The collection by Menc_Ale

Alessandra Cuccu

ABOUT ME. Born In 1991 in Cagliari (Sardinia - Italy), I always saw myself as a creative person and unstable to stay in the same place or do the same things for a long time. After a diploma in Graphic Design, I decided to move to London to start a new life. I am now studying Illustration at the Metropolitan University to conquere my goal to be soon an Illustrator/Graphic Designer. Dream big.

INDEX INDEX INDEX 8

-Thoughts of the week Kate Moross Massimo Vignelli Alan Fletcher

12 16 18

-Communities in Crystal Palace -Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mind my mind -Roman Road community -Just a girl, not a sexual object -Market ready, case study -Workshops Book binding G.F Smith Papers Laser Cut 6

20 23 37 49

52 58 60 65 69

S T K H E G E U O W S H E T TH GHT EK F E U O HO E W T TH TS F O UGH EEK O W H S E T TH HT EK G F O HOU E WE TS T TH UGH EEK F O HO E W 8

KATE MOROSS . Award-winning multi-tasking illustrator, art director, director and designer Kate Moross burst on to the creative scene back in 2008 when her love for colour and energetic squiggles caught the eye of anyone and everyone, spawning a host of imitators and propelling her to be one of the most sought after collaborators in the design world. Since then Kate has spent her time applying her magic touch to music videos, textiles,

identities, murals, fashion and magazine covers for big-time publications. Recently Studio Moross - which she set up to focus on branding, art direction and commercial projects - created the much talked-about tour visuals for One Direction. Despite her busy schedule, Kate always making time to put on her own solo shows and give some sit-up-in-your-seat lectures to large audiences often bemoaning the overuse

of the word “inspiration”. People love Kate because she unapologetically works for what she truly believes in. She pretty much is colour. She loves sweet packaging, dogs, pizza, stickers, knick-knacks, trainers and clothes. She’s the real deal, and that’s why everyone wants to work with her, to get their hands on a slice of her cheeky, infectious magic.

MASSIMO VIGNELLI. During his long career, Massimo Vignelli (a well-known Italian designer who loved Helvetica), has dealt with various branches of design; his productions ranged from graphic design and illustration. Since the 1960s he has been one of the main artists to renew graphics and illustration, mainly through the diffusion of the modernist methodology with Unimark International. From young ages, he began to deal with the designing of newspapers, books and packaging, moving away from architecture to get closer and closer to graphic. At the end of 1964 he moved permanently to the United States and in this period, the

idea of an international study begins to take shape; an idea that will become reality under the name of Unimark International. He made several projects, including the visual identity for the American Airlines, Ford and the famous New York City subway signage (one of his most famous outcome, (only last a couple of years). Together with his wife Lella, he founded Vignelli Associates in New York. Since then he has worked on a large number of projects for major US (Knoll and IBM) and European (Benetton, Ducati, Poltrona Frau, Artemide) industries. He was president of the AGI (Alliance Graphique

Internationale), president of AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts), vice president of the Architectural League of New York, member of IDSA. Over the course of his long career, Vignelli has been a teacher as well as a designer. He taught us some basic steps to be learned during the journey as Designer: -The strength of planning with discipline; -The importance of creating something that serves, something with a meaning; -The design must be timeless; -The centrality of typography; -The importance of being “ responsible”; -Be respectful; -And finally: that design is passion.

ALAN FLETCHER

Communities in Crystal Palace “There is no single definition of the term “community” that will serve all occasions, A great variety of definitions may be found in print. Many of these definitions depend upon some kind of geographical limitation...The so-called “natural” communities or “ neighbourhoods” are presumably areas in which people live, shop, send their children to school, go to church and carry on a majority of day-to-day activities, such as leisure time and recreation. Actually, of course, such criteria can be applied only in a rather general way and often especially in large cities— do not apply at all to the people residing in any area.” (Steiman, 1995) The structure from which it is based refers to two aspects: Sociological and Psychological. In a sociological approach, the need to be part of a group is grafted in us through customs and traditions.

Sometimes language is the most identifiable element of a community member. In this way, the word community appears to be linked to “associations” with some common ideology, and can be seen as an extension of the family. A dimension of community life typically involves the sharing of a specific system, such as norms of behaviour, values, religion, common history, artefacts production and gender. For some people, the human community, which essentially coincides with humanity, is one of the most important “community” on earth, because all human shares values and goals (or at least common rights). A more psychological approach tends to observe the differences between how an individual relies on the community of belonging and society. In the first case, the individual enjoys a network of protection that allows him to avoid trauma, but also limits his full development

(the concept of community as an extended family, with its merits and defects). In the relationship with society the individual is more exposed to the world and freer to develop its potential (the problem is that not all humans have the ability to free themselves from a strong and rough social state). Despite many of us has the refusal to adapt to social rules such as “socializing”, (in part because they learnt from early how to be independent from everyone) our society and our human being itself, will have a constant need to identify us in groups, and it’s simple because unconsciously we became part of one; any passions, any beliefs, anything that we love to see, online or live, makes us share ourselves with others. “No human can live without community”.

