Rubik's Cube Typeface

This is a really nice idea by Jas Bhachu, a student studying at Liverpool School of Art & Design. It's the kind of idea that makes me wish I had thought of it first. Jas has created a Rubik's Cube, which is actually Font Generator. The cube has rubber stamps attached to four faces of the cube, leaving two of the faces blank. The moveable sides of the stamps can be combined to form characters which can then be printed, enabling a full typeface to be created from the Rubik's cube. The typeface looks great when used to full effect.

 

The packaging is really nice too.

Transformers...

or usb's?  I found these looking at the Designboom blog:

"Transformers are no longer just toys, they're usb's too". 

These very cool usb sticks were created by Japanese company Takara. The range also include usb hubs and computer mouses. These could prove very popular, especially with the new Transformers film soon to be released. Who would have thought usb sticks could be so much fun?

CR in print

My June issue of CR has just arrived, here's the Thoughtful 6 article in print:

Creative Review

Creative Review have wrote a very nice article about the Thoughtful 6, which is featured on their website and also in the printed magazine. I haven't yet seen the printed version but should have it some time today. I can't wait.

To view the online version click here

Engagement With Industry: Thoughtful

Working alongside Thoughtful on a day-to-day basis has meant I have been able to experience first hand what it is like working for a design studio.  The way I engage with Thoughtful has developed over the five months that the project has been running. I suppose that this would be the same with any new job or placement, but due to the nature of the project, because we spend so much time with Thoughtful and they put all their time and effort in to ensuring that we are constantly learning new things, the placement seems to be a lot more intimate and intense than any other would be. Throughout the project Thoughtful have stressed the importance of keeping our eyes peeled open, constantly on the look out for new ideas and fresh ways of thinking. We have been encouraged to read blogs, which are a great source for inspiration, introducing us to new work and debates concerning the current state of the design industry.

The fact that Thoughtful are a fairly new company has meant that they have been flexible enough to do the project. I can’t see many design studios packing up their offices and moving in to a college for the foreseeable future. I think this sums up Thoughtful’s approach to design, always looking for something new and exciting to do, and as they state in their Thoughtful Commandments; to nurture new talent. I think the project has been a big learning curve for Thoughtful as well as myself, due to the fact that there is only three of them and then suddenly taking on six students, bringing them to a total of nine, can’t have been easy. We have all had to work hard, but the first few months must have been difficult for Thoughtful. Having six students constantly needing to be looked after, told what to do, etc, and then having to go home and produce all of their work for the clients! I think that only the past couple of months have we been functioning properly as a design studio. This is not a bad thing though; it couldn’t have been any other way. For the first few months we were all finding our feet, settling in and most of all learning. A lot. We would all wait for Thoughtful to tell us exactly what to do, not having the confidence to do things for ourselves. 

However, over the time that we have been doing the project things have gradually developed and that way I engage with Thoughtful has now changed. There is normally a lot going on at once in the studio, so to avoid confusion we divide the jobs up between us, a lot of the time in pairs so that we all have our own roles. This way of working means that we all know exactly what we are doing, and when it needs to be done by. It doesn’t mean that we can’t go over and see what everyone else is doing, and throw some ideas their way, we just know what our main priority is. 

Thoughtful can now trust us to get things done, without us having to be constantly checked on. I’m not saying that I now know everything there is to know about working as a designer, because I definitely don’t. But I do know enough now to have the confidence to get on with a job, and Thoughtful are always there to guide us and give us their input along the way. 

 I see Thoughtful on a day-to-day basis, so I see how they deal with clients, how they tackle a brief and generally all of the things they do in order to make Thoughtful a successful company. As well as the noticeable things I have learnt, I also pick on lots of smaller, but just as important things about the way Thoughtful work. It seems everyday I am learning something new, which is great. If Thoughtful are not in the studio we can always get in touch with them via email or skype, which is the good thing about having macs, we can be flexible and mobile but are always able to get in touch with each other, whether it be in the evenings or at weekends. Thoughtful treat us as their employees, trusting us with their work and to do a good job. We pay them the same respect and, I speak for all six of us when I say we all want to do the best work we possibly can for Thoughtful.

