Design Week
7 August 2008
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A champion of the disabled who deserves our support
7 August 2008
You can't help but have noticed the tremendous feat being carried out by Gill Hicks and friends in the name of humanity. The much reported WalkTalk walk from Leeds to London, which ends later this month, aims to bring people together who might not normally meet, let alone talk and walk ...
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Bognor design course born from south coast push
7 August 2008
King George V may have been reflecting popular opinion when he uttered the words 'Bugger Bognor' on his deathbed - he was advised to spend time in the south coast resort to aid his recovery - but notions of the town as a cheap and tacky destination could soon be redressed.An ambitious £500m regeneration programme will, from September, feed a pioneering new graphic design foundation course with live briefs for students to cut their teeth on.Conceived by Wayne Hemingway and ...
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Bohemian utopias
7 August 2008
Whether you thrive on rough-edged urban spaces or polished architectural gems, the summer travel season should bring fresh inspiration, says Jeremy Myerson
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Branding is the natural domain of the designer
7 August 2008
I could not help but be carried along by Simon Black's sweeping prose and passion for branding as a core mission for ambitious design consultancies, set to leave behind their tactical roots and make for the verdant canopy of the branding forest (Business Insight, DW 24 July). However, I simply have to take issue with his assertion that the brand space must be 'nobly considered by owners', not 'functionaries'. Forget the imperial resonance of the term 'functionary' - most employees ...
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Bullet point-to-point
7 August 2008
You can almost hear revving engines, and taste dusty air, when you look at Iain Crockart's photographs. The one-time creative director of CDT Design rode 1600km through the Himachal Pradesh, the sparsely populated region in north-east India that's also known as the Region of Snowy Mountains and Deva Bhoomi (the Lands of the Gods). His photographs capture the vast skyscape, the brick-red earth and the curving, cliff-hugging roads that give you vertigo just looking at them. They also convey ...
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Dunning Eley Jones
7 August 2008
Dunning Eley Jones has designed the graphics for a new entertainment channel, G Star, for pan-African satellite TV service GTV. Aimed at French-speaking communities across Africa, it develops the graphic approach used on the network's existing channels in a series of animated sequences in which stars grow from the G emblem. The screen idents have gone live this week.
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Elemental Design
7 August 2008
Harrods has commissioned London-based retail and event consultancy Elemental Design to create High Life, a 'high society'-themed window display, which will run until the beginning of September. The windows at the front of the store show an open vault door by day, surrounded by a translucent display that clears at night.
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Graduates too busy travelling miss out on work placements
7 August 2008
I have read many letters over the years bemoaning the lack of opportunities for graduates trying to get a start in the design industry. This year we decided to offer eight graduates a placement, with a view to taking one of them on as a full-time junior in September. We attended DA&D New Blood, New Designers and the degree show at University College for the Creative Arts in Farnham. A shortlist was confirmed and the graduates were e-mailed and offered one week's paid ...
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In Search of the perfect typography tome
7 August 2008
Books on typography are often dreary tomes, but a new sourcebook goes some way towards conveying the excitement of fonts. Michael Johnson, however, is still on the look-out for the definitive publication Once, anyone interested in graphic design either had to trust one of the few journals that existed - if they could find them - or rely on a handful of dry and off-putting tomes. ...
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Inspired, Nicholas Saunders: Illustrator
7 August 2008
When looking for inspiration I always find myself looking at a person's process - what they have been through or what lengths they have gone to in order to produce a final outcome.I have chosen Hot Bed Press as the subject for my inspiration. Hot Bed Press is a print studio based in Manchester. This place is a hive for printmaking in the North West and it teaches many different print processes, from screen-printing to acid etching.There is so much creative freedom in the ...
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LDA admits job losses will follow review
7 August 2008
The London Development Agency, a key funder of creative initiatives in the capital, has confirmed a Financial Times report that it will be making drastic job cuts as part of a wholesale review of operations.The LDA's interim chief executive Peter Rogers has revealed plans to axe 173 of its 649 existing staff posts, as part of a root and branch review of the agency.A spokeswoman for the LDA suggests that the review will create some new posts to counteract the effect of the ...
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London design festival goes sustainable
7 August 2008
This year's London Design Festival will host a creative space that will reach out to the design community, its clients and the wider political arena on the key issues around the role of design in sustainability.It is the first time that the LDF has hosted a major dedicated sustainable design event, backed by such a breadth of industry, political, academic and client supporters, according to an LDF spokesperson. Greengaged will be held on weekdays throughout the festival, which ...
