The Benefits of Brown

/

This post serves to archive the recent exhibition in Victoria Building’s PR1 Gallery: The Benefits of Brown. Conceived, curated and created by Graphic Design tutor Andy Bainbridge, the collection of items came together to champion this previously uncelebrated shade. Below is a minutiae of the magnitude of items collected over several years, brought together with charm, storytelling and no little historical context. Thank you, Andy.

 

Why have an exhibition dedicated solely to brown, you may well ask? Well our answer would be why not? From our digging it would appear no one has ever attempted one before, so if nothing else that is reason enough in our (brown bound) book.

So with that question out of the way, we can get on with the content.

Brown is a colour that pervades all our daily lives, whether we are conscious of it or not and the collection of items presented here were all collected, ostensibly by one person over the past 2 years. In the main most items were collected within their daily sphere but some were sought out and a few were kindly donated.

We have tried to compile, order and curate some of the collection but some items are simply placed and presented at random for your perusal..

We encourage, no insist, upon your physical engagement with the exhibition. So with that in mind please feel free to examine and handle the items, inspect them and feel free to flick through the print.

The one thing we do insist upon is that you place them back how you found them and resist the temptation to purloin them, as that would really leave us browned off!

Thank you and enjoy!

– Andy Bainbridge

 

With thanks to the exhibition sponsor Preston Board & Packaging.

Highlights – Part 1

/

Here we feature part 1 in our degree show highlights from The Class of 2021.

Branding - Opus AI music creation by Joe Leeny

Patch Plants - Promotional Campaign by Agatha Blazey

Branding - Sisterhood ‘helping single female travellers’ by Darcy Tromp

Rebrand - Preston Bus by Michael Cardwell-Clarke

Patch Plants - Promotional Campaign by Sara Esat

Branding - Women’s Film Academy by Emma Barber

Promotion - Trinidad & Tobago by Sara Esat

From 400 to 4,000

/

Going through our hard drive we came across some rare snaps of what was to become our annual conference week event.

Back in December 2007 we initiated 3 days of speakers under the title ‘The Christmas Lectures’ and here is a short review of the event that we also happened to find on a word document attached to the file.

“Over three days the department played host to a series of informative a well attended visiting speakers from a variety of disciplines. These included Andrew Griffin from ‘up the resolution’ a multi-disciplinary design agency, specialising in music videos, film and animation. Claire Norcross - head of lighting design at Habitat UK and Richard Scholey creative director of Elmwood – Leeds.

Over 400 students attended these informative lectures which were followed by brief question and answer sessions”

Fast forward 14 years.

We have just recently celebrated our 10th conference week event, themed around ‘Making your Mark’. which consisted of 24 speakers, from a wide cross section of design disciplines spread over 5 days.

Over the past several years the event has become a mainstay of our wider alumni family as well as other professional practitioners currently working in the creative industries.

This year we also broadcast the whole week via teams as well as making the talks available on youtube and between those tuning in live on the day and those watching on youtube catch up, this years figures were estimated at around 4,000+.

Should you have missed the event all the talks are archived and available to watch here.

Men of Letters

/
menofletters.jpg

Men of Letters is a joint retrospective celebrating the lives and work of late lettering artists Tony Forster (1941–2008) and Phill Grimshaw (1950–1998).

The show has been organised by lettering artist Dan Forster (Tony's son), presenting "what is possibly the most extensive exhibition of hand lettering and calligraphy ever displayed in the UK," as Forster puts it.

Alongside teaching at Bolton School of the Arts, Tony was a prominent figure in the Manchester design scene from the early 1960s; creating lettering work including the iconic logos for Paperchase, 1970s Rock Band 10cc and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

After his death, designer Tony Di Spigna described Forster as "The Herb Lubalin of England".

A great piece by Richard Morris on Tony can be read here. It includes the fantastic quote:

“It has always fascinated me that we only have 26 letters. Arranged in the right order they can make you laugh or cry, make you happy or sad, angry or elated.”

Grimshaw, (who was taught by Tony) went on to become an internationally renowned typeface designer, creating 44 typefaces for ITC and Letraset. He was described by Colin Brignall – himself a recipient of a Type Directors Club medal – as "One of the best display typeface designers of recent times".

Most of the work displayed in the exhibition has remained mostly unseen. This is because it was not produced digitally, and most of it has remained filed away in plan chest drawers and storage boxes for many years. This exhibition reveals their hand-created sketches, mock-ups, final artworks, original calligraphy pieces, typeface designs and original posters.

The free exhibition runs from 8 February until 8 March 2020 at Bolton Library & Museum.

https://www.boltonlams.co.uk/whats-on/2462/men-of-letters-exhibition-bolton-central-library-and-museum

https://danforster.com/

Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic

/

Tutors often recommend the Wellcome Collection to anyone passing through, or more likely waiting at Euston. Just over the road from the station, the Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library that hosts free exhibitions and collections; as well as having a great cafe, shop, reading space and pristine water closets.

After this year’s New Blood, we went to the current exhibition – Smoke and Mirrors – which has a great range of objects on display. A video depicting a staunch defence of seances by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the box in which Debbie McGee was regularly cut in half in, a Manchester-made Spirit Horn; but also some beautiful examples of typography. Some hand-rendered, some set in woodtype and some bookplate. But all quite unexpected.

A few snaps that we took are below, but please pop in if you’re passing through.