Alan Cox - Dust

Alan Cox studied a HND at Stockport College around 18 years ago, for 2 years. He then went on to study at Leeds Met University joining the 2nd years on the degree course; he finished his degree there. After finishing his degree, Alan then went on to wok in a hotel for 2 years, as he struggled to find a job in the design industry.

Alan has since become a member of the design company Dust, based in Sheffield. It is a small company with only two members in total.

Since working for Dust, Alan has worked on installations for Manchester United. The ideas behind the wok was based on the way the grass was cut on the pitches and how the goals were scored etc.

A few other design jobs Alan has worked on are:

• Penguin book covers
• McDonalds
• Mexico factories
• Cadbury's Dairy Milk
• Voda-Phone - illustrations
• financial times

All of the above were taken from self promotion ideas.

Below is a selection of work mentioned above.


































Above are two installations Dust created for Manchester United.
























Above is a book cover designed for Penguin books.

Container Plus vs Mike Rigby

Over the last year we have had a variety of different guest speakers coming into College, providing us with a lecture on their experiences on entering the graphic design world. Not all of the lectures are of great interest, however the majority are interesting and provide me with answers to the questions i have been asking. Each lecture i felt was presented very differently, whether it was the way they talked about there own work; or the actual presenting skills. After experiencing these lectures i have decided to compare two different lectures that have stood out in my mind and their different ways of how they entered the design world.

The two different lectures i am going to compare are Luise Vormittag, from the design agency Container Plus, and Mike Rigby a graphic designer who has worked for many different well known design agencies such as The Chase and Pentagram. Both lectures were very well presented and interesting to me, however quite different. Container Plus's lecture was presenting in the lecture theatre so felt very formal and professional, whereas Mike Rigby presented his lecture in our graphics room upstairs. This meant we were all sat a lot close to him and it felt less formal, but was still presented in a professional manner.

To start my comparison i am going to talk about Luise Vormittag and her lecture for Container Plus. As i mentioned above Luise presented her lecture in the lecture theatre. The main thing that stood out from her lecture from the start was the fact Container Plus are a collaboration of different pathways and made up of only women. I was intrigued to see how illustration and graphic design worked well together in a company. Luise mainly concentrated on talking about the agency itself, however she did include how she and the company set up and her experience into the graphic design world. There were comments after the talk that students found this lecture boring and un-interesting, however i feel i was the complete opposite and something about this lecture really kept me interested. It may have been the fact that we very rarely have female designers come in to talk and i was intrigued to see if she had any different problems or successes as the previous male designers we've had in. Container Plus was set up by Luise and a fellow design student from the same university, Nicola Carter. They both collaborated work during their final year at university and new they both wanted to work together doing something with illustration/graphic design. So they set up Container Plus, they now have a 3rd full time designer called Patricia, however they say being only a small company if they need any extra help they are not afraid to ask for it. Luise had a few points that she made during the lecture that really stood out to me. one of these was that container plus keep work and home life separate. This means like most graphic designers, instead of going for a drink after work, Container Plus do not do this, once they leave work that rarely speak until they are next in work together.

Secondly i am going to talk about Mike Rigby and his lecture. Again as i mentioned earlier, Mike presented his lecture in our small graphics room. I feel this was better in a way as we all got to engage with him directly. Mike started off his talk by talking about his first ever placement he got once leaving university, which was at Imagination London. He expressed how huge this company was and explained they had lots of different offices for all the different pathways in design. He even made a point of mentioning the street that ran between two of the buildings, in relation to how big it really was. mike said he enjoyed his placement and it was a good experience however he felt that he had spent most of his time in the photocopying room. Mike also went on the stress how important placements really are, this is something that Luise didn't talk about! He mentioned that it not only gets you in contact with people from the real world but also makes you fully aware of the speed you are needed to work at, which is good piece of information to be told as its not something you do much of whilst at university. Another piece of advice given by Mike was not to be scared of your work being rejected. Mike's lecture was very different as he hardly mentioned any of the companies he's worked for, he mainly focused on placements and his design experience. Mike's way of presenting was a lot more casual, he was talking about his early experiences such as going travelling around the world. He went on to say if you've already been travelling when going for an interview the employer then knows there isn't a chance you could leave after a year to go travelling the world.