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London's Royal Festival Hall
7 August 2008
London's Royal Festival Hall will showcase the work of furniture designer Mark Gabbertas during the London Design Festival. This pink and orange curved modular seating system, which he has designed for contract furniture manufacturer and designer Nomique, will be in the hall's central bar area from 11 September.
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News in Pictures
7 August 2008
London-based design and illustration group Jawa and Midwich has produced the sleeve artwork for Pezzner's Other Lover and Stimming's Short Story, both released on Freerange Records.
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News in Pictures
7 August 2008
Architect Zaha Hadid has designed a pair of shoes for Brazilian footwear company Melissa. The limited-edition recyclable plastic shoes cost £200 from Dover Street Market, London W1, and are available from September.
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Pixel website and A&D graphics open Kilkenny Arts Festival
7 August 2008
This week sees the opening of the Kilkenny Arts Festival, Ireland, showcasing work by a raft of designers and artists.It aims to promote local talent and encourage international artists in the fields of visual art, music and drama to display their work in Kilkenny from 8-17 August. It is funded by the Arts Council and local councils in Kilkenny.Consultancy Pixel Design has created the website - www. kilkennyarts.ie - which went live in July, and graphics group A&D has ...
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Profile
7 August 2008
Rob Howell creates sets for some of the biggest West End musicals, but he is just as keen on small-scale drama. The busy theatre designer talks to Nick Smurthwaite about budgets – and taking audiences on a journey
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Simplicity beats glitz in hotel interiors
7 August 2008
Who needs gold, marble and old-school opulence? These days, discerning boutique hotel designers opt for simplicity and understated elegance, convinced that sparingly used quality materials beat glitz and glamour, says Clare Dowdy
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Speedo repackages for the Olympics
7 August 2008
While Olympic swimmers are this week contending with Beijing smog, Speedo is set to reinvent its entire goggles range with what it claims is the category's first sustainably designed packaging.North London consultancy R Design, which won the project without a pitch last year, has redesigned both structural packaging and on-pack graphics for the 260-strong range, launching on trial in John Lewis this week.The impetus for the packaging overhaul, explains Speedo marketing ...
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Store design, not price cuts, will beat the retail downturn
7 August 2008
It is reported that Tesco is looking to win back customers defecting to cheaper rivals. As prices rocket, the German discount stores probably think all their Christmases have come at once. Long seen as downmarket stores for the poor or the plain tight-fisted, more affluent customers are now flocking to Aldi and Lidl. So what can retailers do to attract new customers, and maintain the loyalty of their existing ones? Retailers are missing a trick by not getting better value out of ...
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Striking the right balance
7 August 2008
Can creativity be pragmatic? Or do practical considerations stifle the ability to push the envelope? asks Barry Seal
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Surfscreen
7 August 2008
Brunel University industrial design student Mark Dowson has created Surfscreen, a biodegradable sunscreen dispenser specifically designed for surfers. It consists of an armband with five gel-like capsules - made from agar, a natural seaweed extract - each of which contains a single application of suncream. Dowson created Surfscreen for his final-year project, as an example of eco-friendly design.
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The Jones to host animal-inspired show
7 August 2008
The Jones, a Guest Invest hotel in London's Bayswater, is to host a design exhibition of works inspired by animals.Marcus Fairs and Rupinder Bhogal, curators of the event, were approached by the hotel group to conceive the show, Menagerie at The Jones.Designers exhibiting at the show include Stephen Johnson, Julia Lohmann and design group Front. Exhibition partners include Vitra and Thorsten van Elten.Most of the exhibitors are designing pieces specially for the ...
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The value of simplicity
7 August 2008
A no-frills design approach hasn’t affected the growing popularity of discount retailers. Should supermarkets take note? asks Gina Lovett
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Voxpop
7 August 2008
Dublin's bus information system, overhauled last week by Applied Information Group and Image Now, has been criticised in the past for failing to indicate which direction passengers are travelling in. What's the worst information system you've experienced, and why?
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Want a good return on your investment? Try collaboration
7 August 2008
Collaboration, as discussed by Lynda Relph-Knight (Comment, DW 3 July), is key to the entire design process. Designers are often treated, at best, as just suppliers by clients and, at worst, as a kind of giant Etch-a-Sketch service. In turn, designers themselves often miss opportunities to harness the power of collaboration. If you're involved in design procurement, the phrase 'return on investment' should be of interest to you. Employing design is an investment in the ...
