll let you in - pretend you’re loaded) and this imposing painting of Sir John Conroy by Henry Pickersgill, RA (1782-1875) reveals its other side - the most incredible ‘back’ which describes in meticulous detail Conroy’s life, his decorations, how many portraits like this existed (three) and that this one was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837. 
A judicious trawl on the Philip Mould website reveals that Conroy himself exerted substantial control over the young Queen Victoria - ‘Victoria was never allowed to be alone, had to sleep in her mother’s bedroom, and was restricted to specially selected visitors. Conroy’s power was such that William IV called him ‘King John’.’ 
You don't see the backs of priceless oil paintings that often - this is worth the visit for the stories told alone. This is what the painting really looks like. 
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11.06.09
You couldn’t make it up
This evening D&AD gathered for its annual pencil fest and the stand-out result must be that a previously unknown 26 year old designer has won the most coveted award, a black pencil, for his coin designs. That designer is Matthew Dent. Anyone only vaguely interested in the communications business will wonder what all the fuss is about - don’t designers and advertisers give each other gongs with unnerving regularity? And it's true that if there was an award for best use of lime green and sans serif type in corporate identity design, they'd give that out every month, quite easily. But a black pencil is something else. Many designers struggle to win just a single yellow pencil in their lifetime, and there’s no doubt that it’s getting harder and harder every year. So black pencils are, generally, a once in a lifetime event (unless you work for Apple Computers). The Partners only won their first one last year, for goodness sake, after decades in business. Minale Tattersfield have never won one, even at their height. Pentagram haven’t won one for at least 20 years, by our reckoning.
So for young Dent to enter a coin design competition, have his designs shortlisted against none other than David Gentleman, win the day, see his coins come out to unanimous acclaim, then win the highest prize, at his first attempt? It doesn’t get any better. It just goes to show - a really great idea backed up by a visionary client, followed through to the highest level of detail can still happen. There’s hope for us all. 
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08.06.09
Super Contemporary at the Design Museum
Last week we were at the opening of Super Contemporary at the Design Museum, which according to their site blurb, ‘celebrates the fearlessly progressive spirit of London's greatest creative minds, past and present’. Phew. Heady stuff. But, actually rather well done. In the middle of the room are a series of commissions by the likes of Ron Arad, Thomas Heatherwick and Tom Dixon, but it’s the walls that will interest most design visitors, which are covered in a continuous timeline of captions, images and items. 
In various cases are items of intrigue, like this copy of Oz magazine from the late sixties.
The structure works well - you can read the ‘wall’... 
...then examine a Barney Bubbles Hawkwind cover at your leisure, for example.
There are other scattered gems, like this wooden model of the original Channel 4 logo from the early eighties.
As you might expect, decades such as the seventies and eighties follow very much the now received wisdom of what was culturally significant - the obligatory Saville and Brody pieces, for example. Had this exhibition appeared twenty years ago, Barney Bubbles may not have appeared, but now he does (history’s so much easier in hindsight, isn’t it?)
Not everything confirms to the certified canon: Roundel’s seminal scheme for RailFreight appears out of the blue. 
And later even The Partners’ 'Grand Tour’ project makes an appearance. 
So all round an interesting and eclectic selection, and worth a visit. Even a couple of johnson banks projects made the cut - this 90s piece for the proposed extension at the V&A features...
...as do our Fruit and Veg stamps for the Royal Mail from 2003/4.
Super Contemporary is at the Design Museum until the 4th October. Apologies for the blurry camera phone pictures.
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03.06.09
Kingston 2009
I’ve just finished two days external examining at Kingston University’s Graphics course, and as with last year I thought it would be interesting to post some of the highlights.
So, and in no particular order (and apologies, very image-heavy post, but worth it)... 
Helena Peristiani and Katie Peake wanted to point out just how much animal products are in the everyday foods we take for granted.
Amie Herriott set about doing photographic self-portraits, like this. But if you’re wondering how she got that odd effect...
..it’s because the image above is actually the negative. She had actually painted herself in reverse but positive, if that makes any sense (see below for what was actually photographed). Extraordinary.
James Reynolds decided he wanted to document the last suppers requested by inmates on death row.
Whilst Matthew Murphy quite rightly suspected there might be some great imagery to be found at the casusalties union, which provides made-up actors to help train medical professionals.
Keeping on the grotesque theme, Elishea Nicholson and Alex Elnaugh decided the way to deter bike thieves was to make bikes more unattractive, hence their ‘fat bike’. 
Poppy Hennig has been looking at clubs and clans (so housewives and bookgroups, very subtly branded).
James Reynolds (below and at the top of this post) felt that his local closed-down pub left a bit to be desired, visually, so set about providing some temporary solutions for those boarded up doors and windows. 
Unsurprisingly, several students attacked green issues. Hannah Rödde discovered that The Independent wates tonnes of ink just printing the colour bars on the edges of the paper, and produced these CMYK publications in protest.
Amie Herriott wants us to encourage us to leave the ‘leaf litter’ in our gardens, which will increase the number of wild birds visiting. This bird is constructed from various leaf skeletons. 
Tess Savina has been wondering if some more radical ligatures could save on printing ink.
Meanwhile a group of students (Laura Bowman, Ashley Maine, Jamie Breach, Lewis Woolner and Elliott Mariess) constructed this amazing skeleton out of disposable cutlery.
Owen Evans wants us to take care of the temperature of children. He’s designed this heat-sensitive baby-gro...
...that gives you a subtle tip if junior is overheating.
Meanwhile another group (Nick Robinson, Sam Mohabeer, Renée Callebaut and Tom Carey) have been making shoes from, er, laces. Can’t remember why, but they look great.
Tom Wrigglesworth and Matt Robinson have done various interesting projects. This first one simply plots how much actual ink it takes up to draw typographic samples of varying weight.
And this is a lovely animation for HP that doesn’t make that much sense as stills, but I’ll post a link when Tom gets it up on Vimeo.
I really liked Ella Collinge’s response to the question, ‘what’s around the corner?’.
And Sean Chilvers produced a neat riff on vanity culture with these window-based frames for Grazia.
It’s not all high-falutin’ concept stuff. I liked Charlie Crook’s ready made type sampling and printing operation.
And a team led by Jo Bell, Elishea Nicolson and Charlie Crook produced these interesting posters that re-interpret the traditional type specification (for Architype Renner and Futura Black).
I also had a quick look at the first and second year stuff too - here’s some stand-out work by James Titterton, who offered his body up as light sensitive material for a suntan pattern, then exhibited himself. As you do.
I liked this too - of one a series of portraits where the normal shutter trigger was replaced with a new one that only worked when subjected to extremely loud noise. OK, shouting. 
All images chosen entirely objectively and on a ‘what will work on a blog’ basis. Apologies for typos and missing favourites, all images of course copyright of all the people credited.
The Kingston show itself opens on this Saturday and the highlights will be on show at D&AD’s New Blood from the 29th June to 1st July. By Michael Johnson
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