DON’T MIND MY MIND CAMPAIGN . D

on’t mind my mind, as a slogan for my campaign against discrimination of who is affected by mental health disease (any type). The soundtrack by The Neighborhood for a beautiful

peculiar mind which will have to live with anxiety, depression, OCD.. so who said that having one of them is scary? Is easy to judge when we decide to be ignorant about, and after I have this idea to bring all the

horrible things that people think about “different” people, and create something funny and powerful to wake up their awareness.

an you see me under my fears? The concept behind is about all the hard feelings or thought we usually try to hide inside of ourselves; mostly because we are ashamed of what we feel. At least 1 to 4 person in the world will suffer of one of those “illness” at least one time in their life; so why be ashamed of? Or why feeling scare? We’re only humans, with needs and emotions, like everybody else; having

breakdowns, overwhelming or anxiety is part of our journey. I started this campaign exactly for this reason, I want people to understand that is important to know they are not alone in this type of situations. It actually get worst to hold it. Don’t be scare my friend, we are all broken inside.

But I stand in California with my toes in the sand Use the sleeves of my sweater Let’s have an adventure Head in the clouds but my gravity’s centered Touch my neck and I’ll touch yours You in those little high waisted shorts, oh”

“All I am is a man I want the world in my hands I hate the beach

PAMPHLET . It’s been a long journey and I admit that It wasn’t easy at all. During this period I received many feedbacks both from tutors, classmates and family; sometimes also if you don’t rely to them you have to accept everything and picks just the positive things to make something really meaningful

and strong. Testing, trying and printing many times also helped, because you can see which mistakes you have made and if the colors are fine. At the end I chose to use only 1 bright colors (acid green) for a reason; I said my pamphlet would be playful and that’s true,

but we are still speaking about a serious topic and B/W as the main colors was more than appropriate. I’m quite proud with that I made and I think it looks professional and not tacky at all (let’s say that the “professional” pictures really helped me to realize that).

BANNER . T

he idea came from an advertising I found on the overground: Sounds silly probably, but because I love simple lines, I had to take a picture of it; I’m a huge fan of illustrations made only with lines, and seeing this add, gave me the idea to design some small brain floating around like balloons. Here comes the idea to create all the typography like golden balloons (the same being used during birthday or celebrations); the

first thought was “okay I’m going to buy the letters and take some pictures of them”, but I didn’t realise how crazy it was until I found out how much it would cost (both the balloons and the helium to keep them floating). I had to came out with a plan B, and my plan B was actually more affordable than the first. I found online pictures of the alphabet all made by balloons and I said “you know what? I will take those and with photoshop iso-

late the letters (it worked!). As always I’ve been using “don’t mind my mind” because I wanted to be really simple and only catch 3-5 seconds of attention from viewers. I made some sketches to see if it was working well (I wasn’t sure at the beginning), and probably because of the markers and the colours used, I get really excited and starting to build one in Indesign. After some hours I came out with the one I’m calling “final”.

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS 32

2018

ROMAN ROAD COMMUNITY . T

he brief aim to give life to one of the most knows area of East London, Roman Road. A little story about: “The Roman Roadwas a centre of Suffragette activity. The headquarters of the East London Federation of Suffragettes, where Sylvia Pankhurst lived, was at 400 Old Ford Road. The Federation did much to help local people, providing

food and work. There were many home grown suffragettes such as Mrs Savoy, a brushmaker, who was one of the Deputation of East End women to Downing Street in 1914. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote on Mr Savoy’s death: ‘The streets of Old Ford are colder and greyer with her loss’.”

projection mapping.

Because of the strong story behind, I decided to honour this place, telling through the use of

How are we going to be?

I create a series of videos whit people walking in the street. Of course all the strangers in the pics are more then welcome to be part of it. I The idea behind is to show the difference from now until 100 years.

PROJECTION MAPPING . The idea was really simple: I was walking in Roman Road and taking some pictures after I realised that people were running frantic around me, maybe to do errands or just to get home. That day the market was open and I saw the sellers encourage the sale of their products with

so much affection for what they were doing and so poor interest from the people walking, they were like automata, paying no attention to anything around. At this point I realised that I wanted to create something with projections and the frantic people running around

enclosed by the background sounds of those lovely people from the market speaking with pride. The work is a mix of projection mapping (for the people walking) and laser cut (for the background).

