Computer arts 2014 01

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BRANDING MASTERCLASS ISSUE

222

JANUARY 2014 DIGITAL EDITION PRODUCED IN UK

How Radim Malinic created a brand for an innovative new MasterCard service PLUS Leslie David on luxury brands

BE MORE PRODUCTIVE Make the most of your studio downtime, and stay inspired and motivated all year

ILLUSTRATE A COMPLEX THEME How to distill a detailed trend forecast for into geometric artwork for Wired

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO How AKQA broke exciting new ground for Nike and WWF

CREATE IMMERSIVE VISUALS Go behind the scenes on an ambitious interactive installation for Nissan

How an entrepreneurial spirit can boost your creative profile and your cashflow also Featuring... ČThe Independent redesign critiqued Č<chČbYkČXYg][bČhfYbXgČ Č5`UbČDYW_c`]W_ČUg_gČ]ZČhmdYČ]gČXYUXČ Č8Yg][bYXČ:cfČ@]ZYČgdYW]U` ČJU`` YČ8i\UaY`Č Č@cb[Yj]hmČUhČ8Yg][bČAUbW\YghYf Č7cm Č7caaib]WUh]cbgÈČAUf_Č8YbhcbČcbČhU_]b[ČWcbhfc`Č Č5bXČacfYĔĔĔ

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WEL CO M E

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JANUARY 2014

EDITOR’S LETTER Welcome to the award-winning Computer Arts! As I write this  the whole team’s just returned a li le bleary-eyed it must be said from the Digital Magazine Awards where our bespoke iPad edition scooped Visual Arts Magazine of the Year Massive thanks to everyone who’s worked on it and do check it out if you haven’t already see page CA isn’t the only product we’ve been working on this month either Hot o the press is the latest iteration of Computer Arts Collection totally reborn under the stewardship of CA dep ed Julia as the Graphic Design Annual a luxurious showcase of the very best work from the past months We’ll also be making a few small improvements to your magazine over the next few issues Flick to page and you’ll ďŹ nd an expanded Project Review story in the Showcase section critiquing the month’s big talking-point project Finally our Special Report this month celebrates the liberating entrepreneurial spirit that’s driving many designers to diversify their creative practice into exciting new areas from one-o products to full-blown business ventures In a similar vein we’ve also treated you to a Designed for Life seasonal special We hope you have a great Christmas – see you in the new year!

KEEP IN TOUCH WITH‌

TWITTER COM/ COMPUTERARTS

FACEBOOK COM/ COMPUTERARTS

NICK CARSON EDITOR nick.carson@futurenet.com

FEATURING

CRISPIN FINN

JOE WALDRON

LESLIE DAVID

London-based duo Anna Fidalgo and Roger Kelly aka Crispin Finn own an online shop selling stationery prints and homeware in a distinctive pale e of red  white and blue The pair are reponsible for the We Accept Cash tote bag on the cover

www crispinďŹ nn com

Joe is a freelance illustrator living and working in Bristol Since graduating with ďŹ rst class honours from UWE he has worked for a variety of clients as well as spending time on personal projects His work can be found illustrating the Industry Issues article starting on page

www.joewaldron.co.uk

Paris-based graphic designer and illustrator Leslie specialises in design for fashion and culture brands Turn to page toÂ ďŹ nd out why she’s drawn to the world of high-end fashion what prompted her to drop out of art school and how she ďŹ nds time to just be creative

www leslie-david com

MARIE-LAURE CRUSCHI Illustrator Marie-laure founded Cruschiform studio in and her clients now range from book publishers to luxury brands This issue we went behind the scenes to ďŹ nd out how she created a complex kaleidoscopic set of illustrations for Wired cruschiform.blogspot.co.uk

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ROBERT FARKAS Based in Budapest Hungary Robert is an illustrator designer and animator with a special interest in the dierent visuals that can be created using animation tools and programming languages On page he shows us around the creative hotspots in his hometown www.astronaut.co.uk

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M EET T H E T E AM

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JANUARY 2014

MEET THE TEAM FUTURE PUBLISHING LTD MONMOUTH STREET BATH BA BW PHONE FAX ! EMAIL hello@computerarts.co.uk WEB computerarts.creativebloq.com

EDITORIAL

MARKETING

NICK CARSON EDITOR nick.carson@futurenet.com

PHILIPPA NEWMAN Group marketing manager philippa.newman@futurenet.com

JULIA SAGAR DEPUTY EDITOR julia.sagar@futurenet.com JO GULLIVER ART EDITOR jo.gulliver@futurenet.com RUTH HAMILTON PRODUCTION ASSISTANT ruth.hamilton@futurenet.com JIM MCCAULEY & KERRIE HUGHES CREATIVE BLOQ CHANNEL EDITORS jim.mccauley@futurenet.com kerrie.hughes@futurenet.com

CONTRIBUTORS Zaneta Antosik, Joshua Checkley, Tom Dennis, Simon Duhamel, Elizabeth Ellio , Ian Evenden, FranklinTill, Justin Gabbard, Dan Gray, Cat How, Fred Lachache, Angharad Lewis, Karen Lewis, Vector Meldrew, Alan Peckolick, Ed Ricke s, Gordon Tait, Joe Waldron, Garrick Webster, Anne Wollenberg

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NICK CARSON EDITOR Despite having an extensive speech prepared for the moment Computer Arts won its ďŹ rst DMA Nick came over all shy when the time arrived to take the mic For the record he’d like to thank his mum

SAMANTHA BOOK Marketing manager samantha.book@futurenet.com ALEXANDRA GEARY Marketing executive alexandra.geary@futurenet.com

MARK CONSTANCE Production manager VIV TURNER Production co-ordinator NOLA COKELY Ad production manager

CIRCULATION JAMES RYAN Direct marketing executive james.ryan@futurenet.com DANIEL FOLEY Trade marketing manager daniel.foley@futurenet.com

ART EDITOR Jo visited her twin in Ro erdam where she sampled oliebollen oil balls and learnt about Dutch Christmas traditions Apparently Santa’s page boy Piet collects naughty children in a sack and beats them with a stick

LICENSING REGINA ERAK Licensing director regina.erak@futurenet.com

FUTURE PUBLISHING LTD DECLAN GOUGH Head of Creative and Design NIAL FERGUSON Managing director, Technology, Film and Games DAN OLIVER Editor-in-chief STEVE GOTOBED Group art director ROBIN ABBOTT Creative director JIM DOUGLAS Editorial director

VICTORIA SANDERS Senior sales exec victoria.sanders@futurenet.com

DISTRIBUTED BY Seymour Distribution Ltd, East Poultry Avenue, London EC A PT Tel:

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SUZANNE SMITH Account manager suzanne.smith@futurenet.com

DEPUTY EDITOR Julia did a sterling job organising and editing the new-look CA Collection annual but spoilt it a bit by eating all the good biscuits from the Christmas tin – both layers – before anyone else had a chance

PRINT & PRODUCTION

JAS RAI Ad sales manager jas.rai@futurenet.com

JULIA SAGAR

RUTH HAMILTON PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Self-appointed ‘bringer of Christmas’ Ruth has the oďŹƒce tree poised ready for December when it has been agreed the festivities can descend The month she did her ďŹ rst designer interview – see page

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PRODUCTION NOTES PRINTERS

PAPER

COVER Philtone Litho Ltd

COVER Precision Special Gloss FSC gsm

TEXT William Gibbons

P - Galerie Fine FSC gsm

CF RED FOIL EMBOSS AND SOFT-TOUCH VARNISH Celloglas Ltd

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P - Solarispress gsm

TYPEFACES Trump Gothic West Neutraface Text & Display Calluna

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JANUARY 2014

ISSUE 2 2 2 J A NUA R Y 20 1 4

CULTURE

TRENDS Introducing the wearable objects algorithmically determined by chance

DESIGNED FOR LIFE Our seasonal special showcases the year’s best designer wares

IND US T RY IS S U ES

PEOPLE Meet the NYC studio in a Greco-Roman temple talk skulls with Colin Moore and hear why designer Louisa Phillips moved into account handling

TURN UP YOUR DOWNTIME

PLACES Illustrator Robert Farkas shares his insights into Budapest’s coolest creative hotspots

How to make your free hours as creatively productive as your day job

EVENTS We report from Design Manchester and pay a visit to Typographic Circle’s second Student Session

ODE TO AN ANTI-HELVETICA WORLD Graphic designer Alan Peckolick on why le erforms are for much more than just spelling words

SCREENPRINTING IS IT WORTH IT? Howkapow’s Cat How explores the merits of producing and selling limited-edition screenprints of your work compared with their more economical digital counterparts

OLD BRAND NEW TRICKS Gordon Tait explains what prompted much-loved comic The Beano to hand its precious style guide over to Jon Burgerman

MINTLET CARD BRANDING How Radim Malinic created a colourful identity for a new pre-payment card with li le more than a name to work with

A WORLD OF BIG IDEAS Cruschiform explains how she tackled a complex illustration brief for a special edition of Wired UK

INSIGHT

PROJECTS

SHOWCASE

NISSAN LEAF INSTALLATION Behind the scenes on Projection Advertising’s ambitious interactive installation for the Nissan Leaf electric car

Our selection of the world’s best new graphic design illustration and motion graphics work

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C O N TE N TS

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: THE DESIGNER SERIES In our latest video documentary, AKQA reveals why it pays to blend technology seamlessly with creativity

Ben Moody discusses AKQA’s WWF app

S PECI A L R EP OR T

ENTERPRISING ILLUSTRATORS Meet the exciting new breed of creatives that are busy diversifying their practice not only to survive but to thrive

TRY THE iPAD EDITION FOR FREE! TURN TO PAGE 47 FOR MORE

Founder James Hilton predicts what’s next

SUBSCRIBE TO COMPUTER ARTS ˜Ä?I?Ä?fYUXYfgĘÄ?GUjYÄ?idÄ?hcÄ?ćăĒÄ? ˜Ä?IGÄ?fYUXYfgĘÄ?GUjYÄ?idÄ?hcÄ?ćĈĒÄ? AcfYĘÄ?computerarts creativebloq com

S T U DI O LI FE

IN C O NV E RS AT IO N

VALLÉE DUHAMEL

LESLIE DAVID

With their eclectic sense of humour designers Julien VallĂŠe and Eve Duhamel might just be Montreal’s next big thing

How against the odds Leslie David found graphic design and went on to work with the brightest lights of the fashion world

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VIDEO INSIGHT

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EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

THE DESIGNER SERIES PART 10: AKQA Watch the 10th instalment in our exclusive series exploring the ideas and creative processes of the world’s most exciting studios. Available now on our private YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/ca222-akqa

ABOUT THE STUDIO Describing itself as “a new kind of agency”, AKQA deals in ideas and innovation and prides itself in allowing the changing media landscape and evolving technologies to guide its development. As a result, it has scooped numerous awards, including Adweek’s digital agency of the year in 2012, and worked with clients including Nike, MTV, Tommy Hilfiger, Audi, Visa, Volkswagen and Warner Brothers. www.akqa.com

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VIDEO INSIGHT

BONUS CONTENT! GET EVEN MORE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO AND IMAGERY IN OUR iPAD EDITION see p

PART 1 AG EN CY I N T R O # CR E ATIVIT Y M EE TS TEC H

PART 2 W WF i PAD APP# EN DAN G ER ED AN I MAL O R I GAM I

AKQA’s co-founder James Hilton reveals how the agency’s uncompromising a ention to detail and passion for innovation have paid dividends

Chief technology officer Ben Jones explains how AKQA’s beautifully cra$ed interactive experience for the World Wildlife Fund took shape

PART 3 W WF i PAD APP# I NTER ACTI O N MA STERCL A S S

PART 4 N I KE" KI N ECT# A VI RTUAL PER SO NAL TR AI N ER

Exclusive insights into how the WWF project made full use of iPad functionality to bring the experience to life – from chopping bamboo to seeing like a tiger

Executive creative director Duan Evans and group account director Brian Snyder discuss how AKQA’s latest Nike project pushed the Xbox to its limits

PART 5 N I KE" KI N ECT# FITN ES S O N TH E M OVE

PART 6 CR E ATIVE E XPAN S I O N # N E X T STEP TH E WO R LD

Our second walkthrough explores how the team translated the slick UI design seamlessly from Xbox to mobile so your personal trainer stays by your side

With a new office in Portland to service Nike and the Paris and Tokyo agencies expanding exponentially James Hilton looks to the future of AKQA

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T R E NDS CULTURE

German visual artist Maiko Gubler uses !DÂ printing tools to create wearable designs that are algorithmically determined by chance

WE LOVE...

making digital tangible Visual artist Maiko Gubler’s designs turn digital concepts into physical forms erving as playful testament to the rapidly changing digital landscape a nascent desire to visualise our evolving digital society can be seen Technologies like D printing now enable digital designers to freeze-frame their artwork and quickly build a tangible representation of the digital form Maiko Gubler is a Berlin-based visual artist using digital modelling tools to create imagery and sculpture with the aim of “blurring the intersection between sculptural still lifes virtual models and physical objects and to invite observers to expand their notions of spatiality and objectsâ€? Her recent Gradient Bangles Endless Edition collection features a series of wearable objects algorithmically determined by chance resulting in an inďŹ nite quantity of unique permutations

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Each month our Trends section is curated by experienced creative consultancy FranklinTill www franklintill com

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CULTUR E TR EN D S

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JANUARY 2014

D E S I G NED FOR LI FE

DESIGNED FOR LIFE SEASONAL SPECIAL If socks and perfume are no longer cu ing it, fear not. We’ve rounded up some of the best new offerings from designers this festive season

CONTOUR SILICONE TIE

WRAPPING PAPER

LIGHTBULB BROOCH

ANIMAL A-Z PRINTS

Ties might be a Christmas cliché but these silicone versions are far from mundane They could be just the thing to shake up your occasionwear

Even if the gi$ hidden inside isn’t all that cool paper from the likes of Micah Lidberg and Ben Newman will give presents a designer edge

Feeling short of inspiration? Coax that elusive light bulb moment with this gli ery brooch from London-based jewellery designer Rosa E Pietsch

Educational and inspirational Build’s charming animal alphabet project hit a bump at ‘U’ and ‘X’ – umbrellabird and X-ray fish if you were wondering

five sheets

each

by Blangk for Say www.fromsay.com

by various designers for Nobrow www.nobrow.net

by Rosa Pietsch www.howkapow.com

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by Build www.wearebuild.com

JANUARY 2014

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T R E NDS CULTURE

Stay one step ahead with our barometer of visual cool

CUTTING EDGE Surreal liqueďŹ ed landscapes drip with glutinous forms and colours creating mouthwatering D textures and pa erns

STILL FRESH

BATHING GIRLS TEACUPS

DESK CLOCK

2014 DELUXE YEAR PLANNER

Cra$ed in ďŹ ne porcelain each of these delicate teacups features a naked lady who will join you for a dip as you take your tea break

This clock comes with a twist – one of the hands has disappeared Instead negative space and a pop of uoro colour indicates the time

The latest in Crispin Finn’s trademark year planners is a bold screenprinted design with stickers to ag up important days

set of four

by Esther HĂśrchner www.howkapow.com

by Tara Ashe at Block www.howkapow.com

by Crispin Finn www.crispinďŹ nn.com

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MAINSTREAM Hand-inked illustrations explore the natural world taking their lead from early medical and botanical drawings

ILLUSTRATION: Joshua Checkley, www.joshuacheckley.co.uk

Collages created spontaneously using clip art random brush strokes and photos are typical of tablet art experimentation

CULTUR E P EO PL E

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JANUARY 2014

MY STYLE IS... Louisa Phillips trained and practiced as a graphic designer before making the switch to account handling – and she hasn’t looked back

AT LEAST ONE SKULLÂ AT ANY TIME

Designer Colin Moore’s style is laid-back, with just a hint of the dark undertones found in his illustration work. illustratemoore.com

LULULEMON SKULL METAL VENT TEE This was custom made for me as a gi on a factory visit in Sri Lanka I drew the skull and it is kni ed seamlessly into the fabric

ILLUSTRATION : Justin Gabbard, www.justingabbard.com

PAINTING JEANS I try and keep new jeans out of my studio for as long as possible but as soon as I get paint on them they’re fair game

RING FROM MY PÉPÉ This hasn’t le  my ďŹ nger since my grandfather removed it from his pinky and put it on my middle ďŹ nger when I turned All his grandsons get one

N E W VE N TURE S

By all accounts... Creative training brings skills that can make you shine in other roles, as designer-turnedaccount handler Louisa Phillips explains

n eagle eye for detail in-depth understanding of the design process and a keen grasp of what makes great branding all gleaned from her background as a designer made Louisa Phillips ideal for her new role as account director at Handsome Here she explains what she’s been up to at the branding agency and why account handling was the natural progression to expand her skillset as a creative

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What’s your new job title and what does the role entail? I’m account director at Handsome’s London studio My job is to make sure everything that’s supposed to be happening is happening – that our projects are delivered on brief on budget and on time I also make sure our clients are happy and we’re helping to build their businesses through eective design Tell us a li le about your career so far‌ Initially I worked as a graphic designer but then decided to move into account handling and I haven’t looked back since For me it’s the perfect combination of working in a creative environment and developing my skills I meet clients travel and get involved with workshops along with a whole host of other things Why did you decide to go for this job? I’d been thinking about a new challenge and the position with Handsome came up COMPUTERARTS CREATIVEBLOQ COM - 18 -

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It sounded like the perfect opportunity to get involved in a unique business with lots of potential so I went for it Handsome works as a collective of over senior design professionals with over years of design experience so it’s an excellent opportunity to learn from a hugely experienced and award-winning design team It’s still a relatively small business and I loved the idea of being able to shape things and make a real dierence What have you brought to this role from your training as a graphic designer? I would say I have an eagle eye when it comes to detail – I’d like to think that not much gets past me Studying for a BA Hons in graphic design and working as a designer have both enabled me to really appreciate good design as well as providing me with a clear understanding of the process and an ability to accurately gauge how long great design work realistically takes to produce What have been the biggest challenges of this new position? A er working at London-based agency Purpose for ďŹ ve years I needed to change my mindset slightly – it’s easy to become conditioned to doing things in a certain way It’s been a good challenge to shake things up a li le and step out of my comfort zone What does a typical day in your new role entail? It can be anything from meeting with clients researching their business and current challenges or a ending the AGI conference to managing the studio freelancers and accounts The good thing about working in a small agency is that each day is always varied and the work is really hands-on www handsomebrands co uk

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MY D E SI G N SPA CE I S...

