Table of contents for September 2017 in Computer Arts

With our cover feature offering advice on the day-to-day politics of small studios, we knew we wanted our cover illustration to focus on the heart of a thriving office environment – the relationships between the people. Guillaume Kurkdjian’s isometric style – gorgeously stylised worlds, populated by bustling miniature people – was a perfect fit for the intimate feel we wanted to convey. We knew that we wanted the ‘studio’ coverline to stand out from a distance (and Kurkdjian’s beautiful, distinctive colour scheme ensured that immediately), but we also knew we wanted readers to look close into the illustration and relish all kinds of quirks and details. From our initial sketch, there were remarkably few draft developments: Kurkdjian developed our first ideas and executed them rapidly with bags of beautiful extra…

CULTURE TRENDS PEOPLE EVENTS INSPIRATION Each month, our Trends section is curated by experienced creative consultancy FranklinTill www.franklintill.com MIRROR 3 BY IAN STELL FOR PATRICK PARRISH GALLERY The articulated form of Mirror 3 uses internal pivots that allow each panel to expand and contract like a concertina. The result is a honeycomb fixture that plays with perception. VOLUME CHAIR BY EDVARD & STEENFATT Inspired by the properties of steel, Edvard & Steenfatt’s Volume chair exemplifies both strength and fluidity. Formed with perforated steel sheets pressed into a curve, the design also accentuates the chair’s contrasting seamless tubular steel legs. AITA SHELVES AND REKI METAL CHAIR BY MINNI SIRELÄ Minni Sirelä uses tilted metal rods to pique visual interest for the simple and generalpurpose Reki chair. The stark black grid of…

NEIL LEONARD PROGRAMME LEADER, PLYMOUTH COLLEGE OF ART www.plymouthart.ac.uk Neil heads up the graphic design programme at Plymouth College of Art, but has previously taught everything from multimedia to model making to fashion journalism. He is also a practising creative, whose past clients include BT, Shell and Sony. CHLOE TEMPLEMAN DESIGN DIRECTOR, DESIGN BRIDGE www.designbridge.com Chloe is design director at Design Bridge, an independent brand design agency with studios in London, Amsterdam, New York and Singapore. On page 23, she discusses why she loves working with illustrators, and what makes a fruitful collaboration. DESIGN MATTERS: What’s the biggest obstacle to agency success?– page 22 PLUS: Three perspectives on loyalkaspar’s reboot of SYFY’s brand – page 24 Illustrations: Louise Pomeroy www.louisezpomeroy.com…

Working with different illustrators is part of my role at Design Bridge, and I find that these collaborations often help push our brand and packaging design projects in new directions, and bring a uniqueness to our work. Along the way, I’m learning that there’s a fine art to a successful collaboration. For starters, it’s important to know when to approach an illustrator. I never begin a project with a particular illustrator in mind. Instead, at Design Bridge, we come up with the creative idea as a team and, as our idea takes shape, certain illustrators often come to mind. This means we can avoid the awkwardness of approaching someone too soon, only to find that our idea or approach has changed and we no longer need them. When working on…

1 FOCUS ON JUNIORS As a small creative business, it’s often easier to recruit juniors with potential and then develop them than to find fully formed talent. The Plant London is one agency that likes to nurture from below, according to founder Matt Utber. “One student who came straight to us from university ended up becoming our design director,” he recalls. “And we’ve had a few others over the years who’ve done similar things. It’s really lovely to nurture designers and see them grow like this.” 2 DRAW ON EXISTING FRIENDSHIP GROUPS Friendship groups and existing contacts are another great way to find new talent. At SteadyGo, the Leeds agency he co-founded, Tom Wade tried running a recommendation policy for recruitment: “If an existing employee introduced a friend we’d pay…

