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COMPUTER ARTS ISSUE #301 FEBRUARY 2020 UK £6.99 US$16.99

Cover art based on End Youth Homelessness by Camille Walala, in collaboration with Truant London

WELCOME

Up-scaled branding If you’re part of the demanding creative design industry, large chunks of your day will be spent with eyes fixed on a screen, endlessly moving pixels 1mm this way or that in the search for design perfection. Well, head over to page 44 and get out in the open to refresh your senses, as we look at the dynamic world of mural design, and the creatives pushing for more artistic mural work from their clients.

Though hardly a new phenomenon, hand-painted outdoor advertising has enjoyed a marked increased in popularity in recent years, with passionate new illustrators and designers finding themselves working with major clients, in major cities, with major numbers of people viewing their work in no time at all. And you can see the appeal from a creative point of view. The act of painting our surroundings can inspire a dialogue with the public: observers share the process on social media, which can be brought back into the campaign, which then helps to generate more

BEREN NEALE Beren has worked on several art, design and photography magazines and websites over the past 12 years. For all Computer Arts queries, get in touch. beren.neale@futurenet.com

work for the artist.

That was the case with French-born, London-based artist and designer Camille Walala.

As she explains on page 58, she was working at a restaurant when she finally plucked up the courage and started mentioning on social media that she wanted to paint a building. That led to her first London building front, and now her work can be seen in cities around the world, as well as on furniture, in print and more.

And if you’re thinking of exploring the possibilities of mural work – or a freelance career in general – we’ve also got you covered this issue with our report on what you need to know before taking the plunge. Head over to page 64 for that.

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BEHIND THE COVER MARK WYNNE PEEKS BEHIND THE GUIDES… It’s safe to say we can’t remember trying so many executions for one cover ever before – the variety of assets and possible permutations was head-spinning. And yet, as soon as Camille Walala’s EYH campaign dropped behind the logo, we knew we had a winning treatment.

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Most of our covers are planned at least a month ahead – essential when commissioning fresh illustrations of course. However, with our new redesign embracing a more ambitious ethos, we explored a lot of different ideas this month, aware that the cover immediately after a redesign is just as important in establishing editorial tone.

The challenge wasn’t just to execute a cover that demonstrated our new flexibility, but also deciding which article should take the lead. While the freelance 2020 feature would traditionally be front and centre, Lisa Hassell’s fantastic article on murals in branding offered plenty of sumptuous visuals to play with.

But when Rosie Hilder’s interview with artist Camille Walala arrived, we fell in love with her eye-popping, gorgeously striking work all over again (her Walala X

MARK WYNNE Mark has worked in editorial design for over 20 years, launching and redesigning many Future titles, including the seminal video game magazine Edge.

He’s also lectured for

Play project for the Now Gallery was featured back in our 2018 colour trends article). When we tried some of her work on the cover, we knew we had the energy and impact that would contrast perfectly with last month cover’s collage approach.

Camille’s highly praised campaign work with End Youth Homelessness (eyh.org.uk) provided our favourite template – the interlocking, vibrant art was perfect for coverlines – and when we contacted Camille she generously gave us the go-ahead to adapt her campaign aesthetic for our cover. Armed with five Pantones on top of the regular CMYK colours, we felt we could deliver a cover that would stand out on crowded newsstands, as well as pay homage to Camille’s original, beautiful designs.

Many thanks again to Camille for her help. Read our interview with the artist on page 58.

The Guardian masterclass series on his award-winning digital design. mark.wynne@futurenet.com

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ISSUE 301

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showc a se

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in- dep th

Our pick of the hottest new design, illustration and motion recently released

Report: Discover how a cultural shift has popularised mural art for brands 44

NEWSLETTER 22

SUBSCRIBE 56 In conversation: Camille Walala on her striking geometric art 58

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40

cultur e Network: Studio DBD 24

Report: key advice on entering the freelance world 64

Events: New Adventures 26

NEXT MONTH’S ISSUE 72

Discuss: which are your favourite design events? 28

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in the s tudio

Creative space: HUSH 30 Opinion: Max Ottignon on branding rebranding 34 Rebrand: Yahoo 36 Radar: upcoming events 38 Fresh eyes: Marc Armand 40 Must-read: London design agency Rose’s monograph 42

Project: Husmee’s identity work for the Kunsthal Design School, based in Bilbao 74 Artist insight: illustrator Anna Mill’s advice for achieving correct perspective 80 Studio profile: Why typography is key to Burrow’s projects 86 Project: Denomination’s work for Wildspirit’s Bloody Merry gin 92 Design crush: Jon Ashford highlights two items of design par excellence 98

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C O M P U T E R

A R T S

F E B R U A R Y

2 0 2 0

showcase THE HOTTEST NEW DESIGN, ILLUSTRATION AND MOTION WORK

10 N av a r r a

13 Lassnig

14 Studio Ongarato

16 Made Thought

17 J o b, J o r i s & M a r i e ke

18 P r a l in e

20 Ke n ny B r a n d e n b e r ge r

Installation for Fred Perry by Made Thought

SEE MORE INSPIRING WORK AT COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COM

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BRANDING FOR VAUST INTERIOR DESIGN STUDIO NAVARRA navarra.is

Navarra has worked with experimental interior design studio Vaust to create what it describes as an “evocative branding experience” comprising branding, web design and development, video and photo production and marketing materials. Berlin-based Navarra has worked with Vaust since 2016, and this latest project looked to channel the values of the experimental architectural studio “that creates objects and spaces on the verge of design and contemporary art”. This meant designing new branding that creates “the sort of emotional suspense that embodies their work,” says Navarro.

The designs use a geometric sans serif font and minimalist typographic system alongside a new font-based logo. The aim was to reflect the brand’s own merging of a “classical Roman aesthetic” with highly contemporary approaches. Across print designs, photography and brand video content, Navarra looked to emphasise the rich materials that are used by Vaust and contrast them with its more stern, modern typography.

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Navarra’s branding work across print, video and photography, for experimental interior design studio Vaust, looked to contrast rich materiality with modernist, minimalist typography and create “emotional suspense�.

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SHOWCASE

Barcelona-based graphic design and art direction studio Lassnig created the playful termiteinspired branding and copywriting concept for eco-friendly industrial designers The Termite Studio.

BRANDING FOR THE TERMITE STUDIO LASSNIG behance.net/lassnig_studio

Barcelona-based graphic design and art direction studio Lassnig created the branding and copywriting strategy for eco-friendly industrial designers The Termite Studio, which uses wood harvested by controlled logging to create modern design pieces. The entire concept is inspired by termites, “because this animal exclusively goes to goodquality wood to feed on and create its home,” says Lassnig’s Martirio González, who led on the graphic design, while Paco Córcoles looked after the copywriting.

This concept enabled the studio to be playful in its use of copy on touchpoints such as business cards, which use phrases such as “Hungry! I need a good wood” and “in the mood for wood”.

The typography is clean and modern, but again, is inspired by termites with parts of letterforms “bitten” on the Termite Studio name. The colour palette is muted but punchy, with large type used alongside photographic elements that showcase The Termite Studio products.

SHOWCASE

BRANDING FOR ONE WELLINGTON STUDIO ONGARATO studioongarato.com.au

Studio Ongarato created the branding for property development One Wellington in Melbourne suburb St Kilda. “The site has a complicated geography, wrapped in a rich social history,” says studio creative director Fabio Ongarato. “A distinctive, multifaceted campaign inviting prospective residents to live ‘A life less ordinary’ was required, and communications were designed to shift in tone, targeting different areas of the market.”

A custom multi-toned perspex box contained sales collateral including an embossed hardcover book with tipped-in pages featuring commissions by artists, posters, postcards and “deconstructed” maps that navigate the area by lifestyle choice rather than traditional geographical reference points. “Each creative theme unveils authentic stories from unexpected perspectives,” Fabio adds. Commissioned artists include illustrators Carissa Potter Carlso, Alice Tyre and Geoffroy de Crécy, while photographs by James Tolich looked to “capture the charm and remnants of the area’s seaside resort past.”

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Studio Ongarato’s work for property development One Wellington looked to embody the concept of “a life less ordinary” through artist commissions and unusual marketing touchpoints.

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SHOWCASE

Made Thought’s pop-up store collaboration with Fred Perry looked to “decode the brand’s DNA” to promote its 544 Collection.

INSTALLATION FOR FRED PERRY MADE THOUGHT madethought.com

Made Thought has created an installation with Fred Perry promoting its 544 Collection, with designs that “decode the brand’s signature two-line collar ‘tipping’ icon”, according to the studio. “Aesthetically pared back, using exclusively black and white, the collection champions a bold graphic language,” says design lead Rachel Veniard. “Every gesture we made needed to conform to the 544 ratio: in the collection itself, and also influencing the visual world around it.” Design director Radek Wojcik adds that “in the spirit of being subversive,” the collaboration hopes to speak to both fans who recognise the formation and intrigue those who don’t.

The pop-up features a window display that was designed by Fred Perry and a live mechanical installation. This sees a printer fed with a paper roll, overlaying coded patterns to create an abstract artwork that can then be cut up into smaller prints, which viewers can take home following the installation’s completion.

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ANIMATION FOR HEALTHSPAN JOB, JORIS & MARIEKE jobjorisenmarieke.nl

Oscar-nominated animation studio Job, Joris & Marieke has created animated advertising for Healthspan supplements, spotlighting the brand’s ingredients and bringing a humorous, light-hearted tone to the campaign. Working with ad agency Isobel and appointed through agency Jelly London, the Utrecht-based trio of creatives put together a campaign that centres on a number of “quirky characters with stylised backgrounds and just the right ukelele tune,” as Job Roggeveen puts it, adding that the studio looked to use “quick camera movements” to bring the limbo background of the films to life.

The movies showcase the origins of the supplements’ ingredients, such as cod liver oil. “It was quite a challenge to give the pills their realistic texture and coloring while also making them appealing characters,” says Job. “There was already a storyline, but Isobel invited us to come up with extra funny scenes. This is where the fisherman disappearing in the hole in the ice came from.”

Animators and directors Job, Joris & Marieke worked with ad agency Isobel to create humourous animations advertising supplements brand Healthspan.

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Praline’s book celebrating Central Saint Martins’ fashion course uses customised open-source type and a magazine-like approach to bring a sense of edginess.

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SHOWCASE

GRAPHIC/BOOK DESIGN FOR CSM FASHION BOOK PRALINE designbypraline.com

Praline has designed a book celebrating Central Saint Martins’ influential fashion course. The design uses a magazine-like format with text columns “pushed out of the way by a barrage of images that impose themselves on each spread,” says Praline. The designs looked to reflect the course’s focus on rebelliousness, self-expression and “creative curiosity”, and use a customised version of an open source typeface and exposed spine to enhance a sense of edginess and irreverence.

The lettering on the book cover and decade dividers were designed on an iPad using Procreate and a stylus pen.

“We wanted to be bold with the use of images. However, this book largely comprises archival content, captured in low resolution,” says project lead Al Rodger. “We conducted some print tests to scale and decided that using lower resolution images didn’t feel out of place. If anything they helped to add to the gritty and raw aesthetic.”

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SHOWCASE

Swiss self-taught motion designer Kenny Brandenberger creates moving typography from the standpoint that it should work just as well in static form.

TYPOGRAPHY/MOVING TYPE KENNY BRANDENBERGER kennybrandenberger.ch

Multi-disciplinary, self-taught motion designer Kenny Brandenberger quit his digital design agency job in 2018 to pursue his passion for motion design and experiments with moving typography.

“I wanted to focus on movement, not on designing shapes, resulting in a very simple graphic look with playful movement,” says Kenny. Many of these designs are inspired by the posters of the 1960s and 70s from his native Switzerland, although the designer uses 21st century tech such as After Effects, Cinema4D and more recently rendering engine Redshift to add more subtle textures and lighting.

Since he began posting an image a day on Instagram a while back, he’s worked with clients including Dropbox, DJ Snake and Asics. “I always try to design pieces that works also in static,” Kenny adds. “It’s important to me that every frame looks good enough to be paused. I believe this will always result in movement that’s seamless and beautiful.”

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C O M P U T E R

A R T S

F E B R U A R Y

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culture OUR SELECTION OF NEWS, VIEWS & EVENTS

24 network

26 events

28 discuss

30 creative space

34 opinion

36 rebrand

38 radar

40 fresh eyes

42 m u s t- r e a d Image: Marc Armand, page 40

SEE MORE INSPIRING WORK AT COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COM

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CULTURE

network DESIGNER DAVE SEDGWICK EXPLAINS WHY HE MOVED HIS DESIGN PRACTICE INTO THE LOCAL SHOPPING CENTRE any design studios pay lip service to the idea of having “close ties to the local community”. But if you really want to integrate into the community, you have to go where the locals go. And Dave Sedgwick has done just that.

“I’d been working with the landlords of the shopping centre for a few months,” he says. “The project was all about re-engaging with the local community and informing the residents of the area about the changes taking place within the centre and the wider area. So as part of the job, I decided it would be worth taking my design studio out of the city and moving it to the shopping centre itself.”

As a result, Dave has gone from working among other creative professionals to being surrounded by a Boots, a Greggs, a Poundland and a Quality Save. “I’d been to see an agency in Barcelona called Vasava many years ago, which had its studio at the back of a shop/ gallery, and I loved the idea,” he recalls. “I wanted to make sure the design agency working on this project was visible to the community; to create a practice where people could walk in and chat to us, see what we were doing, and feel part of the changes.”

When he first saw the space, he was taken aback by how large it was. “It was one of the empty units within the centre, and looked pretty uninspiring as it was,” he remembers.

