New Retro from the Design Week Blog

Not many of the new fonts that get launched every month get a propaganda department-style press launch. But Tooting Sans, which has been designed by Stuart Brown for Hamburger Fonts, has had the full WWII treatment.

The limited-edition screenprint that launched the font is a reworking of a propaganda poster produced by the British Government in 1939. Not only is the poster a good way to get the attention of busy art directors, but it also gives the viewer a good opportunity to have a proper gander at the font at a large size.

The font itself is a humanist sans type that was inspired by Stephenson and Blake types such as Granby and Johnston’s London Transport Sans, which is seen on underground signs across the city.

On the subject of the font’s name, designer Stuart Brown says, ‘After playing with a number of potential ideas to no avail, I realised perhaps that nothing was more suitable that the place where I live. Also, Tooting has a couple of Underground stations, so I guess it’s a nod towards Edward Johnston too.’

Happy 75th Birthday Penguin!

Today is Penguin's 75th Birthday - there is a great online time line application here showing how some of their covers have developed over the decades, well worth considering in anticipation of a couple of the briefs you will be getting next year.

New work from Penguin

Some great new Penguin book covers here - including an article on how one was created.

Look carefully - each of these is a strong, simple idea that only works because the designer understands the subject, and is articulate in the language of design - this is where reasearch and C+C comes in. There is a nice mix of illustrative, typographic and hand made type - but notice that the ones that reference retro typography are well observed and done with restraint - they are homage rather than pastiche.

It's also important to note that they are all 2 colour - something you need to think about for next year.

FDA2 have a design for print module in term 2 that is going to be very similar to the one given last year - and not a million miles away from here.

V&A Summer Camp

Link to the event here via the London Design Guide. Events include a Typography summer school, just bring along anything with print for 'exploration'. 30th & 31st July, 2010

Judging a book by it's cover.

Now that the shortlist for the Booker prize has been announced - it's useful to look at all the covers to see where contemporary book design is this year. Some I like - one in particular I really hate - and the typographer in me has 'issues' with a couple of the spacing errors in there... see what you think.

Barney Bubbles at the LDF

Barney Bubbles ( Colin Fulcher ) is one of my design heroes - There is to be a dedicated event at the London Design Festival to examine his working process. Fulcher / Bubbles was a major influence on Nrvile Brody, Malcolm Garrett, Peter Saville ( and me!! )

Details here.

The London Design Festival

The London Design Festival is a 9 day celebration of design in the world's creative capital. The Festival is a platform for the widest spectrum of design disciplines, brought together as a unique and accessible programme. Site here.

Nevile Brody and Anti Design Festival

There is a really interesting article here from the Design Week blog that supports the growing trend away from very finished, computer generated work - to more honest 'dirty' design.

What I think that's most interesting is the subject of 'failure' and 'disappointment' -


"In saying that it’s about ideas, rather than polish, Brody is harking back to the pre-Thatcher era before design became a business and Photoshop and the like could make even the roughest sketch look finished. Experimentation was more acceptable then, he maintains, and if something didn’t work - i.e. you hit failure - you just moved on."

Read it carefully - and try and get along, there will be more of this trend to come... The website for the Anti Design Festival is here ( it's quite ugly... )

'Flash on The Beach' typo

Really good use of environmental typography for this short promo film set in Brighton, very good photography - and a simple idea, well executed.

Great Website application

Virtual pop-up-book for Lacoste - what I like about this is the obvious fact that they could not have done this without actually making the pop up book in the first place... computers can't do everything.

...to E of not to E

Interesting article on the future of Penguin Books on it's 75th Birthday - and the challenge faces by publishers a day after it was announced that eBooks were said to outsell hard copies for the first time.

Ben Eine, Hastings Graffiti artist, makes world news.

P.M. David Cameron chose a piece of Ben Eine's eponymous work to give to Barak Obama on his state visit - for anyone who hasn't twigged - Ben created all the typographic shop shutters around town - full story here.