HANSJE VAN HALEM_ Passionate about typography, book design and print in all its forms, Hansje van Halem has run her own studio in Amsterdam since 2003. She also works digitally, creating intricate typographic experiments that explore the tension between a systematic approach, legibility, and irregularity, as well as lecturing and leading creative workshops. www.hansje.net Fascinated by the interplay between pattern, texture and typography, Hansje van Halem has developed a distinctive style that bridges the gap between digital and print to suit her needs – she’s as comfortable generating striking visuals with code as she is experimenting with screenprint and Riso. The Dutch designer will cross the border to Belgium in November to speak at Antwerp’s Us By Night festival – to whet your appetite, we chatted to van Halem about…

DESING MATTERS BRAND GUIDELINES COLOUR CORRECTION IMAGE MANIPULATION ARTWORKING FOR PRINT DIGITAL ASSET CREATION TYPESETTING This six-part series is an essential guide for junior designers. We give advice on topics entry-level creatives need to know about, from basic theory to practical tips. In the first of the series, we delve into the world of colour correction. Subscribe to make sure you get the rest of the set, see page 38. Colour correction is a phrase that often appears in job ads for junior designers, but it can mean different things to different people. If a studio mainly works with motion graphics, animation and film, the ad is probably talking about colour correction of video, aka colour grading. However, if it’s a studio dealing mainly with graphic design, branding, packaging and/or digital…

STUART MCMILLAN Creative director, lg2 Born in the UK but raised in Canada, Stuart studied advertising at Falmouth College of Art before starting his career in London. He moved to Montreal in 2007 and has worked as a creative director at lg2 since 2012, where he regularly confuses colleagues with his mangled French. JEAN-PHILIPPE DUGAL Art director, lg2 A multi-award winning designer and art director, Jean-Philippe has picked up prizes for his work on several national and international brands. He also helped create Pigefolio.com, the first freelance designer association in Canada, and the design arm of TUX agency in Montréal. PROJECT FACTFILE BRIEF: As part of lg2’s Annexe programme, the agency agreed to work on a surprise brief for a non-profit organisation. The only brief the team received was to…

As any design company founder will tell you, running a successful studio takes a lot more than design prowess. You need plenty of guts, determination, and the kind of business savvy that may not always come naturally to creative people. With all of this in mind, our cover story this month sets out six of the biggest hurdles that are likely to stand in the way of your creative business’ growth, and gives you 36 gems of essential advice to help you leave them in your wake – so you don’t just survive, but thrive. For a hit of design inspiration, regular CA contributor Adrian Shaughnessy explores the eclectic world of book cover design, a field in which even the most iconic works of fiction regularly get a creative facelift…

A way from the annual frenzy of its Awards and New Blood, D&AD runs year-round professional development workshops. We paid a visit to How Brands Talk, a half-day session by veteran copywriter Vikki Ross. A key thread was soon apparent: consistency is key. That applies to every piece of copy a brand touches, not just above-the-line campaigns but oftneglected things like T&Cs and 404 error pages. Treat brand copywriting like a conversation. Talking in the active voice, in the first person, helps. To demonstrate this, Ross bastardised the famous slogans of McDonald’s and Nike into: ‘It is being loved’ and ‘Make sure it gets done’. Small tweaks can warm up copy instantly: try contracting ‘you are’ to ‘you’re’ or swapping formal words like ‘view’ or ‘receive’ to ‘watch’ and ‘get’.…

Every summer in the UK, thousands of graphic design students graduate and start looking for jobs. It’s a massively competitive market, so if a student wants to get the best job, they need to stand out from the crowd. This need for graduates to rise above the pack brings about an exciting challenge for educators, and we are constantly trying to find the best way to help our students. My most successful graduates have not always been the most technic ally accomplished, but they have been ambitious, able to pitch, eager to talk about their work, and with a portfolio full of great ideas. While I understand software skills are necessary, and the industry corroborates this, it’s important that educators prioritise ideas, a thorough knowledge of the principles of design,…

1 SPECIALISE If you’re a large agency, clients expect you to do everything, from marketing to branding through to web design and app development. Small agencies can’t compete with that – and nor should they, says East. “When we first started, we’d take almost any job that came our way. But once we recognised what we did best and what we enjoyed the most, it became easier to specialise. This, in turn, made it easier to identify new business opportunities and win them.” 2 BE PROACTIVE Small agencies often get work via word of mouth, but you can’t rely on that, argues Utber. “You need to be proactive. Personally I always do one thing a day. Make a phone call or reconnect to someone.” It’s also about getting your name…

