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Thursday 31 March 2011

Scenes From the Life Room












Gary Nicholson (21), Year 2 BA (Hons) Graphic Design

McBess

McBess, is in his own words, an expensive illustrator and director. He can't be too expensive because his work is popping up all over the shop at the moment. Cast your peepers upon these videos for long term collaborators, The Dead Pirates (he's in the band, talented eh?). Carefull though, there's some swears and nudeness rudeness in there.

WOOD from mc bess on Vimeo.


CH/CH from mc bess on Vimeo.

IllustrationMundo


For all you illustrators out there wanting to get your work, erm, out there, you could do a lot worse than create an illustrationmundo account. They currently play host to some rather tasty contemporary illustration. Iit's just one more way of getting eyes on your work and that's got to be a good thing. Click on the logo above to be whisked away...

Wednesday 30 March 2011

Sol Linero

Oceans from Sol Linero on Vimeo.


Each Campaign from Sol Linero on Vimeo.


Sol Linero's site shows her retro illustrations stylings off to a tee as well as showcasing some rather nice animation.

Fionn Jordan - Hurdy Gurdy Man

What the ukulele is to Whitehaven, so is the mighty Hurdy Gurdy to Barrow-in-Furness (and surrounding villages).


Too complicated to contemplate, the mighty Hurdy Gurdy... This one was made by Barrow resident Phillipe Mousnier


Although born in France, Phillipe Mousnier has been embraced by the people of Barrow and is known locally as 'Hurdy Phil'


Fionn's Barrow Hurdy Gurdy in all its Viking splendour



The beast on its back... The electric socket is used for charging small electrical items during play

This loud and quite frightening instrument first came to this remote (and formally quiet) part of Cumbria with Viking rading parties in the ninth century. The Vikings eventually stayed and so too did the profession of Hurdy Gurdy Crafter. The proud tradition continues to this day with Barrow being known around the globe for both its world-class nuclear submarines and also for the manufacture of world-beating Hurdy Gurdys!


A larger, sea-going Hurdy Gurdy photographed in Barrow dock yesterday

First year illustration student Fionn Jordan (21) was immersed in all things Hurdy Gurdy from an early age (he's from nearby Flookburgh) and kindly offered to show us his Hurdy Gurdy. As you will appreciate this is an offer we just couldn't resist so, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls we proudly present...

Fionn Jordan - Hurdy Gurdy Man.

Strangest Thing of the Week #6

Behold this week's strangest thing moves and has music!

It is brought to you by Year 1 Illustration student Robert Marshall and was 'created' in response to a moving image brief that asked the students to use typography to tell a short story. In this case the subject was a journey from 'Restrained to Free'.If anyone understands the meaning/significance of any aspect of this piece please, PLEASE contact us at the usual address!


Monday 28 March 2011

Year 1 - Product Names Project

The first year students have been exploring the power and use of language as a central element of effective visual communication. One project asked them to come up with brand names and visual identities for a range of products new to the market. The list included:
  • new antique furniture
  • wooden mattresses
  • thermal Y-fronts
  • wool burning stoves
  • mirrors that make you look thin
  • fizzy yoghurt
Working in teams of two, the students bounced ideas off one another and helped each other refine, edit and focus their visual solutions. The difficulty wasn't coming up with a clever name, but lay in designing a believable 'look' for their logo/mark. Target markets/audiences had to be clearly identified before the design process took place. Here's a selection of them:

Louise Mothersdale & Lauren Griffin - Cuboid Eggs


Fionn Jordan & Matthew Swales - Breakfast Cereal made from Coal

Yvette Earl & Ben Walton - Breakfast Cereal made from Coal



Ieva Bureikaite & Kerry Heaney - Sarcastic Sat-navs



Ben Jackson & John Rutland - Cuboid Eggs




Louise Mothersdale & Lauren Griffin - Portable Anvils




Ben Jackson & John Rutland - Mirrors that Make You Look Thin

Ieva Bureikaite & Kerry Heaney - Self-cleaning Dustbins



Jade Wall & Stephanie Stilwell - Bras for Men




Fionn Jordan & Matthew Swales - Radioactive Hair Dye

Fionn Jordan & Matthew Swales - Radioactive Hair Dye

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Listen to Paula...

Paula Scher is a great designer and a Pentagram partner.
We think it's important that every aspiring designer and illustrator should listen to what she says...