With both lectures being about the same work however in very different styles you can clearly see this in their work.

Below is an example of Container Plus's work.




























As you can see above Container Plus's work is very illustrative and pretty. Where as Mike Rigbys work (below)































You can see above that Mike's work is very clean and minimal, quite the opposite to Container Plus.


In comparison i think both lectures were extremely useful to me and have provided me with answers to many questions. Both lectures contained different information, for example Container Plus are a company that does everything from design work, photography and even making websites; whereas Mike Rigby works for a company, as a graphic designer and there will be other departments to deal with photography etc. I think both ways of presenting were useful and i enjoyed watching both of the lectures, as they both stood out in my mind and i will remember the basic points the guided me with.

Dave Sedgwick Lecture

I attended a lecture by Dave Sedgwick on 29th October 2009.
Dave currently works for design company 999
Dave started off his design career by attending a D&AD course at Manchester Met. University, he then went on to complete two placements: one at Flux Magazine and then one at Splinter in Liverpool. He enjoyed both placements however preferred the placement at Splinter.
Dave's whole lecture was to take us through his design career and give us as many useful tips that he could along the way. One his most useful tips i felt he gave us was to make sure we research the companies where you have been offered a placement. You will complete many different placements in your design career, some you will love and some you will hate, this is just part of the process of finding out which type of company you would prefer to work for.

After the placements above Dave was then offered a 2 week placement with Dinosaur. He was paid £65 for the 2weeks. Once completed the placement, Dave carried on visiting various design agencies, Dave then went on to bag a placement at Love which he then got offered a job there. He explained he found it a lot easier to get the placement at Love, now he wasn't a student, agencies would agree to talk to him. Unfortunately he then got made redundant, and went on to be a freelance designer for a few months.

Dave was then offered a job at RACE, he explained he did everything from tea making at race.
Dave then went on to work at Bruntwood for a few years.
In 2006, Dave then joined 999 design in Manchester, which was funny for Dave as he had actually gone to see 999 when he ad graduated and had not been offered a job.

Of all the lectures i have attended i would like to say that Dave's has probably been the most useful to me, as he seems to have gone through a lot of the same problems as i do, e.g not getting email replies and no-one wanting to talk to you because your a student!

Below are a few examples of Dave's work he has created over the years:

Container Plus Lecture

Container Plus came in to give a lecture about there company today.
Container Plus are a multi-disaplinary art and design company, they specialise on creating fantasy worlds across a multitude of 2D and 3D platforms.

Luise Vormittag met Nicola Carter when studying Graphic Design at University. Both were unsure what to do with there lives after graduating. So they decided to stick together and set up their own company. they started off by setting up a joint website containing two sepreate portfolio's. Both didnt really have a plan in what to do, they took both portfolio's with them when visiting agencies. 

Among the previous work carried out between the pair is the Lab Cafe display they created for Selfridges in 2004. They were do design an installation for Selfridges Lab Cafe, Oxford Street, London. It was a permanent installation that took four weeks of Saturdays working on the design. They split the design up in to sections between them, to lower the work load. Louise created the heads, line drawings and Nicola created the bodies, colour and style. 
Below is the created Lab Cafe display: 

 

 

Another previous example of work is the Vaulkswagon Fox car launch. 

The idea was to design of 4 rooms at Copenhagen's creative lifestyle hotel, designed for the launch of Volkswagen's FOX, 2005. the hotel was transformed by 20 different designers and then journalists stayed in the decorated rooms. Container Plus were given four rooms to decorate, they created four different stories to decorate the rooms with, these all included playing cards. 
The rooms they completed are shown below:

Another installation created is the Art Car. They only got asked the day before the installation was to be completed so with no time they just threw it together.

Other design work they have created will be shown below:

Charles Worthington  - It goes to your head. Created illustrative advert.

