Archive for the 'Publications' Category

Team Girl Comic

Masters student Kat Sicard brought this project to our attention, which is looking for future collaborators, and also supporters/funders through a new kickstarter initiative they’ve set up:

“Team Girl Comic is an indie all-women comics anthology. We support and encourage women at all levels of experience to create and publish comics. A lot of our creators are new to comics in general. We love bringing new people to the medium and letting them discover their voice. It’s been great to see the number of contributes grow with every issue. So far, we’ve published 4 issues under our own steam, but want to be able to grow and become more sustainable. Right now, we’re running a kickstarter to fund our 5th issue. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/teamgirlcomic/team-girl-comic “

via Team Girl Comic Kickstarter | GSA Postgrad Comic Books Elective.

Undercurrents

Undercurrents is a collection of current 4th years dissertations, edited and compiled by Christopher MacInnes with layout and cover design by Seb Howell (vis-com-des person). All profits go back into future productions.

G.P. Talks

Running over 3 nights next week, G.P. Talks are embracing modern technology* to bring you talks and presentations from designers, printers, illustrators, writers and independent publishers around the world. All at 6pm (ish) in Goodpress @ Mono, Kings Court, Glasgow, Northwest Europe.

Featuring:
Tues 1st May: Catalogue + Benjamin Critton
Wed 2nd May: Megawords + Junk Jet
Thursday 3rd May: Jessica Williams + Ditto Press

Organised by Good Press and Communication Design GSA

Free tickets, and links to participants websites and more info, here: G.P. Talks

Image: Megawords
*skype, a laptop, a projector and a set of speakers.

Savage Messiah

Rick Poyner’s latest critique for Eye magazine is on the Savage Messiah zine by Laura Oldfield Ford, which may be of interest to those doing the micro-publishing project, and everyone else. Charting the neo-liberal changes in Londons East-end as a result of a partially olympics-related crusade of ‘regeneration’, the zines have been gathered together and republished by Verso. I have ordered a copy if anyone wants a lend.

Eye 82 also contains an interesting historical take on the info-graphic and should be available from all good 3/4th year vis-com-des studio magazine racks shortly.

Image: Laura Oldfield Ford

Death Bed

Upcoming exhibition at Good Press; Opening 16th February 2012, 6pm.

A solo exhibition of works by Benjamin Rawson.

via DEATH BED (UPCOMING) : GOOD PRESS GALLERY.

Yr1 ComDes Study Trip to London

Tuesday 24th January

11.00am
APFEL (A Practice for Everyday Life)
Contact / Emma Thomas  t 020 7739 9975

Former RCA students producing intelligent graphic design from a small but perfectly formed studio in Bethnal Green. Best quote of the week “We would never want to get too big that we wouldn’t be able to sit around one table”. Check out an article about them in Elephant Magazine Issue 9 (available from Analogue Books ).
APFEL can be found HERE
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1.00pm
GAIL ARMSTRONG Illustrator
Contact / Gail Armstrong  t 020 8291 9153

Busy former GSA student producing intricate paper illustrations for a varied London and American client base. A great example of how to maintain a thriving creative life, be a mother and a Photoshop guru.
Check out Gail’s work HERE
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4.30pm
BIG ORANGE ILLUSTRATION STUDIO
Contact / Ulla  t 020 7739 7765

Great to catch up with Dan Williams and a few old friends at this vibrant illustration studio. Great advice and insight from Paul Davis who let us see a sample of his published work. Former GSA student Emma Houlston was also generous with her advice for shaping a career after graduating.
See Emma’s work HERE
Check out Paul Davis HERE
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Wednesday 25th January

10.00am
OPX
Contact / David Bennett  t 020 7729 6295

Multi award winning design agency welcomed GSA for an hour of shared thoughts and ideas. Pleased to see that they fill a wall in their board room with inspiration (Post-it notes, ephemera, colour printouts, drawings and scribbles) to assist idea generation for each project. Their philosophy is to involve the client as early as possible in the design process – a blend of inspiring and interrogating them – asking who, what, why and when.
Check out some of their studio work HERE
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1.00pm
THE PARTNERS
Contact / Alex Woolley or Jess Harvey  t 020 7689 4625