I really like Ben's work, he's a very good draughtsman and intuative colourist, nice to see him appreciated ( let's just hope they don't hang it in the loo! )

Do typefaces really matter?

Pretty good article from the BBC on what fonts are and why they are so important.

If you read this, understand it and try to put it into the context of what you are doing, it will really help you.

Theatre National San Jose Posters

This is a really great image site of the posters for the TNSJ ( Portugal ) - much better than the home site. I really like the posters, they are inventive and very expressive with great typography that breaks all the rules - but the way the designers have chosen to display them for their folio is brilliant - lots of fantastic shots on the street, even the damaged posters look great - and the conjunction with local architecture and environmental typography is brilliant - something to think about in every shot.

edit - Gary Neill found this - more great Portuguese theatre posters!

The Art Of Building Photography Prize Shortlist

Run by the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) and open to both professional and amateur photographers, the prize is a great platform for innovative digital photography.

The 12 finalists are here,  the competition is a celebration of the unseen, the buildings we use and the shedding of new light on everyday structures.

Tired of waiting for an invite to FFFFound?

Try Preik - powered by suggested blog feeds - probably the future of image resourcing.

Guardian Camera Club

This months video is on the theme of texture, click here

Green Union Jack Debate

Leading on from the 'reinvent the flag' brief that FDA1 had last term - this article on the Brand Republic blogs might give you an insight to some of the more complex issues involved in design, including copyright, politics and attribution.

When you work in a public forum you need to be very careful and take responsibility for what you do - the design industry is not immune from the need for an ethical perspective.

Pinhole Photography workshops

Inspire in Claremont will be running pinhole photography workshops in August on either Monday or Wednesdays - really good opportunity, I strongly suggest you get on board  all the information is here

Showcase: Bigger Than Giants

Now THIS is really interesting. It's essentially an image resource and scrapbook site with some excellent content, click on the logo top left to change catagories - it has loads of really nice stuff, but what's new is the navigation around the page - there is no scroll bar - just click on the desktop and drag the screen.

I'm not sure how they did this or the best way to use it, but I really like it. Have a good look around - there is some great creative typography.

Showcase : student site - Emma Goodman

Nice site from a graduating student at Northumbria University - simple and unfussy - with a link to an active blog.

We are looking at the criteria for Professional Practice next year and this is a sample of the standard and level of communication we expect from you.

Showcase: Sort

Very nice site for an Irish design consultancy, Sort - who have a very clear 'handwriting' of their own - and still find plenty of flexibility in use of ( just about ) one font.

The Month in Photography

Rounded up for us by The Guardian

"I hate Helvetica...."

".... and why I designed a replacement.

Bruno Maag of Dalton Maag explains all.

'Everyone's A Collector' at the De La Warr

"All of us gather things as we go through life and these objects acquire great significance and meaning. Join Dr Louise Purbrick - Researcher in material & visual culture and Principal Lecturer in the History of Art & Design at the University of Brighton - to explore our relationship with the objects we keep and value."

Tickets £5. Places limited, please call the box office on 01424 229 111 to book.

John Bulmer

I thought some of you might like to know that john bulmer is giving a talk at the Lucy Bell Gallery in Norman Road on Saturday 17th July. Tickets £5 10 places left unless you bring a chair.

Might be nice for some to see him he is a class act, one of the last great British Photographers. ( Same day as St Leonards Festival )

Fonts based on Cityscapes

Nice idea here - these are computer generated - but I'd like to see what you could do with models.

Pop Up Shop

Literally. Click here, from Dezeen.

The truth about Freelance client / creative relationships.

Alas - it's in American.... but some things are universal.

Feedback from Newblood

Newblood have given us some general feedback, they say that there were more visitors to the exhibition than for a long time, and the number of people being offered placements and interviews was overwhelming. For all the reports in the press, it actually seems to be a much better time to be graduating than recent years, and there is a lot of optimism and business in the creative industries.