Art exhibition in Germany. Evil Twins. 2006.

After the evil twins project they had an idea to expand company to Patrica, Victoria and Anne making it 5 people in total.  All the new recuits had all had previous experience in the design area. After a year of all working together it just didnt work so they broke back down to just 2 people again. They then went on to be a 3 again, with Patricia re-joining the group and still all work together today. they hae carried on to work for companies such as Topshop and Sony.

Practioner comparision Craig Oldham vs Fudge

Craig Oldham vs. Fudge

Recently at college we have had a series of lectures presented to us by graphic designers and companies. There have been a variety of different styled companies and their working styles have all been very different but interesting. Some of these lectures include design companies such as Truth, Music, Fake ID, Grant Gilbert , Tal Rosener, Glorious and Thoughtful.

Craig Oldham from music came in to give us a lecture about his life since graduating University. Craig Oldham has only been graduated from university for 3 years. He worked at The Chase for a few years, within his first 12 months of working at The Chase he decided to produce a booklet of his encounter. His booklet was mainly about the lessons that he learnt whilst working at The Chase.


Craig has a great theory he goes by when in the graphic design industry. It is that you are one of two types of designers, Bunch A or Bunch B. He went on to explain what they were:

Bunch A - logical designers that do things that have an obvious purpose in life. For example toilet signs.

Bunch B - emotional designers that use every form of communication possible, to build an emotional connection between the design and its audience.

He also asked us all in the audience to have a think about what designer we think we are. Having being asked this question, thinking about it I’m not sure what category of designer I would fall in to. I think a lot of people sat watching the lecture also felt the same as me, so I wasn't on my own. Craig also went on to talk about having different strengths and weaknesses as a designer. He talked about when you are at your first ever placement you will often say yes to anything you get asked by designer, even making endless cups of tea. He expressed that although this may be boring it is very good in the process of being accepted in the design industry. He did also say that you need to be fairly honest when accepting challenging tasks, like if you get asked to build a website and you are weak at this area, don’t just accept to impress someone. If you are unsure of your abilities then say so, this way you won't make a fool of yourself or disappoint someone. Placements are very important as you get a chance to practice your abilities and also learn at the same time, it also enables you to get your name out and there.
Craig had a few do's and don'ts of placements:

Do's
- An insight to a real graphic design agency
- Real work
- Meet new and interesting people
- Improve your tea making skills (VERY important to Craig ha)
- Build confidence
- Remind you of your abilities

Don’ts
- Loss of money
- Could be away for a long period of time and could be on your own
- Taken advantage of

Whilst at the agency Craig said to make sure:
- You are punctual
- To make sure you are always enthusiastic
-To be no one other than yourself
-Make sure you spell peoples names right!!

Another one of Craig’s useful tips was to make sure you keep in touch with people you have met along the way. Share ideas with people, don’t just hide them and not let anyone else see, everyone knows everyone in the design world. He also said to invite criticism towards your work. Don't be scared to ask people about your work, you never know it might improve your idea.


Gavin Bates from the graphic design company Fudge presented us a lecture called 'The Branding Process'. He said to researching the client is one of the first things you should do when given a new brief. This is because you will need to have a much fuller understanding of the company you are designing for. He also went on to mention that your best ideas come up from researching your client in detail and understanding what your client represents.

Fudge has its own way of dealing with briefs, when re-branding they split everything up into sections to make sure they are clear on what’s needed. The sections are:

1. Researches and Analysis
2. Naming Solution
3. Design Concepts
4. Design Development
5. Design Applications and Artwork

Gavin then went on to show us some of his work. Starting with visual rough sketches and gradually refining them and making them neat as he went on. One of Gavin’s tips was to not use ideas that have been used before, the term re-branding means a complete make over. He also said for us to think about how we are going to present the work to the client as you want to act and look professional at all times.