My Experience With Thoughtful

At the beginning of this year I was chosen to work alongside Thoughtful for six months as part of the Thoughtful 6. We are now five months in to the project, with only around six weeks left so I think it’s time for me to share my thoughts and experiences so far.

When I was first chosen to work with Thoughtful I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I knew it was going to be a lot of hard work, and I was slightly nervous that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Having said that, I still couldn’t wait to get started, and on the 8^th January, a few weeks before the rest of the course returned from the Christmas holidays, it  all began. Our studio was not yet ready, but there was lots of work to be done so it was a case of working wherever we could.

On the first day Ed and I were asked to work on a typographic route for the Tate Liverpool summer exhibition; Colour Chart, which was to be pitched the following week. We only had a few days to complete the work, which included creating typefaces to represent the different artist’s work being exhibited. This was an important task and the work had to be of a high standard. This was a chance for Thoughtful to win a job for a high profile client and the work we were doing had to help Thoughtful’s chances of winning the pitch. Even though this was only the first week, it was clear from day one what was expected of us and that it wasn’t going to be easy. We would have to work hard, be challenged, working to tight deadlines that we weren’t used to. However, I didn’t see this as a bad thing. It was good. After only a few days, it was clear how much I’d learnt. I had gained experience of working as a team, dividing tasks between the two of us in order to manage our time efficiently. Also, using Adobe Illustrator, a program I had never previously used. 

The following week I was asked to accompany Thoughtful to the pitch at the Liverpool Tate. I was quite nervous about this, but once I was there, with plenty of time to spare I started to relax. This was a fantastic opportunity to see how a real pitch works; what the client expects, the amount of work the designer needs to produce, and the clarity and preparation of the presentation. Thoughtful had planned everything, allowing no room for error in order to impress the client and ensure that the pitch ran smoothly. It was fantastic news, when a few weeks later Thoughtful were told that they had won the pitch.

In the meantime, our studio had finished being painted and we had been busy moving in and settling in to our new room. The room had to function as a real studio, even though it is in the college. It had to look and feel professional to visitors and to provide us with the right working atmosphere. This is something that I really enjoyed doing, it was nice to make the space our own as opposed to us moving in to a ‘ready made’ space.

By this time we had all began to work on developing Thoughtful’s initial ideas for Teepay, a tee shirt design website, owned by howies. This was a really fun project, the kind that doesn’t come round often, so I feel really lucky that I was able to be involved in this. We all went down to Cardigan to visit the people at howies and present the ideas we had so far for Teepay. This was our first experience of taking part in a presentation to the client as a group, helping me with my professional skills and building confidence. It was a really enjoyable experience, as the people at howies were so friendly and down to earth. They were really happy with what we presented to them and even sent their thank you’s via video, which are posted on the Thoughtful 6 blog.

Something that we have been gaining lots of experience with is presenting and talking about our ideas. Thoughtful have helped us a lot, giving us advice on how to conduct ourselves in a professional manner, and drumming in the importance of ‘looking the part.’ If you look smart, and professional it shows that you are serious about what you do, people will respect you more and are more likely to put their trust in you. The Thoughtful 6 project in itself has gained a lot of attention, with people wanting to know what we have been doing; therefore meaning we have had to talk to various people about our experience. We were recently interviewed by D&AD, had to stand up and talk at a CIDS meeting a Stockport Art Gallery and also give a presentation to the first years. Although these were quite informal, we had to ensure we came across professionally, as everything we say and do now reflects on Thoughtful. All of this has really helped to build my self confidence, meaning that it will be so much easier for me to deal with speaking about my work and ideas to future employers and also clients.

Lauren and myself have recently been working together on a project called Make It for the GMSA. This project has been a massive learning curve for me, meaning that I have had to email the client, organise meetings, arrange interviews, prepare and conduct interviews and plan things correctly to ensure we can do everything we need to in the time we have as well as doing the designing. This project in particular has made me realise that the job of a designer is not solely about ‘designing.’ Far from it in fact, you need to be able to communicate clearly and in a professional manner, be confident with public speaking and presenting your ideas. Most importantly you need to be able to engage with the client, get on their level and fully understand what they want. If you build a good relationship with the client it will make your job that bit easier, you will gain their respect and earn their trust. You need to be willing to go that extra mile, but this should be enjoyable and not a chore. If you are working for a client that you know and understand, you will want to go further to make them happy and therefore produce great work.