A MODERN IMAGINARIUM In the heart of New York, housed in a tower building topped with a Greco-Roman temple, QNY Creative’s studio comes blessed with the cosmic energies of Parnassus erched atop a tower building in central New York sits a small Greco-Roman temple, famously referred to as “a li le Parnassus in the skyâ€?. The metaphorical home of poetry, literature and learning, Parnassus captured the qualities that QNY Creative founders Ezio Burani and Anna Urban hoped for in their studio. “As soon as we saw the building we knew it had to be our home – where we could dream and create â€? says Urban “The cosmic energy was immediately present No feng shui expert needed â€? The duo’s “modern imaginariumâ€? has been situated there ever since For guidance in a more tangible form the studio turns to master Italian

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typographer Giamba ista Bodoni whose Manuale TipograďŹ co takes pride of place “Bodoni said that good design hinges on four principles uniformity sharpness and neatness good taste and charm â€? explains Burani “Our studio lives by those standards in our work and in our space â€? The space itself is a treasure trove of objects collected over the years that that hint at the designers’ own quirks and

“THE COSMIC ENERGY WAS PRESENT. NO FENG SHUI EXPERT NEEDED�

interests Burani’s s Sculptura Donut phone traveled over to New York with him from his native Italy and has been ringing in his oďŹƒce since Regular visits to local ea markets have fed Burani’s personal obsession with vintage vinyl With a collection estimated at “over easyâ€? the records have a special place in his heart “Every one is an adventure a story a memory a feeling and an inspiration â€? he says Veering to the kitschier end of the spectrum are Urban’s action ďŹ gures toys and manga including an odd li le plush toy from her childhood that acts as the studio’s mascot “He was discovered as a happy accident â€? she smiles “He reminds us to stay curious like kids â€?

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Senior strategist Anna Urban (seated) and creative director Ezio Burani in QNY Creative’s NY home, packed with eamarket gems and personal keepsakes

CULTUR E P L A C E S

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C R E AT I VE QU A R TER S

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY From burger bars that evoke New York memories to hip-hop clothing shops and inspiring galleries, illustrator Robert Farkas shares his favourite haunts in Hungary’s capital city W35 BURGER

ILLUSTRATION: Dan Gray, www.danielhgray.com

WesselĂŠnyi utca bit.ly/w35burger This is one of my favourite fast food restaurants The burger tastes like a real American Five Guys sandwich from th Avenue in New York They’re open until pm so it’s never too late to get your perfect takeaway dinner

SHOP BP WesselĂŠnyi utca

www.bpshop.hu/a_shop If you’re wandering around WesselÊnyi Street you should visit Budapest’s famous underground hip-hop trademark – the BP Shop It sells T-shirts baseball caps and hoodies too This is the perfect place to buy souvenirs for your friends

GALLERY TELEP MadĂĄch Imre utca

www.facebook.com/TelepGaleria This is where everybody meets and gets ready for a night out It’s a pub on the edge of the city’s party zone that hosts contemporary art exhibitions You can easily reach all the great places from here Beware of the bagels – they’re addictive

PRINTA Rumbach SebestyĂŠn utca

www.printa.hu If you’d like to refresh with a coee in an inspiring environment then head here Sit down and feast your eyes on some of the latest works by the most talented Hungarian illustrators at this unique space in the centre of Budapest

KERT ELLà TÓ Kazinczy utca www.ellatokert.blogspot.com The seventh district is full of pubs and this is my favourite During the summer it’s a real oasis and in the winter there’s a roof to keep you warm Everybody is friendly and the beer is cheap making ge ing drunk always an option! Illustrator, designer and %D animator Robert Farkas has always loved drawing. He also likes the dierent visuals that can be created using animation tools and programming languages. www.astronaut.co.hu COMPUTERARTS CREATIVEBLOQ COM - 20 -

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CULTUR E EV E N TS

JANUARY 2014

PHOTOGRAPHY: Sebastian Ma hes, www.manox.net

DM ! graced Manchester Town Hall on ! October Malcolm Garre hopes it will become an annual ďŹ xture

E V E NT R EP OR T: DESI G N MAN CHE STE R

THE SECRETS OF TIMELESS DESIGN The inaugural Design Manchester explored longevity in its many forms, from music design to public art. Nick Carson caught up with some of the key speakers to ďŹ nd out more KEY INFO LOCATION Manchester Town Hall www design mcr com WHEN ! October ! ATTENDEES KEY SPEAKERS Mark Farrow Kate Moross Nat Hunter Andrew Shoben

s an ambassador to Manchester School of Art Malcolm Garre was appointed to help plan a new design conference to celebrate the expansion of the -year-old institution “I chose the theme ‘longevity’ – partly to recognise the anniversary but also to invite speakers who would consider the real challenges that society faces and how design can address issues beyond the decorative or the frivolous â€? he explains Up ďŹ rst was Greyworld’s Andrew Shoben exploring the theme in relation to public art “For centuries the default state of public art was monolithic stone constructions bronze men on horses a highly polished rock maybe â€? he begins “Thankfully we live in interesting times where norms are being challenged It doesn’t mean an end to permanent work but there are be er approaches to successful public installations â€? continues Shoben “Involving the public is a good start ephemeral work is a great approach But by deďŹ nition it can’t be timeless â€? One Design Manchester highlight came from city alumnus Mark Farrow who is currently working on an ultra-

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limited-edition vinyl version of Pet Shop Boys album Electric for each “As far as music design being collectable goes in many respects it applies more than ever â€? he argues “People either want music for nothing or they’re willing to pay a premium for something special â€? Although Farrow Design has a strong heritage in music design he has worked hard over the last few years to diversify into new areas and music is now responsible for just per cent of the studio’s output “It took a lot of hard work â€? he admits “I think that’s where longevity comes into play â€? For Farrow true longevity means steering away from eeting fashions

“WE’VE NEVER HAD A PERIOD WHERE WHAT WE DO HAS BEEN ‘ON TREND’� MARK FARROW, FARROW DESIGN

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“We’ve never had a period where what we do has been ‘on trend’ – God forbid â€? he says “Our work is clean and modern the solutions are good That’s it â€? Kate Moross was another highlight “Her clarity of vision irrepressible energy and above all her candour totally took the audience by surprise â€? recalls Garre and Farrow agrees “For whatever reason there aren’t many strong female voices in graphic design and her talk was really inspiring â€? he says Garre is keen for the festival to become an annual event bringing together the city’s design and media industries dating back to Victorian times when the School of Art was established His parting advice for achieving longevity? “Keep it simple Keep it focused Keep it free of inappropriate ornament or superuous detail And keep it purposeful â€? he reels o “Avoid being merely fashionable but recognise the cultural framework in which we live and work Do respond to current requirements yet anticipate the changing needs of the audience Good design is for today and tomorrow â€? Garre concludes

JANUARY 2014

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E V E NT S CULTURE

Ad guru Mark Denton of Coy! Communications discussed image at the second- ever Typo Circle student session

ON THE GROUND THE HOST AND SPEAKERS DISCUSS LONGEVITY MALCOLM GARRETT, AMBASSADOR DESIGN MANCHESTER

“Each presentation was its own highlight But the RSA’s Nat Hunter and Mark Shayler certainly shocked us all with some shameful truths about the sustainability of global industrial production â€?

ANDREW SHOBEN, GREYWORLD

“There is such a thing as timelessness but it’s not always based on quality The Coca-Cola bo le and the red telephone box are ‘classic’ designs but I don’t ďŹ nd either particularly special Their quality was their ubiquity â€?

E V E N T R E P O R T: T Y P O C I R C L E S T U D E N T S E S S I O N S

Your biggest campaign Ruth Hamilton reports from Mark Denton’s Typo Circle talk, where the ad pro told students to get back in the driver’s seat o succeed as a creative in the current climate you need to take charge of your projects of your career and of your image This was the message from Mark Denton speaking at Typographic Circle’s second-ever student session And as it became abundantly clear the advertising legend practices what he preaches The ďŹ rst step is to get out and start exploring your own ideas In Denton’s career personal projects beginning more o en than not in the pub are the norm rather than the exception Alongside advertising Denton’s CV also takes in the launch of his own magazine featuring in a yoghurt commercial and being the face of Penhaligon’s moustache wax Having alternative outlets of expression is especially important in a ďŹ eld where it is becoming increasingly diďŹƒcult to be creatively fulďŹ lled through commissioned work he explained “You do something really great – and then you get a million ďŹ ngers in it making it bad â€? With personal projects you’re not at the mercy of the whims of others “You don’t have to wait and ďŹ nd out if the client’s wife likes it â€?

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MARK FARROW, FARROW DESIGN

“I like to think our work has a certain timelessness But there’s no great secret to sustained success other than working really fucking hard to make every project as good as it can possibly be â€?

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Having a distinctive creative signature also helps Denton’s own trademark – he describes his work as “a schoolboy joke with a high-end ďŹ nishâ€? – has been hugely successful The approach is perhaps best captured in his promo project for calligrapher Alison Carmichael for which Denton conceived a limited-edition screenprinted card bearing in beautifully scripted le ers the word ‘Cunt’ and the slogan ‘Words look much nicer when they’re hand le ered’ The project went on to win Best Direct Mail at the Design Week awards However the overwhelming message of his talk was one of taking control of your own image “The most important campaign you’ll ever work on is the campaign to sell yourself â€? Denton stressed Creatives need to take responsibility for their publicity And from the minute he arrived at BETC London’s oďŹƒces it was clear his own self-promo campaign has been thorough Very much the face of his own brand Denton presented his speech dressed in a mustard-coloured bespoke tracksuit bearing his personal logo a ‘ ’ sign inspired by none other than Richie Rich

CULTUR E EV E N TS

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W H AT ’S ON

dates for your diary From London to Melbourne, the new year heralds a host of inspiring events. And with a period of seasonal downtime to play with, don’t miss the deadline for ADC’s awards schemes

CMYK: COME MEET YOUR KIND 6-8PM, 14 JAN 2014 Various locations www bit ly/I D t AIGA will be running its CMYK networking event across a number of US cities in January You can meet like-minded creative folk and talk shop over some food and drink As we go to press location information hasn’t been released so check the website for details

ADC’S AWARDS SEASON: CALL FOR ENTRIES DEADLINE 17 JAN 2014 www adcawards org Do you deserve an esteemed ADC Cube? The judges at the rd Annual Awards of Art

Cra in Advertising and Design are looking for the most beautiful work in existence so don’t miss the deadline for submi ing your best design motion photography or illustration work January Winners will be awarded during this year’s ADC festival in April

THE ART OF ART DIRECTION 17 JAN 2014 D&AD Britannia House -  Hanbury St London bit ly/dandadartdirection In Alexandra Taylor’s D&AD session The Art of Art Direction she’ll be revealing her invaluable ‘golden rules’ gained during stints at the likes of Saatchi & Saatchi and Wieden Kennedy

TYPO CIRCLE STUDENT SESSIONS: THE PARTNERS 7PM, 21 JAN 2014 The Partners Albion Courtyard Greenhill Rents London www typocircle com The third in The Typographic Circle’s new student-focused series of events takes place in January at The Partners’ London oďŹƒce Designed speciďŹ cally for the next generation of creatives these are smaller more intimate events than the organisation’s regular talks oering the chance to ask questions interact and learn from the industry’s best over a beer

DESIGN LECTURE SERIES: DAVID CARSON 6PM, 24 JAN 2014 Microso Auditorium Public Library Sea le www designlectur es/ events/david-carson Creative agency Civilization continues its Design Lecture Series in January with a free talk by internationally acclaimed designer David Carson tickets will be available on the door the rest can be reserved in advance

DESIGN OF UNDERSTANDING 24 JAN 2014 Bridewell Hall St Bride Library  Fleet St London thedesignofunderstanding com It’s Nice That’s Will Hudson is among the speakers at this oneday conference looking at how ideas are designed to be more understandable Talks will be minutes with speakers discussing what works what doesn’t and why

TOMORROW AWARDS: CALL FOR ENTRIES DEADLINE 3 FEB 2014 www adcawards org Recognising that not all work produced by the creative COMPUTERARTS CREATIVEBLOQ COM - 24 -

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industries can be neatly labelled Tomorrow Awards celebrates the growing subset of work that’s harder to categorise Maybe a project harnessed a new technology or involved an idea that’s ahead of its time The deadline for submi ing your entry is Feb – don’t miss it

VISUALIZED 6-7 FEB 2014 The Times Center ! ! West "st Street Manha an New York www visualized com/! " Visualized is taking over the Times Centre in NYC again for two days of data storytelling and design with -plus industry innovators set to take to the stage for discussions on data stories that ma er Speakers include Alexander Chen Google and Julia Laub Generative Design

SUPERGRAPH 14-16 FEB 2014 The Royal Exhibition Building # Nicholson Street Melbourne www supergraph com au Australia’s contemporary graphic art fair celebrates design print and illustration during a three-day ďŹ esta of creativity With workshops artist-led masterclasses and familyorientated events expect to be both inspired and motivated

TYPE CAMP INDIA 22-28 FEB 2014 Tara Book Headquarters Thiruvanmiyur Chennai www typecamp org Focusing on typography and design culture this camp provides an alternative educational experience and the opportunity to understand the cultural contexts of typography while experiencing one of the most ancient cultures in the world

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Strong opinion and analysis from across the global design industry THIS MONTH ALAN PECKOLICK GRAPHIC DESIGNER bit.ly/teachingtype

CAT HOW FOUNDER HOWKAPOW www.howkapow.com

GORDON TAIT NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER DC THOMSON & CO LTD www.dcthomson.co.uk

REGULAR WRITERS NAT HUNTER DIRECTOR OF DESIGN RSA

CAT HOW FOUNDER HOWKAPOW

LAWRENCE ZEEGEN HOSS GIFFORD DIGITAL STRATEGIST DEAN OF DESIGN LCC AND ANIMATOR COREY HOLMS FREELANCE DESIGNER

ODE TO AN ANTI-HELVETICA WORLD One of the true founding fathers of expressive typography, Alan Peckolick, believes designers should op letting the same old fonts do the talking

DEAN JOHNSON VICE PRESIDENT BRANDWIDTH

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ABOUT THE WRITER American designer Alan Peckolick heralded a conceptual movement in graphic design known as expressive typography His recent book Teaching Type to Talk Pointed Leaf Press is the first ever compendium to span the typographer’s career bit ly/teachingtype

have spent my 40-year-long career in design purposely avoiding Helvetica. The cleanliness and neutrality of the letterforms has always made me uncomfortable, as if the typeface was conspiring to take over the world with conformity. The need for compatibility between different digital platforms has created a trend of sterile, uniform design – the ‘Helvetica aesthetic’ that rules anything from signs to labels to logos today. There is almost a reverse movement to make the type become invisible or mute. I always had more faith in type. Letterforms can handle a lot more than just spelling out words. They can actually express rage, joy, impatience; they can show movement, flexibility and plumpness; they can be critical or praiseworthy. A letterform is at its best when the reader can really feel what the word means, not just read it. Fresh out of design school, I started working with Herb Lubalin, the father of American graphic design, who later became my partner before I set off on my own. As partners in crime, we strived to make type talk, make people laugh, dance, or move, depending on the needs of the project. Others called this style ‘expressive typography’. Through my work – creating countless book covers, movie posters, corporate logos – I worked to show the power of the letterform by making it the medium for the message. Let me be clear that expressive typography does not equate to an ornate style. It is less about stylistic tricks than conveying a meaning through movements in the design of the letter. The Revlon logo, for example, does not create a literal reference to beauty or femininity. Instead, the joining of the ‘L’ and the ‘O’ is a subtle suggestion of the Revlon lifestyle identified at the intersection of glamour, excitement and innovation. Nowadays, when I collaborate with young designers, at the beginning of any project I grab my pen and pad and start drawing new letterforms. I often hear the same surprised question: “Are you drawing a letter?” When hundreds of fonts are at your fingertips to play with, how do you isolate the real communication problem? How do you not pigeonhole your design challenges into general ideas that can be solved by easily selecting from what’s available on the computer? How do you make your work stand out and not be predictable? Creative type, with all its twists and turns, is not incompatible with today’s world. It is more a limitation designers impose upon themselves. Most designers

