Table of contents for June 2018 in Computer Arts

BEREN NEALE EDITOR Beren’s had a busy month: he started work on Computer Arts, had a hoot at D&AD, moved house and – having got his first ever credit card – tried not to lose his mind by the Persian rug possibilities in Ikea. MARK WYNNE ART EDITOR Mark has enjoyed writing indie mag reviews for Creative Bloq in his spare time this month, and if you’re a fan of femminist-skewed intellectual horror analysis (who isn’t?) check out issue one of Suspira. It’s a belter. ROSIE HILDER OPERATIONS EDITOR Rosie said goodbye to Computer Arts halfway through this issue, and has moved to its website, Creative Bloq. She’s not moved far though, and is still within stealing distance of Mark’s indie mag colllection.…

CHARLOTTE WEST Senior art director www.cwest-design.com “Being successful is 60% making great things and 40% being a reliable employee and coworker. Graduates need to understand that a gorgeous portfolio may get you in the door, but to move up and be someone people want to work with, you better have a solid work ethic and be a team player. On my team, if you want to be considered a valuable designer you need to make deadlines, have a positive attitude, be willing to learn new things, and help out. In school, it felt like ‘rockstars’ of the office would be the designers coming up with innovative visuals, but in reality the real rockstars are also hard workers and good people. Be the designer everyone knows they can turn to in…

Focusing on universal themes and conveying the story of a mother and child relationship, the creative team at ustwo games surprised the world once again with a beautifully executed sequel to Monument Valley. With a core aim to “make small meaningful games that can be enjoyed by everyone,” head of studio Dan Gray led the team through an intense development and prototype creative process to craft a game with universal themes, following a mother and child as they make their way through the land of optical illusions, as architects of the sacred geometry found though-out each level. “Creatively our objective is to continue to provide all the amazing things about interactive entertainment to a wide audience – the democratisation of game design.” says Gray. “There’s so many incredible mechanics and…

To coincide with the opening of its new US office in Los Angeles, Nexus Studios launched HotStepper, the world’s first augmented reality character-based wayfinding app. The Interactive Arts team at Nexus Studios built a bespoke system that uses a combination of GPS coordinates, your phone’s compass and vector in real-world space (accelerometer) and mapping data in order to calculate your location and render HotStepper as your virtual wayfinding buddy. “There were a lot of technical challenges to overcome to make our character feel present with you on the street,” reveals Alex Jenkins, creative director at Nexus Studios in London. “We made full use of the just launched ARKit to get away from tracking markers, combined with geo-location and mapping technologies to keep the HotStepper walking alongside you.” Enabling the team…

Award-winning illustrator, artist and creative activist Edel Rodriguez came to the US from Cuba as a political refugee aged nine. He landed a job at TIME magazine soon after college, and at 26 became the youngest art director to work on TIME’s Canadian and Latin American editions, before going freelance in 2008. His clients include The New York Times, The New Yorker and many book publishers, and he won the American Society of Magazine Editors’ Cover of the Year award for his TIME Trump Meltdown cover. See more at www.illoz.com/edel. Is Edel Rodriguez Donald Trump’s most hated artist? That was a question asked by Hollywood Reporter back in February 2017 – and the answer is most likely yes. The Cuban-born illustrator has unleashed a devastating visual commentary on US politics…

The idea for this execution came from the Mies van der Rohe quote, “Build, don’t talk.” It seemed appropriate to illustrate the idea with physical objects, hence the three-dimensional effect. The halftone shadow was a recommendation from the printer who thought it would be the best way to achieve the effect. It’s not a traditional letterpress print in that there’s no assembled type. The printer handled the manufacture of the block, in conjunction with Believe In, who commissioned us. It’s printed on Colorplan Tabriz Blue.…