1 FACILITATE GOOD COMMUNICATIONS The biggest cause of workplace stress is poor communication and bad planning, says East. As a small business, those problems should in theory be easier to overcome than in a huge bureaucracy, but this won’t happen automatically. You need to make the effort to be clear with your employees. “You need to ask difficult questions, be realistic about what’s achievable, be willing to say you don’t know (but can find out), and have good processes and workflows in place,” says East. “Sort this out and most of the problems melt away.” 2 KEEP WORKING HOURS REALISTIC People working for small companies are often asked to work long hours, and often end up doing so, but that can be counterproductive, lowering productivity and encouraging staff churn. So…

01 AN INNOVATIVE EVENT FORMAT Last year, OFFF By Night transformed a cavernous warehouse space in Antwerp into a bustling hub of food, fun and flashing screens, where the talks finished at midnight every night. “It was a wild guess that turned out to be a huge success,” says Rizon Parein. “We’re adding more games, more massive LED screens, dirty green lasers, light installations... think Blade Runner.” 02 A THEME PARK FOR CREATIVITY “We see our event as a platform for creatives to plug into. It’s not an ego show – it’s a theme park for creativity,” declares Parein. “We’re one big family who share interests and are up for a party. It was a challenge to build a new lineup to match last year’s fireworks, but so much fun.”…

1 WATCH YOUR HUES Working as a junior, you’re likely to be asked to switch machines quite often. So beware, as different computers can show the same colours differently, says Sarah Gray of Dublin’s All Out Design. “I mainly work on my MacBook Pro with a Retina display, which has a tendency to make images look great on screen,” she notes. “But on other screens, the colours can be a bit too hot and vibrant.” 2 TAKE SCREEN BREAKS Take regular breaks for your eyes to stop them getting used to a certain colour, adds Gray. “Your eyes aren’t infallible,” she stresses. “If you’ve been looking at a strong colour, your eye will be used to that colour, and have developed a bias.” 3 USE MONOCHROME Remember you can still…

We worked with the incredible artist and filmmaker Rodolphe Saint-Gelais through our friends Roméo & Fils. He’s an animator at the National Film Board of Canada during the day, so this became his passion project in his free time. The idea for the script came after researching the personal stories of transgender people around the world. Each story was unique, but there were many similarities in the emotional journeys. Feelings of confusion, fear of rejection by their parents and friends, actual rejection by people they cared about, and many horrible examples of aggressive transphobia. We started with storyboard sketches and an initial animation test, then spent time on character design and individual scenes. Rodolphe animated in Photoshop because he wanted each scene to be composed like a painting.…

The founder of creative festival OFFF, Héctor Ayuso, talks about his Sigur Rós ‘fascination’, and how the band perfectly marries art and music. I have always been attached to the band Sigur Rós. Some people call it an obsession, but I’d rather call it a fascination. Music-wise, the band has helped me overcome many things. I found something I could relate to both emotionally and physically in their music. I have literally chased them all around the world and have attended their concerts at least 15 times, to the point where the band manager has invited me to their private after-concert events, and I’ve met the group more than once. This is an example of where the saying: ‘If you believe it, you will get it,’ rings true. I will never…

CHLOE TEMPLEMAN Chloe is design director at independent agency Design Bridge. On page 23, she shares why she loves working with illustrators, and outlines the elements of a fruitful collaboration. www.designbridge.com STUART MCMILLAN Stuart is creative director at agency lg2, based in Montreal. He reflects on creating a powerful project that aims to make the world more accepting of transgender children on page 92. www.lg2.com SUE DAUN Sue is ECD at Interbrand London, and one of the judges for this year’s Brand Impact Awards. On page 76, she and five other BIA judges discuss what it takes to create successful branding campaigns. www.interbrand.com SCOTT KIMBLE Image creation director at London’s BrandOpus, Scott shares his tips for colour correction on page 70, as part of our new series focusing on common…