Carlo Giovani

Carlo Giovani is a highly versatile young Brazilian illustrator, designer, paper engineer and animator with a refreshingly analogue approach to visual communication. Please be aware that some of the work on his site contains imagery of an adult nature.

















Monday 21 March 2011

Howie's Hair


Tonsorially ambitious Year 2 Graphic Design student James Howie (21) has featured on this blog before... He has also been mooted as a possible contender for studio hair domination. Until today we hadn't quite appreciated James' true potential as he tended to hide his light under a bushel or, in his case, his locks under a woolly hat. Today that all changed as a very impressive mohican was unleashed on an unsuspecting audience.

However, before we get carried away in heaping to much praise on James' attempt to achieve vertical immortality the question must be posed - on the grand scale, just how high is James Howie's hair?
Here's the answer.

As can be clearly seen James' effort 'whoops' a typical cockerel and old school punk. However he still lags behind both Martin Degville from out of the band Sigue Sigue Sputnik and a typical 'new' old school punk...

Still some way to go then, but at least he is making the effort and it has to be said, this is a very impressive start.

Logo Land

The Second Years have recently completed their first corporate identity project. They were given a list of very different businesses, ranging from a space agency to a shoe shop, and asked to generate ideas for four of them. These are some of the most successful examples.

Louise Hubbard (21)

Petra Blahova (21) - The Riverside Trust



Lee Freeman (21)

Jennifer Bows (21) - The Open House Project, a drop in advice centre for children and young people


Helena Davies (21) - a garden nursery


...and finally a cracking piece of marketing for Secure Solutions, a company offering IT security services, by Grace Neal (21)








A Young Person's Guide to Editorial Design

Year 0 supremo Zoe Garnett-Scott (33) is pictured here inducting her intrepid students into the world of Editorial Design.

What Zoe doesn't know about Editorial Design can't be written on the back of a hand. That's because Zoe knows everything there is to know about magazine design leaving literally nothing to write on the back of the hand!
In her long and notable career Zoe has worked for some of the largest (A2) and smallest (A6) publications in the country.


Putting together a magazine is both a creative and a highly technical activity. It is one of the few areas of design that overlaps the worlds of advanced mathematics and particle physics. It is a little known fact that popular face of science Professor Brian Cox's interest in physics was initially sparked by his training as an Editorial Designer working on Smash Hits.


Brian 'Coxy' Cox during his Smash Hits days.

The journey from raw novice to experienced practitioner is both long and hard but we teach our students slowly and over a long period of time. Making sure that they understand each principle, technique and equation before moving on to the next.

Zoe's lecture to Year 0 students allows you (our beloved reader), to visually 'eavesdrop' on this exciting and challenging discipline of design. After an hour of lecturing, the studio whiteboard documents many of the 'trade' secrets of Editorial Design. Lets have a look at them now...


The post-lecture board in all its glory.

Featured below are the key equations from Foundation Level Editorial Algebra extracted for your benefit, including the standard equation for calculating 'mag size' (number of pages).

The most basic of editorial algebra equations are known as the People's Wallpaper Constants and are featured below:





As you can see two radically different publications owe their existence to identical factors but used in quite different ways.
I know you're thinking that this all sounds very easy but just to halt you in your tracks we will now show you the type of Editorial Algebra our Year 2 students deal with on a daily basis. This advanced equation is simply known as the 'X-factor'.

Not so confident now are you?

Editorial Design is not a theoretical subjects and there is also a lot of technical equipment that the budding magazine designer needs to master. As with the theory, this kit is introduced gradually over time, allowing the students to master
its usage whilst working on project briefs.

Tools of the Editorial Designer's Trade

Zoe is a passionate Editorial Designer and this enthusiasm rubs off on her students. She happily answers their each and every query about this ancient and noble art. The only questions Zoe refuses to answer relate to 'evil' design. She patiently explains to these impressionable young minds that when she was a student herself, she opted to train as a 'White' Editorial Designer, thereby electing to turn her back forever on the 'dark side' of magazine design. Black Editorial Design may, at face value, appear glamorous and exciting but in reality is highly addictive and destructive. It is very difficult to control or predict the outcome of even the briefest dalliance. Mild cases can result in the ownership of a fixed wheel bicycle but at its worst a 'retro' flat in Hoxton could result!

Next time: Black Typography with Rhiannon Robinson (33)...

Friday 18 March 2011

book jacket design







If you're interested in book jacket design (and let's be honest, who isn't?) then you could do a lot worse than taking a look at the book cover archive to take in a few good examples of the art. Other reference sources are available.