To compare the two lectures, I would say they were both very good, interesting and informative. I have learnt useful tips from both lectures and enjoyed listening and watching them. I think I preferred Craig Oldham’s lecture the most, but only because he is younger he thinks more on the same lines that I do and he swears a lot like me! They were both shown in the same sort of way, however Craig focused more on his life after leaving university, he also included a large section on portfolios and placements. This was extremely useful to me as at the time of the lecture I was putting together my first portfolio. The placements part was helpful to as I had lots of questions to ask about them and Craig answered them for me. Gavin focused more on his work and what the company had produced and who for. I am really grateful both lectures took place as they have helped me a lot during the course.

Fake ID Workshop

Taken from their website (www.wefakeid.com) a brief description about the company..

"Fake I.D. was founded in 1999 by Yvan Martinez and Joshua Trees.

Fake I.D. is an independent graphic design practice that develops projects for cultural contexts (exhibitions, games, performances, publications, social media, websites, and workshops). Fake I.D. initiates collaborations between artists, brands, and institutions, and works with companies to expand the cultural dimension of their communications through the origination, motivation and support of thought-provoking activities and productions.

Currently in its tenth year, Fake I.D. has produced a diverse range of work, recognized in numerous books and magazines, including commissions from Aiwa, Anthropologie, COLORS, Emigre, The Face, Giant Robot, GLBT Historical Society, Harmony Korine, IdN, MTV, Nike, Sony, Urban Outfitters, Venice Biennale, Wieden+Kennedy, and Zune Arts, among others.

Martinez and Trees have shown their work at international venues including La Panaderia in Mexico City, Ynglingagatan 1 in Stockholm, Galleri Christian Nagel in Cologne, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, American Fine Arts in New York and the Venice Biennale. Fake I.D.'s work is featured in the permanent collections of Design Museum in London, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York. They have lectured and taught workshops at California College of Art, Centro Culturale Candiani, Dutch Art Institute, Fabrica, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, London College of Communication, UCLA, and the Valand School of Fine Art.

Trees is an associate lecturer at the London College of Communication, and adjunct faculty at Art Center College of Design. Additionally, Trees and Martinez are visiting faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute."

On Thursday 30/04/2009 we were lucky enough to have Yvan and Joshua to come into college and run a work shop for us. The brief we were given was compleatly different to the usual work we do, in stead of just drawing, sketching and mocking things up of the Mac ; we had to create a 2minute long sound dialogue. We had to do this by using our imagination and thoughts from looking at an image chosen for us. We were paired up and given a different image per pair, all totally different from each other. We were instructed to use our imaginations to describe what was going on within the image without directly describing the scene.

I got paired up with my friend Hayley. We both got given the picture of a man playing a keyboard at what looks like a party/event. After a stressful process and jotting down a few different ideas, we decided to go along with the idea of the dialogue being of a bumble bee. The bee would have been at the same event/party as the man in the picture and the dialogue would be what was going through his head as he flew around the party.

I really enjoyed the workshop as it was so different to what we normally do, i found it fun but challenging. I hope in my 3rd year there are more days like this.

Our dialect went as following...

" Bee

Life is fun being a bee. The amount of things you see is great and very exciting as nobody is aware that your there. Oh what do we have here… its looks like a party. Hmm ill go and explore. What is that unusual object, it’s a large round thing that has a large 18 written on it. It also has a type of ribbon hanging from it that’s tied to a chair; I think it will try an escape if it’s untied. I’m hungry, I’m going to try and go and find some food I can nibble on. What is in that giant bowl filled with? It looks quite scary to me up here, what if I fall in it?? Il end up drowning and dying, think I’m going to move away from this bowl. Ok I have found some triangular objects filled with some sort of red stuff, they look nice but it’s not my type of food. Woahhhh watch out I always get batted out of the way and cheers now I’ve been flung across the grass and on the floor. Ouch that really hurt, think they’ve damaged my leg. Ok time to have another fly around. Iv have just landed on something sticky, my feet seem to be stuck ohhh nooo it’s like quick sand what am I going to do? I think is food oh crap he’s picked up the food and im heading towards his mouth HELP MEEEE!!!. Oh thank god I have just fallen off and managed to fly away…lucky escape! Oooo I am tired after all this flying around ill go and have a rest on that leaf over there ( pause ) arrr that’s better, these lil wings don’t last as long as they used to. This party is getting busier and everyone seems to be having a good time, im not sure bout his music though. Where are the words???? Oh no drinks gone flying over the table, hahaha that girls white dress isn’t white any more…arghhhhhhh!! That’s my rest over, stupid wind always blows me off the leaves!! Arwel lets continue to go and find out something interesting. This table is very messy, looks like I will have some fun in here; I think that tall brown thing looks interesting. Ewwww it has sum sticky stuff around the edges, mmmm it tastes good though? What is this? Everyone around seems to be drinking it. Arrrrrrrrrrrrr…….(splash) hellpppp!!! Hellooooooo im stuck……bbblleeee bllleeeee blllleeeee….."