“So we stripped everything out, gave it a lick of white paint and added some gallery lighting. I decided to have the studio at the back of the space and at the front have more of a gallery/shop/event space.”

We think this shows an admirable commitment to the project’s aims. And it makes us wonder how many other designers could benefit from embedding themselves among their clients and audiences…

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Fresh paint and gallery lighting enabled Dave to transform an empty unit in a shopping centre into his new creative space.

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NETWORK

Dave Sedgwick Designer studiodbd.com

The owner of Studio DBD explains what running a design practice in the middle of a shopping centre is really like.

Can you describe the environment your practice is now functioning in?

My space is in a small row of shops that have been created as ‘pop-up’ units. The aim is to have an area in the shopping centre that’s totally different to the rest of the offerings.

We’re growing each month, and these pop-up spaces have been created to showcase the changes and possibilities within the shopping centre.

“I wanted the design agency working on this project to be visible to the community”

Studio DBD’s creative space is an opportunity for members of the public to see the studio at work, as well as purchase products from other creatives.

And you’re not just in a retail environment – you’re operating as a retailer yourself.

Yes. We’re selling work by a variety of creatives such as Anthony Burrill, Helen Musselwhite and Caroline Dowsett, as well as work by us.

Operating as a retail space brings many challenges and rewards. It’s fun to talk to the public and engage with them on the merits of design. The main reason for being here, though, is that we’re still a design studio creating work for a variety of clients, so in some ways we’re making design more mainstream. People can actually come in and watch us working!

And how do you feel about that?

Well, I think it’s interesting to see how people engage with the space. Some are quite apprehensive about entering, some come bounding over with enthusiasm and interest! Definitely this space is better than an empty unit.

It’s bright, colourful and inviting!

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CULTURE

events NEW ADVENTURES 2020 IS THE DIGITAL DESIGN CONFERENCE THAT WANTS TO CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER

ome creative conferences lose their freshness over the years: the same speakers, the same subjects, the same crowd. But when you’re in a fast-moving field such as digital design, that just isn’t an option. And so Nottinghamshire event New Adventures, first held in 2011, has made a concerted effort to stay bang up-to-date, year on year.

New Adventures’ first event of the 2020s is its most forward-facing yet. Focused on the future of creativity, it will explore topics including speculative and critical design, radical inclusivity, climate and sustainability.

“The overall theme,” explains founder Simon Collison, “is how designers can help realise tangible visions of possible futures and help prevent unintended consequences.”

To that end, the conference’s speakers and workshops will address climate change and ask what designers can do; they’ll also talk frankly about inclusivity and privilege.

Heady stuff, but there’s a real commitment to this mission from the organisers. “We must invest in fresh ideas, and prepare for a reimagined industry with new responsibilities,” stresses Simon. “This is what New Adventures 2020 is all about.

Design is changing; don’t get left behind.”

Day one features a full-day workshop by designer and futurist Cennydd Bowles on futuring and speculative design. Aimed at designers and product managers, it will ask: “How can designers break past the horizons of current practice and help us navigate a changing world; what skills do we need to build better worlds?” There will also be workshops by campaigning organisation She Wins on how to negotiate with confidence, and by Bastian Allgeier, the creator of the Kirby CMS, on how to make best use of the popular software (every attendee will be given a free licence).

Day two will feature a headline talk from Cennydd, along with talks by independent

KEY INFO • Founded: 2011 • Date: 22-23 January • Location: Albert Hall Conference Centre, Nottingham • Previous speakers: Jessica Hische, Ethan Marcotte, Jason Santa Maria, Wayne Hemingway, Dan Mall, Frank Chimero, Veerle Pieters, Denise Jacobs newadventuresconf.com

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PHOTOGRAPH © STEFAN NITZSCHE

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American designer Tatiana Mac; Natalie Kane, curator of Digital Design at the V&A; Florence Okoye, UX designer at the Natural History Museum; biologist turned design thinker Akil Benjamin; and Liz Jackson, founder of The Disabled List (see the boxout for more details on five of the speakers).

“Some names may be unfamiliar,” says Simon, “but we’ve worked harder than ever to curate our themes and invite the most appropriate, and brilliant, speakers. It’s time to invest in fresh ideas for an uncertain future, and we’ve designed New Adventures 2020 to help with that.”

As ever, there will be an accompanying print publication for attendees (and a free PDF for the rest of the internet), a “Warm-up Wednesday” pre-event meetup and bowling evening, a Women in Tech lunchtime takeover, and an after-party at Nottingham Contemporary, one of the UK’s largest centres for contemporary art.

For anyone working in digital design who wants to keep up and stay relevant, New Adventures is the place to be.

Clockwise from above: Nottingham’s Albert Hall Conference Centre plays host to the event; previous speaker Ethan Marcotte, the father of responsive web design; last year’s after-party.

EVENTS

TOP TALKS

PHOTOGRAPH © STEFAN NITZSCHE

We introduce five of the New Adventures speakers, and what their talks will focus on

“This is what New Adventures 2020 is all about. Design is changing; don’t get left behind”

CENNYDD BOWLES Cennydd is a London-based designer and futurist with 17 years of experience advising clients including Twitter, Ford, Cisco and the BBC. His talk will address how designers can rebuild our outdated institutions and prototype better futures to come. “Design in a world on the brink means embracing our moral duties, becoming planetary custodians, and giving the many, not just the few, a stake in the future,” he says.

TATIANA MAC Tatiana is an independent US designer who works with organisations to build clear and coherent products and design systems. In her talk, she’ll address the problems of building our language, laws, and technology upon reductionist Boolean thinking: true and false, good and evil, black and white, just and unjust. As an alternative, she’ll explore a new model that encourages a more intersectional and inclusive way to build for all.

NATALIE KANE Natalie is curator of digital design at the V&A, London, where she’s responsible for the acquisition, care and display of the museum’s digital design collection. In her talk, Natalie will address how digital curation is often a deeply human fight against time, obsolescence and an unthinkably huge and edgeless system. There will be questions for our past, present and future selves, and the occasional friendly ghost.

FLORENCE OKOYE Florence is a user experience designer whose practice centres on using service design methods to design inclusive digital experiences, in a range of sectors from utilities to cybersecurity. Florence’s talk will seek to understand how we can navigate the problematics of product creation in the context of a capitalist hegemony-driven market to inquire, critique and design collectively in the face of our voracious technological landscape.

AKIL BENJAMIN Akil is a biologist turned design thinker.

Leading the research team at Comuzi, a design invention studio, Akil works with innovators to produce new, digital products services and experiences. In his talk, he’ll draw on personal experience in explaining how to leave hubris at the door and produce a piece of work. “Stepping outside yourself is simpler than you think,” he believes. “Being radical is close to home.”

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CULTURE

discuss WHICH ARE YOUR FAVOURITE DESIGN EVENTS?

Meagan Hyland Graphic designer/illustrator meaganhyland.com

Andrew Gregory Founder, Lunchboxbrain; co-president, AIGA Upstate New York

Grace Abell Freelance designer abelldesign.co.uk

lunchboxbrain.com

“OFFSET in Dublin [3-5 April 2020] will always be the highlight of my design calendar. I’ve been going since its first year, back in 2009 when I was in college and brought a dictaphone to assault the speakers with questions for my thesis.

Getting up close and being able to chat to the speakers has always been my favourite part. There’s no pretension: you could see Jessica Hische on the main stage at 2pm and be having a pint with her at 5pm. You don’t really see that informality at other events.

Over the years I’ve been up on stage in an inflatable suit, bopping along to techno to introduce FriendsWithYou; danced with Snask at the after-party; and last year had my own work played on the big screen.

Anything can happen over the weekend if you’re open to it.

OFFSET has evolved with the city over the years, welcoming bigger and bigger international speakers, but has never stopped showcasing local designers who make up the heart of the scene in Dublin.

I may be biased, but I love it.”

PETRA STEFANKOVA ICON illustration conferences in the US. I got a long-term contract from a client thanks to it.

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“I would encourage my fellow creatives to seek out local and regional design conferences. Developing a strong professional network is a lot easier to do when you’re attending events in nearby cities and connecting with like-minded people.

Pro tip for US readers: find the nearest AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) chapter and see what events it hosts.

I’ve had great experiences at small and mid-sized design conferences such as AIGA Upstate New York’s Creative Brew Conference and Create Upstate. These events give attendees a chance to catch up with regional contacts while showcasing a diverse group of interesting speakers. The tickets were reasonably priced which is important, because not everyone has the time or finances to travel to a big ticket conference, especially emerging designers.

These two events also had a fun and friendly feel to them. Seeing familiar faces and meeting new folks in a comfortable environment is a win-win for sure. I’ve also heard really great things about AIGA’s Design Conference and Creative South.”

MEYNARD DE JESUS RODRIGUEZ Adobe MAX.

@PULGERNIKOLAI Us By Night. It has an open atmosphere and offers nice chances to get in touch with the big guns of the business!

And it’s made with love.

“My preference is for local events, which help strengthen the nearby creative community while making design more accessible to the public conscious. Through 2018, I organised pub socials for York designers. In 2019, Kaizen Arts Agency took the reins and hosted monthly get-togethers for all of York’s creatives at Spark, our shipping container mini-city.

In October 2019, York’s inaugural Design Week took place. It was a collaboration between Kaizen, studio United by Design and illustrator Richard Corrigan. The idea was to open creative spaces to the public.

Events included an exhibition, a lecture by Simon Dixon of DixonBaxi, and an open day at Native Architects. York Design Week aims to democratise culture, which can only happen if it’s affordable. All events were free.

York’s culture is ecclesiastical and historic; the city heaves with tourists. This has alienated residents. Grass-roots projects such as York Design Week add a facet of culture where voices are being heard. If designers exist to solve problems, creative events should improve lives.”

@HARRIETMONSEN The best conference I’ve ever been to was TYPO in Berlin.

I got to meet my favourite illustrator and one of my favourite designers. [Alas, it is no more!]

@BUNBURYCREATIVE The closest thing I get to a design event these days is the Apple Store on Regent Street.

CULTURE

creative space DAVID SCHWARZ OF HUSH GIVES US A TOUR OF THE STUDIO’S INDUSTRIAL SPACE New York-based HUSH specialises in branding, bringing it into the real world in the form of explorable spaces. Its client list includes Adidas, American Express, Google, Instagram, Nike and Twitter. heyhush.com

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CULTURE

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“We spend a lot of time thinking about the perception of space, and how it makes us feel”

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CREATIVE SPACE

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ur look is minimal, geometric and clean, to reflect our work. We wanted to have a sensory impact on our employees and on guests – to pique their interest and make them reflect on how design affects perception.

When you enter, the studio is framed within a long white tunnel. This reminds guests that as designers, we have the ability to control feelings, focus and framing.

There’s also a beautiful, minimalist, mirrored stainless steel ceiling feature that adds some optical play upon entry.

Our work is based on elements such as touch, sound, light and perception. We want to drive that home in our space. We’re located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a major manufacturing hub for a century, and now an epicentre for contemporary design and building, innovation, technology and research and development. Many design agencies, fabricators, innovators and thinkers are doing incredible work here.

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1 THE MIRRORS When you enter the space, you enter into a tunnel, which was designed with mirrorpolished steel affixed in a lenticular pattern.

It’s an optical effect in a space meant to be a palette cleanser that reinforces the idea of fresh eyes when visualising creative work.

2 OPTICAL ILLUSIONS Each conference room is named after an optical illusion: Aura, Mirage, Moire and Phantom. We named the rooms as a team.

Again, we wanted them to feel reflective of our work, and we spend a lot of time thinking about the perception of space, and how it makes you feel.

3 PROTOTYPE GALLERY We have a prototype gallery in our space, seconding as an art gallery that houses installation prototypes from previous projects that we’ve worked on. The project-scale versions are permanent experiences within Google,

Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Capital One and United Therapeutic Corporation’s built environment spaces.

4 RED DRAPES The red drapes are an accent addition to the industrial, stark space. Our conference rooms are lined with glass on each wall, so the drapes provide a bright visual impact, as well as privacy when needed.

5 HUSH TABLE The HUSH “Pink Oak” family table is a custom fabricated, millennial pink table that sits over 30 people. This table was built to be the hub that brings everyone together – whether for brainstorming, happy hour, dinner or just to talk. Local architect Kyle May constructed the table, which is made up of 5/4 oak on three steel frames with offset legs. The tables can be used separately as individual meeting tables, or together as one long communal table. In either situation, there are no adjacent double legs.

WANT TO HAVE YOUR WORK SPACE FEATURED HERE? EMAIL HELLO@COMPUTERARTS.COM

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CULTURE

opinion REBRANDING IS MORE THAN JUST TWEAKING A LOGO, AND IT’S IMPORTANT YOUR CLIENTS KNOW THIS, SAYS MAX OTTIGNON

In reality, when most people talk about their brand they mean one of two things. Some people are referring to the distinctive design elements: the logo, typefaces, colour and so on.

But those who place the most value in branding tend to sit in the Jeff Bezos camp: “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

For me, the job of a branding agency is to create and implement a framework and set of tools that will influence how people feel about your product, organisation or service. While they might quibble with my exact definition, I think most people who work in the industry would tend to agree that a brand is an idea, not a set of design elements. And, while identity is (often) an output of what we do, the value of branding goes far beyond that.

Max Ottignon is co-founder of Ragged Edge raggededge.com

e ask ourselves why clients just don’t “get it”. Roll our eyes when people confuse a brand with a logo. Rant and rave about free pitches, where the client wants us to show them creative solutions off the bat.

Bitch and moan that they don’t understand the value we add.

But it’s not them. It’s us.

For a profession that sells clarity of ideas, our industry has done a remarkably poor job of branding branding.

Ask 10 people to define branding and you’ll get 10 different answers.