ADVERTISING . Those are two of my ideas for advertising the project related to Roman Road. Both pictures took in Victoria station and Surrey quays station. I decided to use simple characters (Bodoni72) and grey colour to let the focus on the image (part of my artwork). The idea came from my journey to get home everyday after university or work. When you enter the station (any) your eyes are bombed with advertising of every nature. From the Uni-

versity of Cambridge until the can tomatoes soup from Heinz. It’s a good way to promote your product or course because unconsciously, also if you’re not looking, your mind get the message. One example could be the TATE modern with a controversial advertising; they’d use their name to promote different message from the usual “art”. “Working with Tate Britain’s curators, we

unlocked the stories in art to drive footfall to the gallery and encourage people to discover more stories for themselves,” says Dom Goldman, executive creative director at Grey London. “We hope this will mean much of the British art is reappraised and talked about once again in culture as it was when it originated.”

Romanoad R 100

from now to

years

as if you had never seen...

And is interesting to spend some time while waiting the tube, to watch meaningful advertising.

Museum of London

| Website: www.p rojectR

omanRoad/London

.co.uk

Roman Road from now to 100 years

Museum of London | website: www.projectRomanRoad/London.co.uk

Just a girl, not a sexual object.

...the question posed at the beginning of this essay, what feminist communicates today is completely different from what it communicated years ago. We like to think that we share the same ideals, but we don’t. Many of us must realize the past behind us and that we enjoy now basic rights such as voting because of it. This year is the 100th year’s anniversary for the right to vote, and it would not have been possible without the past. And we take for granted that we can go around dressed as we please, and that no one should judge or harass us for that. It is

necessary to know that on one hand it is the result of battles of other women and that there are paths of collective liberation, on the other hand that nothing is given forever and we must continue to fight for these rights. The difference lies in the fact that we Western girls grew up in a world that told us, at least in words, that we are as valuable as males and this is what differentiates us from classical feminism. Our number one problem is individualism. We do not have the thought of being together as

a group or a community like in the seventies, we have a totally different mind-set. We went through the nineties, through the illusion that a “peace” between men and women had been achieved. Changes take place slowly, especially after millennia of everything being the same, we cannot expect things to change suddenly. Everything is up to us, if it is right or wrong. We share the feminist’s DNA that have given us the choice and the bravery.

T E T S E E S E A K A K C R C R Y A M EAD Y MA ADY R UD E RE DY U T E S CAS TST E S A S E C Y A K Y D A AR DY C EAD M EA Y R R UD 50

STRUGGLESS . A

s a group we aim to create something that actually can help our life and the life of any other students while in University (and why not, maybe also in high school or after graduation) that’s why we start with a series of ideas about the product and about

the name. Of course we want a strong and bold name which can easily be remembered but at the same time reflects what we are going to sell. So we came out with “Struggless” (Struggle - Less) the life that everyone dream; and people loved it (or at least I love to think it like this),

because everyone has struggles 2-3 times a day. Of course after a name like this the product it should have been something particularly useful, like money when you’re broke or toothbrush in the morning.

ru ggless R

LOGO . T

he idea was to create something memorable and professional, and after Ricardo’s lesson speaking about Obama’s campaign I decide to use one of the common shapes, the round one. “The shapes of these graphic symbols vary a lot, but one of the most commonly used shapes is the circle. Circular logos have been some of the

most popular trends in logo design. A circle is timeless, simple and memorable.” Circles, ovals and ellipses tend to project a positive emotional message. Using a circle in a logo can suggest community, friendship, love, relationships and unity. Rings have an implication of marriage and partnership, suggesting stability and endurance. Curves on any sort

ru ggless R

tend to be viewed as feminine in nature. I’ve been watching many logos before getting the right vibe. Until I realised, most of the meanings of them are designed inside of the circle and I’m doing a logo for students, especially Art students, so I was thinking: “What is the most important tools for an Art student?” A pencil, of course!

ARE YOU ET G R O F S Y ALWA YOUR USB?

S tr uggless R

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POSTERS .

! S S E L G G I’ U R ST

ty the naugh l l a g in s f lo he fear o t y a w a e wav pictures!!

