Category: students and graduates

Part 3 branding project

Students present a brand proposal for Friends of Hlekweni, fundraising charity for training and education organisation in Hlekweni, Zimbabwe.
Students present a brand proposal for Friends of Hlekweni, fundraising charity for training and education organisation in Hlekweni, Zimbabwe.

Coinciding with a celebration of the work of Ken Garland and in the spirit of the First Things First manifesto, Part 3 students took on five not-for-profits and social enterprises to ‘brand’ as their last project of Part 3. Thirty-seven students worked for five clients: Charmian Allright from The Luton Hoo Childrens’ Book Festival, Don Rowe from Friends of Hlekweni — a charity fundraising for the Quaker Training Centre in Hlekweni, Zimbabwe, Nikandre Kopke from Mazímas — a roaming restaurant to showcase the cuisine of socially marginalised women, Lucy Colbeck and Owen Everett from Watford Food Revolution — a food coop campaigning for the benefits of local food, and Simon Chapman from Notmymum.com — a student accommodation swap.

The project lasts for four weeks, and brings together skills learned over three years. It is an opportunity to work on a relatively open brief from a real client, in any direction that students think appropriate, and plays to their particular interest or skill areas — for instance, the Childrens’ Book Festival inspired students to make their own illustrations, one of the Mazímas groups made a bespoke typeface, one of the Watford Food Revolution made their own video, and one of the Notmymum.com groups coded their own interfaces for a website and app. More images of their work here.

Students present branding proposal for Mazímas, together from scratch, roaming restaurant to showcase the cuisine of socially marginalised women.
Students present branding proposal for Mazímas, roaming restaurant to showcase the cuisine of socially marginalised wome

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading at the ICA

ICA The MallReading’s new partnership with the ICA was launched tonight, as Typography and Art began a collaboration that will provide a London venue for both departments for teaching and public events, drawing on Reading’s strengths in both disciplines and on the ICA’s ability to connect with a young, vibrant audience. The launch event was preceded by workshop sessions in the ICA’s studio space for MA Book Design and BA students, run by John Morgan and Ruth Blacksell. Watch this space for more news.

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Celebrating Ken Garland

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Designer, teacher, author, and photographer Ken Garland is celebrated in the current issue of Creative Review. Ken has been associated with the Department since its inception in the 1960s, and generations of students were inspired by his provocative teaching – learning how to think about the ‘why’ of design as well as the ‘how’.

Ken will talk at St Bride on Tuesday 12 February, followed by a panel discussion in which some of Ken’s Reading students – Anne Odling-Smee, Fraser Muggeridge – will take part in a panel discussion chaired by author Adrian Shaughnessy

Ken Garland: Structure and Substance 

Photograph of Ken Garland by Liam Lewis

 

Typography graduate’s ‘Design of the Year’

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Reading Typography graduate, John Morgan, has been nominated for the 2013 Designs of the year competition run by the Design Museum for his work on the visual identity for the 13th Architecture Biennale in Venice.

Read about his work on the Eye blog: Common ground: a designer’s letter from Venice.

John is currently teaching students on our MA Book Design course.

Reading graduate is ‘Penguin’s brightest star’

Penguin’s brightest star is not an author but illustrator (and Reading Typography graduate) Coralie Bickford-Smith, according to AbeBooks. The AbeBooks site features an interview and shows her brilliant covers for Penguin Classics, the Great Food series and her interpretation of a three-volume edition of the Arabian Nights. There is even more at Coralie’s own website, http://www.cb-smith.com

 

Chancellor presents student design prizes

Over the summer BA Graphic Communication students who has just finished their first year entered a competition run organised by Oculus, a Reading design company who are celebrating their 20th anniversary. The students were asked to create a brand for a fictional company and to deliver both visuals and a written rationale of the thinking behind their idea.

Earlier this month the top ten entries were displayed at an awards ceremony hosted by Oculus and prizes were presented by the Chancellor, Sir John Madejski, to the three winners Mike Leonard (1st place), Bethan Prestwich (3rd place), and Emily Whiteside (2nd place).

Pencils to Pixels, and more

Gill drawings

The University is a partner in the Pencil to Pixel exhibition which opened yesterday in the Metropolitan Wharf, in Wapping. After the taster of Gill’s drawings seen in Beauty in the Making last spring, Monotype pulled out all the stops for Pencil to Pixel: the event marks the first public viewing of many materials from the archives in Salfords, from original drawings by Bruce Rogers and Chris Brand, to an unbound folio masterpiece of Modern typography belonging to Adrian Frutiger, to an innovative display taking over the entirety of one of the walls, displaying a never-reccurring combination of typeforms from the company’s library. The exhibition is accompanied by twelve “collections” (booklets showcasing themed selections of typefaces by Abbott Miller, Patrick Burgoyne, and others), and a range of specimens and keepsakes.

The exhibition marks the publication of two major editions: a new issue of the Recorder, celebrating Robin Nicholas’ career in the company (with an opening article by Gerry Leonidas), and a special issue of Eye magazine, dedicated to the contributions of Monotype to type and typography. Both editions include superb photography, and should become instantly collectable – not least because the material in the exhibition is unlikely to be made available in this scale anytime soon.

There are many Reading connections with the exhibition, starting with the main organisers: Dan Rhatigan and James Fooks-Bale are both graduates of the Department. The special Recorder issue  follows on from the Centenary Issue of 1997, published on the occasion of the ATypI conference in Reading; and the Linotype the Film publicity on display sports the exquisite (but unreleased, yet) redesign of Metro by another graduate, Toshi Omagari. Not least, the Recorder includes a picture of Robin teaching a few years back in a room eerily similar to the studio where Book- and Information Design postgraduates spend their days!

More about the exhibition in blog posts by Eye and Gerry.

Data Journalism: A designer’s perspective

An Information Design Association talk by Lulu Pinney

6.30pm on 15 October
Performing Arts Lab, Royal College of Art

The internet has had a profound impact on journalism, as it has on many things. The vast quantity of data the internet has enabled us to discover, collect, explore and share is part of this. Visual design provides a powerful tool for finding and telling the stories contained within data. With data journalism spanning several disciplines designers have much to contribute, and much to learn.

BOOK A TICKET…
http://www.amiando.com/idadatajournalism.html

Lulu Pinney
Educated to become a numbers person but equally curious about pictures and words, Lulu gained design experience at Pentagram, Haymarket Business Publishing and BBC News Online. She now teaches, creates and blogs about infographics.