Adrian Shaughnessey & Tony Brook - Who would start a publishing company in this climate?

Last week D&AD held a lecture at the Odeon cinema in town and we had the opportunity to go and hear from Adrian Shaughnessey & Tony Brook, who collectively work as Unit Editions.

Starting with Tony Brook, he talked of his agency 'Spin' is a London based design studio, founded in 1992 by. They have an international reputation for, “INNOVATIVE, EFFECTIVE AND AWARD WINNING DESIGN ACROSS A WIDE RANGE OF DISCIPLINES AND MEDIA.”

I had heard ‘Spin’ mentioned before but had never seen any of their work, so hearing from Tony Brook was a great experience. He talked about Spin and the work they produce as an agency and how working with Adrian Shaughnessey brings together something they both love within design, publishing.

Unit Editions is the new publishing company the pair have set up, dedicated to producing high-quality, affordable books about graphic design and the visual arts. They offer the highest standards of design and production creating the highest quality books, a collaboration between two top designers, Adrian Shaughnessey and Tony Brook.

I have had Adrian shaughnessey’s book “How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul,” for a few years now, and in the recent months have been reading it as I prepare to enter the design world. The book is very informative and honest and provides a great source of information, from a talented, experienced designer, so it was a great opportunity to meet Adrian in person. The main focus of the lecture was the area of publishing within design. Both Adrian and Tony have collaborated to work in an area they are both very passionate about.

It was a great opportunity to hear from two very successful designers on their opinion of the design world as it is today. They are both very successful in their own right and collaborating together are proving to be as successful in the area of publishing. It was great to hear their personal experience of the design industry, they know that they are taking a risk with a publishing company when electronic media is so dominent...will people still read books? One main point that I took away from the lecture was how a designer will always need and want books...you can find something on the internet but will you be able to find it again? As designers we sit at our computers and most likely there is a book open at the side of us. Books are a great source of inspiration and I do love to buy new books. having something you can keep and constantly refer back to for new inspiration and ideas is something that maybe the internet cannot provide us with. I know that personally design books are something I will always buy and I love adding to my collection. I can go back to books now that I’ve had for a number of years and each time I will see something different, something new to inspire me for my current project.

It was a brilliant, informative, lecture by two top class designers and a great opportunity to meet them and hear them talk first hand and about their passion within design.

A great collaboration.

SEA - Bryan Edmonson

SEA is an award winning brand design consultancy, founded in 1997 by Bryan Edmunson and John Simpson. There produce a wide range of diverse design work across my disciplines, from brand identity to brand art direction to packaging and interactive design. They host an impressive client list from big brand companies such as Jamie Oliver and GF Smith down to small individual fashion labels.

Their moto is simple, they just EXECUTE A SIMPLE IDEA VERY WELL.

Bryan showed us a very impressive range of the agencies work. I in particular loved the work for GF Smith and Grafik. as Bryan said the ideas are relatively simple but they execute them to the highest possible standard, working with top photographers, leaving no detail forgotten. using the ink to show the quality of the paper, and the vibrancy when you print on it - something quite simple but executed to the highest standard possible. Their Grafik editorial covers were particularly impressive, simple changing the colour used for the screen print each time to create 15,000 totally unique covers.

I had not previously heard of ‘SEA’ but they are definitely a company I will be keeping track of in the future to keep up-to-date with their current work. Their print based work is was what particularly caught my attention as it is of such a high standard. Bryan gave a very informative, detailed lecture showing some very impressive, inspirational work.

Overall, a really enjoyable lecture that made me want to produce great work like theirs!

Russell Hancock - Graphic design & the dotted line

Russell Hancock’s talk was very inspirational and informative. He has great experience within the design industry, varying from Branding and Advertising to Illustration, Film making and Web design, so it was a great talk to give us advice for our upcoming entrance into the design world. The talk was similar to Craig Oldham's 12 in 12, each very informative in slightly different ways.. The topics Russell covered and the information we were provided with will be invaluable to us when leaving university and entering the “real world.”

Russell talked of numerous important things to consider when in industry, giving us examples to back them up, making us aware that sometimes things are difficult. What I loved most about this lecture, was Russell’s honesty. He was very open about times when he had had knock-backs in his career, it will not always be straight forward and go to plan, but as he showed, you can overcome obstacles, and in the long run they may make you a better, more confident designer.

Russell showed a range of his work, some which he was not so proud of, but not all the work we do will be ground breaking, design, as he said you will have your “regular” clients, and although the work may not be the most exciting, you have to do it to keep going as a freelancer or within an agency. He was passionate about his more personal work, re-branding his local cinema...something which came about after he pitched the idea to re-develop the derelict building and restore it back to it's natural beauty.

Hearing from designers that graduated quite recently, are the talks I find really interesting and inspiring. Although hearing from the big designers and agency’s is as inspiring, these very honest, open talks about the design world provide us with advice and information that will be of a great help. They know what we are going through and it’s great to see the success that can come after your degree!

Russell gave us some great templates for the more "business" side of being a freelance designer - terms & conditions, invoice templates etc. It was great of him to give us these and they will definitely be something I will use in the future.

Finally...a few top tips from Russell...

• GET MONEY & A SIGNATURE UP FRONT
• ASSESS FREE WORK CAREFULLY
• BE SURE OF YOUR OPINIONS
• ACT PRO - GET TREATED PRO
• ASK YOUR MUM!
• BECOME ORGANISED
• GET OUT & SOCIALIZE
• NEED GOOD INTERWEBZ
• SOMETIMES....CLIENTS ARE BAD
• REMEMBER PEOPLE - BE REMEMBERED

a little update

Sorry it's been a while...it's been busy time these past few weeks working away at my final projects...here's a few late posts of things over the past few weeks...

nice work...

Came across this very creative business card design... Bracket is a publication that features everything-in-between - ideas, process and voices overlooked and under-appreciated.

The business card looks deceivingly empty until pushed open to reveal a bracket that frames the information.

busy, busy, busy.....

So its been a while since I blogged about my current work. Ive been busy working away over easter on my main project for this term, looking into the area of language. With typography being one of my favourite disciplines within design, this final project is giving me the chance to really explore and experiment with the words.

I have split the project down into three main areas, two of which are well under way and the third will be developed further over the next couple of days. I want each of the final outcomes to be quite different although they are all within the same area, as I want to show a variety of final designs to show I can work in different ways.

The project so far has proved to be quite challenging in some ways, as I have tried to push myself to work outside my comfort zone. With the degree show in mind I know I have the opportunity to push the boundaries slightly and hopefully get my work noticed. I have focused a lot less on the research areas than last term as this was an area I needed to pay less attention to, and have experimented much more with a wide variety of different outputs.

Here are a couple of snap shots of what I've been up to...

Emily Forgot

Today we had a lecture from London based Graphic Artist Emily Alston, known as "Emily Forgot." Emily showed a variety of work both commissioned and personal projects for a diverse range of clients. Emily's work shows a wide variety, with anything from illustration, retail display, print design and visual identity she "prides herself on approaching all briefs with creative thought, originality, humour and beauty in mind." Embracing the odd, the everyday & the sometimes surreal with playful visual language and image making.

The subtle use of colour added in to Emily's work really helps to bring it to life as it is not too overpowering. One piece of work that particularly caught my attention was the large scale designs for the Selfridges parade. As I have been looking at working large scale over easter hearing Emily talk about how she went about working at such a scale was really helpful. Overall a good talk with some nice, interesting work.