Ask Google and you get two: “The action of marking with a branding iron” (probably not what we’re getting at) and “The promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design”. If we accept that, we might as well give up and let the ad agencies take over.

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LET’S GET OUR STORY STRAIGHT The trouble is we’ve struggled to get that message out there. And as an industry, we’re almost wilfully reckless with the term.

Take a look at any branding agency website and you’ll see terms like “brand refresh” used to describe a tweak to the logo or a new typeface. You’ll read case studies for rebrands that refer only to changes in visual assets. And you’ll see the word ‘brand’ used to refer to an idea in one sentence, and to describe a visual identity immediately afterwards. Trust me – start looking and you’ll see it everywhere.

At Ragged Edge we’re as guilty as anyone. As an agency, the most impactful part of what we do is the brand strategy. Done right, this defines everything our clients’ businesses do and say, inside and outside – all the stuff that influences what people say when you’re not in the room.

There’s also all the work beyond the initial launch: the ongoing guidance on how the brand

NEWS, VIEWS & EVENTS

“Branding has the power to distil complex ideas into a single thought”

The power of the Bulb brand goes far beyond its visual assets.

They’re an organisation whose brand shines through everything they do, from customer service to product development.

comes to life, everywhere and in everything. But the thing that grabs the PR headlines, drives the Instagram likes and gets the phone ringing is the identity. The new logo. So that’s what we talk about. But branding doesn’t equal identity.

We’re our own worst enemies.

What’s more, using brand and identity synonymously is the least of our industry’s crimes. What about the brand bullshit? The absurd terminology. The lofty statements (among the WeWork furore, that ludicrous brand purpose – “to elevate the world’s consciousness” – told you everything you needed to know). The pseudo-science. The nonsense rationale. The nonsense post-rationale. We’re setting ourselves up to fail.

Then there are the wild overclaims. Clients (quite reasonably) want us to prove effectiveness.

But because branding affects every part of a business, isolating the impact is nigh-on impossible. So in the absence of verifiable statistics, it’s all too easy to take the credit for everything. “Our rebrand resulted in a 200 per cent increase in sales” is a great line to feature on a case study, but we all know that there were a myriad of other factors involved. These types of claims don’t do the industry any favours, and smart clients see straight through them. What’s worse, they set the tone for the rest of the conversation. If you’re bullshitting about that, how can they trust anything else you say?

In an effort to get others to take us seriously, our industry has succeeded largely in making people suspicious. We’ve sacrificed clarity for unnecessary complexity. And credibility for baseless audacity.

whose passion, skill and creativity tends to be matched only by their empathy and generosity.

And I’ve seen first-hand the impact our work can have. Branding has the power to distil complex ideas into a single thought. It has the power to change perceptions, and change behaviour. It can be the difference between business success and failure. It can reinvigorate organisations and redefine industries. It can be a powerful force for good. We can use it to help others change the world.

Or it can be used to make a logo look cooler.

Together, we have the power to change how people feel about the branding industry. To reframe how they value our work. To show them the impact we can have on every part of their business.

But we all need to get on the same page. To be as diligent with our own language as we are when we’re advising clients. To be relentlessly consistent and brutally clear. To practise what we preach.

Because branding is what people say it is when we’re not in the room.

WE CAN DO BETTER I love this industry and I’m immensely proud to be a part of it. It’s full of inspirational people

WANT TO SHARE YOUR PASSIONATE OPINION? EMAIL HELLO@COMPUTERARTS.COM

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CULTURE

rebrand THE VETERAN INTERNET COMPANY YAHOO HAS HAD A REBRAND COURTESY OF PENTAGRAM. WHAT’S THE PROFESSIONAL VERDICT?

Michael Bierut Partner, Pentagram Design pentagram.com

Sarah Cohen Art director, Trollbäck+Company

Grant Gilbert Founder/ECD, DBLG dblg.co.uk

trollback.com

“We worked with the team at Yahoo to find a balance between what’s always made the brand distinctive – the exclamation mark, the colour purple, the yodel – while creating a 21st century identity. The identity reflects a new brand strategy that focuses on helping users find a more personalised, customised experience online. This positions Yahoo as an “amplification brand”: amplifying the things that matter, helping to amplify you. The idea is neatly visualised in the exclamation point, a punctuation mark that literally stands for amplification.

We worked with Yahoo to evaluate a range of options. Some were more evocative of the original, quirky 1996 logo with its offset baseline and random angles, while others were completely new. The exclamation mark has been italicised for emphasis, as it has been in every iteration of the logo since Yahoo’s founding. The “y” and “!” are both set at 22.5 degrees, a forward tilt that suggests a sense of momentum. The angle – 1/16th of a circle – is the basis for visual language built around angles and incremental slices.”

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“In a 21st century internet marketplace, where Yahoo’s actual reach far outshines its casual mention, this rebrand does a fine job of injecting a bit of style and energy back into an otherwise forgotten brand. The new identity by Pentagram shines by way of its sharp choice of sans serif font and fun, angled exclamation mark. In my view the wellcrafted logo, however, can’t carry the rest of the brand, which largely falls flat with its generic colour blocking and angled mortises.

The sum of these parts doesn’t add up to anything memorable, and at a time where I don’t know Yahoo too well any more, this visual identity still leaves me wondering who it is and what it stands for. What will be interesting to see is whether Yahoo’s safe step toward a more modern identity is enough to establish it as the relevant and reputable news and media source it clearly wants to be, or if its efforts are just too little, too late.”

“I remember when Yahoo first popped up in the mid 90s. Blur was in the charts and the company I worked at had one computer with a Yahoo search engine. With a whimsical cartoon styling, it slotted in perfectly within early web graphics. Twenty-five years later, the digital design landscape is significantly harder to cut through. We all know humans hate change, but brands can’t stand still: they have to evolve and stay relevant.

The work Pentagram has developed undoubtedly revives a sense of style to an tired brand. Book-ending the Y and ! angle creates a bold and confident logo system without losing the OOooo. This new iteration, although simple in nature, still has bags of confidence.

The geometric sans serif font gives it a fresher and more youthful direction, which certainly increases flexibility in a purely digital environment. With lots of future animation potential to be had, it reminds us that Yahoo is still alive and kicking, especially if you’re looking for a snazzy pair of Y!-branded socks.”

The exclamation mark in the redesigned logo remains on show, even if “Yahoo� is reduced to a capital Y.

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CULTURE

radar WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR IN THE COMING WEEKS

FORWARD FESTIVAL The start of a new decade is a great time to start thinking about the future of creativity, and luckily there’s a whole festival dedicated to it. Running since 2015, Forward Festival focuses on the space between design, media and creative lifestyles, and encourages interdisciplinary exchange to help push things forward. Speakers include Hartmut Esslinger, Annie Atkins (pictured), Micol Talso, Max Siedentopf and Refik Anadol, and the conference is accompanied by a variety of side events, including workshops, live art and networking sessions. It takes place in Munich (12-13 March), Vienna (16-17 April), Berlin (29 May) and Hamburg (2-3 July). forward-festival.com

AOI’S LICENCE ILLUSTRATION GUIDE When you’re a professional illustrator, it’s hard enough to get your head around the ins and outs of licencing, let alone try to explain it to an uninitiated client. To help you with both, the Association of Illustrators (AOI) has put together a handy guide that explains the basics of the licencing model, how to negotiate a fee and agree terms, and what clients should do if they’re not happy with your initial draft. Brought to life with illustrations from AOI member Franz Lang, this is an excellent downloadable and shareable resource for illustrators and commissioning editors everywhere. bit.ly/ca-aoi-license

MOGOLLON / FRANCISCO LOPEZ Founded by Francisco Lopez and Monica Brand in 2004, New York studio Mogollon has long been known for its vibrant and colourful work for clients including Sony, Nike and Absolut.

But this year it’s all change, with Monica leaving to pursue a new career as an astrologer, and Francisco now working independently as a designer and creative director, hiring help when he needs it. “My goal is to take on projects that feel relevant and connected to me, my interests and my aesthetic,” he explains. “I’d love to collaborate with individuals and companies trying to make the world a better place, especially environmental and humanitarian causes.” franciscolopezstudio.com

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NEWS, VIEWS & EVENTS

THE LATER YEARS “It’s taken us a while to get involved with album covers,” says Michael Johnson, founder of Johnson Banks. “But we’ve started with a bang: the front and back cover of The Later Years, an 18-disc, 30-year box set from Pink Floyd.” To craft the designs, Johnson Banks’ Beth Johnson and Alice Tosey worked with legendary designer Aubrey Powell who, as part of Hipgnosis, created several classic Floyd covers including The Dark Side of the Moon. Johnson Banks also harnessed the skills of production studio Happy Finish, which sculpted the contorting lamps on the suitably surreal front cover. The box set is available now from all good retailers. johnsonbanks.co.uk/work/pink-floyd-the-later-years

OFFSET DUBLIN First launched in 2009, Offset Dublin has fast become one of the key events in the creative industries calendar, with more than 2,500 attendees each year from across the world.

Taking place at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on 3-5 April, this year’s event will feature more than 100 speakers across two stages, including April Greiman, Rory Simms, Olaf Hajek, Leslie David, Andy Gent, Oscar Hudson, Laura Callaghan, James Burke and LEGO Star Wars chief designer Jens Kronvold Frederiksen. Weekend tickets cost €295 for professionals, €245 per person for group bookings, €125 for students and €170 for recent graduates. iloveoffset.com

INTRODUCTION TO MODERN DESIGN Design doesn’t exist in a vacuum: to truly understand it, you have to look to its past. A new book by George H Marcus, Introduction to Modern Design (Bloomsbury, $49.96) takes readers on a visual survey of design from the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century to the Maker Movement of today. It offers a new understanding of all aspects of modern design, including industrial design, furniture, textiles, graphics, electronics and cars, and explores them in relation to industrialisation, technology, environmental responsibility, consumerism, individual needs and evolving social values. bloomsbury.com

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CULTURE

fresh eyes MARC ARMAND BRINGS VIBRANT ENERGY TO HIS DESIGN WORK raphic designer Marc Armand’s creative journey began as a Paris schoolboy, painting graffiti both legally and illegally. “Through this I decided to go to art school and then discovered that it could be an actual job,” he says.

Today, Marc has an impressive resume, including founding graphic design studio Tu Sais Qui; designing patterns for Desigual and Jean-Paul Goude; a succession of collaborations with Nike; working as creative director of Please! magazine; and spending a year in charge of visual communication for the Villa Noailles art centre in Hyères, southern France.

G

So what keeps him energised? “I find a lot of inspiration through music,” he says.

“A lot of electronics, but also a wide range of different types. I always listen to loud music while working. Fashion design is also a pretty big influence, as well as a few top favorite artists, designers and studios that I always come back to: Tadanori Yokoo, Jonathan Barnbrook, Neville Brody, Alessandro Mendini, Emigre Fonts.”

And what of the future? “My plan is to keep having fun working, to keep collaborating with great people,” he says.

“I’d like to work more with people and projects abroad, in different countries.”

Pop culture, typography and post-modernism are just some of the touchstones in Marc Armand’s designs. tusaisqui.fr

GOT A FRESH PERSPECTIVE IN ILLUSTRATION OR DESIGN? GET IN TOUCH: HELLO@COMPUTERARTS.COM

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FRESH EYES

Marc has been creative director on Please! magazine and has worked with Jean-Paul Goude on prints and patterns.

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CULTURE

must-read ROSE’S MONOGRAPH DELIVERS WORLD-CLASS WORK IN ELEGANT SURROUNDINGS

Rose: Two Decades, text and design by Rose, £40, published

by Rose. rosedesign.co.uk

ased in south-east London, design consultancy Rose has been delivering superlative work for two decades now. This longevity may surprise some, because the studio – which has just six full-time employees – has enjoyed a relatively discreet profile to date.

But in this 20th anniversary year it’s making an exception, launching Rose: Two Decades. It’s a stunning 352-page monograph that showcases just why it’s won over 150 international creative awards.

While some studios try to push boundaries with the layout and design of their monograph, Rose has taken a calmer and more measured approach here, allowing the work to speak for itself through full-page images and minimal text (a Bob Dylan quote, a one-page preface and credits at the back).

And what great work it is.

Showcasing the best of Rose’s brand identities, marketing campaigns, exhibition branding and publication design for more than 90 selected clients – as diverse as BAFTA, Tate Modern, the NFL, Royal Mail and 10bet – this is both a treat for the eyes and inspiration for the design soul. As an added twist, each copy comes with a bespoke foil-blocked, case-bound cover, courtesy of luxury wallpaper brand Sanderson. It’s an inspired and original touch that adds a personal feel to this confident and elegant publication.

Rose: Two Decades can be bought from the studio’s website at £40 each, with the first 250 copies being sold at half price.

B

Rose’s publication design for the V&A and brand identity for ENO are just two of the many projects featured in the book.

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C O M P U T E R

A R T S

F E B R U A R Y

2 0 2 0

in-depth THE BIGGER PICTURE ON INDUSTRY ISSUES

64 r e p o r t: so you want to go f r e e l a n c e? in d e p e n d e n t c r e at i v e s p a s s o n t h e ir h a r d w o n k n o w le d g e

58 in conversation with Camille Wa l a l a o n b r in g in g b o ld c o lo ur s in to p e o p le’s li v e s

44 r e p o r t: w i d e open spaces h o w m ur a l s a r e h e l p in g b r a n d s m ake an imp a c t in p ub li c s p a c e s

SEE MORE INSPIRING WORK AT COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COM

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WIDE SPACE - 44 -

OPEN HOW A CULTURAL SHIFT HAS POPULARISED MURAL ART FOR BRANDS WRIT TEN BY LISA HASSELL

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W “GRAFFITI ARTISTS STILL RISK ARREST OR PHYSICAL HARM IN MAKING THEIR WORK” LO UI SE

CH A PPE LL

hether you’re an illustrator, graphic artist or painter with a secret ambition to scale up your artwork, learning how to design at scale can introduce you to a whole new market.