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I encounter today think they are only as creative as the number of fonts available on their computers. Considering new forms and expressions beyond what’s immediately available to them seems to be out of their realm of possibilities. To that end, technology and the wealth of design software around can hinder creativity rather than augment it. This paradox may not be obvious to the inexperienced designer. A new type approach can present the much-coveted solution to a communication problem, be it in a logo, movie poster, corporate brochure or an eBook cover. More importantly, it can make a solution stand out in today’s design world so plagued by groupthink. With imaging technology so advanced, creating new expressions can actually be a much more efficient process than it was before. Drawing sheet after sheet of studies by hand, though still my favourite way of brainstorming for a solution, is not how I propose everyone spend their time. I find the important trick is to be able to step away and to find any appropriate tools, be it a pen and

“MOST DESIGNERS I ENCOUNTER TODAY THINK THEY ARE ONLY AS CREATIVE AS THE NUMBER OF FONTS AVAILABLE ON THEIR COMPUTERS”

paper or an iPad, to give one’s mind the freedom to delve into the problem until you identify a solution. For the cover of my recent book, Teaching Type to Talk, I designed over 50 covers until we chose the one that worked perfectly. Instead of discarding the studies this time, we decided to pay homage to all of the solutions that were not chosen for the cover by displaying them in the opening and closing spreads. Sometimes the process of searching is as satisfying as finding the solution, and a designer should be driven by that search. Is it possible to stay expressive and still remain adaptable? Tweet @ComputerArts using #DesignMatters

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INSIGHT

INSIGHT D E SI G N M AT TER S

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“WHAT ARE YOUR DESIGNRELATED NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR 2014?” Six creatives share their views

REJANE DAL BELLO SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER WOLFF OLINS www.rejanedalbello.com

KEN LO FOUNDER BLOW www blow hk

“The last 12 months have been particularly busy for me. There were also a lot of festive promotional projects and all the schedules were very rushed. Looking forward, I hope that I can reduce the quantity of promotional projects in 2014 and hopefully free up more time to focus on some interesting branding projects. In addition – of course – I would also like to take two or three trips to gain some design inspiration.”

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“I hope to put my ‘how to prevent long-term homelessness’ project into practice as a test-run. I’ve been in contact with the council in Islington, London and we’ve made progress. We’re trying to reach out as quickly as possible to newly homeless people, so they have the right access to information – before they become used to street life. It’s harder to help long-term homeless people off the street. I’d also like to learn Cinema 4D and publish a children’s book.”

DIANA BELTRAN HERRERA ARTIST AND DESIGNER www.dianabeltranherrera.com “My resolutions are to work hard, achieve new goals and take my art to different countries. I’m planning a big installation in Berlin in May as part of the Pictoplasma conference, and some secret projects will be revealed. Paper will remain my material but my subject will change. I’ll explore new forms and animals – orangutans have caught my attention. I can’t wait.”

JANUARY 2014

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INSIGHT

MR BINGO FREELANCE ILLUSTRATOR AND ANIMATOR www.mr-bingo.org.uk “For 2014, my new year’s resolutions are to make more stuff that I want to make and less stuff that companies want me to make, to decorate things and sell bad products.”

BONNIE SIEGLER FOUNDER EIGHT AND A HALF www.8point5.com

“One: trust my instincts. Two: don’t be afraid of the unknown. Three: make more money. Four: don’t check email constantly. Five: remember, clients are people too. Six: finish writing my book. Seven: get off the computer and sketch with pencils. Eight: have more fun. Eight-and-a-half: make more lists.”

YOUR VIEWS Comment on Facebook, or tweet @ComputerArts with your thoughts using #DesignMatters

DAVID AIREY GRAPHIC DESIGNER www.davidairey.com

“It’s simple for me – keep things going as they were in 2013. My first child was born a few days ago and that’s a big change. If I can continue work without too much disruption, I’ll be happy.”

SIMON MANCHIPP @MANCHIPP “ dpi Boom Dad jokes rock.” www.someone inlondon.com

DAVID MAHONEY “Saying no! Being productive is great, but applying myself thinly doesn’t help me action ideas quickly or to the best of my ability.” www.idmahoney.com

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TIGZ RICE @TIGZY “I shall be creating my very first app for my photography studio in "#$ Research done% time to build.” www.tigzrice.com

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JONATHAN MAK “Be more succinct with my words, but learn that sometimes more is more in visual communication. Also, get be er at replying to emails.” www.jonmak.com

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I N SI GH T C AT H O W

ABOUT THE WRITER Cat How studied English literature at Bristol University and then communication design at Central Saint Martins In Cat and Roger How set up Howkapow a colourful design shop promoting the work of independent creatives www howkapow com

Screenprinting: is it worth it? Howkapow’s Cat How explores the merits of producing and selling limited-edition screenprints of your work, compared with their more economical digital counterparts

n our physical shop, a common question customers ask – quizzically, brows furrowed, holding up a print in either hand – is, “Why is this print double the price, when both are the same size?” We explain that one is a screenprint – handpulled in a limited run of just 10 – while the other is a standard digital ‘giclée’ print, pumped out in a limitless run on an industrial printer. Some customers understand this distinction, opting for the screenprint as an investment piece. Others will shrug, think the price gap ludicrous and go for the value option, preferring the image itself over the exclusivity of the other. Each decision is a valid one from the point of view of the customer, but as the creator it’s important to understand this distinction if you want your work to sell. The key is knowing your market: who do you want to sell to? Can they afford the prices you want to charge, and do they understand why you are charging those prices in the first place? Once you know this, it can help you decide where to sell. With a screenprint – handmade, signed, titled and dated by you in a small run – you can, and should, charge a premium price. But this only makes sense if it’s sold somewhere people can understand the quality and skill required to create it. Galleries and design shops are ideal, as people can really see and feel the quality, and expect it to be that price because of the environment. In the past we sold a lot of screenprints in Howkapow’s physical shop.

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In contrast, we’ve found digital prints sell better online – attracting an audience who are less fussy about provenance and skill, and more interested in a nice image for their wall at an affordable price. Market stalls are good selling grounds too, as lower value products tend to sell best here. Artist markets are also an ideal testing ground to ask your customers face-to-face what they want. Do they mind paying more for a screenprint or are they less fussed about this and just after a good price? Explain to them the process and it could be that you change their minds. Some might consider digital printing a sell-out, but it’s a great way of expanding your work onto other products, such as homewares and ceramics, and reaching a different audience. Hand-printing, on the other hand, elevates work to ‘art’ status. Quality versus quantity comes into question here. With digital, you can sell your work at a lower, more competitive price by printing large runs, but you lose the uniqueness a screenprint has, as well as control over stock and colour matching. Saying that, I’ve seen some superb digital prints that walk all over screenprinted efforts. Ultimately it’s the customer who decides – and who buys. Figure out which process works best for you as a designer, and you’re already halfway there. Would you happily pay more for a limited-edition, handmade print? Tweet @ComputerArts with #DesignMatters

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I N SI GH T G O RD O N TA I T

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ABOUT THE WRITER Gordon Tait is new product development manager at DC Thomson & Co Ltd He is responsible amongst other things for ensuring brand consistency within a portfolio that includes The Beano Dennis the Menace and Gnasher The Broons and Bananaman www dcthomson co uk

Old brand, new tricks Allowing an external illu rator to play with your brand could prove risky. Gordon Tait explains what prompted much-loved comic The Beano to hand its precious yle guide over to Jon Burgerman

hile sitting at home watching footage of Jon Burgerman on YouTube, I saw a promo about snowboard apparel that featured the illustrator’s distinctive character art. My first thought was, “Wow, I really like this. It would be great if we could create similar patterns featuring The Beano chums to concept up for our agent to present.” Then it hit me. Could we interest this artist, who had no previous professional connection to The Beano, to give us his take on our brand? When I joined the Consumer Products department at publishers DC Thomson, all of our creative was developed in-house, working with our wider family of long-term freelance illustrators. We have a mainstay of comic artists who have worked with us for many years, and who know all the characters inside-out. However, over the past year, my team has engaged with design studios and individuals like Burgerman to freshen things up. In a fiercely competitive industry, the real challenge is to be creative and innovative with the brand’s potential – a few bold steps and some experimentation can only be a good thing. Bringing in an outside artist to work on a product with 75 years’ worth of heritage to protect comes with certain responsibilities. As new product development manager, I need to ensure that the products have a consistent, ‘on-brand’ look and feel. The assets are delivered in the form of a style guide PDF, consisting of rules and visual references for all the character art, packaging and design options.

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So how does bringing in these new contributors sit with the role of looking after the brand? First, there is always a brief – we never hand over total control. Consistency can still be upheld by adhering to the brand values. In The Beano’s case, these are quite straightforward: mischievous, funny, kid-centric, smart, adventurous, imaginative and energetic. Working with third parties on projects should be approached as a collaboration, and not be viewed as an opportunity to offload work. The point of engaging other creative teams is to have them bring a variety of ideas to the table. Jon was already a big Beano fan when we got him on board – in fact, when he came back with his original designs, I had to encourage him to go even more ‘Burgerman’ on them. Jon’s a true original, and that’s how I feel about the talented artists who have provided artwork over the years for The Beano. Jon is a more obvious choice than he might seem – look at the work of David Law (the original Dennis the Menace artist) and imagine how that must have first appeared. I can see the same innovative, energetic approach in Jon’s artwork. In my opinion, the success of The Beano – both in terms of the illustration, and the writing – is based on the fact that it’s the product of highly original and imaginative minds; game-changers who, like Jon, enjoy throwing out the rulebook. Would you let Burgerman get his hands on your brand’s style guide? Tweet @ComputerArts using #DesignMatters

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Computer Arts selects the ho est new design, illustration and motion work from the global design scene

INDEPENDENTLY MINDED THE INDEPENDENT REDESIGN November by Ma Willey and The Independent’s in-house team www mattwilley co uk

The Independent has unveiled a radical redesign completed by the British paper’s in-house team and Ma Willey – notably celebrated for his work on magazines including Port and Elephant as well as the recently redesigned RIBA Journal The revamp includes a clean bespoke font set by A /SW/HK’s Henrik Kubel fewer variances in story length prominent white space and an innovative vertically run masthead on the front page It’s a bold new direction in places more akin to a monthly literary magazine than national newspaper but does it deliver newsstand cut-through – and will it be enough to reverse dramatically falling sales? The paper’s new design its third since took three months – and Willey worked closely with head of creative Dan Barber and Stephen Petch art director of the Sunday New Review According to editor Amol Rajan the aim was to recreate the ‘classic with a twist’ design of its  launch and radiate “the feeling of a broadsheet in compact form â€? Starting from the type and designing upwards the paper has been entirely restructured and simpliďŹ ed throughout Willey commissioned Kubel to produce a bespoke new font family comprising Indy Sans Indy Serif Indy Condensed and Indy Hairline sets each carrying light medium and bold weights Kubel hadn’t worked on a newspaper project before and could bring a more hardworking approach to a font family intended to work across multiple mediums in varying point sizes from web listings to front-page headlines

— PROJECT REVIEW —

While The Independent retains its compact format a fresh editorial strategy informed the redesign Willey says that stories are now mainly short news-in-briefs or longer features with less mid-length content This enabled the team to contrast the story lengths creating more clean space on each page Nowhere is this more prominent than on the front page where the new masthead placement is intended to allow the lead image and headline room for impact However the new layout presents a common editorial design challenge by positioning the picture story directly above the lead story there is a danger the two could be perceived as connected placing increased pressure on the main headline to create the necessary visual hierarchy Overall though the new design is a conďŹ dent move that while adding to the ‘magazine’ feel provides the sophistication demanded by the brief Crucially it succeeds in se ing The Independent apart from its competitors on the busy UK newsstand The new design is also practical intended to make the production process as smooth as possible for sub-editing teams on tight deadlines Captions have more exible word counts for example making page ďŹ ing easier As Willey points out the brief was for bold sophistication but the challenge of creating a sustainable product was core to his interpretation “It felt important to do something conďŹ dent clean and sophisticated â€? he explains “But it also had to be something that could be built be er more easily put together and with more understanding – something that could be sustained â€?

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The front page of section Henrik Kubel’s elegant custom display font Indy Hairline neatly links the section to the rest of the newspaper The Independent’s vertical masthead device features on Willey’s new cover templates for the Radar and Traveller sections as well as the front page creating coherence and continuity across the new identity This spread from the Voices section of the Saturday edition features an illustration of Jeff Koons by Lauren Crow Walter Molteni from Milan-based media studio La Tigre redrew the Independent’s iconic Eagle emblem While each of Kubel’s bespoke fonts differs in style and weight the underlying framework remains the same – as this typeface sample demonstrates The result is an elegant hardworking family able to deliver everything from headlines to listings

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WorldMags.netTH E VERY B E ST NE W DE SI G N THE REST OF THE INDUSTRY SAYS‌ AREM DUPLESSIS Design director, The New York Times Magazine www.nyti.ms/b14ACJ

“The Independent redesign hits every high note imaginable. The masthead, set in a beautiful serif, placed vertically along the le side of the page, is an eective, elegant solution. It puts the content at centre stage while maintaining a strong brand presence. Very few newspapers would dare to be so intrepid with their identity. And for that very reason the revised version really makes a statement. Another standout moment is the ‘Section 2’ opener. Simple, yet bold, it gives the reader a moment to breath before jumping into the next portion of content. Lastly, I really admire the consistency of the brand as a whole. The vertical masthead makes its way onto the covers of Radar and Traveller in a way that’s seamlessly integrated with the identity of the paper. Overall, it’s really well done.â€?

SUZANNE LEMON Art director, the Guardian www.theguardian.com/uk

“The Independent has had several redesigns over the last few years, and I think it has ďŹ nally hit the right note. It feels more intelligent and mature now, with nice use of white space and creative typography. Ditching the bright red masthead was deďŹ nitely a good move, and the new Indy font set is great.â€? COMPUTERARTS CREATIVEBLOQ COM - 39 -

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TURN IT UP VOLUMES PRINT SERIES by Fieldwork www.madebyfieldwork.com

MAN IN THE MIRROR

Manchester-based design and digital agency Fieldwork has launched a new limited-edition print series entitled Volumes Pitched as an open platform for collaborative exploration Volume went live on November with a collection of vibrant prints illustrated by Spanish studio Hey on GFSmith paper “Anything goes as long as we can ďŹ t it into the A folders â€? says digital director Andy Go “We’ve talked about all kinds of potential collaborations woodwork papercra textiles electronics and code â€? ‘Keep it simple do it well’ is a key mantra behind the project which is made with friends “fellow makersâ€? and industry pundits in mind – and the project has a digital component too “One of our big things at Fieldwork is exploring the space between print and digital how and why people move between them and how the two can be linked â€? Go adds

CLASH MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATIONS by Mat Maitland www.matmaitland.com

To celebrate the recent -year anniversary of the making of Michael Jackson’s ďŹ lm Moonwalker illustrator Mat Maitland created two collage-based images for an article in Clash magazine’s November issue. “It was about looking back to his golden period, so I wanted to echo this in the images – which is why I used mirrors,â€? explains Maitland, who is also creative director at Big Active Design. “I love mirrors and it was a new device for me to use in my work.â€? While one image is based on the Palace of Versaille, an older-seeming Bubbles features in the other. “It’s almost like Michael is forever young but Bubbles has aged. I wanted to get some sadness in there.â€?

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PAPER INSPIRATIONS AFFINIA MANHATTAN HOTEL ARTWORK by Eiko Ojala www.ploom.tv

“I wanted to make my life really hard with this project,” laughs Estonian illustrator Eiko Ojala, in reference to his new papercut-inspired artwork for the Affinia Manha an hotel lobby. “Their interior design company contacted me with a totally open brief,” he recalls. “It just had to represent New York – so I decided to do something detailed and time-consuming.” Starting with black-and-white hand-drawn sketches, Ojala digitally built up the detail of the ribbons. “I like the base of this work – three ribbons where the city stands,” he says.

