OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 - Crafts Fair at the Corn Exchange, Village Bookshop and Colours May Vary

On Saturday I went on a trip around Leeds. I started out by visiting the vintage kilo sale in the Trinity church, which was every thrifters idea of heaven - big barrels of flannel shirts and rails full of knitted jumpers and cardigans. I managed to get myself a couple of items including a very festive looking jumper. 
We then went on to the Corn Exchange to visit the Village Bookshop but we found that there was a craft fair on once we got there.

 I had to take pictures of these delicious sweets! They smelt amazing too, I could have eaten them all.

I love the architecture of the Corn Exchange, the roof is simply beautiful and very inspiring. It creates an amazing atmosphere, as if you're standing outdoors in a big clearing.

I was also fascinated by these candles that were moulded from human skulls. They were huge and I loved the textures and colours that were created by the wax.

Finally after being side tracked I arrived at Village! Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures inside because I was too busy reading the books!

We also took a trip to Colours May Vary, which I enjoyed immensely. The sheer amount of design books with beautiful cover illustrations was amazing. We spent a long time flicking through the various magazines and books that caught our eye.

I fell in love with one book in particular - Adventures in Letterpress - and I had to buy it. I'm very much inspired by letter pressed work as it has a certain quality about it, with bold large type that you wouldn't find elsewhere. I love all the old style fonts that are used and even how much you can experiment with using the types by arranging them in different ways. I'm hoping to try out letter pressing very soon after flicking through this book!

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 - Study Task 1 - Getting to know people

Our group was given the company Snask, who are based in Stockholm, Sweden. Upon first glance of their site I fell in love. Their style is so quirky and unique yet so bold and effective it just makes me want everything on the page. I have researched Snask more since my presentation as I really like their style and approach to design

We had to answer some questions about the company, so I will simply answer them below.

1. Who they are - Snask is a design, brand and film agency that in their words "creates the heart and soul of brands". I find this comment a really nice way of saying how important a company's identity is as it is the thing that most people will judge the company by. Their team is made up of a mixture of interns and the senior designers. Their team is as follows:

- Fredrik Öst · Creative Director & Founder

- Magnus Berg · Design Director & Founder

- Erik Kockum · Partner & Account Executive

- Jens Nilsson · Design Director & Office DJ

- Magdalena Czarnecki · Art Director

- Richard Gray · Graphic Designer

- Daniel Lundh · Director & Line producer

- Oskar Lundgren · D.O.P & Line producer

- George Michael · Recruitment Officer

2. Where they are based - Snask is based in Stockholm, Sweden however the two founders, Fredrik Öst and Magnus Berg went to the University of Cumbria, before graduating and founding Snask was basically created for them to have fun. But they were inspired by one main message by August Strindbergs: ”by trying the impossible one should reach the highest grade of the possible”.

3. What do they do - As I said before, they specialise in design, branding and film and they have worked with lots of big international names like H&M and L'Oreal. They also set up a film company named Snask films which creates wacky shorts and quirky stop frame animations. They also do a series of workshops and lectures including ones on stop motion animation, creative entrepreneurship and graphic design as a general subject.

4. How do they do it - Most of their work starts out as a hand crafted piece, which I find really inspiring as I love both digital and traditional mediums. For example for the coverof Printing Friends below they used 3 different printing methods to make this psychedelic rainbow effect. This sort of attention to detail, in my opinion, is what makes them stand out at a design agency. 

5. What makes them unique - First of all I'd like to mention their amazing manifesto for making them unique. Even though it makes you chuckle, most of the things on this list are very true.

I like the idea that they aren't scared to make enemies as they create graphic design that can be personal or sometimes controversial. They do design for what they stand for, not for money. I will have to quote what they have said on their website as I cannot say it more succinctly.

"We believe in standing out and have opinions to stand up for. To be a part of the present time and have the gaze nailed to tomorrow. We believe in telling stories and to really dare to be personal. To constantly question and challenge social conventions and to never be afraid of making enemies. Why? Because with obvious enemies a brand becomes clear and distinguishable, and will have millions of fans and followers. Finally we believe that the only right way is your own, walk with us."

See our presentation here

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 - Nature and Typography

After going home for the weekend I could really appreciate being surrounded by nature once more. When on a walk with my dogs, we decided to pick some blackberries and whilst picking I noticed all the leaves on the floor. I immediately thought how nice the texture of the leaves were. It popped into my head that I could use the shapes and colours to create a typeface. 

So I spent that night ironing and cutting out leaves and this is what I came up with! I particularly like the K and the E because I could use the natural form of the oak leaf and it still looks like a letter. If I were to make this again I think that I would probably try and simplify it and do all the letters similar to how I did the C and the D. I love how simple they are but still retain the fact that it is a letter form. The texture of the leaves and how some are yellow, brown or red adds to the organic look of the typeface, too. 

OUGD402 -Studio Brief 1 - Researching Type within Illustration

After a quick trip to the library searching for inspiration on typography I wanted to find something that was out of the ordinary. I ended up getting an illustration book out called 'Illustration Play' by viction:ary. Flicking through I found so many interesting ways of combining type and image from different illustrations. Here are just a few of the ones that I found particularly interesting. 

Eleanor Bowley

Eleanor uses a mixture of paper collages and embroidery, creating an interesting finish that combined different patterns and materials to create a quirky finish. One piece that I liked that combined type with the embroidery was 'A Worn out Boat'. It looks like she has stamped the text onto the page or perhaps done it on a typewriter. I really like the way she uses an object, in this case a sleeve of a blouse, and uses the empty space around it to add in her text. 

Stephanie Dotson

Stephanie's work is very graphic, using layers of different papers like tracing paper, card and drawn artwork. In her work "Lone" she uses screenprinting to create different layers of colour, rather than paper. I find it fascinating that she has chosen the word "Lone" and yet she surrounds it with bright colours and very graphic patterns. You would think that this word would be related with solitude, negative space and monochrome colours. 

A.J. Fosik

A.J Fosik works in paper collage to create 3D pieces. Of all his work to me this one stood out the most, "Hard done by Factories" has such a simple layout and feel to it yet it is so powerful. I love the use of musky and earthy tones in the images of the factories, reinforcing that these buildings are gloomy and sad places to be or to work in. Additionally, the presentation in frames just makes it pop, if it were done simply in order it would look rather mundane, but in this layout the viewer has to really look at the piece for a long time to figure out Fosik's message.

Jenny Hart

Hart works mainly in embroidery on fabric producing vibrant portraits of celebrities, mostly singers and song writers such as Dolly Parton, Edith Piaf and much more. I love embroidered type that she uses, especially in the title of this piece "Dirty Face". The type looks hand made but still retains some sophistication. Also the way the type circles round the piece, giving it a frame, is really effective. It leads your eye round the perimetre of the piece forcing you to look at all its intricacies.

Rob Ryan

I have been a huge fan of Rob Ryan's ever since I saw his work at an exhibition called Paper cut in Manchester. His work, in my opinion, is so simple yet so effective and the fact that it is all painstakingly cut out by hand just makes it work even better. I have countless pieces that I love of Rob Ryan's but this piece stood out to me the most as being most related to typography. Ryan's style of text is so simple and quite naive but when cut out of paper it is so effective. This mixed with the bold red against the stark white background makes it jump out at you and holds your gaze. 

As a result of looking at Ryan's work again I may have a go at some cutting out type myself!