 A few weeks ago Lauren and I recorded a key note presentation to be sent out to the Steering Group for Make It. The content and the way the presentation was put together looked really professional, something I would not have been able to achieve before working with Thoughtful. The work we did received great feedback and I felt proud of what I had achieved. What we were doing and the way we did it seemed natural though, which just goes to show how far we have come in just a few months. I wasn’t worrying and constantly thinking ‘ I can’t do this.’ I felt confident in what I was doing and knew that I could do a good job, whereas back in January this would not have been the case at all. After we had recorded the presentation and got everything right, we encountered some trouble when exporting it, meaning that we had to re-record what we had done. This wasn’t a problem however, as we had prepared the presentation so well that we knew exactly what we needed to do, no matter how many times we had to repeat it. This shows the importance of preparation, something that Thoughtful have been teaching us all along.

 I could talk for so long about the things I have experienced and learnt with Thoughtful, the list goes on and on, some of which I don’t even think I am aware of yet. I think many of the qualities and skills I have learnt will become more apparent in the future, in particularly the third year when it comes to managing my time, and thinking about what I want to achieve in the future. All I know now is that the things I have learnt from Thoughtful are things that will stay with me for life, and I want to ensure that I continue to develop my skills further and keep up the pace throughout next year.

Portfolio

As it is coming to the end of the academic year, it has been time for me to produce a portfolio of my work to be handed in for assessment. Because I have been working with the Thoughtful 6, I've been really busy over the past few months, so i hadn't really given my portfolio any thought and wasn't really too sure whether one was actually needed from me. However, I was wrong, and it was in fact a requirement of the course. The only thing was, when I realised this there was only around a week left before the deadline, so I had to get a move on, quick! Even though I knew time was tight, I wasn't satisfied with handing a bog standard set of work, that looked as though it had been rushed. I had been looking forward to making a portfolio so I wanted to make sure it showed my work off at its best.

So for around five days, my life was a mad rush of trying to get things done. As well as my portfolio I also had a critical studies presentation to do, so I had to make sure the effort I put in to that didn't suffer because of this. Fortunately Thoughtful understood how much we had to do, and wanted us to do really well. They allowed us to work on our portfolios in their time, so our jobs we were doing for Thoughtful were put on hold for a few days. I really appreciated this, and not only did they give us time to complete our portfolios, they actually gave us their input and advice on how to make them stand out and look really professional.

We all looked at some great design work for inspiration, such as the Peter and Paul website, Spin and Made Thought. These design companies all present their work in different, yet visually interesting ways. So we took note of this and tried to apply some of the techniques we saw from their style of presentation to our own.

At the end of the week i looked at what I had achieved and it made me realise just how far we have all come and how much we've learnt through being part of the Thoughtful 6. There is no way that I would have been able to produce a portfolio to that standard in such a short space of time if I had not experienced working to tight deadlines already with Thoughtful.

Here are a few spreads from my portfolio:

David Hillman, D&AD Presidents Lecture

I recently wrote this post about the David Hillman Presidents lecture for the Thoughtful 6 blog.

Yesterday the Thoughtful Six took a trip down down to London to see David Hillman speaking at the D&AD Presidents Lecture at the Logan Hall. The talk was hosted by Patrick Baglee, who gave a quick overview of Hillman's career before welcoming David Hillman himself to the stage. The style of the lecture was quite informal, instead of David Hillman standing up and talking about his career he was seated with Patrick Baglee. The lecture took the form of a conversation between the two of them, covering Hillman's career over the past 50 years as they discussed his education at the London School of Print through to his work for the Sunday Times, Nova, Pentagram and the Guardian.