Murals are a clear outward display of craft and human talent, and can add more value to the community and environment.

With street art and commercial pieces becoming increasingly varied and more accessible for people to enjoy, there’s plenty of opportunities for aspiring artists to tap into. But with its roots in graffiti, is there still a stigma attached to painting walls outdoors?

Louise Chappell, one-half of Londonbased duo Good Wives and Warriors, has observed that graffiti still gets a negative press particularly around ‘tagging’ the urban environment. “Although the visual language has somewhat been adopted and sanitised, it’s still a highly illegal activity and graffiti artists still risk arrest or physical harm in making their work,” Louise says. “Mural art certainly was viewed as being quite naff for a while, but I think that’s changed.”

“People traditionally have less understanding for graffiti because it’s illegal and a hidden world for them,” says illustrator Rick Berkelmans, who runs Hedof, a one-man studio in Breda, The Netherlands that works across fields such as advertising, editorial, murals, installations and clothing. “They don’t know who secretly created this message without anybody’s permission, which usually generates a feeling of lost control.”

GRAFFITI VS MURALS Coming from a background in skateboarding, Rick was introduced to graffiti at quite a young age. “I didn’t start painting until the age of 17 or 18. I was quite active for a couple of years, but the more I got serious about pursuing a career in illustration, the less excited I became about graffiti.” Rick’s striking illustration work uses thoughtful, well-balanced compositions full of candy coloured landscapes and playful characters that reflect his positive attitude. “I always viewed graffiti and illustration as completely different things. This is why, when I paint murals nowadays, I never use spray cans,” Louise met her Good Wives and Warriors fellow artist Becky Bolton at Glasgow School - 46 -

of Art where they were both studying painting.

“The course structure was very loose and there was a lot of time for hanging around in each other’s studios. In our first year we started working together on projects and exhibitions, but it wasn’t until we graduated in 2005 that we started collaborating properly.” Good Wives and Warriors was officially formed in 2007.

Louise and Becky’s mix of fine art and commercial illustration has attracted a broad spectrum of clients, ranging from the Barbican to Absolut Vodka, Adidas to Puffin. An early commission with Absolut Vodka involved being filmed painting for an advert. “That was fun and a little glamorous!” says Louise.

“After that we had a busy couple of years of commercial work. We were commissioned to make a documentary with the BBC for the Commonwealth Games in 2014 and that was amazing. The wall paintings and murals they tend to do are on the lower side of our income scale... but our commercial illustration work enables us to make the occasional large-scale painting,” she says.

ALTER PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS For London-based production company High Rise Murals, getting people to think of murals as art and broadening the kind of clients that use this sort of marketing was an early challenge. “We’ve worked hard to evolve people’s preconceptions of the medium, beyond being largely urban, aggressive and

Above: Parees Fest Oviedo 2019, a collaboration between Rick Berkelmans’ Hedof and Dutch illustrator Joren Joshua.

Below: Absolut Blank, commissioned by TBWA\CHIAT\DAY (New York) for Absolut Vodka in 2011.

Right: Louise Chappell and Becky Bolton of Good Wives and Warriors painting on location.

“MURALS ARE A DIALOGUE, UNLIKE TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING, WHICH IS OFTEN A ONE-WAY MESSAGE” RICK

B ER K E LM A N S

masculine,” says COO Geoff Gray. “I think we’ve started to achieve this, evidenced by the growing number and type of brands we’re now working with and the pieces we’re painting.”

Representing multiple artistic styles, many of whom come from a fine art or graphic design background, High Rise Murals works with some of the world’s biggest brands across a growing range of categories, including sports, luxury fashion, FMCG and technology. “I’ve heard the difference best described by one of our artists as ‘graffiti is for other graffiti artists, whereas street art is for everyone’.” continues Geoff. “Our business model is to make it easier for big brands to use artists to craft bespoke advertising for them, helping them to get potential customers and fans to look up from their screens and engage with their brand.”

Rick believes it’s a more enjoyable, less aggressive approach of mixing art and commerce. “Murals often create interaction; a dialogue, unlike traditional advertising, which is often one-way.” Over the years mural projects have become more common and people understand them better, he says.

“Since most murals are commissioned, they’re created within more of a system and guidelines that connect with a broader audience. And of course, the more you see something, the more familiar it is and easier for you to accept.”

While High Rise Murals works on projects such as signage, the majority of its business

derives from art-led advertising campaigns for brands. Geoff believes the more artistic the piece, the more nourishing it is. “From a brand’s perspective, large-scale marketing pieces are used to act as a measure of trust because of the cost barriers to entry, but in a largely digital world this effect has diminished.”

Geoff argues there’s still an inherent benefit in having a team of artists crafting a message on behalf of a brand, over a period of time.

“People actively photograph it because they enjoy it, and they share it across their own networks. That is rare in most other forms of marketing and reflects positively on the brand which created that moment.”

Opposite: Rick and Joren worked together again on a mural for Parees Festival 2019, held in northern Spain.

Above: In-store mural illustration for Chinese brand Nayuki, with art direction by KAI. Below: Rick Berkelmans painting on scaffolding for 2017’s illustration festival Visual Playground in Bucharest.

GETTING STARTED Working with a range of clients from independent business owners to high-profile brands, around 80 per cent of mural artist Josephine ‘Hixxy’ Hicks’ income derives from mural projects. Curious about the graffiti scene, it was her brother, fellow artist Ed Hicks, who first introduced her to street art and painting on a large scale.

“I started in a gradual way, painting and experimenting on large rolls of Fabriano paper pinned up in my studio-cum-bedroom,” says Josephine, who studied fine art in Liverpool where she developed the discipline of working solo and creating artwork that interested her.

“After graduating I knew I wanted to create - 49 -

REPORT

Blue period JOSEPHINE ‘HIXXY’ HICKS ON BOMBAY SAPPHIRE In collaboration with Global Street Art and HYPEBEAST, Josephine was briefed on the campaign strapline: “Discover the possibilities within.”

Referencing her collage work as a starting point, for her design she took inspiration from cutaway layers, alternate universes and space-time.

“I liked the idea of having an optical illusion element – a bit Bridget Riley, perhaps – to create an arresting and surreal image that drew your eye through and involved hidden and surrealist elements.”

Josephine presented three initial rough ideas, and taking feedback from Global Street Art, HYPEBEAST and Bombay Sapphire, refined her design with a couple of rounds of amendments before agreeing the final design – a process that took around two weeks.

“I worked with the media team to create the design. They are the people who are in charge of the national campaign, so they have the overall driving seat on the look, feel and sentiment of the artwork to tie into the larger campaign.”

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“NONPERMANENT SPACES ARE A GREAT WAY TO BUILD CONFIDENCE AND TRY THINGS OUT” J OS EP H IN E A K A

H IC KS

H IX XY

and make for a living. I became obsessed with screen print and collage, and this method of layering shape and colour paved the way to my aesthetic of mural painting.”

Sharing her work on Instagram slowly led to friends in the event world inviting Josephine to paint temporary spaces and walls at festivals.

“It was never something I imagined I’d end up doing, but I guess that’s often the way: it found me.” Honing your craft takes time and experimentation, and the festival scene is a good starting ground for artists to get practice, as well as at pop-up events and mural jams, Josephine says. “These non-permanent spaces, where the organisers just want some colourful backgrounds, are a great way to build confidence and try things out without too much pressure, while also building your portfolio.”

London-based print designer and illustrator Kelly Anna has been working professionally for around three years, producing work for clients such as Nike, H&M, Propercorn and Equinox.

For her first solo show last year Kelly decided to paint five murals, with no experience of having done it before. “I kept seeing other artists painting murals and I really wanted to paint some too, so I thought it would be a good idea to do some for my first show. Worst idea ever. I had three days to do it and I had to rope in all my mates to help out!”

Four months later Bombay Sapphire commissioned Anna to interpret its new cocktail The Milestone with a ceiling-high mural. Packed with energy and colour, when capturing the cocktail’s variety of flavours Anna was inspired by the milestones in life and “the rocky moments we all have” when creating her designs. “It was a great feeling to know that brands wanted to commission me for murals. I’ve since painted about 12 murals around the world.”

Josephine’s first proper mural commission four years ago has proven to be a springboard for her work to date, and while she’s still relatively new to this type of work, her portfolio speaks for itself. “What’s great about mural commissions is that they’re often in places with heavy footfall. The more you do, the more people see your work, so it’s a snowball effect.”

Despite the challenges of mural art as a profession, direct artist commissions and mural commissions are different things, and the routes to doing them are different. “If you wish to be commissioned as an artist, then you need to focus on building your reputation as an artist,” says Geoff. “Most brand murals form part of larger marketing initiatives and artists

are accessed via a production house plugged into the media world such as ourselves.” In this scenario, having an agent to not only represent you, but access these types of opportunities, can be invaluable.

PRICING IT RIGHT Understanding the market value that an artist brings to these projects is also crucial to pricing these types of jobs. Yet without prior experience it can be a skill in itself. “I have a set creation fee for any project and then it all depends on usage and materials,” says Kelly.

“With the time a mural takes and the materials I use for it, the fee’s tend to be a little higher just to cover material and time costs.”

With a career spanning over 20 years, Leeds-based graphic artist Rob Lowe, aka Supermundane, has been commissioned for almost every kind of setting. He started doing murals early on in his career. “The way I approached it was quite different to how I work now. I could literally go in without a plan and some Posca pens and just draw it.

“There was a time my agent, Lo and Behold, was in Soho, just off Lexington Street and I got quite a lot of work around this area. Within a mile radius I would have five or six murals to draw for agencies like BBH.” These days Rob’s work is more planned and constructed, producing geometric drawings featuring playful use of colour, line and optical effects.

“More and more I’m being brought into projects as an artist to do my own thing for a specific brand or project and that’s the best kind of work,” says Rob. “It feels very satisfying for me to hand it over to an agent to

Top left: Josephine Hicks at work on the terrace at Liverpool’s Duke Street Market.

Top: High Rise Murals brings the Molson Coors message to London and Manchester.

Above: Second part of the ongoing Make It campaign for Squarespace, bringing to life two designs by London-based creative Peter Judson.

Below: Geoff Gray, COO of High Rise Murals.

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“IT’S NICE TO HAVE PEOPLE WHO HAVE YOUR BACK AND WANT TO PUSH YOUR WORK FORWARD” K E LLY A NN A

negotiate the fee side of things. Often you’re not dealing with the person who manages the budget directly, and nobody really wants to talk about money. It’s hard. Most artists tend to undervalue themselves so it’s worth having someone having those conversations for you.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Kelly, who has found the practical realities around these types of projects require extra support. “If you need help with pricing up, usage and contracts then agents are really helpful,” she says. “It’s also nice to have people who have your back and want to push your work forward.”

Geoff, who represents multiple artistic styles at High Rise Murals, many of whom come from a fine art or graphic design background, agrees. “It’s hard for an artist to have the confidence or commercial awareness of the market to negotiate effectively; they can easily under- or overvalue themselves, which is a risky game,” he says. “We’ve worked hard to raise the daily rate for artists because we know what brands will pay them. Many are working in their own studios on personal art projects, and taking these commercial jobs makes that symbiosis possible.”

BRAND ACTIVATION

Below: Artwork designed by Supermundane’s Rob Lowe for Everlane clothing, coloured in by the local community.

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Last Christmas, Rob was commissioned by ethical clothing brand Everlane to design a mural in collaboration with New York production company Colossal Media, a global leader of hand-painted outdoor advertising.

Initially intended to be painted on-site by Colossal, Everlane invited the public to help finish the massive “100 per cent human” mural

in the heart of Williamsburg, New York. The brand upped the ante by donating $10 to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for every participant who lent a hand. Everlane kept a running stream of Instagram stories documenting the mural coming to life, which Rob admits was “weird to watch unfold online, but quite nice too.”

Its posts, along with bumps from the ACLU, Rob and the participants, raked in an additional 111 million digital impressions for the campaign. “People love a video of somebody painting a mural, and brands can then use that – the making of the mural – as part of the campaign.” says Rob. “Before social media, it wasn’t seen as particularly cost-effective to get someone in to paint a wall: print is far simpler.

But now that we have apps to show videos online, it’s more appealing for brands to take that route and use this extra content and show it being made. It’s part of this growing idea that people like to see how things are made by hand. It feels more authentic.”

Artists have a different way of seeing the world and don’t play by the same rules as a marketing professional or advertising expert, observes Josephine. “A hand-painted mural offers the brand a unique opportunity to tap into the zeitgeist while steering the content design inline with their ethos. Additionally, the performative spectacle for the public to see the image being created in front of their eyes is a massive selling point and more likely to drive interaction.”

Above and right: Mural for Atlantic Morocco holiday home, Essaouira, Morocco

by Kelly Anna.

REPORT

Light up Leeds GRAPHIC ARTIST ROB LOWE ON DESIGNING A VINYL GRAPHIC FOR LEEDS TRAIN STATION In 2015, Rob Lowe aka Supermundane was invited to pitch for a piece of public art to be installed at Leeds Station, ahead of the British Art Show.

“We were given an area to design an artwork for and the brief was simply to create something bright and colourful, which people could appreciate on their way to work.”

Leeds Inspired (Leeds City Council) and Network Rail commissioned Rob to create the 14-metre piece on a footbridge overlooking the main entrance, where it would capture the - 54 -

attention of 120,000 people a day.

