Monday 15 September 2014

On Sunday, I wrote a post regarding the 3D-printed letterpress font that Dan and I saw at the V&A for The London Design Festival (if you missed it, read it here) I told you that I will be updating my blog when Adrian Harrison’s film is released. Alas, it has been uploaded. Originally uploaded and announced by Creative Review, you can see Adrian’s short film here on his vimeo and you can also see the other cool projects that he’s been working on, such as the Joby Carter signwriter I mentioned in my previous post.


Go and check him out.



Saturday 13 September 2014

The London Design Festival 13-21 September 2014

Today found Dan and I at The London Design Festival at the V&A.

Yesterday whilst checking Design Taxi, I noticed a really cool article about 3D printed type. Instantly interested, I had a read and showed this to my colleague Ben, who has just built a 3D printer, see his tweets here. He also printed me a letter R which you can see on my Instagram here. He's looking for new little projects and cool things to print whilst he's prototyping and learning to built design in CAD.

After a little research into this cool little project, I realised it was The London Design Festival 13-21 September 2014. We looked online and I instantly knew that we should be attending this short film held at the V&A.

Before that though, whilst checking out this really cool 3D typeface project, I was led onto a Vimeo page of Adrian Harrison. I was watching a film he made on 'Learn to Sign Write' with Joby Carter who is a traditional signwriter and sign restorer. His work is truly inspiring. I remember for my birthday a couple of years ago, asking for a couple of sign writing books to pick up this fantastic art form after watching David Adrian Smith create something similar with glass. I found him after researching who did John Mayer's intricate album cover for his 'Born and Raised' album. I was blown away by this incredible skill. I still have yet to get round to digging out my signwriting books and making a start but I hope to soon as I've been so inspired.


So, back to today. Dan and I headed our way to the room in the V&A and noticed the guys were giving an extra screening of the film at 1pm - perfect timing! They had the 3D printed typeface on the desk and Beatrice from the New North Press was creating some prints in front of us. It was a pleasure just watching it. Shortly after sitting down, the film was played, introduced by Adrian Harrison. I was thinking "Where do I know that name? I know that name!" before realising is was the film-maker who created the short film for Joby Carter the day previous. Awesome sauce. The film was fantastic and Richard Ardagh talked through his idea about bringing the old letterpress with the new 3D printing technology which is now taking off and being used reasonably wildly. Richard went through the initial idea to the prototyping, with the font designed by A2-Type and 3D-printed by Chalk Studios and through to final testing and adding it to the thousands of typefaces they store at New North Press as an actual working font. This film, this work reminded me of why I got into design. Why I was excited. I found it exciting. It reminded me of the work experience at Newton Press Ltd a couple of years ago when I was still studying. I was learning about the old letterpress machinery, from the heidelberg's to the new Presstek 34DI digital offset printing press.






After the short film, Dan and I got chatting to Adrian and I told him I'd seen his previous films. We were chatting about his current work and some exciting projects he's got coming up. I'll be posting his short film about the A23D, a 3D-printed letterpress font when it's published on his Vimeo.

After having a good old chinwag with these very talented people, I even got the chance to letterpress my own initial with their 3D printed typeface. Absolutely so chuffed.

I cannot get over how creative and refreshing this idea is. I'm throughly impressed and it's great there are so many talented individuals in this project. Check out the New North Press's website for more info.

Thanks to all those there today who inspired me.






























Design sites & inspiration

I was recently asked by someone for advice in order to push her career into a direction which was more design focussed. I think sometimes it's really difficult to give advice on design in general because it can be so broad and open.

Nowadays I don't even know what to call myself. I studied graphic design for many years, and always called myself a graphic designer. But it seems now that the industry has moved around a bit and I've started calling myself a digital designer. I primarily focus on digital with some design for print involved. I'm very cautious because I think the term 'graphic designer' is kind of becoming more broad and a little more dangerous. Design is becoming a bit more specific and I've seen the following terms used: graphic designer, digital designer, print designer, UX/UI designer, interface designer, web designer.

So, with that it mind it was hard to give advice on my friend who wants to "get more into design" because design is so broad nowadays. To give her a better idea of the type of design is prefers, I sent her a list of sites/blogs/portfolio sites that she can look at and go through to see if there's any type of design which particularly jumps out at her as something she wants to progress to. I decided to share some of these too.

Some are quite broad, some feature more photography or product design but I think to be an all round good designer, despite the fact that I work primarily in digital design creating ads and campaigns, not only do I need to keep up with the latest design trends but also advertising trends, UX/UI trends and even photography trends.

(In no particular order!)

SwissMiss 

This site is about a swiss designer who blogs everything from design/architecture to product design. I like her style because she doesn't feel the need to write about absolutely everything. There's usually bits here which appear on other design sites/blogs I've noticed so I know whatever she's posting is up to date and current. Often to not, she posts really cool innovative products, which can be pretty cool. Also, she usually updates on Friday.

Behance 

Here is a great collection of design of all sorts - you can set up a free portfolio too and like/follow other work. It's great for checking out the latest design trends from digital to print, UX/UI, interface and web designer. I've also noticed more and more design agencies are creating portfolios of their professional work and client work. Definitely check it out.

Dribbble 
www.dribbble.com

This is pretty much the same as Behance except I think you have to be invited to use this site. You can still browse and check the work of others for free but you first off have a basic account and you can pay and upgrade for obviously, a more premium account. There's a lot of great design work on here and I'd recommend it for when you need a little inspiration.

Likecool 

I love browsing through the pages on this site. Some things I'm personally really not interested in but there's always concept pieces, innovative products and some pretty cool videos. It's good for a bit of a more quirky need for design inspiration or even if you have a spare few minutes on your lunch break.

Design Taxi
www.designtaxi.com

I personally love this little site. It has everything from design/ photography/ art/ products/ campaigns and advertising. I use this site everyday to see cool trends and interesting articles because it's just so interesting. 

Awwwards

A really great website which allows other websites to be recognised for various UX/UI features, the design, structure and layout. The websites are submitted so they range in content but really great to what other people are doing and how successful (or perhaps un-successful) various types of web design and functionality can be.

Siteinspire

As the name suggests, it's sites which are inspiring. It's for web design inspiration and you can submit your own sites or other peoples sites. I find this site particularly useful. Much like Awwards.com (above) the content of the sites submitted vary.

Creativebloq

Here's some really cool general design news, tips and inspiration. It's updated regularly meaning you'll always be up to date with what the industry is talking about (even if the site is a bit cheesy and buzz-feedy...(in my opinion))

Creative Review

My partner and I subscribed to these magazines, but you can also get general content online. This site sells itself as 'advertising, design & visual culture'. Definitely a one stop shop for all your design trends/ articles. I also enjoy that there's usually interviews with up and coming designers/ more well known designers. 

This site holds really cool digital/web design, UX/UI inspiration and is really good to keep up to date on web trends. It also has tutorials and other helpful info. Bookmark this, now.

There's obviously a hell of a lot more that I could mention, I haven't even really touched on adverting blogs which I get updates from but I think for me, these are some of the great sites to make sure you keep on trend. As for my friend, it's a good start to see what sort of design she wants to do and which type of design most excites her. I think in this current design age, you need to know how to do pretty much everything when it comes to design so it doesn't hurt to learn as much as you can and keep all doors open.


Enjoy the sites and links -