MY LOVE OF PAPER Mel Edwards Having only graduated last summer, I’m still pretty new to the world of freelance illustration. My style and process, however, are things that I’ve been developing for quite some time now. I dabbled with paper during my A-levels and Art Foundation, but university was where I truly fell in love with the material. Initially, I cut everything using a scalpel and produced a lot of layered, two-dimensional illustration. This process was extremely time-consuming and the end result always looked very handmade. As I progressed, I started working with a laser cutter – this gave me the advantages of speed and precision but it burned the edges of my paper. Now, I cut my papers using a plotter. The plotter also facilitates speed and precision…

What a time to join Computer Arts magazine! Having barely settled in my seat, I headed straight out for a three-day binge of inspiration at the D&AD Festival, and as we send this issue to the printers, I’m eagerly awaiting the tidal wave of talent that is grad show season. And it’s an exciting time for the design world as a whole. As well as a bag full of business cards, I left the festival with a head full of questions: what’s being done about the lack of diversity in the creative industries; how can new blood stand out amongst the wealth of talent that’s already out there; and with trust (and interest) in the establishment at a perennial low, can big brands with a genuine commitment to positive change…

RUTH HAMILTON ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CREATIVE BLOQ As well as chatting to two Pentagram partners for Studio Insight (p76), Ruth attended D&AD, where she spent most of her time trying to find her way around the labyrinthine venue. She is yet to return. TOM MAY FREELANCE WRITER Having aided the transition of editors on CA, Tom flew off to Zanzibar, where he read about Patti Smith and “threw things at monkeys”. He also commissioned the two main features in this issue, which are crackers.…

What makes the great designers great is dedication to their craft and belief in the end product; their complete confidence in research or testing as well as the design Digital is new, design is not. In the past 20 years since the advent of commercial digital design, nearly every part of modern life has been transformed by the medium. Yet with so much product in the public sphere, no design icons have emerged, no movement-leading revolutionaries, no digital rockstars making their mark. Digital has no Peter Behrens, Le Corbusier or Alexander McQueen. Instead the industry is saturated with carbon-copy design built from best practice, not vision. As budding designers-to-be, we begin our education within institutions that celebrate diversity and collaboration. Design disciplines are mixed together within classes. Critiquing your fellows…

1 Look at people. Pay attention to how they move, how they carry themselves and look for aspects of their personalities that are shown through these mannerisms. Take note of these things and combine them with your own imagination to create mash-ups. Jim Stoten www.jimtheillustrator.co.uk 2 Focus your energies in coming up with your own world, tell your personal stories, unify colours, shapes, lines, explore but also keep on coming back to what you think is making a strong personal body of work. Jose Mendez www.josemiguelmendez.com 3 Keep it personal. If you can relate to your characters then the viewer will too. For us it’s all about creating characters based in reality; they can be cute and cuddly but they don’t have to live in rainbows and gingerbread houses. It’s…

A conceptual illustrator, award-winning cartoonist and comic artist based in Brighton, Leon Edler regularly contributes to The New York Times, Guardian and other international papers as well as publishing and advertising. “I’m mindful at sketch stage to mix up the characters and represent a bigger range of people. I’ve always loved comedy and have observed and studied people that I find funny, so they’re all just in my head when I need them.” Commissioned by Time Out New York to illustrate a cover for a lead feature on New Yorkers, he was tasked with depicting a diverse mix of characters. His illustrated cover for Time Out won a Merit award in The Society of Publication Designers awards last year. “I like to make sure that a group of characters interact…

_THE GOOGLE SEARCH BLOG www.blog.google/products/search Straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s where you can read all the official announcements from the world’s biggest search engine about how it’s updating its algorithms, and what that means for your website’s position in the rankings. _SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL www.searchenginejournal.com This blog brings you a ton of news and comment on the latest developments in SEO. The analysis is always incisive and the site also features some great how-to guides. _SEARCH ENGINE LAND www.searchengineland.com Search Engine Land is an institution in the SEO community, and takes a deep dive into the latest developments in the field. It’s always well-researched and is never afraid to get technical where necessary. _SEARCH ENGINE WATCH www.searchenginewatch.com Running since 1996, Danny Sullivan’s blog offers excellent coverage of the latest…

