Sam and I were lucky enough to get a last minute ticket to the sold out D&AD President's Lecture on Wednesday. With design legends and newer creatives on the line up and the ever popular Pecha Kucha format, we knew we were in for an interesting night. There were plenty of familiar agency faces in the 900 strong crowd at The Institute of Education, and the queues snaked all the way down the stairs showing how popular this line up was.
Notable talks came from Kate Moross and Mr Bingo who were both funny and impressive in their approach. On the design legends side, Andy Cameron inspired us with talks of his time in Milan and Tomato talked about the penis for the full 6 minutes. Graham Fink dressed up and regaled us with his talk while brandishing a samurai sword.
All in all an inspiring night, but it was the new-comers on the design scene that really stole the show.
D&AD President’s Lecture
Gemma Ballinger
Glug vs. GameCity
Nihon, Nottingham
To celebrate the GameCity videogame festival, we've created a special Granimator™ pack, designed to tweak your competitive streak. Vs. Battle™ will be showcased at a Glug event at Nihon, Nottingham on Friday 29th October, as part of GameCity 5.
Granimator™ is an intensely visual wallpaper app for the iPad, created by London-based studio ustwo™. Starting with custom graphic packs, users can drag, pinch, push and rearrange their compositions to create personalised wallpapers that can be shared online at granimator.com. Download it from the App Store now!
Inspired by 8-bit video games and rendered in stark black & white, our pack features icons, lo-fi patterns and messages – with sound from legendary Japanese producer & multimedia artist Baiyon. The binary graphics are perfect to output your designs for printing on shirts, bags – in fact, whatever you can think of!
Obviously we'll be at Glug — hosting, talking about the project and giving you a chance to challenge your mates to a head-to-head Vs. Battle™ in high-pressure timed rounds. The best screens shared over the next week will even be used to print bespoke tees on the night, courtesy of Waste. Bring your own garments along, and we can print those too!
For more info about this event, join the Glug Nottingham Meetup group.
Computer Arts Graduate Showcase 2010
Dan Moore
I recently had the pleasure and honour of speaking at the first Computer Arts Graduate Showcase Seminar on the subject of 'Living with Graphic Design'. This year saw the event expand beyond purely an exhibition to become a full day of inspiring talks and portfolio clinics from Jason Arber, John McFaul, Matt Booth and Richard Tilley. For me personally it was a great opportunity to share stories and meet some upcoming talent. The audience seemed to be very responsive and keen to speak to us all, which was very refreshing.
This was the preamble to my talk:
I'll be talking about my journey through graphic design and the creative landscape and what I've learnt along the way. I've experienced a lot of change over the course of my career and I want to explore how you can manage it and use it to your advantage. From simple things like not pigeonholing yourself too early to bigger issues like not letting technology taking over your life, I'm hoping to relate my experiences to what all of you graduates here may face.
To get an overview of the themes I explored download the PDF of the slides here, or take a look at the Computer Arts blog.
Finally, huge thanks to Computer Arts (especially Amy Hughes) for putting the event on, and D&AD for their support.
2010 Bimas
Tom Muller
This year I was asked to be one of the 60+ judges for the 2010 BIMA Awards.
Aside from meeting my fellow judges, a veritable "Who's Who" of the London digital design industry — these things are always good to meet up with friends, and catch up with people you haven't seen in years — the judging itself was a very educational and rewarding experience.
The work submitted to the awards offers a great cross-section of digital work produced in the UK. While I'm relatively up to date with what's happening in the industry (and was glad to see some personal favourites , there was a fair amount of work I'd never seen before — or work I had only noticed in passing previously.
While we all individually scored the first round of entries online, it was the second round of group evaluations and shortlisting of entries in our categories (Mobile Apps, Open Data, Self Promotion, Web Apps, and Websites & Microsites) which was the most interesting to me, as the group analysis (as you'd expect) highlighted many things individuals might have missed the first time around — altering my perceptions of certain entries on a few occasions (not always for the better sadly!).
So… what have I learned from this:
Overall I'd say the entries this year (as far as I could see from our categories) were quite strong, although there was a prevailing sense of "Great idea, too bad the execution lets it down/it wasn't pushed further" on more than one occasion. Similarly, a sizeable portion of entries suffered from being in a category not really befitting the work. The worst offenders in my opinion where those entries that simply didn't work, or focussed on aspects that weren't accessible at the time of judging, forcing us to make assumptions based on written descriptions and/or screenshots. Not very interactive, that.
But, when the work was good, it was great. And thats what its all about in the end. Coming together to look at digital work and be genuinely impressed (and dare I say happy) that the work is out there, and that someone had the (crazy) idea to do it.
So yeah, its nice to know that after 12 years I can still be impressed by New Stuff Online.
Come November 25th we'll know who the winners will be, and I think (hope!) it'll be good.
Transport Geek
Rebecca Johnson
Last night I went to one of the talks put on by the London Transport Museum, in association with the London Design Festival. Finding myself often* lingering in the Design for Travel area of the museum, as soon as I read the synopsis for 'Moquette for London' I knew it would be right up my street. (*On the four times I have visited since it reopened three years ago.)