“They didn’t want anything local or heritage based, they just wanted to do something fun. We had to ensure part of the design was see-through – we couldn’t completely cover the glass.”

Rob created one initial design, but felt it was a bit too much like decoration; he wanted it to have some depth. “That’s when I thought I’d try to get the word Leeds in there. As it was on glass the design had to work both ways, from both sides of the artwork.”

Restricted to working with vinyl, the artwork was printed and installed by someone else, but Rob insisted on being there on the night of the install. “I was there till about 4am to see it go up!

The main thing for me was to ensure that the measurements were spot on.”

A playful design of bold lines and abstract patterns, the artwork, entitled SuperLeeds, appears to change as you walk past it. “We didn’t tell anyone it said ‘Leeds,’” says Lowe. “We figured some people would see it straightaway and others might not, but it was a nice extra. There’s lots of nice things about it: the way the light reflects on to the escalators as you exit the station is quite special.”

Four years on Rob is still reaping the rewards. “It led to further opportunities, and there aren’t many artists in my line of work who have a permanent piece of art in the public space.”

WIDE OPEN SPACE

For anyone wanting to follow in her footsteps, Kelly encourages aspiring mural artists to find a wall to experiment on – even if that means painting your bedroom wall. “No one needs to know that it’s your bedroom,” she says. “Otherwise, ask people: put it out there that you’re looking for a wall to paint on. You decide what you’re going to be and if that’s a mural painter, then go start painting!”

START LOCAL

“PEOPLE LIKE TO SEE HOW THINGS ARE MADE

BY HAND. IT FEELS MORE AUTHENTIC” R OB

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Engaging with the local community and independent business owners is a great place to start. Shops, restaurants and offices are all potential clients. In terms of securing paid jobs, playing to your strengths is key, and Josephine recommends investing time refining your own aesthetic and producing interesting work. “I’ve always enjoyed the physical process of making art, so mural painting came very naturally. All the brands I’ve worked for have cited an interest in my personal work.”

Rick agrees, believing that the only way to tap into this area is to create your own opportunities. “The way I started was by asking for permission to paint a wall in the middle of my home city, and I asked a film agency to make a short video about the process. When I shared this video online it led to more mural projects. I think it goes like this in many cases:

just communicate the work that you believe in and are excited about, and others will pick up on your enthusiasm and will think of you when a suitable project comes up.”

Consumers these days are savvy, and know when something is authentic and when it’s not, concludes Kelly. “Brands understand the value of working with people who have a craft and live it everyday. It’s real, it’s a craft, it’s what the artist lives and breathes, and it’s their life. All this means that it comes from a place that’s authentic.”

Above: Rob Lowe applies his signature geometric drawings to Bombay Sapphire’s Stir Creativity campaign.

Below: Bombay Sapphire Stir Creativity campaign rolled out on the Canvas Pop Up Bar, Shoreditch, 2018.

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CA creative design & illustration

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With her signature vibrant patterns, geometric shapes and striking colours, Camille Walala spreads joy wherever she goes… - 59 -

IN CONVERSATION WITH

or someone who used to worry about drawing, because she was convinced she’d be wasting paper, Camille Walala has come a long way. After struggling in London for several years, working in a café and doing creative work on the side, often for free, she finally got her breakthrough project: painting an exuberant mural on a building in Old Street. She still didn’t make any money, but she did get people’s attention.

Just a few years later, French-born Camille has spread her vivacious colours and playful patterns everywhere, from Mauritius to Sydney to New York, and the scale of her work just keeps on growing.

Recently, she created the Walala Lounge, which transformed a grey London street in London’s Mayfair into an eye-popping, open-air living room. We caught up with her to find out more.

F

Tell us what it was like working on the Walala Lounge.

That was a really nice project. It was the first time I’d worked in 3D sculpture.

Originally, they wanted a zebra crossing, which I had already done [for Better Bankside]. But when I went there I saw there was no seating area and I wanted to push myself to do something new.

Straight away I thought about doing something open and a bit playful. I think I don’t really follow the rules because I don’t really know how. I’m not a 3D designer or an interior designer, but I think the seating areas work quite nicely, in maybe a childish kind of way.

What did you have to think about when you’re doing large-scale projects, like your SALT of Palmar hotel in Mauritius?

That was quite a mad project because I’d never done anything like it before. It’s always good to tell people what you want to do in terms of projects, because you never know, someone might just say, “Yes, let’s do that together.”

“IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME TO ACTUALLY MAKE IT IN THE CREATIVE WORLD” We were painting a wall for a hotel in Mauritius and I said, “I would love to paint a hotel” and Julia, who I was working with, said, “Go on, tell him [the boss].”

And I thought, “I can’t tell him that.” But I did and he said, “Amazing. I’m gonna do this new hotel for a younger crowd and it would be great if you wanted to be the creative director.” So he gave me the job on the spot.

Then I thought, “Oh shit. I actually don’t know what I’m doing.” I got a bit scared, but we worked with a local architect and team of interior designers so I wasn’t completely by myself.

I think when you’re from that island you don’t realise all the colours that are everywhere. The locals took it for granted. But when I went there with my fresh eyes, I could pick out all of the nice colour combinations.

It was great to bring that back into the hotel. A lot of the architecture on the island was beige and it didn’t really

ARTIST PROFILE French artist Camille Walala studied textile design in Brighton, and now lives in east London, where she set up Walala Studio in 2009. She’s designed everything from shoes and ceramics to furniture and largescale murals; her clients include Armani, Marie Claire, Converse and Barbican Festival. camillewalala.com

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represent the island – which is really joyful – very well at all.

How do you think your work impacts people’s lives?

I think [colourful projects] really affect the mood of a place. Especially here in the UK, they’re a nice way to do something for the community. I grew up in the south of France surrounded by colour, so I think I took that for granted. It’s easy for me, as I’m not scared of colours. When I go to Morocco and I see the colourful houses there, I feel completely hysterical. I just love it. Colour has an impact on people.

How have reactions to your work differed around the world?

It’s been quite similar actually. Not so much in France somehow, which is quite weird because I come from there... It’s a bit too conservative in terms of taste, that’s why I came to the UK originally.

There was much more opportunity. A lot of things you can do in the UK are a bit mad. I mean these [Walala Lounge] benches… I can’t imagine seeing them in Paris. I love London for that.

Is it important for you to keep trying new things?

Yeah, definitely. When you’re creative it’s almost like it comes in waves. Before, I had anxiety. I felt like I was going nowhere. It took me a long time to actually make it in

THIS PAGE Camille Walala’s Dream Come True mural on a building on Old Street (middle left) was the catalyst for many other projects, including the Walala Lounge (bottom left) and SALT of Palmar Hotel (middle and bottom right).

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IN CONVERSATION WITH

THIS PAGE Geometric shapes and black and white lines are recurring elements in Camille’s designs.

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the creative world and finally be able to live from creativity. When I got there it was a pretty amazing year. I had so much success. It’s like I almost achieved too many goals in one go, and then I was bit lost. I was like, “What do I want now?” That’s when I realised I get joy from doing charity projects or doing something meaningful, not just for me but for a community.

Can you describe one of your recent charity projects?

For one project, we painted a lobby in a psychiatric hospital. The colours weren’t quite so bright and bold [as usual], but it just brought a little bit of joy to the lobby because it was pretty depressing when we got there. Everything was kind of falling apart and the lighting was crappy and there was this horrible TV in the background showing reality TV with people screaming at each other.

We had a meeting, and the only consideration was that they didn’t want too much black and white, which we normally use. So it was quite nice to come up with a design that was softer in terms of shape and colour palette. I was bit worried because the patients really tell the truth, you know, like kids – if they don’t like it they’ll just say. But they really liked it, they said it makes their day and they were proud to have a nice painting in their lobby.

You mentioned all those years of struggling. What advice would you give to people who are trying to make it?

I think it’s a lot of work. Just persevere and don’t stop until you’re happy with what you’re doing. And maybe that might not be the thing you wanted to do two years ago, but you’re gonna get there. You just have to really push it and say yes to a lot of projects.

When I started I had to do a lot of free projects. I was painting bars and I had a job for a long time working in a café or a restaurant. Eventually I started to do my own stuff.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I did a little cushion and I was selling them, and then a guy saw my print and asked if I wanted to decorate his bar.

Sometimes people see the potential in

your work that you don’t see. Things do come to you, but you have to put yourself out there.

Is there something to be said for the struggle?

Yes. When I started to do well it was so much more enjoyable because I’d struggled for so long. For years I didn’t do anything creative. I didn’t even allow myself to think I could do something creative. It came very slowly, but it was worth the wait.

How did you get your ‘breakthrough’ project painting a building in Old Street?

I kept telling everyone I wanted to paint a building, I told people on social media, and I told everyone I met. And then this woman, Jenny Lewis, said her husband had a building and would I like to paint it.

And I said yeah.

She showed me the building and it was amazing – it was in the best location. I just knew it was another opportunity to push myself. I didn’t make money out of it, but it was such a good opportunity. I found some volunteers and it ended up being the best thing I’ve done. I got so much work out of that.

Has your style changed a lot since then?

I don’t think so. I think I need to experiment a bit more. It’s gradually changing. I think I’m having a little bit of a crisis – not too much of one, though.

The style is kind of the same, but because I’m doing more 3D work, that’s how it’s

evolving at the moment, more than the pattern or the colour palette. I just want to try to push it, but I don’t really know in which direction.

Do you ever think about using a completely different colour palette?

I keep on thinking that, but then somehow I always go back to the same colours. It’s changing slowly. I’m trying to use more earthy colours, but I’m a bit concerned because they’re trendy. I almost don’t want to look at social media and be brainwashed by what’s out there. I want to find my own inspiration.

What does inspire you?

I don’t really know what I get inspired by. It depends on the mood I’m in... It’s always strong line and geometry. I like constructivism and amazing shapes. I’m looking at things that are really different from my style, so I don’t know if I can change it dramatically. When you have a brand like I do now, I don’t think you can change it completely.

What’s next?

I’m going to try and design a soup kitchen.

We’re trying to get funding and a space.

Usually, a lot of people come to me, but this year I want to come up with my own projects. They could be for charity or some sort of crazy design, designing a fountain or something in 3D. I’m going to do my own crazy designs and then maybe someone will buy them.

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Thinking of going freelance this year?

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Read this first F

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WE SPEAK TO INDEPENDENT CREATIVES ON HOW TO LAUNCH A CAREER OF SELF-EMPLOYMENT WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MONEY… OR YOUR MIND

WRIT TEN BY EMILY GOSLING

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REPORT

ew year, new you – right?

The benefits of ditching your agency job or brand in-house designer 9 to 5 for freelance life appear to be many: it’s the freedom to work when you want, for whom and wherever you like. More and more creatives are going freelance out of choice, rather than being made redundant, for instance. A 99Designs survey showed that only five per cent do so out of necessity, with many reaping the benefits of a nomadic lifestyle. Indeed, 43 per cent of freelancers have lived and worked abroad.

“One of the best things about freelance life for me is being in control of everything: time management, choosing my clients and the people I surround myself with,” says Berlinbased illustrator Chau Luong. “The biggest downside is being your own boss, and not having a steady salary. You need to be highly self-motivated; it can get hard at times.”

That fear of the unknown can be crippling, so we spoke to a number of freelance creatives working across the world and in various disciplines about how they manage. We looked at everything from getting paid on time to the more nebulous nuances of keeping well in a job that can sometimes feel lonely and frequently precarious.

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IS IT THE RIGHT TIME?

Selfie Surveillance by Hashmukh Kerai.

A few things must be in place before taking the plunge. Are you showing your abilities online to their best, to secure the work you want? Can you afford to give up a regular salary, and have you worked out how you might tackle

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other important aspects to a full-time job, such as parental leave and pension schemes? It’s vital to have a financial “safety net” in place to survive those first few tricky months, where a drop in income could occur.

“You need to think about whether you’d be able to maintain the things that are important to you after leaving [a full-time job]. The main difference is who chooses what kinds of perks you’re entitled to,” advises Paula Minelgaité, founder of her eponymous Londonbased graphic design and research studio. “It’s best to go freelance when you already have projects lined up and a strategy for acquiring work.”

HASHMUKH KERAI

Motion graphics designer, 3D illustrator and animator Hashmukh Kerai recently published his free Freelancer Grind Guide, but is realistic rather than evangelical about making the move. “The right time is when you’ve exhausted all your options working full-time, and want to try something different,” Hashmukh says. “Just try it out and see if it’s for you. For me, freelancing is about freedom, and if your full-time job is holding you down and you want to work with new people and clients regularly, I would say it’s time.”

As a freelancer, it’s not enough to be brilliantly creative – you have to be your own business, too. That means spending time on admin, chasing invoices, finding new work, keeping on top of your social media presence, as well as actually doing the work. Especially when starting out, it’s important to take the time to meet people and make new connections to find potential future work.

Many freelancers juggle remote work with stints in-house at brands or agencies. Luke Woodhouse, creative director at branding agency Ragged Edge, has worked on both sides (as freelancer and freelance-employer), and often brings in extra external specialist help, such as copywriters, animators or 3D specialists. Many of these are hired from portfolios sent in speculatively.

“It’s great to hear from talented designers,” Luke says, “and if we get a good one through we arrange a meeting and put a face to the name so that when a relevant project comes up we know them a bit better. If your work is good enough, it’ll get noticed by an agency.”

The freelancers Luke goes back to time and again are those who “seem to care about the project and the work,” he says. “Be proactive and engaged, say hello and make eye contact. Ask loads of questions and take direction well, but bring your own ideas and experiments.

Try not to just answer a brief, but take it forward.” The agency also occasionally uses specialist design recruiters such as Represent or EdenMarsh. This can be a good option for freelancers, although bear in mind that using them means they won’t be able to look for work at brands or agencies that you’ve already contacted yourself.