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WorldMags.netTH E VERY B E ST NE W DE SI G N

LONDON CALLING COFFEE HOUSE LONDON IDENTITY by Reynolds and Reyner www.reynoldsandreyner.com

Reynolds and Reyner recently transported a li le piece of London to the centre of Kiev. Tasked to visualise Coffee House London’s pride in its coffee and evoke a sense of loyalty in the cafe’s consumers, the Ukraine studio embellished a classic aesthetic with modern flourishes to create a stylish, comprehensive identity, which references ‘London culture’ throughout. “Combining classic and modern, plus themes of London culture and the process of drinking coffee was challenging,” admits Reynolds and Reyner partner Alexander Andreyev. “I like how it appears to be modern, even with a coat of arms in the logo.”

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S HO W C AS E

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— MOTION HIGHLIGHT —

A MINIATURE HISTORY A MICROCOSM OF LONDON ANIMATION by Persistent Peril www.persistentperil.com

Nine months of work came to fruition this November when the Barbican launched an animated isometric film of its history. Briefed to compress the entire history of Europe’s largest arts centre into a short, engaging film, Brighton studio Persistent Peril based its animation on the article ‘A Microcosm of London’ by Peter Ackroyd, and opted for a video-game aesthetic, using colour to show the passing of time. “The film is about an area of land and its history, so a large tile that elements could build in and play out on seemed ideal,” explains creative director and Persistent Peril co-owner Garth Jones. “The storyboard and animatic stage were quite challenging in terms of establishing rules and making sure every piece placed on our isometric field served a narrative purpose,” recalls director Jonny Clapham. As Jones explains, each member of the Persistent Peril team took on different elements of the design during the project: “Collaborating and exploring a new style together was a really fun experience.”

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WorldMags.netTH E VERY B E ST NE W DE SI G N

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S HO W C AS E

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— FEATURED SHOWREEL —

ALTERNATIVE REALITIES SHOWREEL by Neon www.neon.tv

Neon is a boutique creative studio that specialises in visual storytelling Its recently released showreel provides an upbeat taster of the range and diversity of the team’s work seamlessly cu ing between animation visual effects and live action projects “It’s mostly commercial-based but we’ve also included work we’ve done for title sequences and our own R&D projects – where we get the chance to be a li le more creative ” explains Tom Bridges who highlights both the studio’s skate film Macro and its Collider conference titles among his favourites “So ware used included Maya Mari Cinema D Nuke A er Effects Photoshop PFTrack Topogun Realflow Final Cut – the list is long ” he laughs

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TAILORED FOR TABLET. Experience additional multimedia content in our fully interactive iPad edition TRY IT FOR FREE TODAY!

Computer Arts readers know design ma ers That’s why we’ve completely reinvented our digital edition as a fully interactive iPad experience with impeccable usability There’s also additional interactive content such as image galleries and bonus videos which bring the motion content featured in the magazine to life

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AUTHOR Angharad Lewis is an independent writer and editor specialising in design and culture She has edited and authored several books – her latest% published by Laurence King% is titled The Purple Book She was editor of Grafik magazine between ""* and "## and is founder of Up Side Up% a new venture working with graphic designers to develop products

IMAGE: Tote bag by Crispin Finn www crispinfinn com

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WorldMags.netENTERPRI SI NG I LLUST R AT OR S SPECIAL REPORT

enterprising illustrators With the economic downturn promoting an entrepreneurial spirit, Angharad Lewis identiďŹ es an exciting new breed of designers and illustrators who are busy diversifying not only to survive, but thrive

C

hances are that if you create illustrations for a living, you also have to be a pretty enterprising character to survive. Unless you’re regularly commissioned to sketch front-row at Paris Fashion Week or the phone is ringing o the hook with oers of Sony record sleeves, you have patches of being a bit hard-up. The good news is that, while there are ever more people in the ďŹ eld, the doors are open for you to create your own chances, rather than wait for that call from your agent. Your horizons as an illustrator are now glitteringly broad. The meteoric success of the Pick Me Up exhibition at Somerset House over the past four years shows what a multifarious beast the pursuit of illustration can be: from selling products to running workshops. Being an illustrator can, if you choose to embrace it, present far more freedom than responding to client briefs. But how easy is it to make all that energy spent away from actually illustrating things pay? You probably need more than an Etsy shop and the odd exhibition to reap ďŹ nancial rewards from self-initiated work.

Nonetheless, there’s a shift in the landscape of illustration that is partly down to the enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit of its practitioners making things to sell, setting up printing presses and publishers, exhibiting, staging events and

“PERHAPS BEING ENTREPRENEURIAL IS LESS SCARY THAN IT WAS BEFORE BECAUSE BIG BUSINESSES SEEM SO FRAGILEâ€? ALEX SPIRO NOBROW opening shops – illustrators are creating their own markets. Alex Spiro of indie publisher Nobrow also makes a connection between economic recession and new technology – a perfect storm for entrepreneurs. “I think people are more critical of who they work for these

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days,â€? he says, “and perhaps more people feel as though being entrepreneurial is less scary than it was before, because big businesses seem so fragile. Advances in technology have served to lessen the gaps between producers and consumers. I think this has also contributed a lot to the trend.â€? The move away from homogenised consumption means consumers don’t want the high street’s identikit oerings, but a more engaging experience of shopping – the thrill of ďŹ nding something unusual, limited-edition or with an interesting story is more gratifying than quick-ďŹ x spending. The internet and social media have liberated enterprising people in every ďŹ eld to access audiences, but the can-do attitude and DIY spirit of illustrators seems to have them particularly well placed to take advantage of these new opportunities.

CHANNELLING YOUR INNER SUIT Groups like the Association of Illustrators run business masterclasses advising on the nitty-gritty of ďŹ nances and self-promotion. It’s sensible to be au fait with the tax system and have a grasp of bookkeeping, but can you actually learn business air?

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A is for Apple Print by illustrator Emily Forgot

Self-initiated work keeps the creative ďŹ res lit, so if you can make it pay hard cash too, that’s a win-win situation. Further to this, being forced to think in a commercial way about your own work can help keep your feet on the ground. Illustrator Emily Forgot has always made things to sell alongside her commissioned work, and reckons business acumen is something that comes with time. “The longer I’m working in the ďŹ eld of design and illustration,â€? she says, “the more interested I am in the business side of things. I suppose it makes me feel more grown up when most of the time my work feels like play.â€? George Wu of pop-up design retailer Poundshop also thinks illustrators can beneďŹ t from some hands-on business perspective. “Since the recession there is a huge entrepreneurial spirit growing from designers taking business into their own hands,â€? she says. “Understanding the commercial side of design makes you more receptive to your market and opens your eyes to what actually sells, rather than what you think should sell.â€? Neal Whittington of stationery and printed ephemera retailer Present & Correct

echoes the whole ‘follow your gut’ school of decision-making. “I know what I like and am decisive in what I stock, but not necessarily in my own work,â€? he says. “It does help to be able to see things in a monetary sense. That sounds terrible, but it’s your living and it helps you edit things out and say ‘no’.â€?

is quick to point out). The design for Present & Correct, from the shop’s branding to its beautifully art-directed shoots, help keep Whittington’s design muscles exed. “I miss it a little,â€? he admits of his years spent working on design full-time. “I’d love to get my teeth into a fun little branding project. I make and illustrate things for the shop when I can.â€?

“BEING ABLE TO SEE THINGS IN A MONETARY SENSE HELPS YOU EDIT THINGS OUT AND SAY ‘NO’�

NEAL WHITTINGTON PRESENT & CORRECT

Whittington ran Present & Correct as an online store for ďŹ ve years before opening a shop on Arlington Way in North London in 2013. Before Present & Correct, he worked as a designer and illustrator, for Monocle magazine among others, but these days does not see himself as just a shopkeeper (“not that there’s anything wrong with that,â€? he

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FROM DESIGN TO DELIVERY Despite being of an entrepreneurial bent, Anna Fidalgo and Roger Kelly of online stationery and homeware store Crispin Finn admit it’s a challenge juggling the creative stu with the demands of running a business. Their success is clearly down to lots of hard work, and they own the whole supply chain from idea to delivery. “It’s a learning curve trying to maintain both the physical production of everything and run an online shop alongside our client-based design work,â€? says Fidalgo. “There are so many practical factors involved beyond making the work itself – there’s a lot of daily admin to be done, budgeting for new materials, ďŹ guring out packaging, postage, customer relations, keeping the accounts ship-shape, all of

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I L L U S T R AT I O N AS BUSINESS Nobrow opened its doors in ! set up by animator Sam Arthur and illustrator Alex Spiro who were recently shortlisted for the Hospital Club " Conceived as an indie publishing house for illustrated books and comics today Nobrow operates out of a building in Shoreditch London with a printing press in the basement a street level shop-gallery and studio upstairs It makes books and prints with a roster of illustrators always using the distinctive spot-colour printing process Spiro’s seasoned advice to illustrators with a business idea$ “Stand by it Whatever it is it will not be easy Self-belief is everything � N O B R OW www nobrow net

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Products by Crispin Finn in its distinctive restricted colour pale e

that. And having an overall view of what and how we’re doing as a business.â€? Distinctive for its restricted colour palette of red, white and blue, Crispin Finn is an example of an extra-curricular passion that ended up becoming a full-time pursuit. Couple Fidalgo and Kelly had separate day jobs as a designer and artist but collaborated out-of-hours on projects under the Crispin Finn moniker. When they started the venture, the aim was never to go full-time – Crispin Finn’s development was a result of seeing how far they could push things, and out of sheer enjoyment. Crispin Finn keeps most of its print production in-house, thus limiting costs – it would not be unusual to ďŹ nd the pair toiling late into the night in the screenprinting workshop installed in their studio to meet an order deadline. Proof that you have to be dedicated, exacting, and a touch bloodyminded to achieve what they do. “With illustration you never know when the next job is coming and we feel that if you’re not actively trying to make things happen, maybe things won’t happen,â€? explains Kelly.

“We have a long list of things we want to make and people we’d love to work with, so we’re always pushing to try and get those things out there alongside the commercial work,� adds Fidalgo. “The variety is what we

“IN ! I SOLD SOME EDITIONS WHICH FELT GOOD I’D NEVER HAD THAT MUCH SATISFACTION DOING COMMERCIAL WORK�

PATRICK THOMAS GRAPHIC ARTIST

thrive on. It keeps the daily challenges exciting, and means there is always something that needs doing.�

RIP UP THE RULE BOOK It takes guts (and perhaps a touch of foolhardiness) to leave clients behind and

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turn yourself into the main event. What happens if you decide to chuck your biggest client, or even all your clients? Some trained illustrators have done just that, operating more like artists, communicating their own ideas and swapping clients for collaborators. The success of graphic artists like Patrick Thomas, Anthony Burrill and Rob Ryan is backed up by years of experience, knowing what sells and making conďŹ dent decisions. For Thomas, the leap came after a key exhibition. “In 2006 I had work in a show at the V&A and sold some editions, which felt good. I’d never had that much satisfaction doing commercial work so I decided that from then on I would concentrate more on doing my own thing,â€? he recalls. “Initially, I tried juggling it with commissions but soon realised that it had to be one or the other. It was in 2008 when I set up my ďŹ rst silkscreen press and decided to work 100 per cent on my own stu that things really started to come together.â€? However, full-on independence is not the route for everyone, and it can be just as rewarding to perfect the art of working for

JANUARY 2014

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I L L U S T R AT I O N AS ART Patrick Thomas found his path as an artist by removing himself from his comfort zone as a commissioned illustrator A er graduating from the Royal College of Art he balanced commissions with his own practice but everything changed when he found recognition and a market for his own work through exhibiting In "##" he upped sticks and moved to Barcelona to hone his art He now works across four cities %Barcelona Berlin London and Stu gart' spli ing his time between teaching running his screenprinting studios and exhibiting “I generally hated briefs so when I decided to stop taking on commissions the pressure was on to produce be er work Now there are no excuses$ if it goes wrong you can’t blame anyone or anything else � Thomas explains “I enjoy that pressure I rarely have an idea for a piece in the studio I spend a lot of time traveling For me the studio is where I work with ideas conceived elsewhere � PATRICK THOMAS www patrickthomas com

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A range of abusive postcards from Mr Bingo’s Hate Mail service

clients and doing so in a way that is creatively satisfying. Illustrator Richard Hogg has been working almost full-time on video game Hohokum for a year and a half. He and collaborator Ricky Hoggart have never had a client as such for Hohokum, but Hogg says the collaboration – sharing ideas, work and deadlines – is motivating. “I couldn’t work totally on my own, it wouldn’t be as satisfying,â€? he says. In the time he has been funded to work on Hohokum he’s had little time for other client briefs, but a few small jobs have kept his hand in, and he doesn’t see himself making the move entirely to being a game designer. “I like working [for clients]. It makes me sad when people are down on it because I really like briefs, I really like solving problems for people. And I quite like the idea of being a service – people pay me and I ďŹ x a thing, or make a thing they’re happy with that helps their business.â€?

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE “It boggles my mind that there aren’t more people like me doing this,� says Hogg of his position as an illustrator designing a video

game. He sees the world of video games as rich pickings for illustrators and artists, who can make something special that stands out in the ďŹ eld and which they already have the skills to embrace.

“IN SOME WAYS I SUPPOSE I AM LIVING THE DREAM IT’S CERTAINLY A PRETTY UNUSUAL WAY TO MAKE A LIVING�

MR BINGO ILLUSTRATOR

Illustrators can also provide a fresh perspective on the world of gaming. For instance, Hogg interacts with games in a way that their makers didn’t necessarily intend, exploring the environment rather than just killing the bad guys. This has ended up feeding into Hohokum.

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“It’s not something we set out to do initially, but we feel there is a lot of scope for making games that appeal to people who don’t normally like games,â€? he says. If Hogg is an example of an illustrator innovating in a ďŹ eld not normally signposted illustration, Mr Bingo is one who has set up his very own independent state, with a benevolent (and rude) dictator as its ďŹ gurehead. Bingo has made a brand of himself, and is in the lucky position of being commissioned for his ideas and persona as well as his drawing style. So apparently loved is his work that people are prepared to commission him, through his unique Hate Mail service, to insult them. Living the dream, surely? “In some ways I suppose I am,â€? he muses. “It’s certainly a pretty unusual way to make a living, and difficult to describe to new people you meet.â€? Bingo, too, still feels the call of commissioned work. “I could turn Hate Mail into a full-time occupation,â€? he says, “but I’d run out of ideas fairly quickly. I wouldn’t want to do it every day. It’s deďŹ nitely the most fun thing I’ve ever

JANUARY 2014

WorldMags.netENTERPRI SI NG I LLUST R AT OR S I L L U S T R AT I O N A S I N N O VAT I O N Hohokum is a radical video game in its plot and design – no death no stress no failure just an enjoyable sensory experience as you control the colourful ‘long-mover’ through various interesting environments with challenges to complete %or not as you wish' and amazing music – like “listening to an album and you visit dierent places to listen to the tracks â€? says the game’s maker Richard Hogg He and developer Ricky Hagge began working on ideas in ! * and took their prototype game to festivals and competitions eventually ge ing signed by Sony in ! "! Hohokum will be released in ! " R IC HA R D HO G G www h ## com

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Window display by George Wu and Sarah Go leib for their pop-up Poundshop

done, but doing anything over and over again always becomes dull after a while.â€? The agenda for illustrators moving in and redeďŹ ning an existing ďŹ eld has been set by their forays into retail. Is there something in the water that draws illustrators towards shopkeeping? The canvas of four walls and a window onto the street perhaps holds something of the promise that illustrators are naturally tuned in to – the possibilities are truly endless. Operating a rather less conventional retail business model, the aforementioned Poundshop, founded by George Wu and Sarah Gottleib in 2010, is a travelling emporium stocking work submitted by guest designers and illustrators, on sale for ÂŁ1 to ÂŁ10. It has popped up at venues from disused shops, to ad agency offices, to gallery spaces. Wu and Gottleib collaborated with a dierent designer each time to create the interior. A major labour of love, they ďŹ t Poundshop in around their day jobs in teaching and design, but plan to grow it as a viable business. “Hopefully we can start a mentoring scheme where we help designers to produce

their items from idea and out onto the shop oor,â€? says Gottleib of future plans. “Also at this point we are getting a lot of retailers asking for the designers’ products to be

“I DON’T THINK WE HAVE TO BE CRAZY ENTREPRENEURS AND HAVE THESE CRAZY IDEAS IF YOU’RE GOOD AND WORK HARD YOU’LL MAKE IT�

SARAH GOTTLEIB POUNDSHOP

sold in their shops, so this is something we’re hoping to develop.â€? As a conduit to help self-initiated designs reach potential customers, Wu and Gottleib have a good perspective on the value of small-scale entrepreneurship

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in illustration. Is it an essential quality to succeed today? “I guess it depends on what kind of designer you would like to be,â€? says Gottleib. “I don’t think we should feel that we have to be these crazy entrepreneurs and have crazy ideas just to make it. If you are good and work hard you will make it.â€?