Starting the evening in the Cubic Theatre (with the splendidly covered seating featuring a recoloured revival of Misha Black's 'District' moquette) I was treated to three talks from London Underground Design and Heritage Manager Mike Ashworth, woven textile design duo Wallace Sewell and textile designer Margo Selby. The talks educated on the fascinating history of the moquette and the brand tie-in to the London Underground, as well as an insight in to how a moquette pattern is designed – there are so many factors to consider, it's not as straight forward as it might look! Emma and Harriet from Wallace Sewell talked through the lengthy process which led to their design winning the competition for the new tube seating.
After the talks we were given the opportunity of a tour of the museum's Design for Travel gallery by David Worthington, who curated the visually stimulating space. Then the super-fun Make Lounge completed the evening with a craft workshop, where we were able to decorate a set of drinking glasses with our own moquette-inspired patterns. Throw in a couple of cocktails in the museum bar and I was pretty much happy as Larry!
Computer Arts Graduate Showcase Seminar 2010
Dan Moore
Once again I've been asked to contribute to Computer Arts' Graduate Showcase event, following on from my Masterclass talk last year. Having already judged the Graphic Design category I'll be joining Jason Arber, John McFaul, Richard Tilley and Matt Booth for this all day event to talk about how to get into the industry.
The event is on Thursday 23rd September 2010 from 2pm at Café 1001, London E1 6QL. Tickets are selling fast (and can be bought from here).
D&AD Student Awards After-Party
Glug, London
Last night saw Glug host the D&AD Student Awards After-Party – the culmination of three years' hard graft for the talented graduates who had earlier been exhibiting down at Spitalfields Market.
We hosted a 'Meet & Greet' giving graduates the chance to gain some invaluable inside knowledge from Dan, Tom and Gemma to help them on the next stage of their careers. As ever the event was fantastically attended and was a great opportunity for us to meet some talented new people. Special mention goes to Matt Turnbull who won the Interactive Design category and a 12 week placement working for Nokia – one to watch.
If you came along and we didn't manage to speak to you give us a shout on email. We're always looking to hear from interesting people with something different to offer. We get a lot of enquiries though, so be patient if you don't get a reply straight away!
Tour de Glug
Glug, London
We’re looking for riders to join us for the first annual Glug London to Brighton Bike Ride on Friday the 9th July . The bike ride coincides with our special Summer Beach Party down on Brighton Beach which we’re doing in association with Glug Brighton.
Entry to the bike ride is free! All riders will receive a limited edition Glug green jersey and the winner an orange jersey with free entry to the event and some free drinks and food when we get to Brighton. The bike ride leaves at 12.30pm from Clerkenwell Green.
Entrants will be asked to donate £10 on the day, which will all be given to the homeless charity Shelter . A map and suggested route will be provided and we’ll then try and make our way down there in convoy. Those wishing to attend only the evening party event can RSVP on the meetup separately.
To register for the ride, all you have to do is go to the following link and RSVP yes.
Offshoot / 13th May 2010
Rob Coke
We were recently invited to talk about our work at Offshoot, little brother of the highly successful Offset festival. Two weeks later and I'm able to collect my thoughts about what started as a sensible evening. Held at the Sugar Club in Dublin, this is a classy event in an ideal venue – they even have their own branded lectern.
We arrived at 6pm and were told we'd be following the charming Unthink and Red Dog, at 10pm. Four hours away. We were then advised that the best way to fill the time was by enjoying a few pints of Guinness, because, "they like it a bit raucous here". I hope everyone enjoyed the talk, and apologise if things got a little fuzzy at times. Thanks to Richard and Bren for making us so welcome, and to Brian and Peter for taking us out, getting us drunk and dumping me in a bin (not pictured).
Tickets to the next Offset in October are on sale now – and there are some gems in the line-up.
D&AD Unit Editions
James Gilmore
Black v-neck jumpers, black chinos and Converse trainers were the order of the day when I arrived at the Printworks in Manchester for the latest D&AD president's lecture, hosted by Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook, aka Unit Editions.
Speaking to a packed audience they took us through their own professional design careers, influences and achievements as professional designers at Intro and Spin, and how this lead them to start the publishing company Unit Editions. Described by them as a 'digital publishing company', it was fascinating to hear them talk about something they felt they couldn't have achieved even five years ago, and which owes a large amount of its success to free media and the internet; things which are often cited as being nails in the coffin of traditional publishing.
They then explained what brought about the first two Unit Editions publications: 'Studio Culture' and 'Unit: Design/Research 01 – Folkways'. The second of the two is an ongoing project, publishing a regular 'research' paper into subjects which interest them but might not justify a whole book.
As well as discussing what has been they also treated the audience to a sneak preview of what is to come, with the next two publications; a book entitled 'Supergraphics', on the subject of an architectural movement of the same name, and the next Unit: Design/Research paper, looking at the 60s British Modernist magazine 'Form.'
For once it was really refreshing to hear people speak about design for designers in an unapologetic way, exploring the idea of authorship and pushing ahead with a high quality publishing house, in what is predominantly becoming an age of digitally-dominated distribution.
I thoroughly recommend getting out to see these two talk if you have the chance. More info about Unit Editions can be found at uniteditions.com
Glug