Being interested in editorial design from the start, Hillman discussed how this caused various conflicts between some of his tutors, because they mainly taught typography where he studied as opposed to editorial design. He described how he was shunned by one of his tutors until the tutor realised that he was doing well for himself and had quite a reputation, and therefore asked him back to give lectures to the students. This goes to show that although tutors are there to guide you and of course, their opinion counts, if there is an area you want to pursue and explore you shouldn't let anyone stop you. 

David discussed the work he did for The Guardian and talked about breaking ‘old boundaries’. He achieved this by reworking the paper so that text and images may appear above the masthead, something that had never been done before. At the time this caused quite a stir, with people stating that, ‘no self respecting newspaper designer would put anything above the masthead’, yet a few weeks later the same people had copied his style.

When talking about photo shoots, David made a point about capturing everything in camera. He showed examples of the work, and I found it quite hard to believe that the shots hadn’t been re-touched at all. The images were perfect, with the lighting and composition just right. This caught our attention because it is something that Thoughtful have been trying to get through to us, that when we are doing a photo shoot we should aim to get the perfect shot, without settling for ‘oh it’s alright, we can re-touch it later.’ 

A topic that we all found really interesting was when David discussed how he set up his own business, before joining Pentagram. This business only lasted for around a year, but during that time he learnt a lot about the politics of magazine design. With this in mind, it might be worthwhile thinking about starting a business sooner rather than later in order to learn what is necessary to function well in the industry we are in. If we have tried it out for ourselves, learning the rights and wrongs even if only for a year, it might give us that edge and extra understanding that is necessary to succeed when applying for a job. 

When asked what advice he would give to anyone wishing to set up on their own, he said to keep it small and work from home; buying a studio leads to unnecessary overheads that you can manage fine without.

Another topic of interest was David’s view on free pitching and how he has never done it. He stated his dislike to the way clients treat designers like suppliers with the mentality that they can ‘get it cheaper down the road.’ He voiced his opinion on this view with an anecdote concerning a designer asking the client “when you go to the doctor, do you tell him the symptoms or the cure?” The client replies, “the symptoms, of course.” The designer states, “exactly. So treat me with the same respect.”

David stated that a far better way of doing things would be for the client to build a relationship with the designer, so they can get know them and trust them to do a good job. This would result in the production of far better work. Free pitching also means that a lot of design time is lost in the struggle of trying to identify what the client wants, rather than engaging with the client directly and discovering what they actually need from the job. Maybe it is time that all designers made a stand? Unfortunately, in such a competitive market this seems unlikely to happen and even if it did it probably wouldn't be long before people started to give in.

We all really enjoyed listening to David talk about his career. With fifty years of experience behind him, 16 yellow pencils and two black pencils, he clearly knows what he is talking about and has some fantastic work to show for it. Listening to him talk about his own business and getting started in the design industry was really inspiring, as it is something that we ourselves will have to be thinking long and hard about in the not so distant future.

Robinson's Bird House

This is a really nice advert for Robinson's fruit squash.



It's a lovely idea that you just want to watch over and over again. There are so many little details that you miss the first time around, my favourite part is the 'Hello, hello!' man clock. 

Robinson's briefed BBH to launch new Robinson's Natural Squash, made from naturally sourced ingredients. Like the natural product, everything in the film is 100% real. From reading the information on the website I have discovered that the set is a real model house, custom built for the ad and the star of the film was specifically trained for the script. Clever bird.

Peter Callesen

Peter Callesen is a sculptor based in Denmark. He works exclusively with white paper in different objects, paper cuts, installations and performances. A large part of his work is made from A4 sheets of paper. Speaking about his work on his website, Peter states:
"Paper is probably the most common and consumed media used for carrying information today. This is why we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper. By taking away all the information and starting from scratch using the blank white A4 paper sheet for my creations, I feel I have found a material that we are all able to relate to, and at the same time the A4 paper sheet is neutral and open to fill with different meaning. The thin white paper gives the paper sculptures a frailty that underlines the tragic and romantic theme of my works".
I find his work fascinating, there is so much attention to detail. The designs are so intricate and refreshing. It's nice to see things that look so good being made by hand and from scratch.

Prodigy: Warroir's Dance.