WE ARE FAMILY You have to be pretty comfortable with your own company as an illustrator – hours poring over a drawing or ďŹ ddly Photoshop job can mean you don’t speak to another human for entire days. Which is why illustrators band together for company (and use a lot of social media). The need for sanity-saving compadres, collaboration and teamwork has spawned collectives, shared studio spaces and collaborative projects. Nobrow is an amazing example of people power. Despite being a small machine, its output is proliďŹ c and exquisitely executed. “We have a wonderful team of people who work very hard to keep everything running smoothly,â€? says co-founder Alex Spiro. “It sounds very

JANUARY 2014

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I L L U S T R AT I O N AS SOCIAL ENTERPRISE Illustration collective Nous Vous was invited to collaborate on ELMO %East London Mobile Workshop' by curator Fiona Boundy a er a collaboration with Boundy and architecture practice Studio Weave called The Ecology of Colour in Dartford last year “We came up with the idea of a mobile studio to champion the idea of ‘making’ in various forms including printmaking " mm ďŹ lm instrument building ceramics and furniture â€? says Jay Clover co- founder of Nous Vous with Nicholas Burrows and William Edmonds The ELMO Bedford bus is ki ed out with modular peg-board cladding that can be customised for workshops and events So far there have been events at William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow Bethnal Green Library and Timber Lodge in the Olympic Park NOUS VOUS www nousvous eu

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NEAL WHITTINGTON banal, but having a good team of motivated and passionate people who believe in the company and what it does is crucial.â€? Making work that you can sell directly to the punters, as Nobrow does, also makes you feel more connected. Going from working in his spare room at home to opening a shop was a big shift in Present & Correct founder Whittington’s daily routine. “It’s made me a lot more productive and structured,â€? he says. “To go somewhere every day, with very certain tasks, is good. It’s also nice to chat to people and sit in a room full of office supplies that I love.â€? For band of three Nous Vous – Jay Clover, Nicholas Burrows and William Edmonds – working as a threesome brings conďŹ dence as well as cameraderie. “Three people are better than two for making decisions and resolving any creative disputes,â€? says Burrows. “There are things that we’d never take on individually that we can do as a three-piece, such as our East London Mobile Workshop (ELMO), but that doesn’t mean we share absolutely everything,â€? continues Edmonds. “It’s important to retain our own individual practices, otherwise it’d be boring and we’d be the same person. That’s what makes it exciting – the potential and the energy created between the three of us.â€? It is also about community in a wider sense for Nous Vous. A joint venture with Studio Weave, Fiona Boundy and Hunt & Gather, ELMO takes them outside the illustration bubble and literally out on the road in a converted Bedford bus. “Being involved in the community – locally, or in a wider sense – is part of why we do what we do,â€? concludes Clover. “We enjoy connecting with people on a personal level, but we wouldn’t ever want to give the impression that we’re always doing that as a seless thing away from ‘work’. We want to be part of the world in general, not part of a clique or sub-culture, and these things really help us to do that.â€?

PRESENT & CORRECT

The founder of Present & Correct – the online store that opened itsÂ ďŹ rst shop earlier this year – shares the secrets of his success Can you put into words your fetish for all things to do with ‘stationery’? It holds so much promise like the ďŹ rst day of a school term Blank pages for ideas are full of potential It can make you feel organised and ready Also it’s an everyday need something aordable that can look ace and feel nice too For me the love is certainly boosted by the fact that I’m a designer so I see print ďŹ nishes and paper types graphic old stamps and envelopes forms and so on To me they are like li le bits of treasure not always to use but to admire You clearly have the entrepreneurial spirit but does the business side of things come naturally? I’m not sure I think it’s got be er with time I never had a business plan I’m quite cautious and didn’t take a loan which in turn almost made me more conďŹ dent knowing that I wasn’t spending anyone else’s money I let things happen as they did which was o$en frustrating I ďŹ nd the tax and VAT system impossible to fathom so I do pay an accountant to work all that

out It’s a small price to pay for sanity – knowing that it is being done properly frees up a lot of head space to think about fun things Three top tips for creating a brilliant business? Number one0 Embrace social media It’s so helpful for a small business but it’s important to share things you like rather than just your work People are already following you so you know they like you and what you do Balance it out Number two0 Find out who you are and do it on purpose I stole this from Dolly Parton but it’s a brilliant quote which rings true Stick to your plan what you are and what you like So many businesses are similar but the people running them are not – and that should show Finally number three0 Quite simply work as hard as you can If you believe that you get out what you put in then that is a very good starting point With a bit of luck you will love what you do anyway so it doesn’t really feel like a job Ultimately it’s important to remember that you can only do your best

Present & Correct stationery0 founder Neal Whi ington’s personal obsession

New pioneers of Dutch design Having rued a few feathers in The Netherlands back in with an opinionated Design Observer piece implying the country’s once-mighty design scene was a shade of its former self leading critic Rick Poynor takes a fresh look at some of the most inspiring boundary-pushing studios at the forefront of Dutch design – as former ďŹ gurehead Wim Crouwel turns

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LEADING DESIGNERS RECOMMEND COMPUTER ARTS‌ Ă…7cadihYf 5fhg ]g U a]ffcf hc h\Y ]bXighfm" 5g h\Y ]bXighfm [cYg k]XYf UbX XYYdYf hc Ă‘bX ]hgY`Z 7cadihYf 5fhg YbXYUjcifg hc Xc h\Uh hcc" =hĂˆg Vch\ f][cfcig UbX \ib[fm" H\YmĂˆfY `]_Y fYU``m \UfXkcf_]b[ a]bYfg Zcf [ccX ghi "Æ BEN MARSHALL, creative director, Landor (London)

TERMS AND CONDITIONS Ćž GUj]b[gĆžWcadUfYXĆžhcĆžVim]b[ƞljÇ?ĆžZi``Ćždf]WYXĆž]ggiYgĆžZfcaĆžI?ĆžbYkgghUbXdžƞH\]gĆžc YfĆž]gĆžZcfĆžbYkĆžI?Ćždf]bhĆžgiVgWf]VYfgĆžcb`mdžƞMciĆžk]``ĆžfYWY]jYĆž ÇˆÇŠĆž]ggiYgĆž]bĆžUĆžmYUfdžƞ:i``ĆžXYhU]`gĆžcZĆžh\YĆž8]fYWhĆž8YV]hĆž[iUfUbhYYĆžUfYĆžUjU]`UV`YĆžidcbĆžfYeiYghdžƞ=ZĆžmciĆžUfYĆžX]ggUh]gĂ‘YXĆž]bĆžUbmĆžkUmĆžmciĆžWUbĆžkf]hYĆžhcĆžigĆžcfĆžWU``ĆžigĆžhcĆžWUbWY`ĆžmcifĆž giVgWf]dh]cbĆžUhĆžUbmĆžh]aYĆžUbXĆžkYĆžk]``ĆžfYZibXĆžmciĆžZcfĆžU``ĆžibaU]`YXĆž]ggiYgdžƞDf]WYgĆžWcffYWhĆžUhĆždc]bhĆžcZĆždf]bhĆžUbXĆžgiV^YWhĆžhcĆžW\Ub[Ydžƞ:cfĆžZi``ĆžhYfagĆžUbXĆžWcbX]h]cbgĆžd`YUgYĆž j]g]hÇ‘ĆžamZUjadžU[#aU[hYfagĆžC YfĆžYbXgÇ‘ĆžÇŠÇˆghĆž>UbiUfmĆžÇ‰Ç‡ÇˆÇ‹

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A CUT ABOVE THE REST Sharing an eclectic sense of humour, Julien Vallée and Eve Duhamel have set up a unique studio that might just be Montreal’s next big thing

WORDS: Garrick Webster PHOTOGRAPHY: Simon Duhamel www simonduhamel com

AT A GL ANCE: VALLÉE DUHAMEL D A T E F O U N D E D : January % N U M B E R O F S T A F F : Four L O C A T I O N : Montreal Canada D I S C I P L I N E S : Video and motion graphics graphic design installations F E A T U R E D P R O J E C T S : Misteur Valaire Smash Pong U R L : www valleeduhamel com

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WorldMags.net Normally placid creatives% when it came to self-promotion Julien VallÊe was prepared to be slapped in the face% while Eve Duhamel was pelted with chunks of watermelon

F

or several decades the Mile End community in Montreal has enjoyed a reputation for creativity and culture Situated on the plateau right next to Mount Royal from which the city gets its name it’s in-between the francophone and anglophone districts and has long been a melting pot of ethnicities The Hasidic Jews Poles and Irish Catholics that originally se led in the quarter today mix with artists actors designers and musicians It’s from Mile End that the band Arcade Fire blasted o on its meteoric rise seven or eight years ago Venture down Avenue de GaspĂŠ and shue up to the second oor at number 2 2 and you’ll ďŹ nd the launch pad for a new but no less creative endeavour Studio 3 is the home of the recently founded design outďŹ t VallĂŠe Duhamel set up by Julien VallĂŠe and Eve Duhamel It has already built a reputation for eclectic video trickery tactile sets ďŹ lled with handmade objects and inventive photography to boot The designers have been collaborating for several years but only decided to formalise arrangements and set up the studio in January % It wasn’t until October that it was oďŹƒcially announced “We met soon a$er school when we’d just both graduated â€? explains VallĂŠe “We both liked each other’s work and started communicating about the possibility of collaborating The ďŹ rst project we worked on together was an exploded television for MTV and we have been working closely ever since We share very similar tastes in design and art and each bring dierent backgrounds to each brief

to hopefully make something unique â€? Duhamel continues0 “The idea for the studio came naturally We were ge ing more and more requests for work in the line of what we had been collaborating on and loved working together so we just did it and it’s been working great since â€? Both partners are from the Canadian province of Quebec and studied at the UniversitĂŠ du QuĂŠbec Ă MontrĂŠal which is also located in the Mile End area Duhamel has a degree in visual media arts while VallĂŠe studied graphic design He’s from Gatineau west of Montreal near the border with Ontario while Duhamel hails from a corn and dairy-farming region about an hourand-a-half out of the city While VallĂŠe brings his graphic designer’s eye to projects she has the art and cra$ skills to put projects into motion “We always work on concept very closely together and then Julien mainly takes care of the creative direction like ďŹ nal modiďŹ cations on the concepts and treatment I work more on the ďŹ nal construction and look of the work I also work more closely with the project management side and Julien is way be er at PR So we try to focus on our strengths but remain exible â€? Duhamel says

BRE AKING THE RULES VallĂŠe and Duhamel have already tackled an abundance of projects each with plenty of visual impact and usually a clever twist or three For instance there’s the video work for American cloud accountancy business Intacct and the music packaging and trailers for Quebec band

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For video work% they love toÂ ďŹ ll their sets with tactile objects% many of which are handmade Even an ad for cloud accounting service Intacct becomes a captivating world

JANUARY 2014

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VA LLÉ E DUHA M E L

PROJECT FOCUS MISTEUR VALAIRE The sounds of Quebec are matched with Vallée Duhamel’s visuals Hailing from Sherbrooke Quebec Misteur Valaire is a five-piece electro-jazz band with an increasing reputation on the Canadian music scene One of Vallée Duhamel’s most recent projects has been to design visuals and packaging for the band’s latest album Bellevue “The band wanted us to create all their visuals from the CD to the LP records the merchandise and elements of their shows ” says co-founder Julien Vallée “They also wanted two small video teasers to announce their album ” The CD packaging features a booklet designed by the studio which includes shapes and forms they’ve made digital elements ice and snow typography and some unusual photography The CD case has been printed with a laser-cut slipcase with pages themed around the tracks It’s something elegant and eclectic for fans of Misteur Valaire Vallée continues “This new album was a major step for the band since it was more mature and subtle musically so we decided to create an entire universe for the album Part of it was shot in vast empty spaces in Quebec’s winter – we went to Eve’s 3Duhamel co-founder4 hometown – and some other big empty industrial spaces in Montreal All the elements come together to create a sum that is more than the parts and reflect the universe we created for them ” “We really like the outcome For the band and for us the aesthetics are new We don’t work with contemplative and dark imagery a lot but we were all happy with the final results ” he says

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STU D I O L I F E

WorldMags.net Studio within a studio5 the Vallée Duhamel workspace is literally a box within the Robocut industrial design studio in Montreal’s creative Mile End district

Misteur Valaire This year’s Reasons to be Creative conference in Brighton opened to a video that Vallée Duhamel created to introduce the speakers The first project that they put together as a studio was the pair’s Smash Pong interactive installation which was on display at the Cincinnati Art Center from March to September this year as part of the On! Handcra$ed Digital Playground “The concept of the exhibition was to allow the spectators to play touch and interact with each piece We decided to create a ping-pong table where the goal was to smash shapes down to get bonus points ” explains Duhamel Vallée continues0 “The opening night was great All rules were li$ed and people were allowed to drink and eat and take flash photography It was a big playground which was amazing to witness ”

EMBR ACING IMPERFECTIONS With the amount of projects coming in right now we’re lucky to have been able to interview the duo “At the moment we’re finishing a video for an Italian fashion company ” explains Duhamel “It’s really different from what we usually do visually and we’re super looking forward to sharing it online ” The studio is also doing all the visuals for the fi$h Chromatic art festival in Montreal – catalogues visual identity signage and more Further afield it’s helping design the interiors for a mall in South Korea The designers’ passports already have numerous

stamps in them too For six months in 3 they pulled up their Québécois roots and relocated to Berlin “We’re not too sure why we went to Berlin ” says Duhamel “We just kept hearing that it was a great time to be a creative in Berlin and were curious We were just out of school with no obligations We just went for it We shared our first studio in Berlin Since then we have been collaborating a lot on our work and sharing studios back in Montreal ” The pair have worked together long enough to trust one another’s decision-making and have learnt to listen to each other’s ideas The best ones are taken to the next stage for the benefit of the client and of the studio itself “One of the things that makes it work well at the studio is that we have very very similar tastes and agree on style ” says Vallée “What is different is how we see things I really have a strong connection with concept and add a lot on an aesthetic level to the concepts ” The notion of drawing cra$ing making and building elements is strong in Vallée Duhamel’s work There is a lot of texture and depth in many of the studio’s projects as well “We were driven away from the computer because we liked what was happening when we were working by hand ” explains Vallée “We like the mistakes or small imperfections that are always present and how when you learn to control them and use them they become what makes the work special ” Duhamel continues0 “Maybe that’s what people like about it – that it’s more accessible More humble too maybe ”

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This still from a striking piece for MTV Hits Australia incorporated the station’s pink brand colour with a new way of creating a geometric matrix in a live set

JANUARY 2014

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PROJECT FOCUS SMASH PONG A table tennis installation with an original spin – smashing down shapes to win bonus points One of the projects that Vallée Duhamel founders Julien Vallée and Eve Duhamel are most proud of so far is an interactive installation created for an exhibition in Cincinnati Visitors to the On! Handcra ed Digital Playground show had the opportunity to play their reinvention of table tennis Smash Pong “The idea was to create a piece that people could touch play and interact with – a piece that would defy the more classic ways of seeing and interacting with art ” says Duhamel The exhibition ran from March until September and it offered them the chance to work on a piece out there in the physical world that people would interact with rather than look at in print or online “Since we both find that the most interesting part of that game is the smash we designed the entire table around that idea We created a ping-pong table where people had to smash vertical shapes down in order to gain extra points The table came along with its own scoreboard and a set of six custom paddles ” she says The simple colourful geometric shapes simply stick up out of the table until they’re smashed down The paddles are unorthodox too – one even has a hole through its centre Duhamel continues “We loved working on the ping-pong table We had loads of ideas and we hope to get a brief someday where a store or something like that would want a lot of custom tables and sports accessories That would just be amazing ”

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VA LLÉ E DUHA M E L

STU D I O L I F E

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The UK conference Reasons to be Creative kicked off in September with Vallée Duhamel’s intro video% which highlighted the names of all the speakers in their own inimitable fashion

It’s not hard for them to find inspiration both in the studio and the surrounding neighbourhoods in Montreal The space they work in is shared with an industrial design studio called Robocut “Their studio is a small factory with a lot of materials and machinery like laser cu ers and %D printers ” says Vallée “We literally built our studio inside of their studio So we work in a clean li le white box full of windows surrounded by all these machines It’s a very dynamic atmosphere and everybody is free to just do their thing and have fun together ”

OUT AND ABOUT At a time when the city’s great rival Toronto has seen a lot of growth and a flourishing design scene it’s studios like these that highlight Montreal’s own ongoing creative scene It has long been called North America’s European city “Montreal was the first North American city to be called a UNESCO City of Design and it shows ” adds Vallée “There are a lot of big and small studios a lot of great freelancers specialising in a lot of fields and working together We love to work here and be part of what’s going on in the city ” You’ll hear a whole load of Montreal music being played in the space – Misteur Valaire Fanny Bloom Arcade Fire We Are Wolves Duchess Says Handsome Furs Half Moon Run The Unicorns Miracle Fortress Plants and Animals Think about Life and Wolf Parade Plus others from further afield such as Poolside Kindness Bombay

Bicycle Club Michael Trent Alt J Two Door Cinema Club and A Tribe Called Quest And out and about the pair enjoy visits to Clark and Espace to the Belgo Building – which houses many small galleries – as well as Montreal’s big galleries0 Musée d’Art Contemporain and the Musée des Beaux Arts There are some great restaurants nearby as well “Magpie has the best pizza ever and the wine is also great Sparrow is a super-cool li le restaurant-bar to go to and drink cheap wine or nice drinks a$er dinner La Buve e chez Simone also has the best food All three of these places are our favourites ” reveals Duhamel There are four designers in total at Vallée Duhamel and they collaborate with a wider circle of about 2 creatives “We love to work with Olivier Charland who is a very good designer just freshly out of college Julien also likes to co-direct with fellow director Karim Zariffa We love to collaborate with Philippe Savard at Robocut He always comes up with the best and craziest ideas We recently started to work with Carolyne De Bellefeuille who is a great art director ” The future says Vallée looks pre y simple More of the same0 “Ideally we’ll continue what we’re doing now and be lucky enough to work with clients that give us their trust and allow us to have a lot of creative freedom to keep on working on projects we love ”

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With their eclectic tastes and a sense of humour that’s unique even in Quebec% Vallée Duhamel is the next big thing in Canadian design

impact.