Feedback from industry:

The good things:

• Many visitors were impressed with the quality and high standard of work on show
• Feedback has been positive with most industry commenting on how friendly and enthusiastic the graduates on the stand were.
• There were lots of creatives and recruiters there looking for talent to offer placements, commissions and interviews.

The things to be improved upon:

• Several industry fed back that people didn't speak to them.
• Some mentioned that the hosts of the stands ignored them when they asked questions/were not very helpful - simply directed them to a list of students without offering any insights into the content of the course for example.
• There was a feeling that some tutors or students were not responding to people whose names were not known to them and didn't contact them when they gave out their business cards.
Hopefully this is not representative however it is concerning. It is really shortsighted to think that people are not useful just because they are unknown to you. You never know when a contact might come in useful further down the line, and it always advisable to follow up with anyone who offers to help, even if at first it may not seem appropriate. You never know!

The one other comment was about content in portfolios. The following advice came from a senior creative who spent his time critting over 50 portfolios at the event which will hopefully be of benefit:

The key themes that repeated regularly over the four days are as follows;

• Less than 10% of the books included an example of an integrated online/offline campaign
• Those that included an example of an integrated campaign were generally brilliant, creative applications. Far more well thought through than I was expecting.
• Too many of the books only included 'competition briefs'. Very few (3 or 4) of the graduates have learned the value of proactively setting themselves briefs so as to improve their book so you don't end up seeing the same work time and time again.
• Less than 10% of the graduates managed their book efficiently online
• I did not see a single piece of long copy.
• Only two of the books included an example of a branded mobile application. Both were brilliant.
• Very few of the graduates had any real understanding of the business side of things

We are already talking about next years event - and I'd like to look at things very differently - we are certainly thinking very hard about the content of the modules and how we are developing new briefs, in the meantime - D&AD have produced a download 'Rough Guide to the Industry" - click here

Brilliant Typo!!!!

Really fantastic piece of work for a small American vegetable grower - clever, funny, appropriate and fresh - this is why I keep giving you all these abstract and hand made type projects - yes - words made from chopped up bits of old wood can be perfectly appropriate for clever design, packaging and branding - click here to see the full collection - there is nothing in this great piece of work that we have not had a go at in the studio!!!!

There is a reference n the article to this piece of work - which is English, and just as lovely!

Jaz-Age Alphabet Ballet from Prague

In 1926 the Czech dancer Milca Mayerová choreographed the alphabet as a photo-ballet. Each move in the dance is made to the visual counterpoint of Karel Teige's typographic music. Teige was a constructivist and a surrealist, a poet, collagist, photographer, typographer and architectural theorist, and his 1926 photomontage designs for the alphabet are a uniquely elegant and witty invention, and one of the enduring masterpieces of Czech modernism.


Teige's Alphabet is available as a postcard book, ALPHABET by Karel Teige, published by Redstone Press 2010, www.redstonepress.co.uk.

Buy ALPHABET at www.theredstoneshop.com

CV advice -

- from the Guardian, including the very obvious and essential ( but usually ignored) 'personalise it for every application' - good advice that is just as true for you as it is for old timers like me - link here.

Great little video

.. about putting together a portfolio, among other important stuff, found by Jonathon on the D&AD site

Grayson Perry on Creativity

Very good program on BBC Radio 4 earlier, Artist Grayson Perry talks about the medium of Imagination and Creativity - 7 days left to listen here.

Showcase: Andrew Townsend

Really smart site following the designer Andrew Townsend all the way from graduation in 1999 - interestingly, he does a lot of work in education - worth bearing in mind as we move - next years show publicity, marketing and H.E. brochures must be spectacular - so start researching now!

His site is here

Summer 2010

Yes, the blog will continue - and yes, it's still open to the students from year 2 who have just graduated - if you are 'topping-up' or not - you are very welcome to follow and contribute. I'll also be opening up to the new students as soon as they are confirmed - so keep us bookmarked - you never know what I'll post before September.