Double G studios - Grant Gilbert Lecture

Grant Gilbert is another ex Stockport College student. He came in to us to do a lecture on his life since leaving Stockport College and what he is currently doing. From leaving Stockport he then went on to Birmingham to complete a BA Graphic Design Degree. Once graduated from Birmingham he went to work for a company called Planet 24. He stayed here for 3 years and said he deeply enjoyed his time working there and it was a valuable expreience.

He then got a job working for Chanel 4. He stayed her for a further three years and he explained that is was a great change and the standard of work expected from you, but he also admitted he enjoyed it more there. He then went on to work with a company called Spin, they created the logo for the tv channel More 4. He was given no brief and was left alone to do anything he wanted, this was mainly because they had seen his idents he had done for channel 4 and were confident anything he did would be good. He said it was hard getting everyone to agree on the board as 'someone always had an opinion'.

After this he was then asked to do create an Ident for BBC1. He had to basically re-brand the whole channel. He also worked with the company Red Beat in London,to help created this re-branding. He looked at the old BBC logo and decided to keep an aspect of it and change it around that, also keeping red and white as the colour scheme. He also went that extra mile and created the whole typeface that is used.

I really liked this talk as he showed us the ay he works and it is a lot like how we work here at college.

Glorious - Tommy Lecture

Glorious deisgn company in Manchester are currently ranked in the top 5 through-out england came and gave us a lecture. Tommy was the once given the lecture and told us that the company has been going for three and a half years under the name of Glorious. Its a fairly small company with only 5 designers working for it. Tommy's main designs were very typographically based as this was his best area he thought. We were shown alot of different types of work Glorious have created and even some work that has won awards in the past.

Some of the clients Tommy has created work for include:
- Karl's Barbershop
- Temperature Control
- The HAT project
- REDdog Communications
- Shot Up North

Tommy also went on to mention about when the client 'totally destroys' your confindence. He talked about how he came up with an idea for a client and they then took the idea to another design agency and got them to compleat it, he said that it was literally like 'giving your baby away'.

My two favourite peices were the Karl's Barbershop and the Pay And Display ticket.
I think they are both really clever ideas and i wish i had thought of them myself.
I really enjoyed theGlorious lecture and it has helped my way of thinking develop.

Dan Ingham and Stephen Owen

Dan and Stephen are ex students of Stockport college, who left in 2007. They came in to give us a talk on their life after leaving college and where they are at now. From graduating both with First's and also having a D&AD New Blood 'Best in Show' award under there belt they had some help to start them off.

From looking at them i had the feeling that they were just going to gloat about their work and basically show off, however i was wrong. `they were very down to earth guys and gave us a lot of useful and well needed tips. Surprisingly to hear they both agreeded how much they miss college and being able to do what ever they wanted during the day. Even simple things like going for dinner whenever they wanted and sneaking off home early was was they mostly missed. They had a main message to be given out during the talk and that was to encourage us to come in to college all the time and make the most of it. They made it clear that coming into college will definatly boots your ideas and help you along with the design process. Making friends with people from other pathways was also a good tip from them, which i related too as i have a lot of friends from different pathways. They said if you have these friends they canhelp you if you are unsure of a program or just need general help.