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Introducing the‌

Impact Conference A one day event on how to achieve excellence and consistency in branding across all formats and market sectors.

Exclusive insights from client-side commissioners at the world’s biggest brands, including: Jessica Felby Head of Design for Carlsberg Group James Sommerville VP Global Design at The Coca-Cola Company Sunita Yeomans Head of Creative at Tesco Joe Ferry Head of Global Design at Mars

06 March 2014 LONDON FILM MUSEUM SE1 7BP www.impactconf.com

With thanks to our partner

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@Impact_conf WorldMags.net

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M AKE M ORE OF YOUR DOW NT I M E WorldMags.net

JANUARY 2014

TURN UP YOUR DOWNTIME Downtime doesn’t need to be wasted time – we spoke to four creatives who turned their free hours into something equally as fulďŹ lling and creatively productive as their day jobs WORDS: Ed Ricke s ILLUSTRATION: Joe Waldron www joewaldron co uk

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ork to live or live to work? For many designers this isn’t a relevant question even if they weren’t earning a living from their creative endeavours they’d probably be pursuing them anyway Having a job which also happens to be your main passion in life is of course a blessing But if you’re not careful it could turn out to be something of a curse too as you might ďŹ nd yourself ďŹ lling every waking hour with work While it can sometimes be diďŹƒcult to say no to paid work – especially if you’re a freelancer – ensuring that you have some time to focus on your own projects experiment with new ideas or just do nothing at all is vital for wellbeing and creativity This is perhaps even more important when the downtime doesn’t come through choice So how do other designers ďŹ ll their downtime creatively?

S T E V E P R I C E PLAN-B STUDIO

Steve founded Plan-B Studio in as a way of providing exibility in his work Its mo o is ‘Love and support’, which Steve applies to both his work and his private life. www plan-bstudio com

D A V E Y S P E N S B OAT ST U D I O

Davey is part of Boat Studio, an â€˜optimistic creative studio’ in London, and together with his wife Erin co-founded Boat Magazine, with a biannual focus on a speciďŹ c city. www boat-studio com

Famously Stefan Sagmeister took the decision to close down his studio every seven years and take a year o on sabbatical “I thought it might be helpful to cut o ďŹ ve retirement years and intersperse them with working years â€? he explained in a talk for TED “That’s clearly important for myself but probably even more important is that the work that comes out of those years ows back into the company and into society at large â€? As an example to prove that downtime or holiday doesn’t necessarily equate to ‘wasted’ time he pointed out that global corporation !M allows its engineers per cent of their paid working time to pursue projects of their own It was as a result of just such periods that two of the company’s most successful products – Scotch tape and sticky notes – were developed The same is true of design  Ultimately Sagmeister said everything his studio

E D W A T T O STREET

Creative director at O Street design studio in Glasgow and a contributor to FormFi yFive, Ed also recently founded MakeMa er to connect artists with worthy causes. www ostreet co uk

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MEMO AKTEN M A R S H M A L L O W LASER FEAST Memo is one third of Marshmallow Laser Feast, a creative studio that blends art and technology to produce interactive installations and shows for the likes of McLaren. www marshmallowlaserfeast com

INDUSTRY ISSUES

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Q&A MEMO AKTEN The adventurous nature of Marshmallow Laser Feast’s work necessitates a lot of research during downtime as co-founder Memo Akten explains Marshmallow Laser Feast MLF is Memo Akten Robin McNicholas and Barney Steel a trio working at the intersection of art and technology creating spectacular shows and installations both for commercial clients and as works of art We spoke to co-founder Akten to ďŹ nd out how staying motivated and curious during downtime has led to some of the studio’s best work Do you have any examples where playing about with technology in ‘downtime’ has directly inuenced a commercial project? Our projects such as Body Paint Gold and Webcam Piano were all personal and self-initiated Before them there were countless experiments and demos which led up to them A lot of that personal experimentation made its way into commissioned work My experiments with uid simulations and physics made its way into an opera – My Secret Heart

What’s your best advice for keeping focused during your downtime? One of the best pieces of advice I’ve found is to keep yourself inspired I started doing what I do before the days of the web In those days you weren’t bombarded with inspiration you had to work to ďŹ nd it Also give yourself projects and deadlines This one is quite hard to stick to I have probably about a hundred personal projects I want to do right now Anything else? Don’t be lazy Seriously Don’t watch crap on TV Don’t waste time If you want to do something don’t look for excuses just get o your arse and do it

JANUARY 2014

designed in the seven years following his ďŹ rst sabbatical originated in that year o

Few people have the luxury of being able to take o a year at time of course but downtime doesn’t have to be as radical as that One thing that is certain is the importance of having some in the ďŹ rst place While that may seem obvious there’s a certain breed of designer – the freelancer in particular – to whom the thought is anathema You can see it on their blogs and Twi er feeds# almost boasting that they get only ďŹ ve hours’ sleep talking to international clients in the middle of the night complaining that they never have a free moment and so on  Of course this is understandable Freelancers need to appear to be busy at all times if only to prove they’re successful for their clients – but it’s when this is carried to extremes that the possibility of burnout and plain old exhaustion becomes very real

A LABOUR OF LOVE This is a subject that’s very close to the heart of Steve Price of Plan-B Studio who is himself self-employed and has taken a stand against increasing workloads for decreasing money “I know freelancers working -hour days week-in week-out â€? he says “There’s o$en 4an a itude of6 ‘put up and shut up’ or a fear of not being invited back The same has o$en happened with clients and projects of my own There’s no charm in constantly being ‘too busy’ It projects a lack of personal and professional time management7 the same is true of clients â€? As a result Price has consciously done the opposite of what might be expected He’s put up his day rate and will not take on any job he feels asks too much of his time for too li le reward or where he thinks the clients might become too demanding As he admits it’s been hard# “Those with whom I would have worked for free before who did sometimes commission me no longer call â€? he gives as one example

On the other hand his personal life and productivity have been massively enriched “I work less I live more I’m

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M AKE M ORE OF YOUR DOW NT I M E WorldMags.net

healthier than I’ve ever been and my ideas work and outlook have never been richer â€? he enthuses “I sketch more I write more I think more I earn less I’ve go en used to saying ‘I’ve never been poorer yet spiritually richer’ which sounds egotistical whimsical and vomit-inducing Apologies I hate myself too‌â€? Boat Magazine is a perfect example of what can happen when a project born through downtime grows into something much bigger Boat is a biannual travel and culture publication that travels to a dierent international city for each issue and invites writers photographers and artists to contribute their ideas on what makes the place unique So far it has visited the likes of Detroit London Athens and Reykjavik

But Boat isn’t really a travel magazine – it’s a labour of love launched by Davey Spens and his wife Erin of Boat Studio In a slow period in its ďŹ rst year the studio made the decision that while its clients were o on their winter breaks it would use the free time productively to “embark on a project or go on an adventureâ€? as Davey Spens explains The pair decided to travel to Sarajevo

At that time they could ďŹ nd very li le information about the city beyond rather hackneyed images of the recent war So they hired a house and invited locals to talk about their stories and once back in England turned these into a magazine

“It certainly wasn’t screamingly commercial â€? says Spens “A biannual publication with an unhelpful name very broad content areas focused on a very speciďŹ c subject – and then there’s factoring in the travel costs and the time we spend in the ďŹ eld when we can’t work on paying-client projects â€? But the point he says was to do something dierent to create something outside of the studio’s normal work and free from convention

By Boat’s own reckoning per cent of its time as a studio is spent working on the magazine *indeed half the team work on it full-time now+ yet it contributes only  per cent to its turnover So why bother? “It’s been good at bringing amazing people across our path â€? says Spens

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR DOWNTIME How to make sure you have enough ‘free’ time – and the best way to use it DON’T BE A MARTYR Make sure you have some downtime to begin with If you’re an employee take all the holiday that’s available to you Don’t be a hero about regularly working hours a day for a week – it’ll come back to bite you If you’re self-employed build in periods for rest or personal projects

HAVE A BREAK A further reďŹ nement of this idea is to try and ensure that you have at least a small period each day when you’re not working â€“ even if it’s only at lunchtime Instead of shovelling down  sandwich at your desk go out for a walk if possible Sketch  people-watch scribble down ideas go for a run or to gym  Whatever works for you

TRY NOT TO PANIC If you’re a freelancer and for whatever reason the client work just isn’t coming in don’t despair and don’t panic While still chasing work use the time to experiment with new styles and concepts This is your chance to get creative away from briefs and deadlines – make the most of it

PLAN AHEAD If you run a design studio yourself with employees consider scheduling in a day every month when each of them can pursue personal ideas and experiments go out to events to network or even visit other agencies Then take the time to discuss the outcomes of these days and see if the results can be used to progress your own business

TAKE ON PERSONAL PROJECTS Consider embarking on a regular personal project which you commit to for a year or perhaps less – for example taking a dierent portrait photo every day or designing a new logo each week The subject and frequency are up to you7 the idea is to stick with it and exercise your creativity however you like

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INDUSTRY ISSUES

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“It has brought in a few new projects – though not that many – and it’s a blank canvas for us to make something we’re really passionate about It also makes our studio happier It’s happy-making ” Creating printing and publishing a self-funded -page magazine from scratch every six months might not be everyone’s idea of ‘happy-making’ but the point is that no ma er how fulfilling your job might be you need a complementary activity to get away from it now and then

WORTHY CAUSES Ed Wa decided to channel his creativity into trying to make a real difference in society – although as was the case with Boat the project startedalmost by accident He’s the founder of MakeMa er which aims to match creative projects with worthwhile causes A creative director at O Street design agency in Glasgow and a contributor to FormFi$yFive Wa was recently asked to exhibit some work for Nomas Projects in Dundee “It’s a unique mini-gallery format of four windows displaying directly onto the street accompanied by a talk ” he explains “I loved the idea of ge ing art out of the gallery and felt that simply showing off or repurposing my commercial work wasn’t really appropriate

“At the same time I was u erly shocked by the stories I’d heard that had led my church to open a food bank called Storehouse dismayed at the welfare cuts and

just motivated to do something to help ” Thus the gallery became a window shop selling original work by Wa with profits going to the Storehouse and Dundee Food Bank

It’s the first of what he hopes will be an ongoing series of projects involving other designers “Some excellent designers and creatives have been in touch to say they would like to be involved and I’m just considering what to do next ” he adds “So if you are reading this and it’s sparked off a li le idea just drop me a line…” MakeMa er has proven to be much more timeconsuming than Wa anticipated – to the point where he’s now working four days a week with O Street and one on MakeMa er As well as the help this will bring to charities Wa has found other benefits from his side project

“I now have to get all my other work done in four days – which sounds like a negative but it’s good just for developing discipline ” he says “It’s made me realise that my instinct is o$en the best decision maker Don’t dwell Just do Try it then come back and cra$ it ” As all of these inspiring projects demonstrate downtime – whether it’s enforced or otherwise – needn’t be a creative dead-end or wasted time – and indeed in many cases can lead to whole new avenues of thought As Steve Price comments “No one is indispensable – the world will not stop if you leave for two weeks Also without taking a proper break how can you expect to be anywhere near the top of your game?”

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JANUARY 2014

CORRECTION Our Industry Issues feature last month incorrectly a ributed quotes to Dyson’s Paul Cunningham They were supplied by Paul Crabtree at the University of the West of England Apologies to Dyson and UWE for the mix-up% and for any confusion caused

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P R O M OT I ON

JANUARY 2014

HP ZED BRINGS LONDON’S CREATIVE COMMUNITY TOGETHER Creative professionals from the capital and beyond found a unique place to hang out this autumn. Find out what you missed and how you can get involved next time around... e’ve all heard about the pop-up shop phenomenon but have you ever been invited to a pop-up design studio? That’s what creative professionals in London and beyond had the opportunity to enjoy throughout September and October thanks to HP providers of powerful workstations for the design industry HP ZED – a pop-up studio for the creative community – recenty landed in the capital’s trendy Soho district and oered a variety of creative professionals and design agencies the chance to meet learn network and try out the latest workstations from HP Keen to reach as many designers as possible HP went the extra mile to make it easy to get involved With events scheduled throughout both daytimes and evenings across the four weeks even the busiest and most in-demand creatives could ďŹ nd a window in their schedules to get themselves over to an event And with free entry to every single one it was a diďŹƒcult proposition to turn down

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To tempt designers further HP persuaded a number of top industry professionals and agencies to take part in talks workshops and special events in a packed programme focused around motion graphics animation and D artistry And then something fantastic and unexpected happened While those who came beneďŹ ted greatly from the education and inspiration on oer it wasn’t just a one-way stream The unique nature of the space fostered a relaxed light-hearted atmosphere that genuinely enabled creatives at all levels to interact in a free and easy manner “What excited me about HP ZED was the idea of bringing all the people in our industry together in one place â€? said visual eects company Framestore’s Mike McGee “To have them talk share ideas look at one another’s work and just to share the excitement about what we do â€? VFX guru Frazer Churchill agreed “Events like this are great because it’s hard for people to get access to practitioners â€? he said “We’re all very busy And so it’s

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good that people can come along and talk to people who are actually working in the business and ďŹ nd out what really happens â€? Of course it wasn’t just talking – there was plenty of ‘doing’ as well Six leading creative agencies – Mummu Golden Wolf Fred & Eric Blackmeal Territory and Animade – rolled up at HP ZED to take part in a unique speed-animation challenge dubbed ‘London’s Hero’ Organised by New York company Cut&Paste the idea was for each to create a -second clip that shows a dierent stage of a new superhero’s life from baby to senior On a series of nights in front of a live audience each team was given just ďŹ ve hours to create their clip A tough challenge for the animators involved and a real treat for onlookers who got an insight into the processes of some of the industry’s top animators You can see the results over on the Creative Bloq website Visitors were treated to practical demos of some of the latest tech in the ďŹ eld including A er Eects CC Premiere Pro CC DS Max and Flame from top

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agencies who are actually using it including The Foundry Analog and My Li le Eye TV Meanwhile a series of inspiring and insightful talks were also on offer to inspire designers and get the creative juices flowing Highlights included Alex Huguet from Passion Pictures who discussed how to bring a character sketch to life Andy Morely of Imaginarium on motion capture MPC’s Adam Davis on creating VFX for World War Z and Milk on its work for Doctor Who series seven to name but a few With HP ZED HP had set out to help creatives ‘turn imagination into reality’ and it certainly delivered But if you couldn’t make it – or this is the first time you’ve heard about it – don’t fret We’re pre y sure this isn’t the last we’ve heard of HP ZED keep an eye on the events calendar pages in the mag for details of upcoming events as well as creativebloq com and the Computer Arts Twi er feed where we’ll be posting news of any new dates for your diary as soon as it reaches our ears Visit hp co uk/zed to find out more COMPUTERARTS CREATIVEBLOQ COM - 75 -

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P RO MO TI O N

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OUT OF A SEA OF GREY From Jean-Paul Gaultier to BjÜrk to M/M Paris: how, against the odds, Leslie David discovered graphic design and went on to work with the brightest lights of the fashion world

L E S L I E D A V I D Paris-based graphic designer, art director and illustrator Leslie David specialises in brand image and graphic design for fashion and culture brands She has worked for the likes of  ChloĂŠ Hermès and Chanel and in was one of the Art Directors Club’s Young Guns www leslie-david com

WORDS: Ruth Hamilton PHOTOGRAPHY: Fred Lahache www fredlahache com

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Below David in her studio part of a flat in central Paris she shares with freelancer friends There is a kitchen living room and each has their own ‘bedroom’ to work in

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large, typically Parisian flat in the city’s second arrondissement is where Leslie David spends her working days. Outside, businessmen dressed head-to-toe in grey fill the street on the way to their offices, but inside is a different story. David’s approach, both in life and work, is far from grey. Past projects have seen the designer scraping thick rainbows of paint across old black-and-white photos, she gets giddy over big production budgets because they afford her the chance to go crazy with print finishes, and she spends her spare time hunting for new tools to play with in the craft section of children’s shops. We caught up with her to find out how she went from a childhood growing up in a small town in the south of France with artist parents, poring over glossy fashion mags and harbouring an obsession with JeanPaul Gaultier, to an award-winning graphic designer and illustrator working with some of the biggest names in high-end fashion.