SELF-PROMOTION Even if it’s daunting, just get your work in front of people. If you don’t have a personal website and social platforms already then set them up before you leave a full-time job. “There are millions of creatives out there, so try to find your own style, visual language and method of working and then stay true to it,” says London-based freelance illustrator and animator Juppi Juppsen.

He acknowledges that in the early days, it’s good to “branch out, work a lot and gather some references,” but adds that it’s important to “always work on the things that you actually want to do, or the direction you see yourself going – at least with the stuff you publish online.” Juppi has his own site, but also gains work through word-of-mouth recommendations and occasionally through contacting blogs and publications to feature his work. In

GOING FREELANCE

CHAU LUONG

“You need to be highly self-motivated; it can get hard at times”

IMAGES: Top left, A.A. Spectrum AW19 – Woven artwork applied across the whole collection and right, editorial Illustration for Lenny Letter about TV reality mediums by Chau Luong.

REPORT

Photograph: Minelgaite studio

PAULA MINELGAITÉ

“Freelancing doesn’t necessarily end any creative frustrations you might have as a full-time employee”

IMAGES: Top left, Romford Stencil typeface spray-painted on imagery was taken from The Sun newspaper that was published in the lead-up to the 1975 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU. Right, By Minelgaite Studio, 2017: many copies of the first House of Common Affairs forum poster titled An Artist, a Politician, and a Journalist Walk into a Bar by Paula Minelgaité.

GOING FREELANCE

freelance, it’s wise to work as much as you personally feel you can: “You need to hone your craft and build up your portfolio, and pay your rent.” Hashmukh agrees: “At the beginning I had to take on pretty much every job to get my foot in the door, but slowly you learn what works for you and what doesn’t.”

When it comes to staying on top of finances, one key rule that’s often hard to abide by is not to spend the invoice before it’s been paid. It’s wise to hire a good accountant who has a strong understanding of how the creative process works, if possible. Although they have to be paid, of course, they could save you thousands of pounds in the

MENTAL HEALTH

STRIKING A BALANCE “It’s almost impossible to get the perfect balance of client work/self-initiated work because you never know who’s going to call you up the next day with work,” says Gordon Reid, founder of London design studio Middle Boop. Careful planning is key. This means that if he’s deeply into a self-initiated project, it’s easier to say no to paying clients that will be “too distracting, as I know [the self-initiated work will] be more beneficial in the long run.” But, he concedes, “It’s hard to turn down money.”

When he does stints in-house, Gordon looks to negotiate a shorter working week of three or four days, leaving one or two for other projects, and says he’s starting to find more contracts are being flexible with this now, and he feels it means the creative output from his side is better than with a five-day working week. Today, he’s learned from early career errors of saying “yes” to everything; working in-house and then carrying on with other projects into the night from home.

While work/life balance and health should be a priority, Gordon says that when you’re first starting out

end up working on a job for a bank or multi-conglomerate corporation. Each has different value: one may not be as creatively satisfying, but will pay your rent and buy you all the Findus crispy pancakes you can eat. The other will just cover a bit of your time but will be a great portfolio piece, and probably end up getting you more work anyway.”

Gordon very rarely works for free; instead offering skill-swaps such as giving free artwork to a new hair salon in return for free haircuts.

Blanck Mass cover artwork and typography by Gordon Reid.

the early days he used MySpace as selfpromotion, but today it’s about Facebook and Instagram, which gets him the most work. “I still get a lot of requests and potential jobs via Instagram,” he says, “but your work doesn’t get seen as much [now, due to changes in algorithms], which makes things a bit more tricky.”

In the past Juppi’s worked with an illustration agency, which he says was helpful in “trying to establish a couple of regular clients for a bit of steady income”, but that the projects that came through it only made up a “small part” of his workload.

Be wary of those glitzy-sounding projects that promise little cash, but plenty of “exposure” – which we all know doesn’t pay rent – as well as work that in your gut feels morally dubious. Juppi’s advice for new freelancers on getting noticed is “stay relevant, push your skills, try new things and don’t lose the passion for what you’re doing. But if you feel something goes against your principles, don’t do it. Money’s not everything.”

GORDON REID

long run. Tools such as the cloud-based accounting software FreeAgent are also helpful, since they can automate invoices and chase late clients directly.

Pretty much every freelancer (unless they’re exceptionally lucky) has a horror story or 10 about clients who don’t pay on time, and to avoid this Gordon advises setting your invoice rates and payment terms (usually 15 or 30 days) and “make sure the client signs off on this in writing before starting work.”

He adds that setting a rate card and package document that he can send to new clients for costing work helps break down exactly what they’re paying for, and demonstrates his studio’s process.

However, the rate card and document are variable, says Gordon. “I could get a packaging job in from a self-funded drinks start-up that can only afford a certain amount, but the project has the potential to be a great case study and be valuable for career progression, or I could

Issues such as burn-out, or feeling anxious, exploited, worthless, unfulfilled or overworked aren’t just applicable to freelancers, but they can be exacerbated when there’s no team to whinge about them with, and no one forcing you to see other people every day. To counter that, Paula advises making time to go on “study trips” and maintaining a good social life.

Working from home can be a double-edged sword: there are numerous benefits, but it’s not too healthy to live in pajamas and have no human contact other than the bloke in the corner shop when you pop in for yet more biscuits.

Many freelancers rent out a desk space or use communal spaces, coffee shops or libraries, but where that’s not possible, it’s advisable to carve out a space that’s just for work at home.

Qieer Wang is a Chinese animator and illustrator based in New York, and many of her self-initiated projects have focused on mental health, such as a series of GIFs illustrating different conditions.

“Simply expressing emotions is a way out,” Qieer says. Hashmukh agrees that being open about his anxiety has been hugely helpful. It’s important to regularly take (guilt-free) time off to recharge: “You’ll come back stronger when you - 69 -

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need to focus on work. In addition, schedule in time with friends and family, just as you would with client meetings,” Hashmukh adds.

For Qieer, staying in the moment is vital to good mental health: “Focus on what you’re doing at that moment, no matter if you’re working on a project or at a live concert,” she says. For Chau, it’s all about establishing a routine, and making sure to go for a walk – even if it’s just around the corner. “Take care of yourself, even if the workload is excessive,” she says. “David Lynch has spoken about the importance of happiness in the act of making art and I couldn’t agree more.

“I work much better when I sleep enough, take time to meet friends and treat myself to a proper meal every day.

It’s also helpful to stay in touch with peers. Not having colleagues can easily create the illusion that you’re the only one struggling.”

inform myself properly about usage terms and licences.”

Gordon reveals that one “howler” was taking on a corporate branding job that required a whole team (strategy, project manager and more), not just a single freelancer. “I tackled it with just one other designer, and charged probably half of what I should have. I learned a very good lesson about the value of bringing on the right people for the right jobs and not trying to do everything myself – and to make sure you charge for that, too. The client will be happier and so will you.”

If things seem too good to be true, they probably are. When Paula was asked

FREELANCING MISTAKES

Still of GIF animations for an Asics Tiger campaign by Juppi Juppsen.

Qieer says that one of her biggest mistakes was setting her rates too low at first (and spelling her email address wrongly on her business card). The business side of freelancing can be difficult, as Chau attests: “Starting out, I was thankful for every opportunity, which led me to accept questionable fees and working conditions. The first lesson for me was to reach out and to

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JUPPI JUPPSEN

to put together a pitch (which she was told would be for a small fee) for a visual identity for a London-based gallery a couple of years ago, it seemed like an amazing opportunity. In the end, it refused to pay for the pitch. “The exciting prospect of a cool project clouded my judgement on the whole situation and I ended up being exploited,” she says.

One big error for new freelancers is losing sight of personal projects – the stuff you really love – in favour of money jobs. When Juppi felt trapped in commercial work that didn’t push him creatively, and wasn’t aligned with the direction he wanted to head, he “took a step back, created some personal work, redesigned my online presence and approached the people or brands I wanted to work for. That worked out after some time and effort.”

Hashmukh adds: “Client work allows me to make money and meet new people, while personal work allows me to

grow and experiment and can help you explore new techniques and tools to then bring back into your client work. You’re only as good as your last project.”

IS IT WORTH IT? Paula points out that “freelancing doesn’t necessarily end any creative frustrations you might have as a full-time employee, because you’ll have some clients who are extremely graphic about what they want you to produce.” However, there’s the obvious freedom of where and when you work; your day rates are usually higher; and less busy periods are great for selfinitiated projects.

It’s vital for freelancers to be confident in their abilities: don’t undercharge; don’t be scared to make mistakes; know what you want to work on, and the sort of people or brands you want to work with.

Consider how a project will progress your career and sit within your portfolio as well as the pay involved. “Know what you’re worth and what your skills are, and never be intimidated by big names or companies,” says Juppi. “Don’t forget that you’ve been hired because the client likes your work, style, ethics and so on, so be confident in that.”

At first, Chau says she was “scared of putting myself out there, and overly cautious. When I had the epiphany that I can work without making myself miserable, things started running a lot more smoothly! Being self-critical is a good thing, but self-deprecation not so much.” Making mistakes, she points out, is vital to improving your process and your output.

However, most seem to agree that going freelance was the right move.

“Working for yourself is an emotional roller-coaster: today is exhilarating, tomorrow is demoralising. In my case, deciding to work for myself was a very good decision,” says Paula.

GOING FREELANCE

QIEER WANG

“Focus on what you’re doing at that moment, whether you’re working on a project or at a live concert”

IMAGES: Top left, NPR: new podcast show on Magic Mushroom and right, Medium.elemental: Fight, Flight, Freeze by Qieer Wang.

NEXT ISSUE

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TYPEOGRAPHY IN BRANDING Find out five ways typography can define a brand

PLUS A A R D M A N C R E AT E S A SLEEK CAR PROMO HOW TO REL AUNCH AN ICONIC BRAND BLOK RE VA MP S A N I TA L I A N R E S TA U R A N T Blok Design shares the ins and outs of its 2.5 months-long eatery project

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GET THE MOST OUT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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studio GROUNDBREAKING CREATIVES AND THEIR PROJECTS

74 p r oj e c t: Hus m e e f o r Kun s t h al D e sig n S c h o o l

80 a r t i s t in s i g h t: A nn a Mil l o n perspective

86 s t u d i o p r o f i l e: why t y p o g r aphy is at t h e h e ar t of B ur r o w ’s w o r k

92 p r oj e c t: D e n o min at i o n f o r W ilds pir i t

Image: Burrow, page 86

SEE MORE INSPIRING WORK AT COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COM

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project Husmee for Kunsthal Design School How the Spanish studio created a new identity for Kunsthal Design School husmee.com

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PROJECT

ABOVE AND RIGHT Adhesive tape became a symbol for what binds students and faculty at Kunsthal Design School.

THE BRIEF AND CONCEPT

ALAIN VILLASTRIGO Founder and creative director, Husmee Alain carries out design and art direction work that is practical with a fine aesthetic, based on structure, colour and typography.

ANER HERNÁNDEZ Designer, Husmee Aner is passionate about creating graphics, narratives and music. He loves beautiful typography, and is still inspired by his first school text book (set in the typeface Univers).

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Alain Villastrigo After several meetings with Kunsthal Design School in Bilbao, where we commented on and analysed their visual identity, they invited us to help develop a new one. As a graduate of the college, I understood the feeling of being a student there. As a designer, creating an identity for a design school is special. They’re a group of professionals with a lot of experience in the worlds of art and design, so it was an honour to be chosen to develop their identity.

What Kunsthal has is a strong human element. Companies will spend a lot of money getting their staff to connect as individuals with their organisations, but at Kunsthal strong links between the staff, students and the school as a whole are already there. What we had to do was to find a way to represent these relationships, their adaptability and the opportunity for personal development that Kunsthal offers.

Early on, we knew that people would be the core of the identity. We researched how people form bonds with one another, how groups form and where that feeling of belonging comes from, mainly from a social perspective. What we needed to identify was something that could symbolise the attachment students have with the school, and we came up with it in the form of adhesive tape. A roll of tape to represent Kunsthal, with individual pieces of tape representing the students.

From there, we needed to come up with a design approach that would represent the positive

interactions that occur at Kunsthal and develop a guide that we could hand over for the school to implement its own identity and visual language across a variety of media.

THE DESIGN SYSTEM Alain Villastrigo and Aner Hernández The style of this identity needed to be versatile and adaptable, something that would work digitally and in print, and could be sober or explosive in its expression. Having a structure was vital, so we broke the visual elements down into modules, using pieces of tape – representing people – to connect them.

In such a digitised world, we think handson design is important. We spent a few weeks crafting our concepts away from our computers, to develop the human element of the brand.

Workshops were held with staff and students to demonstrate the significance of the tape within the identity, establishing craft as part of the process and generating ideas for the design work.

An important part of the identity is something called the Bessemer process, which are typographic experiments that the students participate in (see sidebar, overleaf.) The lettering generated through these experiments provided the identity with its adaptive elements. A bank of images created by students has also been created, and these can be used across a range of communications projects for the school.

Alongside the Bessemer process, we developed a system of grids to which imagery, text, colour

HUSMEE

“A ROLL OF TAPE TO REPRESENT KUNSTHAL , WITH PIECES OF TAPE REPRESENTING THE ST UDENTS”

THIS PAGE Husmee experimented with type, imagery and blocks of colour to come up with a design grid for the school’s communications.

PROJECT

THE BESSEMER PROCESS INVITING STUDENTS TO PLAY WITH TYPE GAVE THE IDENTITY THE ADAPTIVE FEEL IT NEEDED, EXPLAIN ALAIN AND ANER Creating a modern identity for a leading design school, we felt the project would benefit from interactivity and collaboration with the students, and the Bessemer process was born. Essentially, this takes the main typeface chosen for Kunsthal Design School’s identity and reworks it to create endless possible shapes and personalities that the brand can deploy.