Both of them created some posters for their End of year show exhibition 2007, this was extra work for them as they still had to finish off their final work but they voulenteered to do this.

After telling us their tips and advice they went on to talk about where they are now and what they have been doing for the last few years. Both of them sucessfully compleated placements at The Chase and Thoughtful. Dan currently works at Mark Studio and Stephen is at McCann Erikson, they both expressed how designers from big companies are nice people when you are lucky enough to get a placement and get to know them.

They also mentioned that being able to make a nice cup of tea is infact the best skill you can have on a placement and to make yourself known to do all the jobs that noone else wants to do. They also said to make sure you research the company before you start your placement as you want to look like youve made an effort when asked about their work.

I really enjoyed the talk and it helped me have a better understanding on whats going to happen once i finish the course and have to find a job.

Fudge - Gavin Bates Lecture

Gavin Bates from the graphic design company Fudge presented us a lecture called 'The Branding Process'. He said to researching the client is one of the first things you should do when given a new brief. This is because you will need to have a much fuller understanding of the company you are designing for. He also went on to mention that your best ideas come up from researching your client in detail and understanding what your client represents.

Fudge has its own way of dealing with breifs, when re-branding they split everything up into sections to make sure they are clear on whats needed. The sections are:

1. Research and Analysis
2. Naming Solution
3. Design Concepts
4. Design Development
5. Design Application and Artwork

Gavin then went on to show us some of his work. Starting with visual rough sketches and gradually refining them and making them neat as he went on. One of gavin's tips was to not used ideas that have been used before, the term re-branding means a compleate make over. He also said for us to think about how we are going to present the work to the client as you want to act and look professional at all times!

I really enjoyed this lecture from fudge, his style of work is alot like mine so made it more appealing to me.

Music - Craig Oldham

Craig Oldham has only been graduated from university for 3 years. He worked at The Chase for a few years, within his first 12 months of working at The Chase he decided to produce a booklet of his encounter. His booklet was mainly about the lessons that he learnt whilst working at The Chase.
Craig's theory in graphic design is that you are one of two types of designers, Bunch A or Bunch B.

Bunch A - logical designers that do things that have an obvious purpose in life. For example toilet signs.

Bunch B - emotional deignersthat use everyform of communication possible, to build an emotional connection between the design and its audience.

Having being asked this question, thinking about it im not sure what catagry of designer i would fall in to. I think alot of people sat watching the lecture also felt the same as me, so i wasn't on my own. Craig also went on to talk about having different strenghts and weaknesses as a designer. He talked about when you are at your first ever placement you ill often say yes to anything you get asked by designer, even making endless cups of tea. He expressed that although this may be boring it is very good in the process of being accepted in the design industry. He did also say that you need to be fairly honest when accepting challenging tasks, like if you get asked to build a website and you are weak at this area, dont just accept to impress someone. If you are unsure of your abilities then say so, this way you won't make a fool of yourself or disapoint someone. Placements are very imporatant as you get a change to practice your abilities and also learn at the same time, it also enables you to get your name out and there.

Craig had a few do's and don'ts of placements:

Do's
- an insight toa real graphic design agency
- real work
- meet new and interesting people
- improve your tea making skills (VERY important to craig ha)
- build confidence
- remind you of your abilties

Dont's
- loss of money
- could be away for a long peroid of time and could be on your own
- taken advantage of

Whilst at the agency Craig said to make sure:
- you are punctual
- to make sure you are always enthusiastic
-to be noone other than yourself
-make sure you spell peoples names right!!

Another one of Craigs usefull tips was to make sure you keep in touch with people you have met along the way. share ideas with people, dont just hide them and not let anyone else see, everyone knows everyone in the design world. He also said to invite critisim towards your work. Don't be scared to ask people about your work, you never know it mite improve your idea.

I really enjoyed Craig's lecture and it has helped my way of thinking and will do so in the future.