The researches are always helpful (at least for me) to collect ideas; as example I’ve been looking at “funny” but “serious” posters. They all have differents meanings and some of them are more serious than the others, but they all shared a “playful” graphic. The idea came out thinking about the product we’ve been selling (this is an old version before the actual product was developed), it’s for student, art student, so It has to be

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ORE M Y N A T O N WITH OUR E ''FORGET M WHO D N A H ' ' T NO YOU T A S E V A W YOU ANYTIME THE G N I S U E AR DRIVER!

m starting saying this wasn’t my duty in the group, but I still enjoyed to do some extra work. After the logo and the business cards, I had some times and decided to make a poster. I wanted to do something funny and catching and I came out with a messy result; I planned the work following 3 stages: -Research -Idea & development -Outcome/Final

catchy! I played with photoshop and created a dummy of what to add: The Outcome/Final (is not really the one because I haven’t finish it yet), it’s a bit confusing because of the sentence too big, too small etc.. but maybe with some more work, it will actually came out presentable.

k r o s wshop orpks w o k h r s o s wshop orpks w o k h k r s oops worps 58

BOOK BINDIN G. As a designer we should know how a book is made from the scratch and building one for the first time, really help! The procedure is divided by step to step, but first you need to make sure to have all the materials like waxed thread, book board pre cut to the size of the book you want to make, decorative paper, scalpel, ruler, glue (PVA or Bookbinding Paste), bristle Brush, book Cloth and 40 sheets of A4 paper. Step one: divide the paper (50x70cm) forming due pieces of 21 height x 70 length. This is going to be the ‘solid’ part inside your book. Step two: like you’re doing some origami, fold one of the pieces you cut in half, when

you have two same part, fold again until you’ll have exactly 8 side + 2. Step three: fold 4 plain papers (that will be your pages for the book) in half and use one of the space folded before. With some clippers hold the pages together and using a ruler that has specific sizes printed on, and marks the space where the holes will be pierce. Keep going like this until you have no space to add more pages. Step four: when you have the marks ready for all the front pages, with a hammer and a nails, pierce them. Step five: when the holes are ready, you need wire and needles to secure the pages. Step six: now you should have all the pages bind together Step seven: cover! This procedure is the most diffi-

cult, it required focus, patience and attention to details. The first part is to produce two equal cover in the book board (normal cover sizes for a small book), when you have them knowing exactly their measurement, use the book cloth and marks the border around (something like 3cm x 3xm. Cut the borders for 45 degrees and dilute the glue with water leaving it aside for a while. Stick the cover to the cloth after being soaked with the glue (taking care to follow the measurements) and do the same with the rest. Actually is more complicated to glue the edges because being diluted with water, the glue takes a while to stick. Let it dry overnight.

G.F SMITH PAPERS . Today we had the pleasure to meet one of the women working for this beautiful company called G.F.Smith. Founded in 1885 by George Frederick, It has been for a long time (and still) one of the most famous companies to produce quality paper. George Frederick Smith was a man with a singular passion for paper. Both he and his son were driven by a belief in its beauty and possibilities and shared an admiration for the craft of the

printers and publishers that used it. In 1885 George founded G . F Smith & Son as a paper merchant. It was his vision and ambition that steered the company through challenging times; his belief in the business saw him expand its horizons. Needless to say that their paper is really quality so that companies like Burberry and Mulberry owned 2/3 colours that no one else can order. She showed us a book made with all the papers that they owned, from different Gsm and textures called

‘The collection’ Having to create a book shortly, this workshop has cleared up many doubts as to what kind of paper to use or the way to use it; she brought with her examples of books and posters/ business cards/booklets, cut and assembled differently in a way where even the most boring book can be interesting to watch

LASER CUT

So, I never try laser cut before, and I actually enjoyed, the procedure is simple but takes ages.

leaf, jute fibre and sugar cane fibre!) with the worries of burn it down!

We’re mixing our studio project with this procedure to create prototype about “Activism”. First of all, my idea was to laser cut a brain (of course not the real one) in relation to the brief; I’m actually happy about the outcome, because I’ve been using such a fragile paper (20 sheets, 150 gsm, Rag and Fibre; Handmade paper from South India. Made from 100% recycled cotton rag with banana

A good thing is that now not only I know how to use it, but I can explore this procedure with many types of paper, cardboard, woods etc.. Sometimes is better to came out from your safe zone and experiment with new technique; I’ve heard before about “laser cut” but never bother myself to give it a try (stupidly). It’s another method like screen-printing

that you can’t live without after trying it for the first time; there are some many ways to project using this technique, you can do 3D, 2D, using plastic, heavy materials etc.. As soon as I put my hands on this paper brain, I knew it how my next project (plaque) will be. And I’ve been checking online to look at some artworks made by other artists, they inspired you to make more, more and more!