London February 2013: 4 Designers conference

As a field trip arranged by my university, I was able to travel down to London for a couple of days to visit the 4 Designers conference in London along with the other students on my Design: Communication course.

An example of one of the presentations which tried to
help us know what to focus on when working on projects.

Held at the Odeon Theatre in Leicester Square, 4 Designers is an annual event which attracts hundreds of budding artists and designers from all around the world and allows us to witness first hand the experiences and ways of working from four different designers/design collectives.

This year the guest speaker over the two days were Jim Sutherland and Gareth Howart (Hat-Trick Design), Neil Smith (Howdy), Jen Mcaleer (Start JudgeGill) and finally, representing "Dare" were Kerry Roper and Ron Siemerink.

Of all of the designers, the two who stood out the most to me were Neil Smith and Kerry Roper. Smith, representing Howdy, a group of London-based designers, gave us a guide through his entire working life from where he studied to the people he worked for as well as previous collaborations and personal interests that inspire his work and lifestyle. He ended with a quite comedic film in which he himself had took a picture of every meal he had eaten over the course of a year or two.

An example of work by Dare's
Kerry Roper

Welsh designer Kerry Roper's talk really inspired me. He elaborated on the fact that he came from a really rough and "dead end" place in South Wales and worked his way up to the high-ranks of British design with his non-PC approach to his work and endless use of expletives and 'graphic' graphic imagery. His work really had an effect on me with their almost "anarchist" qualities and range of techniques and I left the conference thinking "I need to look up this guy's work!!".

All in all the 4 Designers conference (as well as the free time in London sightseeing) proved for a very memorable and extremely enjoyable couple of days.

Links to the official sites of the design companies of the speakers at the 4 Designers conference:

Hat-Trick Design
Howdy
Start Judgegill
Dare

Image Source

Scott McCloud

Cartoonist Scott McCLoud first came to my attention when I purchased his brilliant book "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art" prior to starting my time at university. The very, very highly-illustrated book is set out itself as one big comic book,with all text written in speech/think bubbles or boxes, all in very precise points. A great read that helped me immensely in getting to grips with the way that comic books work properly and effectively but also it introduced me to a whole new form of "art" as comic book-style work had never been very prominent in my previous findings. The book opened my eyes for sure!

A good example of the way "Understanding Comics" is
set out (from start to end).

McCloud, hailing from Boston, Massachusetts, decided from an early age the career path that he wished to go down and found himself soon enough graduating from Syracuse University with a Bachelor in Fine Arts. From here he went on to establish himself as a professional designer with the creations of pieces such as "Zot!" (1984) and "Destroy!!" as well as being employed as a writer for the already well-established DC Comics name.

McCloud begins his work using basic pencil sketched and then completes/adds to them using digital software such as Illustrator for the typographic elements and Photoshop for the imagery.

Although publishing brilliant and widely-recognised work, Scott is nowadays perhaps most known for his work elaborating on the 'theory' of comic books with his published books, one being the aforementioned "Understanding Comics" (1994) but also his follow-on to this, "Reinventing Comics" (2000), which also took the extensive comic book layout as it's predecessor.

I'm very inspired by McCloud's work with it being, as I said previously, a big eye opener to the world of comic books and a really helpful and effective way of introducing me into a field of work which I had previously never really had an interest in.

Image Source

Tomato

Another multi-disciplinary artistic collective that are very prevalent are Tomato, who interestingly not only employ designers and craftspeople but also musicians and writers, making them very, very diverse.

Founded in 1991 by eight up and coming creative minds (who some went on to form the legendary electronic music group "Underworld"), Tomato have gone from strength to strength and are nowadays considered to be one of the top creative agencies in the United Kingdom, working (which ranges in design, architecture, performance, public speaking etc) with clients such as globally popular sports brands Reebok, Adidas and denim manufacturer Levi's.

Their first project titled "Ipso Facto Yeah Yeah" was released in their founding year, is a sort-of music video which incorporates the production of film, sound as well as design (the film depicts graffiti street art on the London Underground juxtaposed with the hustle and bustle of city life). The video can be viewed below (courtesy of YouTube):

Even as a huge fan of Underworld and the prominent dance/electronic era of the 80's and 90's, I still didn't know that they were associated to heavily with Tomato and am glad of what my research has helped me discover. An interest of mine is performance and video art which is something that Tomato do very well and has garnered interest in me to delve further into the organisation.

Vaughan Oliver

Vaughan Oliver is a British graphic designer from Surrey who is perhaps most known for his affiliations with both the design studios "v23" and "23 Envelope" as well as with record label 4AD who employed them in order for them to create distinct design identities for their signed musicians who ranged from The Breeders to Pixies, somewhat large names in the 1980s music scene.

Cover of Pixies' album "Doolittle", created by Oliver

Oliver is celebrated not just for his design innovation but also his collaborative projects, working with other designers such as Marc Atkins, Simon Larbalestier etc, and his brilliant imagination when it comes to projects. To many, Vaughan is credited as "setting the stage" for a graphic revolution which came about in the 1980's and 1990's and is often considered a master in the design and music industry post-punk era.

From viewing Vaughan's work it is apparent he is a very diverse designer who enjoys "pushing the envelope" so to speak. I find both his creativity and great imagination extremely appealing