Change Is Good is a new fiction book by Louis Rossetto about the birth of the dot-com age. And fittingly for a book about a revolution, it’s the first book to be designed and printed by Erik Spiekermann’s new printing process, which he calls ‘post-digital printing’. This method will use a combination of new laser plate cutting technology and letterpress to print 1,000 copies of the book, which is available on Kickstarter. We caught up with Rossetto and Spiekermann to find out more. What are the benefits of letterpress printing compared to offset? Louis Rossetto: Offset printing handles colour really well. But at the same time, when you’re reading a book that’s only text, offset doesn’t deliver on a quality level like letterpress used to. On the other hand, letterpress…

Founded in 2008 by art historian Antony Hudek and graphic designer Sara De Bondt, Occasional Papers (OP) is a non-profit publisher committed to the more esoteric histories of architecture, art, design, film and literature. Rejecting the text-light, white space-heavy aesthetic common to art monographs, OP’s books delve deep into the ‘why’ and ‘how’, reflecting Hudek’s background in art history and academia. Many of the publisher’s titles focus on overlooked but influential figures in art and design. For example, the volume about concrete and sound poet Bob Cobbing (Boooook) contains extensive archival material that focuses on the artist’s life and milieu as much as his output. The depth of research and exquistite design (by De Bondt’s own design studio) make each of the 20-plus books in OP’s catalogue an art object…

DAN ROSE Founder and creative director, Awesome www.weare-awesome.co.uk “Clients will most likely enquire about projects with several agencies when making the first contact for a quote. My advice is to avoid underpricing to win a bid: be honest, pitch with confidence and trust your work to speak for itself. A good client doesn’t look for the cheapest option, only the right one. There’s no worse situation than your team working more hours than you realistically budget for. This also puts your reputation on the line. By avoiding this route by pricing properly, you can produce quality, be more likely to generate further work, and the client will be able to accept your rates from the outset.” BOB SCHUSTER Creative partner, Brevity www.seekbrevity.com “Where is the next project coming from? This…

1 CREATE A SENSE OF TRUST Beyond quality work, delivered in a timely manner, the main thing that will keep clients on side is trust and understanding. When you only have a small number of employees, that can be easier to achieve than in a huge, impersonal organisation, so make the most of it, says Wade. “Predominantly, it’s about a shared sense of what the brand needs, its trajectory, its future and becoming a genuine partner. Pursue that, as we did at SteadyGo, and you’ll end up with a lot of longterm clients as a result.” 2 PROVIDE CONSISTENCY Clients like consistency, and that’s another thing you should be better positioned to provide as a small business. “In a big company, a client may get shifted through four designers through…

brand impact awards. BRAND IMPACT AWARDS Now in their fourth year, Computer Arts’ Brand Impact Awards reward the world’s very best branding. In 2017, judges included creative directors from Studio Sutherl&, Interbrand and Wolff Olins, as well as client-side experts who’ve worked with the likes of Mars, Carlsberg and British Heart Foundation. From a record 187 entries, 49 made the shortlist – the winners will be revealed at the BIA ceremony in September, and in the next issue of CA. Modern branding faces a dizzying array of challenges. Consumers are bored, over-stimulated and increasingly sceptical about inauthentic marketing ploys, so engaging them in fresh, meaningful ways is the holy grail for any branding agency. Fortunately, our Brand Impact Awards judging panel is well-placed to dig a little deeper into the…

Once Sam’s characters were determined in 2D at each age for the film, art director Jean Landry created initial sketches in Photoshop. This allowed us to quickly refine the essential elements and make design choices like the colour palette before briefing the 3D magicians at SHED to turn that person into a toy that children would want to engage with. It needed to be bright, fun and tactile. It took a lot of work to ensure that Sam’s character was recognisable at each emotional stage. Gab Grenier and his team at SHED modified the 2D sketches to function as valid nesting dolls.…