Music - Anthony Smith Lecture

After studying at HND level at Bolton university, Anthony Smith graduated in 1989. He then went on to work for a design agency called Tucker Clarke Williams for the next 5years. After deciding it was time to leave he went on t work as a freelance designer down in London for a few years. He now currently works up here in Manchester for a design agency called Music.

To start of his talk, Anthony talked about how he got his first ever placement, he expressed that it was fairly hard to get placements and especially hard to get full time work. He eventually after about a year got a full time permanent job. He explained that throughout this period he kept his portfolio up to date with recent work and new layouts and this got him his first job. He went on then to talk about portfolios and how important it is to keep them updated and the layout nice an simple. He said during a portfolio interview to explain the brief fully and explain how you answered the brief clearly and simple, this then avoids confusion with what the brief is about. He also said that even if you don't like a piece of work so much to still stay positive and talk about it like you are interested.

The second part of Antony's talk was about how he and Dave Simpson, a designer working for Love Creative at the time; set up the Design Agency Music. He talked about how he had to think quite hard about weather to start up the company or not, but was pleased that he did in the end. They first started off working in Dave's flat but then it got a bit too small and they found an office to work in. While it was being refurbished they carried on working in the flat and then finally moved out once everything was sorted. He also included how they built up their client list, which all of us listening were secretly wondering. He said most of his clients he had previously got to know from his placements and working with other companies. A lot of his recently clients have come from the awards they have received and word of mouth because of these.

I am really pleased that Anthony came in and told us about his experience as it answered a lot of questions i was too shy to ask and made me realise more about life outside of university.

I have since emailed Anthony and arranged for a portfolio viewing soon.

Tal Rosner

Another lecture we had was from a Multimedia designer called Tal Rosner.
As he was more of a multimedia designer i didnt think i would like this lecture as much, but i was surprised that i enjoyed it.

He made a film about trains, from lots of little 3second films that he put all together to create the final film. it made me feel abit dizzy as it was a confusing film with the images going upside down alot.

He also created an installment to be shown behind a large Orcestra in london whilst they were playing. i thought this was good as the video behind really related to the speed and aggression of the music being played infront.

Finally Skins...
He also created the opening sequence played in the TV series 'Skins' shown on Channel 4.
I really enojyed this part as i love the series skins and it was good to know that he created it.
He created series 1 and 2 and was currently creating series 3 as he gave the lecture.

Truth, Lies and Typography

We recently had a lecture from a small design company called "truth".
The company is only made up of two people, they came in to present their work they have been recently working on to us graphic design students.
I thought there work was really good and interesting. Both of the designers used to work for McCann-Erickson, one of the biggest design/advertising companies in the world.
Darren from truth was very interesting in typography and designing his own type faces, he has created many different styles over the years such as :

• Sodium Typeface - created in 2000
• Bad Angel Typeface - created in 1999
• Rub On Typeface - created in 1997
• Berliner Typeface - created in 1996.
• Nitrogen typeface - created in 2003
• Mechanic Gothic - created in 1999
• Aggregate Typeface - created in 2006
• Amplifier Typeface - created in 2006

Plus:

• Como Typeface
• Rivolvzioni Typeface
• Imprimitur Typeface
• Piccadilly Typeface
  

Which are all currently still being developed. All his fonts are available to download off the Internet.

As well as designing typefaces Truth are a very successful company and get lots of jobs to advertise for known brand companies.
Below is a list of some of the work they have done for various companies:

• 'Allsports' bags
• Sony Card for Song
• First Advice - created logo for this company in 24hrs!
• British Council
• Cristies logo
• The authentic Food Company
• No1 Son Record Company
• Durex
• Richard Seamoore - sex toy packaging
• Logo for 'Fat Hog Paintbrushes'
• Reebok adverts with Amir Khan
  
• Posters for 'Yorkshire Wheels' and 'faces'.

These are only a few of the designs they have been doing.
I really enjoyed this lecture as alot of the work they showed us i had seen out in the open and they had actually designed it, it also made it seem more real to be designing out in the real world.