Ace Jet 170

111

 

Delighted to see that the 111 Years of Graphic Design from GF Smith exhibition is coming to University of Ulster. For less than a day really though so get it into your diary: it starts on the evening of Thursday 15th but will be packed away around midday the next day (talk about pop-up!). By all accounts it should be pretty amazing. GF Smith clearly have a long history of commissioning superb graphic design; the exhibition includes material from the likes of Saul Bass, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, Bill McKay and SEA Design. Not one to miss.

Then, the following week, SEA Design's Bryan Edmondson (SEA) will be giving a talk (on Thursday 22nd April 2010).

(Images courtesy of Richard McElveen via Dave at Grafik Cache)

Plot Watch: Spawn

 

Good to see an enthusiastic return to work from our bug munching friends.

Hold the front page

I wasn't there but I know a man that was. Andy McGoodondigitalbuildrefresh kindly brought me a couple back from his travels.

 

Who is Bernard Voïta?

 

Martin from A Sound Awareness dropped me a line recently which made me go digging around his very interesting blog. And I stumbled across these images by Bernard Voïta. A little more poking and prodding elsewhere lead me to conclude that Bernard is a man shrouded in mystery. As Damien Correll on It's Nice That puts it, "The Internet knows very little about Swiss-born Bernard Voita. Trust me, I’ve looked". So if anyone knows anything - absolutely anything - perhaps you could let one of use know.

Man Food Mag Stack

The March edition of Stack dropped through the door this week, with content that couldn't be more appealing. Ever since the demise of the tragically short-lived men's food magazine EatSoup I've hankered for something to fill the gap. So the Manzine/Fire & Knives-combo speaks to me loudly and clearly.

Fire & Knives is beautifully design by Anorak's Rob Lowe and edited by food journo' and broadcaster Tim Hayward. With writers that have been published in the likes of GQ, the Guardian and The Telegraph it's not surprising that it's top-quality nosh writing inside, "The freedom given to the writers shines through as they are allowed to elaborate on any theme or subject that interests them…", says Stack's Steve Watson.

What Manzine lacks in beauty it makes up for with a print of Ralph Steadman's "Grumpy Festival Man", an article on the World Dryer Model A, Design Classic No.3: The Tree and an infographic illustrating the spread of facial hair amongst current world leaders. It's a self-consciously crap piece of magazine design and all the better for it. Contributers are of a similar standard to F&K, with pedigrees in Esquire, GQ, Wired and Arena. And again, freedom reigns with subjects leaning towards the politically inappropriate. (When I say "leaning", I really mean, "had a skinful, fell over and landed squarely on the side of modern maledom").

 

  
 
 

Brutal

I'm not a student of architecture, in the broad sense. I like buildings, what with their walls and windows and roofs and stuff, as much as anyone (well, anyone who doesn't know much about architecture); have uninformed opinions about this building or that building; like this; don't like that. 

Buildings I really like tend to be brutal concrete blocks. Or, if it looks like it's from a Thunderbirds set, then I'll probably like it. Prince Charles, famously, slagged-off the public library in my home city of Birmingham. One of his monstrous carbuncles…actually what he really said was that it looked like, "…a place for burning books, [rather] than keeping them" (which is a pretty funny crack). But I like it. I suppose if you spend your days fopping around a grandiose pile you're unlikely to be that excited by concrete. 

I, on the other hand, with my more humble background, disagree with his outspoken, architecto-Royalness. I like it. And I like the rear end of the Ulster Museum (pictured here and here) as well.

 

Beer, Branding & Responsible Design

Next Monday sees the first proper event organised by the NI Design Alliance. If you're in NI and haven't signed up yet, you really should. It's a double-bill with Pete Kerr from local design company Atto and Ralph Ardill from The Brand Experience Consultancy. 

Atto do beautiful stuff. I think Pete will be presenting a new, improved version of a talk he did at Refresh Belfast last year. I wasn't there but have heard it was great. Actually, to be honest, I don't know what Pete will be talking about. But I'm pretty sure it'll be good. Ralph will be talking about work he did with the Manchester brewery JW Lees. Who were nearing closure before he helped turn things around; saving their bacon (fries) and, crucially, their livelihoods. I've heard it makes a great case study; think it could be a really good presentation for anyone involved with a brand in any way: creative, manager or owner.

I'm really looking forward to the whole thing. You can reserve your free place by emailing Sara at the NI Design Alliance. And while it's in your head, nip on over to the NI Design Alliance site and add your email address to their database so you don't miss out on futurestuffs.

 

(That's Pete…That's Ralph).

Alien

 

Seth does an ace alien and Karen's a whizz with her sewing machine.

Editions

 

 

GF Smith are selling limited edition prints of photography they've used for their promotional material. John Ross's inky blobs are lovely. And I really like Lee Furnell's Flowers. Not sure about Rankin's stuff though. (If I was Tweeting this I might have added a #whataloadofshite hash tag to that last bit. But I'm not. So I won't.)

The Penrose Annual 1964 Volume 57

Hot on the heals of Volume 56 comes 58 with some more amazing content. Including a great piece by F H K Henrion on the rationalization of papers and inks (accompanied by pages from his catalogue for Simplex Piling); a facsimile copy of Werkman's The Next Call 9; some excellent and detailed stuff on map design; and a superb fold-out promo for a (then) new-fangled typeface called "Univers" (it'll never catch on).

More here.

Chew Back, er…

I'm not big on chewy. So although this may be old news to veteran masticators, when my colleague pointed out the wrapper back, I thought Tidy World looked pretty neat.

The Company She Keeps

An exceptionally groovy cover from Mr Aldridge.

About Face

On 25th March local heroes Andy (Build Conference etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc…) McMillan and the Web Standardistas are screening, for the first time on this ireland of ours, Typeface. It looks great. Can't wait. Have done poster. You can find out more about the film, and watch a snippet, here and over here, you can book your ticket.

The Shapes of Bruno Maag

The Maagster has an exhibition in Vienna. Going from the photos, it looks pretty amazing. See more and read all about it on the FontFeed.

Penmanship

 

 

Here's another of those King Penguins. The obviously appealing Book of Scripts. Although, at times, you have to forgive some less than great reproductions.

Heatblast (on hillside)

Both my boys are ace drawers.

The Penrose Annual 1962 Volume 56

It's taken me gawd-knows-how-long to get around to uploading another Penrose Annual to Flickr. Volume 56 is packed full of great stuff: from the historical interesting but now obsolete technical advances of the day, through to both timeless and time-specific graphic design. For me, the stand-out piece is a title spread from the Saturday Evening Post feature "The Girl Who Hated Men", designed by Gene Frederico.

 

King of Kings

Probably should have kept this one until last, because it's the best really, but here's the first of those King Penguins I found at Castle Ward. An amazing piece of work on the cover; the richness of the colour plates inside is a bonus.

Stamp Collection

Pop on over to the We Made This blog for the inside story of David Pearson's magnificent covers for Cormac McCarthy's books.

Meet Work Skive Sleep

Ben at Herb Lester Associates has sent me one of their most useful of maps. A map that charts the most pleasant and civilised places, around London, for a secret liaison, a sneaky skive or an out-of-the-office very-important business meeting. If you're looking for a quiet and agreeable spot to get a bit of work-on-the-go done or a just place to clear your head, in and around the city, this is for you. If you want one, Herb will send you one for just £3. Email him here.