Resource Klaxon: Design Reviewed – Online Archive

/

A quick nota bene regarding the latest addition to our list of archives.

Design Reviewed, recently featured on Print’s weekly roundup by Steven Heller is the collection of Matt Lamont – a fellow northerner.

In Matt’s words:

Design Reviewed is a personal project dedicated to digitally preserving graphic design history and documenting the vast visual culture from the last century.

His collection features some absolute gems, but is also thoughtfully (and no doubt pain stakingly) edited into categories and themes. Any designer would be delighted to have a percentage of his collection to learn from!

Soak it up…

A snapshot of the collection

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!

/

Seventeen years ago the idea for an in-house research led printed quarterly document was hatched and the Disciples of Design was born. Over the intervening 17 years the concept has developed into an award winning blog, that at one point was attracting 30,000+ daily hits. It has gone through several iterations and one hacking and is now an invaluable teaching aid, course resource and archive of visual communications and culture.

First hand drawn word mark -circa 2004

Award certificate for Excellence in teaching & assessment

One week project: Christmas

/

Here we feature a new brief for the Christmas project. It asked our first year designers to make a connection between their given client and Christmas crackers. A well known table decoration at Christmas time here in the UK that are just the type of Christmas merchandise the clients chosen would sell to help raise funds.

As a foundation in 3D thinking and packaging, the final crit (in conjunction with the use of the large format printer) delivered a pleasing range of ideas and connections; some of which are below.

London Transport Museum

The Design Museum

the comedy store

kew gardens

National History Museum

RNLI

The Design Museum

Guinness Storehouse

One week project: Symbolism

/

The penultimate project for the graphic design first year this semester is focused on symbolism. In particular vexillology: the design of flags. Each student was briefed to design a flag on behalf of any place, group or organisation of their choosing.

Like much of the world of design, flags are seemingly simple; but actually represent incredibly complex ideas. With this is mind, the brief required the students to remove all design representations of their chosen subject (and sometimes even more) to reveal an absolute purity of form and concept. The following five criteria outlined by the vexillology society were communicated by staff as a method of pressure-testing any design, and to also offer guidance on how to be self critical of a design.

  1. Keep it simple

  2. Use meaningful symbolism

  3. Use two to three basic colours

  4. No lettering or seals

  5. Be distinctive

But beyond that, and quite simply…does it look like a flag? Can it be seen and understood visually from distance? And can it be made from cotton?

Below are a selection of the final designs and a brief description of their origins.

Dogs trust
a charity which specialises in the wellbeing of dogs

Football for Humanity
a charity which uses the power of FOOTBALL to educate, empower and protect children facing the threat of violence, exploitation and poverty

the society of vintners
an association of British wine experts

retro gamers society
a group of gamers dedicated to the original class video games

little princess trust
The Little Princess Trust provides free real hair wigs to children and young people, up to 24 years, who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment or other conditions

BLACKPOOL CHESS CLUB
the tower comes into play

BFI
The British Film Institute is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom

SKELMERSDALE
a young town built in the brutalist style

E3
a trade event for the games industry held annually in los angeles – the city of angels

uclan rams
an american football team based at the university of central lancashire

gainsborough
a town known for its agriculture, river and oil deposits

ondo, nigeria
an area known as ‘the sunshine state’, which predominantly grows cocoa (a yellow coloured fruit), and also palm fruit (which are red)

harris museum
a preston building with six columns to its facade

cumbria
a geographical area famed for its lakes, fells (hills) and natural scenery

bhutan
a buddhist kingdom known for its colourful prayer flags

uk downhill ski club
an organisation interested in descending whte covered slopes

lancashire archery club
lancashire’s red rose meets arrows and a target

Liverpool
a weathered city with scandinavian heritage which was originally designed with a ‘h’ formation built around seven main streets

cumberland cliff diving association
leap from the land to the sea

polish community in preston
the two p’s of two communities weave together in a slavic pattern

lytham
a town know for its welcoming vista of green grass, blue skies and a white windmill

trafford libraries
denoting nine libraries found in the southwest region of manchester

shrovetide football
an ancient game played each shrove tuesday by the up’ards and the down’ards along a three mile stretch of river

layton juniors football club
a junior football team who play on the site of a former windmill

One week project: Illustration

/

The sixth of our semester one lateral thinking projects has just been completed be the first years. The brief took the definition of the word ‘illustrate’ [ORIGIN early 16th century (in the sense ‘illuminate, shed light on’): from Latin illustrat- ‘lit up’, from the verb illustrare, from in- ‘upon’ + lustrare ‘illuminate’] and use that idea to convey the meanings behind idioms and proverbs. Students could choose any idiom they wanted in order to think broadly around any potential solutions. There were no restrictions with regard to technique: image / photography / video / sound / performance were all encouraged, in order to best present the idiom in question.

One week project: Copywriting

/

As we approach the final third of the semester, the latest first year brief asked the students to directly engage with the concept of copywriting; to put words front and centre of a communication.

Each student was asked to research and immerse in a given area of interest: ornithology or philately for example. Then, whilst imagining themselves as a keen pursuer of their given field, write an advert seeking like-minded individuals on campus.

Mountaineering

One week project: 3D

/

Graphic design first years have recently completed their fourth creative brief roughly halfway through their first semester here at Preston. The latest task was to produce an invitation to the opening of an exhibition, at a Museum or public space.

This year staff were presented with a bumper crop of responses in both creativity, and craft. Also pleasing was the thought given to the copywriting and how that supported the idea (and on occasion was the idea).

Surrealism at The Tate

Sir John Tenniel at The Pencil Museum

Sir Antony Gormley at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Heinz at The Packaging Museum

Wallace & Gromit at The Harris

Hacienda at Manchester Art Gallery

Sir Antony Gormley at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Surrealism at The Tate

The Flower Show at Tatton Park

Alexander Fleming at The Wellcome Collection