1. Use research time wisely While you can’t spend hours of client-billable time on teaching yourself something new, there is scope to do some learning on the job. “There’s always a period at the start of a project where you are testing and coming up with ideas,” says Jody. “In that period of time we will do that experimenting.” At this point, try to get some idea of the scale of the new process, and make the call if it’s something you can realistically take on yourselves, or if you need to outsource it. 2. Get help from experts If you’re working within an agency where there are people with the skills you need, take advantage of that fact. “Because we have people that are working in so many different…

THE CONCEPT Mike Moloney Soho House is a private members’ club that started in London but now has locations and members around the world. It draws people mainly from the creative industries including film, fashion, advertising, music, art and technology. Because of its increasing number of international members, Soho House wanted a refreshing way of communicating its house rules to all its new members, without the need for an on-site induction. The brief was to create an animated film to outline the key house rules. Our ambition was to create work that communicated the information not just effectively but in an entertaining way. We didn’t want Soho House to come across as straight-laced, heavy-handed or patronising, and tonally it had to feel consistent with the quality cues of the establishment,…

The Association of Photographers (AOP) celebrates is 50th birthday in 2018 and we remain as passionate about promoting and protecting our members as we did when the association was first established in 1968. We fought tirelessly for the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act that thankfully came into force in 1988. But what does copyright actually mean for a commercial photographer today? Copyright underpins the nature of how nearly all photographers make a living. As a form of intellectual property and enshrined in legislation (the aforementioned Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), it is a property right and gives creators the ability to generate income by licensing the use of their endeavours, as opposed to selling ‘units’ of photography, as if they were factory owners shifting boxes of widgets. The words…

LISA HASSELL As founder and director of Inkygoodness, as well as agency director of WE ARE GOODNESS, Lisa was the perfect person to talk to artists and discover their secrets to great character design. www.inkygoodness.com MICHAEL ALBERS As co-founder of W12 Studios and with over 14 years’ experience of designing digital solutions for global companies, Michael has witnessed design’s response to digital first-hand. He is not impressed. On page 20 he calls for change. www.w12studios.com MEL EDWARDS Paper modeller Mel Edwards shows how to create a retro paper robot and walks us through her process for achieving absolute precision when making sculptures from paper. www.meledwards.co.uk EDEL RODRIGUEZ Discover more about this fascinating illustrator on page 56, and how his artistic responses to the Trump administration resulted in iconic magazine covers.…

Communications and computing have already experienced transformative disruptions. Now it’s the turn of manufacturing and design to undergo a similarly dramatic upheaval, enabled by technology and in particular the democratisation of digital fabrication tools__ In fashion, where lead times are usually specified in months, Unmade’s disruptive technology was created in response to its founders’ frustration at the industry’s lethargic attitudes to mass consumption. While researching performance clothing for UK Sport, Ben Alun-Jones and his partners, Hal Watts and Kirsty Emery, realised the untapped potential of industrial knitting machines. Combining their programming and engineering skills, they developed a new way to control them. "Everything is unmade," says Alun-Jones, "until the customer chooses their design, when machines whirr into action and knit a one-of-a-kind item for a similar cost to mass production."…

MICHAEL ALBERS FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, W12 STUDIOS www.w12studios.com Mike is the co-founder of W12 Studios and leads the day-to-day creative direction of the agency in his role as CCO. He has over 14 years’ experience designing digital products and solutions for leading global companies. Mike has received accolades from the CHI Awards and Design Week. ROSIE HILDER OPERATIONS EDITOR COMPUTER ARTS www.rosiehilder.com After two years bashing Computer Arts into shape, Rosie is leaving the mag for new, online pastures. Poised to make the move to CA’s website Creative Bloq, on page 23 Rosie contemplates the move from print to digital on both a business and personal level. DESIGN MATTERS: What do you wish you’d known when you graduated? – page 22 PLUS: We critique the new Trivago corporate brand mark…

