Plus

I was working at Plus most of last week, so have been a bit busy with that (need to get on with work pronto!) - saw some really interesting exhibition spaces. Clusta's set up was probably one of my favourites - really beautiful crisp graphics illuminated by light boxes spelling out the word 'hybrid' - the theme of the whole festival. There was also a stone carver, writing out Baskerville's headstone. And ofcourse, Baskerville was getting some more air time which is always a good thing! Fluid's stand was also pretty cool, with smooth polystyrene type and rain droplets, looked good enough to eat.

Smile were also in the same room - here's a t-shirt design I made for them - on the theme of Hybrid, I used two of my typefaces and applied them to a rectangular space so they became something other than letters - almost like objects that don't have the message of language.
Johnathan Barnbrook gave a talk - was interesting to see his take on things and have his work explained a bit more. His typefaces really stood out for me - they are really considered - but look very difficult to use.

I also took part in a really interesting workshop too - a student from LCC (Lucy Brown) was doing research for her final project and studying how and why people make certain decisions and put certain rules and structures to things - especially in design. The pictures below show my thought process...

First, we were given a strip of black paper - and then we had to cut out 20 different shapes using that one piece. My shapes were pretty predictable - clouds, swirls, soft shapes too. I think i wanted to make some sort of environment/landscape out of them from the beginning.

Then we were asked to gorup our shapes into three groups and explain why. Group 1 - rounded, frinedly and soft shapes that look like they might float or bounce. Group 2 - jaggedy shapes that look dangerous, sharp and directional. Group 3 - squarish shapes that add a bit of structure and uniformity.

She then asked us to chose our favourite group of shapes (mine were the soft, friendly round ones) and place them in a square and attach them with blue tkk so it had a permanency and finality to it.

Then she gave us each a red rectangle and we had to make it fit within our compositions - this strangely enough annoyed a few people! Luckily enough, it fitted with my composition... I placed it at the top on the left - almost as if it signals the beginning of something and then language flows after it.

Then we had to chose another one of our shape groups - but then give it to the person next to us. The shapes I were given actually aslo fitted really well with my composition - the shapes were really flowy, rhythmic and smooth - so became the sea at the bottom of my landscape... anyway, that was quite a long description! But it was a fun excercise.

Overall it was an interesting week - but note to self - try not to be working at a different area when Airside and the type tours are taking place! :(