We invited students and staff to explore the typeface and experiment with different ways of changing it. The typeface used is the superb GT Walsheim by Grilli Type.

It’s based on the work of Swiss artist Otto Baumberger and was designed by Noël Leu. It’s a geometric typeface, perfectly representing Kunsthal’s relationship with the avante garde. While it’s used as is in the identity, we carried out 16 different experiments looking at various new formulations – blackletter, serif, script and so on.

Making typography a core part of an identity project really brings value to it, especially if the client is a design school.

This is why we carried out this process.

TOP The results of the Bessemer process explored in poster form.

ABOVE The brand guidelines detail the grid structure that forms the basis of the new identity.

and textures could be attached, often using pieces of tape to represent the human element. These grids are a noticeable part of the expression, giving it character and a compositional framework. It’s possible to work in a clean and sober way without compartmentalising aspects of the design.

Likewise, for the colour scheme, we worked closely with the client. Susana Zaldívar is professor of colour theory at Kunsthal and helped us develop a special range of colour selections.

The palette includes warm and cold colours for bold and sober expressions.

In terms of a logo, we decided to create Kunsthal wordmark in GT Walsheim with some subtle adjustments to achieve a shape that expresses the school’s personality and fits perfectly within the grid-driven design approach.

A capital K works well on its own as a symbol for Kunsthal, separate from the wordmark.

THE VERDICT “ THE PALE T TE INCLUDES WARM AND COLD C OLOURS FOR BOLD AND SOBER E XPRES SIONS” - 78 -

Alain Villastrigo Working as a team with our client throughout the process, all the decisions along the way have been made together. Because the client is a design school, with professionals from all fields of design, this was a valuable asset for the project and it helped us achieve a strong identity.

HUSMEE

TOP & LEFT Husmee’s first campaign for Kunsthal Design School appeared at transport locations around Bilbao.

We’ve put together an extensive identity manual, with guides on using the grids we developed, typography, imagery and the experimental type that’s produced through the Bessemer process. It’s an open graphic identity that the students and lecturers can participate in, creating something that truly belongs to Kunsthal Design School.

Workshops will continue to be held, taking the adaptive elements of the identity forward.

Kunsthal has a new headquarters in Bilbao and as part of the identity project we’ve worked on a poster campaign that has been launched throughout the city’s transport network. These demonstrate the new identity, deploying the adhesive tape and our grids.

During this project we’ve learned a lot, read a lot, and it’s been an important project for Husmee Studio. The highlight for us has been drawing out the human elements of the school, creating an identity that connects all these different parts.

BELOW Husmee kept the stationery simple, flashing it with brand colours to introduce some variety.

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artist insight Anna Mill on perspective How to draw perspective traditionally, digitally and with the occasional slight imperfection hether drawing traditionally with pencil and paper, or drawing digitally using a graphics tablet, I still construct even the most complicated scenes entirely using the draughting techniques of the horizon line and vanishing points that most people will have learnt in art class.

This might seem strangely over-complicated, when it’s so easy to quickly mock up a basic version of the scene using 3D modelling programs to guide your drawing, but when you set out a perspective drawing by hand, you give yourself some flexibility in interpreting the method. In following and often slightly bending these rules, you enrich the narrative composition of the image by adding depth, drama and atmosphere. Here are some of the methods that I use most frequently.

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LEFT Hand-constructed perspective cityscape from Anna’s graphic novel Square Eyes.

BELOW How the placement of the horizon line in the frame relates to the eyeline of the imagined viewer (the figure on the left) and subject (figure on the right and in frame).

ANNA MILL Illustrator Anna is a winner in 2019’s World Illustration Awards.

Her first graphic novel Square Eyes, with co-writer Luke Jones, explores a near-future city where digital visions are drawn over the crumbling physical world, and dreams, memory and realities blur. annamill.com

PLACE THE HORIZON LINE The most important decision is the placement of the horizon line in relation to the important characters and elements such as objects, furniture or buildings in the scene. It’s useful to remember that the horizon is on the same level as the imagined eye of the viewer.

When you place the horizon line above the characters, it gives the viewer the impression that they’re in a position higher up, looking down from a platform, say.

If we imagine that our viewer is standing on the same surface as the other characters in the - 81 -

ARTIST INSIGHT

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scene, then all standing figures in the scene will also have their head on the horizon line, with the exception of particularly tall or short characters.

If the horizon line is low, and the characters stretch high above the horizon, then it appears as if the viewer is lying down on the same surface, or standing on a lower platform looking up.

In my graphic novel Square Eyes I would often set the horizon line either very low or very high in the drawing. It seemed to fit with the tone of the book, in which the main character is often confused and disoriented by surroundings that either loom above her or stretch away in inhumanly vast vistas.

ONE-POINT PERSPECTIVE In one-point perspective, horizontal lines on any plane perpendicular to the point of view will recede to a vanishing point that’s located somewhere on the horizon line. Usually, I avoid putting the vanishing point right in the middle of the space that I’m drawing, because it tends to create too much symmetry in the view, making the composition feel static and a little unnatural.

Yet sometimes this eerie calm can add to the atmosphere of the scene.

TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE When drawing two-point perspective, I always place either one or both of my vanishing points

“USUALLY, I AVOID PU T TING THE VANISHING P OINT RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SPACE THAT I’M DR AWING”

OPPOSITE One-point perspective with the horizon line placed low in the frame, but level with the figures to show them being dwarfed by the buildings.

ABOVE AND LEFT With two-point perspective both vanishing points are out of frame and the horizon line is centred on the image, giving a natural, low-tension feeling to the scene.

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ARTIST INSIGHT

outside the edges of the drawing. I find that when both the left and right vanishing points are inside the frame, dramatic perspective angles are created. This sometimes generates objects that look strangely stretched. For the most part however, I want a more natural field of view, so I take care to locate the vanishing points in such a way that they create a good balance between drama and realism.

ANALOGUE TOOLS I have various sets of rulers of my own making that I use when carrying out traditional paper and pencil perspective drawing. The simplest ones are cut from mount board and pivot on a drawing pin that acts as the vanishing point. This enables me to quickly move the ruler around the page, and know that any line that I draw against the draughting edge will recede to that vanishing point. This can be set up with as many rulers and vanishing points as is required, but typically I only use one or two at once.

It’s not always possible to have a ruler long enough or table wide enough to allow your ruler to be physically connected to the vanishing point. What’s needed is a ruler that will reliably pivot about a point to which it’s not actually connected. This was an enjoyably tricky problem that I grappled with for many years, before finally coming up with a solution that involved fixing three rulers together, which moved around two drawing pins.

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Above One of the large robotic printers creating the new city.

Below Two-point perspective with a low horizon line and vanishing point far right out of the frame to enhance the feeling of distance and scale.

DIGITAL TOOLS When drawing digitally in Photoshop, I find that it’s usually too cumbersome to expand the canvas to draw all the perspective lines receding to a vanishing point to the far left or right outside the scene. In this case I tend to add a basic square grid for guidance, which I adjust to the main perspective lines using the program’s Skew tool (Edit>Free Transform>Skew). This usually provides enough guidance that more detailed lines can be drawn by eye, even if they don’t fall exactly on a gridline.

Drawing digitally also allows for some other timesaving shortcuts, particularly when drawing repeating elements in perspective, such as a building that has many windows of the same size and shape. Here’s my method for depicting repeating elements. First, draw one window and save the file, calling it “Single Window”. Next, create a new document, go to File>Place Linked… and choose your Single Window file. Add as many multiples of the window as you need, arranging them to suit the facade of the building that you are drawing. Then save the file as “Facade 1”.

Now create a new document, and Place Linked file Facade 1. You can now skew the facade to the perspective that you need, without having to draw all the windows individually. In addition, if you make a change to your Single Window file, then all the copies will also update in the perspective view. Finally, link the facade file and skew to suit the perspective in the scene.

EMBRACE YOUR ERRORS It’s only when some extraordinarily complex shape is required that I ever use 3D modelling software to help generate the image. This is partly from a stubborn delight in a technical drawing challenge, but also because apart from the flexibility it gives you, it also allows for some mistakes. I feel it’s in these small errors we make when we craft something by hand that some of our personality shows through in the work.

I feel like my inaccuracies are probably specific to me, and that I make the same small mistakes in similar ways over and over again when drawing.

The nearer that a draughtsman gets to robotic perfection, the less present are the signs of a human hand and mind creating those small inaccuracies that are unique to that artist, and I believe that, even if it takes a little longer, this is something that is worth preserving.

ABOVE AND BELOW Two-point perspective of a city street, with the horizon out of frame above the top edge of the image.

LEFT Skewing a regular grid to help give guidelines for a digital perspective drawing.

GET YOUR ART SEEN! The World Illustrations Awards, launched by the Association of Illustrations over 45 years ago, is now accepting entries. There are 10 categories, and the closing date is 18 February 2020. theaoi.com

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studio profile PHOTOGRAPH © NORA HEINISCH

Burrow Based in Berlin and Zurich, we discover how this studio keeps things fresh through constant experimentation

GIULIA SCHELM Born and raised in Berlin’s Kreuzberg, Giulia always had a passion for arts and crafts. She studied visual communication at the University of Arts in Berlin and at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. She cofounded Burrow with Philipp and Lukas.

LUKAS KÜNG Lukas spent his childhood in Zurich, drawn to letters and forms. This leisure activity led to a professional interest in graphic design and a degree in visual communication from the University of Arts in Berlin and Pratt Institute, New York.

BURROW Known for its typography-led graphic design, Burrow is a multidisciplinary studio based in Berlin and Zurich. Run by Philipp Koller, Lukas Küng and Giulia Schelm, it offers printed and digital design work for clients from various fields. Burrow also opens its doors periodically to display contemporary artists. www.im-burrow.com

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PHILIPP KOLLER Philipp grew up in Switzerland.

Originally interested in architecture, he finished a four-year apprenticeship in a Swiss architecture office. His interests shifted towards graphic design. He also studying visual communication at the University of Arts Berlin, where he met Lukas and Giulia.

STUDIO PROFILE

hen you’ve visited as many creative studios as we have at Computer Arts, there’s a risk that they start to look the same. The headquarters of Burrow, though, is pretty darned memorable. It’s not many design offices that boast a silk screen printing studio, a photographic studio and a workshop – not to mention a defined space for temporary art exhibitions.

But then, the physical, the craft-centered and the artistic are central to the DNA of Burrow, a studio based across Berlin and Zurich that largely serves clients in the arts and culture sectors. And if you didn’t realise that from a studio visit, then you’d certainly get it from a quick glance at the stunning, largely typography-based design work in its portfolio.

We sat down with Philipp Koller, Lukas Küng and Giulia Schelm to find out what makes Burrow tick, the challenges they face, and their love of experimentation and pushing boundaries.

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When did you first get together?

Giulia Schelm: We were all enrolled as students here in Berlin. Our collaborations evolved out of friendship and respect for each other’s work. Gradually, we came to collaborate on university projects and, once our university degree was set in stone, our projects became more professional. That was when we founded Burrow. Today, we’re a multidisciplinary design studio, with a strong focus on typographic design solutions.

ABOVE Book design for The Fourth Pole, the diary of an expedition to the Earth’s lowest continental point. The diary was printed in four languages.

“OUR C ONCEP TS ARE STRONGEST WHEN WE’RE ABLE TO USE THE PUREST FORM OF T Y P O GR APH Y ” - 88 -

Where does your shared love of typography stem from?

Lukas Küng: We all have very different backgrounds: some of us found our way to graphic design through graffiti, others through photography or architecture. Our common love and interest for typography developed through the constant exchanges we had during university.

Today, we steadily aim for a unique and memorable visual concept, with the message conveyed through its form. For the most part, we find that our concepts are the strongest when we’re able to use the purest form of typography.

So what it is about typography that excites you so much?

Philipp Koller: Typography is a very rich and historically connotated subject. It’s a field in which we feel very comfortable, and which we’re able to cross-reference in our projects.

Since typography is hard to grasp for someone who’s not involved in the type sphere, we also see it as our advantage and unique skill-set to be able to come up with concepts and ideas based heavily on type.

For us, typography is an ever-evolving learning field that allows us to shift our focus and experiment in new territories.

Currently, we’re very interested in designing project-based typefaces, while also adapting to foreign writing systems.

You’ve been doing that in a recent project?

LK: Yes, the artist book Der Vierte Pol [“The Fourth Pole”] required us to work with Latin, Hebrew and Arabic scripts. We adapted to a variety of different writing systems and typographic rules, while also making them work together conceptually and visually. Additionally, we were able to test print different materials in our silk screen printing studio, to help us find the most suitable cover for the book.

You’re keen on experimentation in general.

Can you give a couple more examples of how you harnessed that in client work?

PK: The visual identity for the Swissness Applied exhibition series allowed us to be very experimental. We designed a custom blackletter typeface referencing calligraphic blackletter fonts, which you see a lot on house facades in German-speaking Alpine regions such as in Switzerland, South Germany and Austria.

Additionally, we designed a series of print products and developed an experimental website that both documented the exhibition and functioned as a playground, allowing the virtual visitor to explore the exhibition in a different context.

In another project, the Zurich-based architecture firm Clea Gross Architekten asked us to design a slightly unusual website that demonstrates a new kind of user experience. The main element consists of 360-degree rotating study models, providing

LEFT AND ABOVE Visual and exhibition identity for The Swissness Applied, which examines the US town of New Glarus, Wisconsin from an architectural perspective.