Art has played a big role in your life: you studied it for a time, and have also staged your own exhibition. For you, how clear is the distinction between art and graphic design? When I do self-initiated projects or exhibitions, I don’t pretend to be an artist, I don’t have this ambition. I have been fed by art, and especially graphic art, during my childhood. This is now a very intuitive means of expression, and I use it to help other people in their communication. It might be weird but I really like to have a brief and boundaries in my work, I think that’s challenging and it helps me to contain my creativity. Some of your most distinctive work features techniques associated with fine art, using paint and crayons. What does this bring to your designs? I like to play and mix old and new techniques, like painting on old pictures. It doesn’t always work, but it always brings something unpredictable and inspiring. I love art and craft supplies, and when

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I travel I always try to visit the art supply shops. I like the children’s department in particular for crazy things, like colour-changing pens, finger paints or stamps. Last summer I found spray pens on a market in the south of France. A guy was doing a demo, I stayed 30 minutes looking at him, he was so good – although he was doing very ugly drawings! It seemed very simple. When I came back home I was really sad, because they were of course actually superdifficult to use. You originally studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. What prompted you to switch degrees? I stayed only one year there, because I realised I needed to learn to do something with my hands. The learning there was too conceptual for me. There we were doing exercises like drawing with the left hand, upside-down, drawing while you are screaming or with blind eyes. It was very fun, but I didn’t think I was really learning something useful – I thought I had to learn how to draw or paint

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LE SLI E DAV I D

“I HAVE BEEN FED BY ART DURING MY CHILDHOOD IT’S A VERY INTUITIVE MEANS OF EXPRESSION”

Above and top right For this range of postcards created for concept store Cole e David applied textured paint on to old black-and-white images of Paris

This limited-edition packaging for a fragrance by Anna Rivka showcases David’s love of expensive print finishes

David art directed this publication from Nike She says she likes working with big brands because they can be more willing to try new things

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I N CO NV E R S AT I ON

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MY BIGGEST CHALLENGE

FINDING TIME TO JUST BE CREATIVE

For freelancer designers, there are a million other tasks that need taking care of daily. Leslie David shares how she ďŹ nds time to focus on being creative What I love about freelance is that it gives me freedom Of course it’s not easy – I work much more since I became a freelancer than when I was employed I work at night I work at the weekends I don’t have a lot of free time even though I’m free to have all the free time I want! As a freelancer you need to do much more than your actual job – in fact you have several jobs at the same time Every day you have to do administrative work PR work plan ahead and keep track of all the projects and spend a lot of time with clients on the phone That’s why I love working during weekends – no phone calls no email it’s great

During the week if I spend per cent of my time in a day creating things then I’m happy Fortunately in the last few months I’ve got a super assistant LaĂŻs and this situation’s ge ing much be er That’s the only solution I’ve found She’s a graphic designer and she helps me with everything She does research takes care of the website contacts clients sends ďŹ les to the printer and when we have a new brief we now work together on it I trust her opinion  it’s really nice to have a second set of eyes a$er being alone for a few years  Before I got my assistant it was just a case of trying to be organised I don’t really have any tips for staying focused – ignoring emails phone and Facebook is a good idea but I just can’t I always wanted to have a special day for meetings because I lose too much time running around Paris for meetings But it’s like saying you’ll go to the gym every Monday – there is always a cool opening a dinner a storm that makes it impossible

I am always working on things at the same time While I’m working on a project I’ll have an idea for another so I juggle all day long It drives me crazy but it’s the way I work and it works quite well for me

“We’re like roommates – we o$en stay late together and drink wine� says David of her studio friends

before experiencing this kind of stu. After one year I went to L’École des Art DÊcoratifs de Strasbourg, which was famous for its academic learning. And it was true, we had hours of life drawing lessons every week, which made me so happy.

to me what ‘gay’ means – I was really disappointed! I had perfumes and fashion ads from my mum’s Marie Claire everywhere in my bedroom. I never really wanted to work for fashion, because at school, fashion – and advertising too – was considered like evil. When I was a teenager I started to buy magazines of my own: Vogue, Crash, Purple, and The Face, which was my favourite. I still have these old magazines, but they are like lace now. I realise now that because of Jean-Paul Gaultier I discovered BjĂśrk – I was a big fan, and I think at the time I was the only one to know her in my small school – and then because of BjĂśrk I discovered M/M Paris and so discovered the job of a graphic designer. And I realised this job was exactly what I wanted to do.

You’ve spoken of your love of fashion when you were younger, and wanting to become a stylist at one point... At 10 I was so in love with Jean-Paul Gaultier that my dad had to explain

Since, you’ve worked with the likes of Chanel and Givenchy. What is it about this sector that attracts you? I love the story of these historical brands, I love that they have been

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around for ages. I love that when I read Vogue or Marie Claire from the 50s, there are ads from brands still existing today, and they are still making girls dream. However, I’m not the kind of girl who dreams of luxury products, I almost don’t have any and I don’t really care. To be honest, the other thing with working for these kinds of clients is the budget they have for production. It’s so nice not to hear: “Foil stamping? No, lets do regular CMYKâ€? or the usual: “We have a really small budget for the production, don’t go too crazy.â€? I hear that every day and it’s depressing, I want to go crazy with printing and papers. How do you put your own stamp on work for a client with such a deďŹ ned aesthetic identity? Is there still space for pushing boundaries? In fact, often, big luxury brands are more interested in bringing something new and with a strong aesthetic than smaller brands. They have already a strong identity that

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LE SLI E DAV I D

The accompanying booklet features segments of the scarf designs

One of a collection of three scarves designed by David for Andrea Crews

people know well, they don’t need to stay focused on it, they can try things and surprise their customers. Of course you can’t do whatever you want, but I always find a way to express myself and enjoy it. You also regularly work with music clients. Do you find this is this a different kind of experience? Creating artwork for music is, in general, a real team effort with the musicians. We are not working on selling a product, we are selling a person, or a group of people’s art, which is really different to working for a brand. There are more emotions. Some artists are really easy and let me be quite free to propose things, others have a precise idea of what they want. Getting inspired by music is also really different to getting inspired by images, or a classic brief. What is really exciting and emotional is to listen to music that is still a secret, a work in progress. I’m working very closely with an artist who is building up his work at the

same time, that’s really fascinating. I love to listen to those songs before everybody else.

Playing With Fire – The Handler painting set against the backdrop of a fractal lake and sold as a series of hand-signed ‘mini giclée’ prints

“It’s nice to have a real product in your hand at the end ” says David

Your style is quite varied – some of it is very geometric, while other works are expressive and unstructured. Do you feel you have a particular aesthetic that is distinctive to you? My style is built on inspiration like psychedelic 70s posters and geometric shapes from the art deco period. It’s not a matter of choosing between square and circle shapes, it’s a matter of melting them all together. If I had to pick a project that represents me best, it would be the collaboration two years ago with the French collective Andrea Crews, that was a series of scarves. The frame was designed with many geometric layers, and the heart was more expressive with collages of shells, or a sunset and sea landscape. I was very happy with project because more than a graphic picture, it was a wearable, moving object. It’s nice to have a real product in your hand at the end of a project.

The artwork for Creaminal’s Lacrème compilation uses geometric pa erns and die-cuts so the design changes as the inner sleeve is pulled out

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I NT R O P RO J E C TS

Computer Arts goes behind the scenes with world-leading designers as they reveal their working processes…

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO! Get great access to top studios with The Designer Series Page 10

MINTLET CARD BRANDING: TRAVELS IN STYLE Behind the scenes with Radim Malinic as he develops the branding for a new pre-payment card, with a logo that can be taken apart like pieces in a puzzle 84

WIRED UK ILLUSTRATIONS: A WORLD OF BIG IDEAS Cruschiform reveals how kaleidoscopic illustrations for 91 Wired were developed

NISSAN LEAF INSTALLATION: OUR FRIENDS ELECTRIC How Projection Advertising created an immersive driving experience for a new electric car promo 94

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PROJECTS

MINTLET CARD BRANDING: TRAVELS IN STYLE With little more than a name to work with, Radim Malinic at Brand Nu set about creating a colourful identity for new multi-currency pre-payment card Mintlet

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PROJECT FACTFILE BRIEF Mintlet approached Brand Nu’s Radim Malinic with an open brief to create the logo branding and packaging designs for new multi-currency pre-payment card Mintlet CLIENT Mintlet www mintlet com CREATIVE Radim Malinic Brand Nu www brandnu co uk PROJECT DURATION One month LIVE DATE March

Radim Malinic in his London studio experimenting with dierent executions of the logo he created for Mintlet

THE DESIGN BRIEF Radim Malinic

RADIM MALINIC GRAPHIC DESIGNER BRAND NU Czech-born Radim is an awardwinning freelance art director illustrator and graphic designer based in London He established the name Brand Nu in and has worked for clients including Coca-Cola Orange PlayStation O and Heineken

Mintlet is a new pre-paid, multi-currency payment card aimed at travellers. Supporting a range of foreign currencies at launch, the idea is that it could potentially become a replacement for traveller’s cheques. The card will be sold in shops including Boots, Tesco and Morissons. Users can load money onto it using an app or via Payzone, and if they lose the card they can simply log on and disable it. Mintlet uses the MasterCard system, which is normally associated with credit cards, but essentially this works in the opposite way – the user can only spend the money they’ve actually put on it. The client knew what the product needed to do from day one. They knew it was going to be called Mintlet and they had been working on putting the necessary infrastructure in place behind the scenes. COMPUTERARTS CREATIVEBLOQ COM - 84 -

On the visual side, though, they were pretty much at the starting line when they contacted me – Mintlet head Leon Leondiades sent an email enquiry after seeing my portfolio online. At that point, they had the name, but no actual visuals. I told Mintlet I would be interested in helping them to ďŹ nd the right designs and solutions that would speak to a wider demographic, and they really liked the sound of that. They could see that, as well as having something to bring to the table from a visual point of view, I also had an understanding of what they needed to achieve. The brief was very open and they were very receptive to ideas. When starting an identity project, I always begin by putting myself in the customer’s position. What would I like? What would appeal to me if I saw it on the shelf? I knew the kinds of shops it was likely to be sold in and I knew the concept would appeal to travellers, so that was my starting point.

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DI A R YËš 1 : B R A ND NU

PROJECT AT A GLANCE From the starting point of just a name Radim Malinic explains how he created Mintlet’s brand identity

1 Initial ideas

2 Logo tests

3 Material world

The client didn’t have any solid ideas of what they wanted so I started with a moodboard – a PDF of colourful pictures that summed up where I thought the art direction should go I felt we had the opportunity to create something with the longevity of the product in mind

Once we agreed on the art direction which was colourful vibrant and energetic I created one logo design and produced a series of test versions We needed something as easily recognisable as the MasterCard logo and it needed to be exible colourful and fun to look at

I like to put ideas onto a T-shirt so I created a mock-up It sounds nonsensical – why would you put a ďŹ nancial logo on a T-shirt? But it really worked I was showing how the logo would look in dierent scenarios and giving the client a complete solution from the start

4 Picking the palette

5 Clear not corporate

6 A versatile logo

I played around with colours and tried to go from using basic colours to something brighter and more ownable and customisable We decided to use the blue yellow and green pale e for the brand colours – everyone agreed because we felt this would speak to the chosen demographic

The typography was created with clear legibility and modern curves in mind so it didn’t look corporate or alienate the customer I believe there are two sides to a logo# you’ve got the icon device and the font Both need to be strong – the font needs to be conďŹ dent and authoritative on its own

I didn’t necessarily think that the logo would work so well as an outline right at the start I wanted to symbolise rolling hills and the sunrise in an abstract way in the shapes I used – the aim being to insinuate a sense of positivity about what will happen when you use the card

7 Packaging design

8 Full visual system

9 Ready to launch

Once the logo and colours were agreed I moved on to creating the packaging It took a while before I was happy with it as I needed to strike the right balance between the branding and other elements I ended up deleting everything I’d done so far and starting again with a blank canvas

The idea of using small particles came from the T-shirt mock-up I created at the start of the project# they’re taken from pieces of the logo With that concept in place I could perfect the packaging and card designs and show how the visual system would work in other media

Everything was signed o at the end to ensure the client was per cent happy with the full package I created four card designs using the particle device and the client also has the plain navy blue card that I designed earlier in the process The white card will go on sale ďŹ rst in March

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PROJECTS

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WORK IN PROGRESS

Digital mock-ups show how the branding could look on the iPhone – it was vital to consider all future uses

An early take on the tag line

Outline version of the final logo

The design process took a month because I spent two weeks thinking about it. I like to take the dog for a walk and look at various things around me – cars in eyecatching colours, or striking architecture. I own about 21 pairs of trainers in different colours because I might feel like wearing a particular colour on a given day. It’s almost like a part of my personality – I need variation in life, which influences my daily decisions. I only presented one logo idea to the client because I believe there’s just one solution for a particular problem at any one time. I started approaching projects in that way several years ago. Rather than producing a 10-page PDF with 10 different ideas, I might do a 10-page PDF with one idea and explain why I believe in it. It can be creative suicide to give clients too many options, as they lose track of what they’re trying to achieve. I tried out everything at the start, while doing the branding proposal, which gave us a massive head-start – we knew where we were going even though lots of things changed as the project went on. I demonstrated how the logo would potentially work in different scenarios and gave the client a fully worked-out solution. I was able to show them that this shape worked in black and white or as a silhouette, for example. You can’t design a logo in isolation and then start thinking about future uses – it’s not the client’s job to imagine what it’s going to look like in the end. Putting the logo on a T-shirt proved to be a masterstroke. I had done that for a few clients before, starting with a project where I took over a company rebrand from a designer who pitched 18 logo ideas and had them all rejected. Once the logo was more or less agreed in its initial form, I started work on designing the packaging for the card. However, the client always had the option to take a step back if we needed.

INITIAL IDEAS FOR THE PROJECT FINDING A BALANCED AND EFFECTIVE COLOUR SCHEME PROVED A TRICKY PART OF THE BRANDING PROJECT

I produced several different options for colour schemes at the start I wanted the branding to use a colour combination that would be easily digested by customers and wasn’t too alien or too stern

We seriously considered using the teal pink red and maroon pale e but that felt too exclusive In the end blue yellow and green were chosen as we felt this scheme would speak to the chosen demographic

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I originally wanted to use a full-blown rainbow on the packaging but it just didn’t work when I tried it I realised I needed to strip things back to their bare bones and do something more subtle and suggestive

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DI A R YËš 1 : B R A ND NU

THE PERFECT PACKAGE ARCHIEVING THE RIGHT BLEND OF BRANDING ELEMENTS AND INFORMATION ON THE CARD’S PACKAGING WAS A CAREFUL BALANCING ACT STEP The client supplied the die-cut templates, so I knew the packaging was around twice the size of the actual card. At ďŹ rst, I tried to use a rainbow as the background and weave the dierent elements into it, but it just didn’t look right.