John recently told me about the Podigy's music video, Warrior's Dance, posted on the It's Nice that blog. It's a really witty and clever motion animation portraying cigarette packets being brought to life, lighting a fire and having a rave... very entertaining.

Let It Shine

The latest Honda ad uses the tag line 'everybody wants to be good.' And they have proved that yet again, they are very good. This is a fantastic advert directed by Erik van Wyk through ad agency Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth a watch.

The ad features a huge grid of the new Honda Insight come alive at night across the desert to act as pixels in the worlds largest LED screen. It is an incredible use of animation featuring cheeky hugs and kisses, frowns turned into smiles, and it has a general 'feel good' element to it. The ad aims to portray everyones inner wish to be good. 

Wieden + Kennedy have produced some fantastic advertising campaigns for Honda over the years, and this latest one doesn't disappoint.

Nice Animation

I found this really nice example of stop frame animation the other day. Stop frame is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small amounts between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames are played as a continuous sequence. It looks really effective when edited together and is something i'd like to experiment with myself in the future.

Peter Salmon Interview for Make It

As part of the Thoughtful 6 project we are currently designing a rough guide to the creative industries. It will take the form of a website, titled; Make It. The guide aims to show 14-19 year olds the breadth of creative talent in the North West and how they can be a part of it.

Our first interview for the site was with Peter Salmon, who has recently been appointed as the director of BBC North. The interview took a lot of preparation and our role was organising the event and making sure that everything ran smoothly. The biggest surprise was how much planning and preparation had to go in to making the interview a success. We were in charge of writing the questions, organising the set, planning the interview and most importantly making sure that we had all the right people there at the correct time and place. One hurdle we had to overcome was our cameraman couldn't make it at the last minute, which just goes to show that it is always wise to have a plan B, or even a plan C to fall back on, as this won't be the first or the last time a situation like this arises. Luckily, we managed to get Sayed, John and Rosemary from Little Wonder TV to step in and do the filming - who were brilliant. So, a big thanks to them for helping us out. 

After a lot of emailing and making last minute arrangements, we were finally ready for the day of the interview. We arrived at the BBC with plenty of time to spare, allowing us to discuss our requirements with the cameraman and the best area for the interview to take place. We had to think about camera angles, editing, how much time we had, and basically setting the right scene for the interview. As the audience is going to be 14-19 year olds, we wanted the interview to be relaxed and informal so that the audience can relate to it. We chose a relaxed environment within the BBC building, called the 'design den.' The room was open plan, with lots of brightly coloured sofas and tables. It looked welcoming and generally a fun place to be. We decided to shoot the interview on the sofas that ran along a wall with windows looking through to the main reception, which added to the relaxed atmosphere. 

When Peter first arrived we were quite nervous, but his relaxed attitude calmed our nerves and the interview soon developed in to a friendly conversation. Peter answered all of our questions in depth (we had quite a few!) and was also really interested in what we had to say and our views on subjects raised. Peter talked enthusiastically about his work and achievements, describing how passion and determination have driven him to success. He stressed the importance of being well educated, but also the need for good social skills and having a like-ability factor so that people will want to work with you. When asked what he would do differently if he was starting his career now, he said that he would develop his skills further, especially in hands on areas such as camera work and independently teach himself new techniques in order to impress employers.

The main thing we've learnt from this experience is that the job of a designer isn't solely 'designing'. Far from it. We've been told many times before but never experienced it first-hand - a junior designer doesn't just need to develop good mac skills and ideas - they need to be able to communicate clearly and possess good presentation and organisational skills. As well as being clean and smart, oh, and it helps to be on brief, on time and on budget, too!    

Overall, the interview went really well and it was a great opportunity for us to take the lead on a client based job and develop our own professional skills in a sector that we had little experience in. We'd like to thank Lisa and Liza from the BBC for making the whole thing happen and thank Peter Salmon for being our first interviewee and for giving us some time out of his busy schedule to do the interview. The nicest thing was that he genuinely seemed happy to be there talking to us. Now all that’s left for us to do is edit the interview, which will be very difficult as there is so much good information to choose from!