Alex and Jess are younger designers at The Partners and took us on a creative journey through their favourite projects. Each team works with an ideas book or sketchbook before any refinement of a concept on the Mac. This approach means that the designers are less precious about the work and allows them to reflect on the qualities of communication and meaning.
Check out the award winning work HERE
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4.30pm
THE CHURCH OF LONDON
Little White Lies Magazine
Contact / Matt Bochenski  t 020 7729 3675

Thanks to Matt, Willo and Adam who gave us a unique insight into the ‘architecture’ of LWLies covering every aspect of its production. For students in the first year of a four year progression, this was invaluable. It was useful to see how they constructed their typefaces, the programmes used and where the inspiration comes from. Read some more HERE
GSA students might be interested in a LWLies creative brief HERE – great opportunity to work on a ‘real’ project.
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The Serving Library Media Archive

“You are sat in a pitch-black room. Your head is gently buzzed with whisky. Out of the darkness you hear a recording of my voice.”

Some interesting podcasts, via The Serving Library.

Present Ideas

This BBC Imagine programme - Books – The Last Chapter? – is available to view until Wed, 28 Dec (at 12:39 to be ultra precise about it). Highly recommended as an overview of a pertinent topic which is also covered here (Form of the Book Book) and here (The Unbound Book), and the subject of this book and this book which were recommended to me by Edwin. And also relates, if you’re really really interested, to the ramblings of an armchair enthusiast.

And as it’s nearly Christmas, if you’re looking for books to spend book tokens on, a quick reminder that the book of the week archive is here, for perusal.

Grafik Details

Rick Poyner brings us news that ‘another design voice falls silent’, with Grafik magazine closing again, and in the process highlighting the precarious nature of design publishing (at a particular scale) at present. His article does however also look at the more optimistic influx of a range of new design criticism courses, and while the outlets and platforms may be changing, the critical thinking is still very much in evidence.

Illustration by ok interrupt from Grafik no. 193, 2011

Talks this Week

Talks this Fri (18th Nov), 2nd Year Studio, 4pm: Good Press and Adrian Searle. All students and staff very welcome. Details of all talks here.

Communicate & Circulate

Good Press (at Mono, Kings Court) are about to stage; An exhibition dedicated to print and publishing in the independent arts. On show and for sale are a collection of zines, posters and original works made newly available from self-publishers and small press producers from around the world.

via GOOD PRESS GALLERY.

Extreme Writing

“New Art/Science Affinities” is a new publication focusing on artists working right now at the intersection of art, science and technology. Co-published by The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University and the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, this 190-page book was written and designed in one week by four authors Andrea Grover, Régine Debatty, Claire Evans and Pablo Garcia and two designers Thumb in a collaborative authoring process known as a “book sprint” derived from “code sprinting” for open source projects.

You can download the book for free, by following that ‘via’ link, there, down below.

via CreativeApplications.Net.

Now in Production

Image: Christopher Clark, Web Typography for the Lonely (2011).

A good overview of the current Walker Arts Centre exhibition, ‘Graphic Design: Now in Production’, can be found on the Eye blog. Possibly functions as an antidote to this kind of polarised thinking, and interesting to see the ‘both/and‘ pluralist outlook in mainstream design discussions.

Collage Culture

As a provocation, Collage Culture raises some interesting questions.

Good Press

Good Press is a new outlet, based in Mono (temporarily, while they find a permanent space), from this Friday the 7th October, starting with the first exhibition, The Family Show.

The Family Show will be exhibiting 30 UK and International artists (two of which; Oliver Pitt and Jess Copsey, are recent GSA graduates) who mostly work with illustration and painting. It’s also a fundraiser for their permanent space, with all the original works being available for £30 for those who may wish to buy them!

In the bookshop there will be a large variation of different independent & self-published books, zines and other printed and handmade things. All Com Des people are invited to attend, more background info here. If you’re interested in selling zines etc, they’ve asked interested parties to get in touch directly, just via that web link, that one, back there.

OASE Journal for Architecture

OASE Journal for Architecture has a new website and better still, editions 1-81 are available as PDF’s to download to your non-brand-specific portable tablet device. OASE is/has been designed by Dutch designer and educator Karel Martens.

Back of the Envelope

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’.

A vocation

Jill Calder cover illustration

Jill Calder drawings

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/

Then When

if not now

IF NOT NOW will broadcast live from the RCA degree show, 24hrs a day we’re told.

Call for Education

Can you remember if you graduated this year? Then you might be interested in this call for submissions.