STEP

STEP I knew I didn’t want the packaging to look cheesy or dumbed down. I experimented with sizing in order to ďŹ nd the right balance between the branding and other elements and information that needed to be included. STEP I ended up deleting everything and starting again from the ground up. I didn’t want to diminish the brand’s personality just because it needed to be readable on the shelf. STEP

At this point I remembered the T-shirt mock-up from my initial proposal. In this, I had used small particles taken from the logo, taken apart like pieces in Jenga. This worked perfectly – it’s playful and subtle, and it’s a way of making the visual system tie in with the logo. STEP

STEP

STEP

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PROJECTS

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CONCLUSION Mintlet is a financial product, but it’s a part of your lifestyle and it shares your values – it symbolises having the freedom to do whatever you want. So the design needed to be inclusive and fun and it was always going to be far more than just a logo. The client reacted positively to my ideas. They felt they were in safe hands and they could see I was experienced. Over time, I’ve learned that my clients feel confident because I’m confident, and that’s reassuring and infectious. I worked on the logo, packaging and card designs in roughly that order, but it was all signed off at the end as one complete system. That way, the client had the freedom to go back a step and change things if they weren’t 100 per cent happy at any point. I find that otherwise clients can find the process a bit daunting – it makes things much easier if they don’t feel pressured. If you guide them through it and give them options, they feel more-or-less in charge. The final creative includes four card designs using the particle device, as well as the plain navy blue card design that was created earlier in the project. None of the card and logo designs were discarded, just put aside for possible future use. Mintlet gave me the opportunity to create something really nice and I produced far more than what they were expecting. I approached the whole project with confidence and made sure we could imagine the system working in every possible medium. I’ve shown them that what they’ve got is really versatile, which stopped them from having doubts. I believe this is something people won’t have seen on the high street before – it’s not too trendy or ‘of the moment’. It’s something that could have come out five years ago or in five years’ time and be equally relevant.

PROJECT SOUNDTRACK RADIM MALINIC’S WORKING SOUNDTRACK IS FILLED WITH FINDS FROM HIS DECADE SPENT AS A DJ

Two of the finished card designs – five have been created so far

Malinic created a flexible visual system as the final logos show

The eye-catching packaging should compete well on shop shelves

FAT FREDDY’S DROP BLACKBIRD I’ve liked this New Zealand collective for % years I saw them live recently and they were great They make really long tunes – they’ll take a groove and really make it work so there’s nothing you can add

KILO KISH NAVY MELO-X REMIX I’ve got this track because I’m a fan of MeLo-X I was a DJ for years and I like variety – I have about tracks in my iTunes library This song makes you feel warm inside and the lyrics are really quite random

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ROMARE THE BLUES IT BEGAN IN AFRICA I found this producer through the Part-Time Heroes podcast. I love it for its bone-shaking baseline. It’s my drumming track – I use my Wacom as a drum when I’m waiting for files to save or PDFs to be created.

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LEADING DESIGNERS RECOMMEND COMPUTER ARTS‌ “Computer Arts has not only been an important source of information for us, but it has also trusted us to do two of its covers, serving as an enormous promotional platform for our work. We are very grateful for the support CA gives so many designers around the world.â€? FRANCISCO LOPEZ, art director, Mogollon (New York)

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JANUARY 2014

WIRED UK ILLUSTRATIONS: A WORLD OF BIG IDEAS French illustrator Marie-laure Cruschi, aka Cruschiform, used a unique, geometric system to illustrate six kaleidoscopic trend forecasts for a special edition of Wired UK

DIARYËš2: CR USCHIF OR M

PROJECT FACTFILE BRIEF Wired UK commissioned Paris-based illustrator Marie-laure Cruschi to create a set of six illustrations for a special issue The Wired World in depicting the trends and ideas it predicts will be big in the coming year

CLIENT Wired UK www wired co uk AGENT Pocko www pocko com CREATIVE Cruschiform www cruschiform com PROJECT DURATION One week LIVE DATE November !

MARIE-LAURE CRUSCHI ILLUSTRATOR Illustrator Marie-laure is based in Paris She founded Cruschiform studio in a$er graduating from L’École des Arts DĂŠco Her clients range from magazines and book publishers to bands and luxury brands including Esquire Dior Hermès and many more

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PROJECTS

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JANUARY 2014

THE DESIGN BRIEF Marie-laure Cruschi

The Wired World in 2014 is the second time that Wired UK has published a forecast of the mustknow trends and big ideas for the year ahead. This is when the magazine takes a longer look ahead and forecasts the people, products, issues and ideas that are going to matter over the coming 12 months. The special issue consists of eight sections in total, including media, environment, medicine and politics. Wired commissioned a different artist for each section, and they chose me to illustrate the lifestyle trends and ideas that they think will be big in 2014. The brief was very clear and complete when they contacted me: Wired wanted the illustrations to be complex and detailed, and there was a specific shade of red that needed to be used as the key colour. The concepts were all really interesting: doing things will overtake owning things; learning to love living with less; men’s liberation; Kenya academies; and the meteoric rise of smartphones. It was an exciting prospect for my first collaboration with Wired. This commission dealt with very specific subject matter. The challenge was to make each concept visually attractive and easy to understand, which is something I like to do. I enjoy working on topics I might not otherwise learn about.

PROJECT EVOLUTION CRUSCHI CREATED SIX DETAILED ILLUSTRATIONS EXPLORING WIRED’S LIFESTYLE PREDICTIONS IN JUST A WEEK

STAGE ONE I opened Illustrator created the different working areas using the Rectangle tool and converted them to artboards

STAGE TWO Next I made a diamond extended the oblique lines with the Line Segment tool and divided the area into five parts

STAGE FOUR I designed the images a li le narrower than required and the Wired art team used a mm repeat over the gu er

STAGE FIVE Working with the Pathfinder panel and a transparent background grid I used tangent lines to organise the composition

VISUAL FORMULA

KALEIDOSCOPE PARTS

COLOUR COHERENCE

I had just one week to create the full set of six illustrations, so rather than coming up with multiple options or propositions, I focused on developing an adaptable visual formula. I used Illustrator for all the initial drawings, as I like the accuracy, the perfect lines and the modulation achievable with this program.

Wired wanted me to create superdetailed, clever illustrations. For the opening image, the brief was to create a kind of best-of teaser page. I decided to divide my design into five triangular parts that would correspond to the five illustrated section subjects. I saw it as being like a kaleidoscopic picture.

The brief specified that one shade of red (CMYK = 3 = = 2=) was to make up around 2 per cent of the artwork, to give coherence between the illustrations. As it’s a pre y sweet colour, I added some pastel and neutral shades to balance it out. Dark sections are deep blue, as I never work with black.

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JANUARY 2014

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DIARY˚2: CR USCHIF OR M

HOW I WORK MARIE-LAURE CRUSCHI ON THE PLACE OF TANGENT LINES AND GEOMETRY IN HER ILLUSTRATIONS

STAGE THREE Using the Swatch Options panel I added pastel and neutral shades to balance the very specific red supplied by Wired

STAGE SIX Here I focused on presenting the subject ma er in a humorous way and ensured coherence across the six illustrations

STAGE SEVEN Lastly I moved into Photoshop and created some brushes I warmed up the images adding texture light and shadows

I like geometry and I like to play with tangent lines – something you usually learn to avoid in art school. I use them to create structured compositions, and I find this helps me to make links and gateways between different illustrated scenes. Geometry and colour are the two main entry points into my work, and my art is based on the poetry of simple modular forms. I usually try to start with a quick sketch to define the most important lines. That helps me to organise the different scenes and details. Then I work in Illustrator to translate those lines into colours, in order to feel the contrasts and define the harmony and the atmosphere. That’s the first rough I send to the client. My studio is constantly messy because I share it with my three-year-old child. It’s full of toys, trinkets, books and colours. It’s very stimulating to have him playing close to me, and it inspired my second children’s book, À Toute Vitesse, a recreational and educational book that I published this year with Gallimard.

SPREADING OUT

TANGENT LINES

ART OF ANALOGY

FINISHING THINGS OFF

As most of the illustration would be appearing across a double-page spread, it was important to think about the space lost to the gu er between the pages. I designed the illustrations at 5mm less than the required width, and Wired’s art team applied a step-and-repeat over the gu er to keep things readable.

Every illustration presented a different facet of the subject ma er, so each consists of various smaller illustrations that represent different scenes and moments in time. I used tangent lines to establish the structure. These create ‘light gateways’ between scenes, helping make for a dynamic composition.

I like to play with formal analogy, such as the light bulb and building, the globe and clock, and the iPad and slate for the men’s liberation illustration. The challenge was to make a coherent set of illustrations, while changing the atmosphere between them enough to emphasise the different subjects.

At the end, I moved the designs into Photoshop to add texture, light and shadows, and to make the illustration warmer and more lively. Wired really trusted me, so the illustrations didn’t change much from my initial sketches. I didn’t need to make many adjustments or corrections to my final designs – which is always nice.

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PROJECTS

JANUARY 2014

NISSAN LEAF INSTALLATION: OUR FRIENDS ELECTRIC Charged with creating an installation to showcase the Nissan Leaf electric car, Projection Advertising combined projection mapping with real-time rendering

PROJECT FACTFILE BRIEF TRO Group commissioned Projection Advertising to create a permanent installation at the Nissan Innovation Station in London’s O Arena showcasing the Nissan Leaf electric car The aim was to use projection mapping and real-time rendering to create an authentic immersive driving experience that would highlight the car’s selling points

THE DESIGN BRIEF Lizzy Chase

CLIENTS Nissan www nissan co uk

The initial brief was quite loose because the client wanted to get our most creative ideas. How could we design a cool experience to show o the Nissan Leaf? The idea of projecting onto the windows developed from that point onwards. We then got the full brief to design and make an interactive experience for the public to view in the Nissan Innovation Station area of the O2 Arena in London. Nissan wanted people to experience the car, see that it provides a normal driving experience while being quieter than any non-electric vehicle, and – inkeeping with the advertising for the Leaf – to “feel the surgeâ€? of accelerating. We made style references in Photoshop for the city and landscape. The environment is realistic, but stylised in a futuristic, electronic way. The basis for the look

TRO www tro-group com STUDIO Projection Advertising www projectionadvertising co uk PROJECT DURATION Six months LIVE DATE November !

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JANUARY 2014

DIARY˚3: PROJE C T I ON A DV E R T I SI NG WorldMags.net JESSICA WALSH LIZZY CHASE CREATIVE DIRECTOR ACCOUNT DIRECTOR DESIGNER AND ART DIRECTOR PROJECTION ADVERTISING A partner at the New York-based Specialising in creating bespoke design studio Sagmeister & Walsh installations for indoor shows and Jessica’s work has won numerous events account director Lizzy has design awards from the Type Director’s collaborated with numerous highClub Art Director’s Club SPD Print profile clients including Coca-Cola Vodafone Accenture Disney and Graphis and she has received Nintendo Google and Nokia

various celebrated distinctions

RICHARD BURNS INTERACTIVE DEVELOPER PROJECTION ADVERTISING Richard joined Projection Advertising a$er graduating from Northumbria University with a degree in Motion Graphics and Animation He specialises in using TouchDesigner to create custom interfaces projection mapping systems and social media integration

and feel came from the fact that the car is electric, while the colour scheme was inspired by the Leaf’s blue branding. We had a lot of contact with the car so we all knew what it was like to drive it.

WORK IN PROGRESS Richard Burns

The London-based creative production company was commissioned to create an authentic driving experience

The environment was stylised in a realistic yet futuristic way

GETTING SOME PERSPECTIVE THE TEAM EXPLAIN HOW THEY ENSURED THE VIEW OF THE VIRTUAL WORLD OUTSIDE THE CAR LOOKED CORRECT FROM THE INSIDE

The team used TouchDesigner widely

After initial concepting, we created matte paintings and refined the look and feel while doing tests to work out how the car would function within the virtual environment. The landscape is almost energetic, with power lines moving around – we’re using electricity in a fairly literal way. Users can choose from three routes by taking different turns at the traffic lights, encouraging them to put their foot down and accelerate again. Three London landmarks point them in the right direction: Battersea Power Station, The Shard and Tower Bridge. To start with, we built 3D wireframe models of the city to create the journey layout, then painted directly onto the 3D models in 3D-Coat. Rather than having the light affect the environment in 3D, we put in traditional compositing techniques after it had been rendered, keying out areas and using that to create light lines. The graphics are all rendered in real time apart from the introduction, but we wanted to ensure we achieved the quality of pre-rendered content. We used TouchDesigner for almost every aspect of the project, from bringing in 3D geometry and compositing to standard things you might normally do in Nuke. It’s a very efficient, powerful platform and is great for communicating between devices. We built in some physics to allow the car to move around – the environment responds to steering, acceleration and braking as you drive along the rolling road, which functions like a treadmill. We started out using an Xbox 360 controller to check we had the basic functions – left, right, forward – in place, then moved onto a PC game steering wheel.

While mapping the car we had to think about the perspective of the people inside it – a staff ambassador sits by the driver and you can have passengers in the back The content was projected onto the windscreen and windows from outside the car and it all needed to look correct from the inside We put a virtual car in the scene set up cameras from the perspectives of everyone inside it then warped the images to fit in TouchDesigner

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PROJECTS

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JANUARY 2014

Initially a computer game steering wheel was used to check the car’s basic functions

The actual car provided very different information and moved away from any kind of arcade game feel. Using rear projection from outside the car meant we were essentially reversing the images. We used a rear projection film, a bit like vinyl but slightly more rigid, which provides a wider viewing angle. When we made changes on-site, we were effectively working with backwards content.

CONCLUSION Lizzy Chase

Turn left or right at the junction rather than driving straight on and the environment swings round to meet you – a much more efficient way of doing things. You drive into a tunnel where you’re asked to really put your foot down, then you arrive back at the O2. That final part of the drive was based on photos of the actual room. The idea was to show people that you can leave the city and come back within one battery charge, showcasing the fact that the Nissan Leaf has an impressively long charge. You can see the projected content from outside the car as well. While the experience is primarily for the driver and passengers, we wanted to entice people by giving them a preview. This is a novel way of enabling people to experience the car without actually taking it out for a test drive. Projecting a virtual world onto the windscreen and side windows makes for a very immersive experience. It’s really reactive – you’re pressing the accelerator, steering round corners and choosing which way to turn, so it’s about as real as a virtual test drive could get.

LESSONS LEARNED PROJECTION ADVERTISING SHARES THE IMPORTANT MESSAGES THAT THE TEAM TOOK FROM THE PROJECT

“This is a novel way of enabling people to experience the car without actually taking it out for a test drive”

The colour scheme was inspired by the Leaf’s blue branding

Projecting a virtual world onto the windscreen makes for an immersive experience

PREPARE TO ADAPT ON-SITE With a project like this, you can prepare really thoroughly in the studio and know how everything will work in theory, but there’s nothing like ge ing on-site with the car. That’s when you really find out how you need to fine-tune everything.

ADJUST THE VISUALS You can have a visual that looks wonderful on-screen when you’re pu ing the creative together in the first place, only to find it doesn’t look quite right inside the car. We learned so much once we actually viewed the content from inside the vehicle.

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CONSIDER ALL YOUR ANGLES We considered adding music, but Nissan wanted people to be able to hear how quiet the car is – that’s one of the Leaf’s key selling points. Music would have been counter-productive, making it feel less like a serious driving simulation.

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NEXT MONTH

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Behind the scenes with Nexus Productions on a boundary-breaking project for Bombay Sapphire DESIGNER SERIES

Leading agency Moving Brands reveals its secrets in an exclusive video documentary Plus: inspiring work, current issues and expert analysis from the global design scene

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CR E AT I V E I N S P I R AT I ONS

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JANUARY 2014

Luke Brookes When inspiration for a project just won’t strike, this artist thinks that sometimes it helps to stop thinking about it and take a nap

s part of its th issue celebrations Li le White Lies magazine challenged artist Luke Brookes to illustrate an essay on American fantasy drama ďŹ lm The Tree of Life Brookes responded capturing the mood and beauty in an atmospheric etherial design

A

What was your brief from LWL? This particular piece was for Li le White Lies’ th issue I was asked to create a piece of artwork based on the movie The Tree of Life I was given a short essay about the movie wonderfully wri en by David Jenkins and asked to provide my own interpretation of the movie As far as content was concerned I had pre y much free reign  What inspired your illustration? I wanted to capture the beauty of the movie There are long periods in the ďŹ lm that show parts of nature our place in the universe and how our stories mirror the way the universe works I wanted to show how beautiful this is but also how personal it is to each individual  How did you decide which elements of the movie to focus on? A er watching the movie I compared my notes to the article and we seemed to pick up on the same parts The whole movie is just beautiful – the story focuses on a family in America but is interlaced with amazing shots of nature and the universe itself There was one scene that really got to me – there’s a part where Jessica Chastain’s character levitates and oats around This scene embodied what I thought of the movie as a whole Any tricks for ďŹ nding inspiration? I always seem to be inspired right when I’m about to fall asleep at night I’ll be working on ideas for a project all day and will come up with a few okay ones but just as I’m about to sleep one will pop up and I’ll be like ‘How on Earth didn’t I see that before?’ I think when you stop looking at and thinking about something and relax the best ideas seem to appear out of all the noise and imagery you’ve surrounded yourself with all day LUKE BROOKES ARTIST

Luke is a freelance artist based in Staordshire UK He spends his days cra ing expansive emotionally inspired illustrations and has worked and exhibited with creatives from all over the globe www lukebrookesillustration co uk COMPUTERARTS CREATIVEBLOQ COM - 98 -

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