To celebrate the 10th year of its music festival, Apple invited London-based illustrator Hattie Stewart to create a set of original artworks, applying her trademark doodlebomb style over photographs of some of the iconic performers to have played the festival. “I think my work is something every generation can enjoy, it evokes the feeling childhood with its cartoonish style, but also has themes that are more adult in nature.” says Stewart. “It’s playful and engaging but doesn’t take itself too seriously.” The artworks including Pharrell, Katy Perry and Queens of the Stone Age, hung on display in London’s Roundhouse for the duration of the Apple Music Festival. www.hattiestewart.com…

Rilla Alexander wanted to leave the character’s gender and ethnicity open to personal interpretation in her latest title, A Bear Sat on my Porch Today, so every reader could imagine themselves in that place. When illustrating a book written by someone else, she talks of seeing the characters as actors on stage who have to get into character and it helps if they embody her own emotions. “I usually name characters even if they are not named by the author, so I can get to know them better. I called this character Bean. I was wearing a red beanie my mother had knitted me and, as it turns out, so is Bean. I thought about how I would feel if all those animals sat on my porch and wouldn’t go…

MAY University of Reading: Art Education Degree Show www.reading.ac.uk Institute of Education, L19, G03, London Road Campus, University of Reading, Redlands Road, RG1 5EX • 17 May-7 June Leeds Arts University: Foundation Diploma in Art & Design www.leeds-art.ac.uk/show2018 Vernon St, Leeds, LS2 8PH • 18-23 May This open show will transform the university’s buildings into a large-scale exhibition space, giving you the opportunity to view all the latest work from their creative, talented students. Edinburgh Napier University: Showtime 2018 www.napier.ac.uk/courses/browse-interests/design/degreeshow Merchiston Campus, 10 Colinton Road, Edinburgh, EH10 5DT • 18-27 May University of Lincoln www.lincoln.ac.uk Art, Architecture and Design Building, Brayford Pool Campus, University of Lincoln • 21 May-4 June BA and MA shows for the university’s students of graphic design, product design, architecture, interactive design, advertising, illustration, animation, visual…

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is both an art and science. It’s about ensuring that when people search for a relevant term online – for example, ‘cheap hotel in Birmingham’ – your website appears high up the results page, in a way that grabs attention and encourages click-throughs. You might think SEO is something you can hand over to someone ‘technical’ once the website is designed. But rather than being bolted on after the event, it’s increasingly baked in to the design process from the start. “For brand new websites, SEO is definitely something clients want to discuss straight away,” says Mark Stringer, managing director of Manchester agency AHOY. “And for those undertaking a refresh, it’s usually the next question after the UI discussion.” Exactly what’s requested will vary from client…

1 LEARN BY DOING “All designers need to understand how SEO works and second-guess how Google and other search engines, are moving the goalposts,” says James Huckle, head of technology at digital agency Mirum UK. “In the short term, the best way to do this is to get your own website that you can control, add some content, social links and analytics, then do some tests and see what happens.” 2 KEEP EXPERIMENTING “Don’t be afraid to get out of the sandbox!” says Evan Fraser of GraphicSprings.com. “Try on-site optimisation techniques on your live site, to see how search engines respond. There are tons of resources online, but you won’t know what works for you until you try.” 3 USE FREE RESOURCES “Rand Fishkin and his Whiteboard Fridays are an…

Our piece is called Forward/Rewind. Graphic designers need to keep an eye on the past and the future. This mix is symbolised by traditional letterpress and digital work. The two words are placed like arrows pointing at the future and the past. First we laid the two words out to have a balanced composition, using a gradient for the word Forward. The gradient was transformed into pixels in Photoshop. To ensure the best quality letterpress print we created a pixel grid in Illustrator, reproducing our Photoshop image in vector squares. Everything was merged into one. We used debossing in the printing for the word Rewind to symbolise the past.…

Working with time-consuming, hand-drawn character animation to a tight deadline, we tried to minimise the amount of movement in the secondary characters. This also works well to focus your attention on the main character. It was a slight creative challenge finding a neat balance for the personality traits of the main character. We wanted him to be likeable and fashion conscious, but not too try-hard or trendy, as well as portraying a humorous nature through the animation.…