We’re looking for an inspirational, ideas-led person for our fast-growing digital team in our London office.
You'll be working closely with the rest of the creative and development team, as well as our Head of Digital. We want someone with top digital or integrated agency experience and a portfolio packed with stunning work for a variety of clients.
Download the full job ad here.
Drop over your portfolio with a CV and salary expectations to dave@studio-output.com and tell us why you'd be the perfect addition to Studio Output, by 9am on Monday 28th May 2012.
Digital Design Director wanted
Studio Output / London
Computer Arts takeover!
James Adkin
You could be forgiven for thinking we've stormed the Future Publishing offices and taken over the June 2012 issue of Computer Arts.
First Gemma shares her pearls of wisdom on how to nail a pitch, then Rob offers some wise words on what's needed for a killer portfolio and finally, Ian gives you the lowdown on projection mapping.
Thanks to the crew at Computer Arts for letting us stand on the soapbox!
D&AD Student Awards 2012
Dan Moore
Last week I had the honour of judging a category in the D&AD Student Awards. Joining me was a whole host of luminaries from the design world, who'd judged the professional category the day before (including post-judging drinking partners Erik Speikermann and Rian Hughes). As well as judging the Typography category I was also responsible for setting the brief, which was based around our work for Ministry of Sound's Saturday Sessions.
Aside from the esteemed company and the incredible amount of other work on show, the biggest thing that grabbed me about the judging was the variety of work, not just in our category, but in general. It was also interesting to see how people had interpreted the brief I'd written, and in turn to work out how much this should colour my judgment of their work.
There are a few things I wanted to talk about that relate to the work itself and the process of judging it, so here goes:
1. Stylistically and conceptually there was a lot of variety.
What was refreshing from my point of view is that there wasn't one clear trend in ideas or styles (even though the brief was quite prescriptive in areas). Having seen student projects in the past, this was my one worry, but thankfully there were myriad approaches to the brief. What I was afraid of was a lot of very tidy and formal Swiss layout; this fed into a lot of work, but thankfully was generally used as a starting point, rather than a destination. In places there were some truly detailed approaches, such as Joel Baker's 468 character set bespoke font.
2. How do you judge student work?
The shortlisting phase of the judging got quite heated at times, mainly because there were a lot of different opinions about work and what actually constituted 'good' pieces. I think it's also important here that I mention we didn't award a pencil - nothing really poked its head right up there, but a lot showed promise. I think this made the judging all the harder, especially with my first-hand knowledge of the brief and the client. For me, there was a little too much work that fell into easy clichés, or conversely whose reference points were just too far way from the brand they were meant to be representing.
3. There was a lot of debate about what is a poster and what is typography.
This caused quite some chatter - on the one hand some judges saw this brief purely as a single-sided printed A2 poster, while others applauded those students who challenged the conventional notion of a poster and what it could be (and perhaps is becoming). For that reason James Isbell's entry was the subject of great debate, mainly because it existed outside of these standard formats and looked to add an element of interactivity and user-generation to its process.
4. What is an 'on-brief' response?
It's interesting writing what you think is a clear brief and then seeing it interpreted in so many different ways, and ways that you initially might think are 'wrong'. One of the big lessons I've learnt from the judging day is how subjective even answering a brief can be, and that actually it's good to see details challenged and interpreted in the loosest of ways.
Have a look here at the winners for this category and you'll see what I mean about the variety and quality of the work.
Also well worth looking at is the Illustration winners, all working to a great Little White Lies brief set by Church of London.
And finally, if you want another take on this year's Student work, then take a look at the NB Studio Tumblr.
Beauty in the Making
James Cuddy
Yesterday we had a look around the GF Smith event 'Beauty in the Making' – a five day event exploring the production processes and creative opportunities of paper.
Admittedly paper may seem a bit 'niche' topic at first, but the event was genuinely inspiring, and featured some really beautifully produced pieces showcasing the qualities of different materials.
There are some other interesting bits from the type foundry Monotype's archive which are worth a look. For a company with such a strong design history it's great to see them engaging with the design community in new ways.
The event finishes today though – so get over to Southampton Row to check it out!
Selected for Creative Review Annual 2012
Sam Allen
We're chuffed to have had the three films we produced for the PlayStation Store selected for the Creative Review Annual 2012.
The Annual is Creative Review's showcase of the best work of the year and is available in all good newsagents alongside the May issue, as of today!
Orbital at The Royal Albert Hall
James Gilmore
On Tuesday night I went to see Orbital perform at The Royal Albert Hall. Aside from the amazing music and being in a really interesting venue, the most impressive thing was how they used VJing to really bring the whole thing to life beyond two guys behind loads of gear on a big stage.
The effects went from old-school style type & messaging through to 3D animation, projection mapping and generative & code-style imagery.
The whole experience was amazing and if it's something they're repeating on tour I'd definitely recommend getting down to it.
British Design at the V&A
James Gilmore
On Tuesday I headed down to London to have a look at the V&A's new exhibition: British Design 1948–2012. Covering the period since the last Olympics were held in London, the exhibition showcases some of the most exciting, relevant and interesting creative output from Britain in the last 60+ years.
Walking around the exhibition it's interesting to see how deeply the influence of a few designers and studios has become ingrained in our national identity. Stand-out work from Design Research Unit, Pentagram and The Designers Republic is well represented in the exhibition.
I'd advise anyone to get down and have a look, there's plenty of inspiration to be had, including an amazing collection of fabric pattern designs, something I'm finding particularly interesting at the moment.
Pick Me Up
Emma Graham
We moseyed on down to the 'Pick Me Up' contemporary graphic art fair, which is now on at Somerset House till 1st April.
It showcases a culmination of some of the most inspiring design work out there. There’s some brilliant work on display from design/print greats such as Nobrow, Andy Smith and Anthony Burrill and lovely work from fresh talent too as showcased by YCN, Ship of Fools, Print Club and Nelly Duff, to name but a few.
We joined Aardman model maker Jim Parkyn and made our very own customised Gromit figurines and walked away real big fans of Zim & Zou, Peskimo, Andrew Rae and Lizzy Stewart’s work.
We strongly recommend you get stuck into a whole host of activities, live music, talks, and workshops that are running throughout the course of this week.
Find out more about 'Pick Me Up' here.
Love Bytes 2012
Johanna Drewe
On Friday I had a morning out of the studio and headed to Sheffield for wow + flutter, a screening of motion graphics and animation curated by onedotzero and part of the Love Bytes Festival which took place from 22nd–24th March.
Forecast to be the creative pioneers of tomorrow, it proved to be a worthy collection of short films, animation and motion graphics, including these weird and wonderful creations: a rotating, ever changing pop-up world called Secret Island created by Monophone, Mahahula, a giant rodent of happiness by Nomint, weird jazz-handed creatures in How the Wild Things Are and painterly and atmospheric football by Richard Swarbrick.
Check out wow + flutter and the Love Bytes festival here and look out for it this time next year!
Stereo Vision
Stewart McMillan
Last Thursday Michael and I travelled down to Ravensbourne college to attend the 3D Storytelling conference being held there. It was an excellent opportunity to hear thoughts from the leaders in Stereoscopic 3D imaging. We also saw how the technology is being used to enhance films and gaming experiences – and who's going to turn down an opportunity to play Mirror's Edge in 3D on a huge projector?
I'd recommend to anyone interested in the future of S3D to check out 3dstorytelling.co.uk where some of the sessions have been posted.
Glug