Back of the Envelope announces the launch of the British Councils ADF papers, which can be downloaded for free, or requested, in ‘reality’. The first series is on ‘collectives’.
Monthly Archive for July, 2011
‘Marriages – like that of Ive and Jobs – are less common now than they were in the Seventies and Eighties, because ‘the great financial forces of darkness have taken over. Braun, Pirelli, Olivetti, Hermann Miller, they all had powerful design identities. But now if shares drop, firms will bring in someone like Lady Gaga [to boost the brand’s image, rather than rely on real design thinking]. That’s straight forward heavy duty commerce, the share price drives everything.’
See if you can guess the speaker - it collects all the answers (anonymously)….
ps – best stock photography image I could find – everyone loves a perspex man with no fingers.
O! and other letters, plus associated talk, many of the details of which still to be finalised.
As the department gets ready to start a new year as Communication Design, we need to decide what to call this blog. My suggestion is that we just keep the URL as it is and the blog title stays the same, but put communication design in the byline. vis.com is too good to give up. In other blog related news, only a year or so off the pace, I’ve uploaded all the additional websites I can find* for graduating students from last year and this year to the vis com person list on the right. They are, in no particular order;
http://www.andrewgrahamdesigner.com/ http://uberdesign.eu/ http://nikiblack.co.uk/ http://www.sophiedyer.net/ http://www.trakke.co.uk/ http://walterhamilton.co.uk http://www.arielrosenelson.com http://www.deanpauley.co.uk/ http://cargocollective.com/maeveredmond http://cargocollective.com/meganrobinson http://ftjelly.com/ http://cargocollective.com/liangsu http://tausiroko.com/ http://cargocollective.com/aileencrossley http://eleanorhodesdon.weebly.com/ http://www.essillustration.com http://sideandback.tumblr.com www.fangzhou.co.uk http://www.heathermore.com/ http://cargocollective.com/jamieallanshaw www.marymoorelowenfield.com http://cargocollective.com/oliverpitt/ http://cargocollective.com/roberthetherington http://www.jamesedwinbettney.com/ http://louisebichan.tumblr.com/ http://www.lynseymarshall.com/ http://www.nickmilligan.com/ http://www.sarahamyfishlock.com/ http://shonacameron.tumblr.com/ http://ellentm.com/ http://emieye.com http://makotoyamada.com/ http://iamlisha.com/ http://daphneofthedunes.blogspot.com/ http://louiseduffy.com/ http://madeleineritchie.co.uk
When working through the degree show catalogues from the last two years quite a lot (particularly from this year) seemed to be dead links. But the prize for most deliberately/unintentionally(?) daft link goes to Rory Hamilton who put this in the catalogue: http://www.roryhamilton.com/
*By ‘find’ I mean flicking through the catalogues. If you’re a vis com person and aren’t on this list but would like to be, please get in touch with details of your website and year of study at GSA.
There was an almost overwhelming desire to call this post ‘Edwin’s big hole‘, but thankfully I resisted it. I like to imagine that these aren’t wooden hoardings, but instead is a giant solid piece of wood, perfectly carved to fill the entire void of the caseroom. Not sure why.
The Art Project, (powered by Google) is on one level, fantastically done, and on another level, unsettling.
Lists are always tricky things, and often come across as attempts to create order (or patterns) where there are non, but I thought Adrian Shaugnessy’s observations on Design Week were interesting and quite thoughtful. The one I’m most interested in is point 7;
7. Few students seem interested in web design. Most admit to being print fixated. This is a worry.
I wondered what you think about this? If this is true, I’m interested in why? In our false-dichotomy driven world, this is often presented as a choice between one or the other, as if the two were mutually exclusive, and radically different fields of expertise, rather than related on at least a few significant levels. It also limits what we might explore as ‘technology’, ‘craft’ etc by restricting it to web design (as opposed to networked design, technological artifacts etc), and seeing those things as part of an eco-system that also includes more traditional forms of communication. But there are (at GSA) unexplored and very different ways of communication design thinking/doing in the digital/networked world, and it does raise an important question about how we could do some more interesting and exploratory projects with digital, technology(s) and networked objects, and not just as a fringe concern… anyone interested in discussing further please chip in… Note to self: Do more of this. And stop rambling on.
As some of you might know, GSA is in the process of redesigning it’s website. Ahead of it’s launch in the new academic year, Vis Com Blog offers this sneak peek behind the scenes to see what could have been, had Neil’s more outlandish ideas found a receptive audience.
Option 1:
What’s the Rationale?: The site is stripped down to a series of blunt 2 or 3 option multiple choice statements. Pictured above is the homepage, where the user is faced with two possible choices. ‘Giving’ takes you straight to GSA’s paypal page where you can donate money to the School or pay fees, ‘taking’ assumes that you are a student or prospective student, and takes you to a page where you can chooses art, architecture or design, rich or poor, wet or dry, and so on. Anything else to note?: A knowing and reflexive comment on higher education funding and capitalist realism. And the blue background represents the colour of the sky.
Got ideas? Run out of summer things to design? VisCom blog enthusiastically encourages submissions (however far-fetched) for GSA website ideas… send jpeg screenshots (495 px wide) to n.mcguire [at] gsa.ac.uk and we’ll post them here…
I had the pleasure of working with illustrator Jill Calder (former graduate) recently. I was asked by Turning Point Scotland to design a publication that tells the story of a service user with Asperger’s Syndrome. Nigel (a pseudonym to protect anonymity) always wanted to travel on a Boeing 747 and was keen to visit a place where the main language was English. With the help of his support worker and a Turning Point Scotland team, he decided to go to New York.
I was nervous about presenting design work to Nigel as it was a first for me. Usually I present to executives in a formal environment but this was refreshingly different. I didn’t have to dress up my language or make great claims about the benefits of justified typesetting. Nigel was relaxed and full of anticipation about seeing his words come to life. I took him through each spread of the publication to make sure the design was complimenting his content. He was very happy with it and articulated his ideas on how to promote it by organising a book launch and giving seminars about his journey.
Jill’s work was perfect for this subject matter and she embraced the project with great enthusiasm. Her style is vibrant and yet sensitive, working best when complementing the text written by Nigel. Being able to work in an area incongruous to an unforgiving commercial world, and with a great talent, delivered a very rewarding process.
See the great work of Jill Calder here http://www.jillcalder.com/
http://jillustration.blogspot.com/
Turning Point Scotland is a charity providing person centred support to adults with a range of complex needs in our society.
See the work that they do here http://www.turningpointscotland.com/
Recent Comments