FAR LEFT Exhibition publication for artist Alice Nikitinová’s exhibition Visual Conversation.

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STUDIO PROFILE

RIGHT Corporate design for Swiss architects Clea Gross.

BELOW Nine Constructionists poster for Princeton School of Architecture.

“IT ’S REFRESHING TO SHOWCASE AR T IN OUR OWN SPACE, R ATHER THAN BEING BOUND TO SOF T WARE AND HARDWARE”

BURROW

the viewer with a three-dimensional understanding of the buildings.

We constructed a greenscreen with a rotating turntable attached to a motor, experimented with several code snippets and were able to produce the firm’s corporate stationery in our printing workshop. This project showcases our broad skill-set covering typography, photography, creative coding, web development, experimental printing techniques and our available facilities to maintain these skills.

What’s the meaning behind your name?

GS: The name derives from our approach to design, but it’s also a description of our studio space. Before we start a new project, we like to dig deep into research to help us get familiar with the new challenge. This investigative approach resembles rabbits building their burrow. Burrow also describes our large studio space, with all of its different possibilities and creative disciplines. It contains a silk screen printing studio, a photo studio and a workshop. These units are all part of our daily practice.

And you also have a space for temporary exhibitions, right?

LK: Yes – every now and then we hold exhibitions and events in our studio, which allow us to interact with an audience on a non-commercial basis. It’s refreshing to showcase art in our own space, rather than being bound to software and hardware, as we are in our normal projects.

What are the biggest challenges you face as a studio?

GS: Reaching the point that a project feels right and is able to surprise a viewer takes a lot of time and dedication. Since we always strive for the best possible outcome, sometimes we fool ourselves and we do a lot of additional work that wasn’t part of the initial time calculation.

It’s never completely predictable how much time a project will take, because it depends on the relationship you’ve built up with a client. But working within the estimated time, while still being happy with the end result, is a big challenge.

Do you ever use freelancers?

PK: We used to outsource the programming for our websites and the production of

special printing techniques. For the past two years now, though, we’ve taken care of this ourselves by steadily adapting to the newest web technologies and setting up our own screenprinting studio.

Still, we appreciate collaborative projects and love to get new input from fellow designers. During the past two years we haven’t worked with freelancers, but this is about to change soon, since we’re getting more commissions and our projects are becoming larger in scale and complexity.

What’s it like being based in both Germany and Switzerland?

LK: In the past 10 years alone, studios in Berlin have multiplied by leaps and bounds. The design scene in Berlin is huge and it’s growing at a very fast pace. It’s also competitive and extremely talented.

There are two sides to this. You meet a lot of interesting people and there are a lot of creative events going on, but you also have an extremely dense and over-saturated market.

Since two of the three founding members originally come from Switzerland, we also maintain client relationships in Zurich. The two cities couldn’t be more diverse.

On the one hand you have structured Zurich, with attention to every detail. On the other hand you have unrestrained Berlin with its chaotic, creative energy.

As practising graphic designers, both surroundings are equally interesting and function as sources of inspiration.

What does the future look like for Burrow?

GK: We’re still paving our own path and are very eager to learn and integrate. In future we want to extend our team to be able to compile more knowledge and more creativity. Additionally we’re looking forward to buikd our work environment in Zurich – to build our second Burrow.

What’s the most important thing people don’t know about Burrow?

PK: We were walking down the street where our former studio was located, contemplating whether or not we should go with the name Burrow. Suddenly two rabbits came hopping out of a backyard alley in Neukölln. It was surreal and absurd watching the two rabbits go along their way in the middle of the city – we’ve carried the name Burrow ever since.

HOW TO PLEASE ARTS AND CULTURE CLIENTS BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME How do we find new clients? We mostly focus on current projects and try to attract them through our work, rather than following big marketing strategies.

New clients contact us by referencing former projects they saw, sometimes on social media, and sometimes through common contacts.

ADAPT YOUR STUDIO TO DEMAND Being responsible for a project’s best outcome drives us to develop and adapt to new circumstances. Over the past few years, we’ve continually rebuilt and adapted our work environment to meet the needs of different projects.

Currently, our studio space contains a silk screen printing studio, a photo studio and a workshop.

FOCUS ON CONTENT, NOT VISUALS As our studio name says, we like to dig and do visual research before finding a unique design solution. So rather than focusing on eye-pleasing design solutions, our work is very content driven.

BE OPEN TO EXPERIMENTATION Experimentation leads us to new ideas and heavily influences our design concepts.

We like to challenge ourselves and see unexplored territory as a possibility for our practice to gain new aspects. We conceptualise and investigate until we’re ready to use a newly developed skill to realise a project.

Our current clients in the arts and architecture enable us to experiment with our visual tools while diving into interesting subjects. Initial discussions and an overall understanding of the subject matter are essential when developing a sharp visual system.

HOST EXHIBITIONS We sporadically organise temporary exhibitions at our studio space. This helps to form strong bonds between all the individuals involved, since we all work for the purpose of art, and art alone.

Additionally, these projects give us the opportunity to experiment with graphic design, since we’re our very own clients.

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Denomination for Wildspirit The Sydney-based drinks branding specialists created a vivacious illustrated label for new craft distillery Wildspirit denomination.com

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PROJECT

MARGARET NOLAN Co-founder and creative director, Denomination Overseeing studios in Sydney, London and San Francisco, Margaret has won more than 100 awards and has had her work published in design annuals globally.

THE BRIEF AND CONCEPT ROWENA CURLEWIS Co-founder and CEO, Denomination Rowena’s passion lies in drinks, having spent her entire design career in this category working across spirits, cider, beer and wine. Rowena regularly lectures on design, branding and innovation globally.

JAMES DUMAY Founder, Wildspirit James is an avid gin fanatic and started making his own infusions two years ago. He recently left a 15-year career in digital product management to pursue his dream of crafting spirits that everyone can taste and appreciate.

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Rowena Curlewis Wildspirit’s founder James Dumay set out to fill a gap in the market for a serious gin for serious gin drinkers, but with an unserious attitude. Bloody Merry represents his new approach to flavour, and James approached Denomination because he wanted a brand and packaging identity to reflect his love of quality, while capturing the fun and enjoyment of sharing gin cocktails together.

We met with James several times, tasted the product, and our staff shared with him the competitive set in the market he was entering.

Although craft gin is growing, the category is relatively conservative. No one was injecting a sense of energy or a party vibe, and we saw this as white space.

We came up with three initial concepts. The first, and chosen one, featured the raucous dinner party illustration. The second was an engraved illustration of a woman with her head replaced by a still, holding a scale with tomatoes and a celery stick in the other hand. The final featured a somewhat crazed illustration in tomato red and earthy green with 10 panels, each containing an element of either the Wildspirit philosophy, or the ingredients. All had a sense of rebellion and disruption, but the client loved route one the minute he saw it.

Just as the Wildspirit brand is irreverent, so is the new recipe, taking some of the key

ingredients of a Bloody Mary – celery and tomato – but turning the classic cocktail on its head by infusing them with gin. We created the name Bloody Merry as a play on the renowned cocktail and to represent the brand’s story. The brand was launched in October 2019.

DESIGNING THE LABEL Margaret Nolan Balancing a sense of fun and adventure with the fact that Wildspirit Bloody Merry is a high-quality gin was a key part of the strategy. It was important to capture the brand’s wit while ensuring that there was enough craftsmanship to establish Wildspirit as a premium producer. Wildspirit is pushing boundaries, so the design response needed to do the same.

When James initially approached Denomination, he told us how he would make samples of different infusions and test them out on friends at dinner parties. This inspired the foundation story for the brand. He sent us images of friends who he wanted depicted in the label, giving them fantastic titles such as The Husband, The Grinch, The Sailor, Our Lady of Grace, The Mercurial, The Conductor (James himself) and The Mistress of the Hedge. This inspiration was incorporated into our brief for the illustrator.

We worked directly with the illustrator through preliminary sketches to ensure the final pieces delivered the desired ‘wildness’ and ‘party’ feel,

“NO ONE WAS INJEC TING A SENSE OF ENERGY OR A PAR T Y V IBE, AND WE SAW THIS AS WHITE SPACE”

OPPOSITE PAGE A member of the Denomination team checks the production instructions.

TOP AND LEFT With the main label carrying a detailed illustration, the neck label was kept clean, with a flying still and spot of colour to tie the concept together.

ABOVE Three concepts for Wildspirit’s launch gin.

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PROJECT

RIGHT True to the Wildspirit brand, the impressive label illustration is full of character, mischief and fun, with spot colours highlighting the celery and tomato infusions.

THE WILDSPIRIT BRAND JAMES DUMAY TALKS ABOUT HOW DENOMINATION HELPED HIM NAME HIS BRAND The biggest challenge we faced was with Freespirit, the original name of our distillery. Margaret Nolan had the stroke of genius to call our Bloody Mary inspired gin Bloody Merry Gin, but as we went through the due diligence of registering trademarks, the distillery name was in conflict.

This threatened to undermine all our hard work. If we changed the name of our distillery, would we have to start from scratch?

It was a huge possibility. It was a huge blow for me. Here’s my dream crumbling before my eyes. But the team was there to support us. They must have spent hours buried in a thesaurus, until they called and asked, “How about Wildspirit?”

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while ensuring the tomatoes, celery and gin still were depicted clearly.

The style was influenced by Old Masters paintings of bawdy banquets, with a sense of movement and action in the foreground but put into a modern context and setting to suit an innovative brand for today. In terms of composition, we wanted the label to be filled with copy and imagery to give it a sense of energy, but gave it balance by positioning the copy symmetrically, giving the viewer some respite.

The typography was based on TrendSlab, chosen to complement the illustration. It has an inline so it feels as though both the illustration and type were drawn by the same hand. Those chunky serifs give it a spirits cue without overpowering the illustration.

THE VERDICT James Dumay I was excited to find Denomination. Here was a design agency that’s worked with a broad range of international beverage brands and positioned them uniquely in the market, each with their own design and story to tell.

I knew I was in the right place when I walked into Denomination’s office in Sydney to meet with Rowena and her team for the first time. They have a wall covered in bottles for brands that I’ve been

consuming my entire adult life. “Yes, there’s that bottle of wine I bought last Wednesday based on the label alone, which turned out to be one of the best I’ve had all year,” I thought.

A few weeks later they presented three distinct options, and they were all fabulous, so different from each other, and yet fitted the brief. I had given numerous suggestions into the placement of illustrations, copy and the name. But when the team felt strongly about something, like some of the names I had come up with, or some requested illustration changes, Denomination would call and say, “The creative team feel really strongly about this. Changing it would undermine the work we are doing, here’s why, please trust us on this.”

So, I did. And in retrospect they were absolutely right. Standing up to your customers is really hard to do. The team wasn’t asking me to blindly trust them. They explained everything along the way and I have a huge amount of respect for that.

I’m blown away with the result. The bottle is the first thing everyone comments on, whether it be trade or consumers. A number of wholesalers have bought from us on the bottle design alone and only tried it after being issued their invoice!

ISSUE 301

EDITORIAL

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contributors LISA HASSELL Lisa is a freelance design writer, visiting lecturer and founder of Inkygoodness, a platform for emerging illustrators. She’s currently developing ideas for her ďŹ rst book. inkygoodness.com

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EMILY GOSLING Emily is a London-based freelance design and arts journalist. She works as a senior editor at Eye on Design and an editor-atlarge at Elephant.

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ANNA MILL London-based Anna is an artist and designer whose work includes commercial branding, stage illustrations for theatre, concept architecture designs and a graphic novel. annamill.com

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DESIGN CRUSH AN ODE TO HOWIES AND DAVID HIEATT, BY JON ASHFORD “As a student, the early Howies brand catalogues provided a regular source of inspiration and are things that I have often enjoyed returning too. They were a joy to receive through the post.

I admire the way they always stay true to their values in everything they do; and in a creative way that engages, starts a conversation, encourages thinking/change and creates a sense of community along the way. It’s powerful stuff.

As a company it’s always felt to me as though Howies wanted to push things in interesting ways, to get the most out of every opportunity, keeping things fresh and most importantly have fun doing it; whether commissioning illustration for an article, creating their classic T-shirt designs, stitching the map on to the trouser pocket, making art out of

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cupboards, or cutting a typeface out of wood.

Essentially using its clothing business as a platform to talk about issues that are close to its heart.

Latterly and perhaps timely, the writing of David Hieatt (the co-founder of Howies and now Hiut Denim Co) and his Do Purpose book and Hiut Denim Yearbooks, have similarly provided valuable inspiration; passing on words of wisdom and encouragement at a time when seeking reassurance and confidence in myself and the idea of starting a studio of our own. He has a great way of getting across and summing up the important things in life and business in a very simple, positive and empowering way. Things to remember and believe in – thanks David! I’m sure most of you are aware of his work, but if not then I’d certainly recommend giving it a read.

Other than David Hieatt, another common link between both Howies and Hiut Denim is one of our design hero’s, Nick Hand. He’s one of the South West’s design legends. Nick’s been instrumental in developing both the Howies brand catalogues and Hiut Denim Yearbooks, skillfully bringing together words and images from a wide range of contributors in a beautifully crafted way.

It feels like these have been a constant part of my design journey so far. Inspiring me as a student to pursue a career in the design industry, helping me develop and find my way through it, and encouraging me to get where I am today. And I’m sure they will continue to play a role moving forward.

But most of all I admire their truth, honesty, energy, passion and craft.

Something that we try to employ in our studio every day.”

JON ASHFORD Jon is the co-founder and creative director of Honest Studio, a multi-disciplinary graphic design studio based in Bath. It believes in design – its beauty and power to inspire change. The studio strives to create work with a sense of purpose that people can believe in. honeststudio.co.uk

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