Table of contents for March 2019 in Computer Arts

BEREN NEALE EDITOR Beren (French: Beren) has been both sad and happy this month. Sad as he’ll be saying goodbye to prod god Mr Potter, happy because he knows Aaron will have an awesome time on his new magazine. MARK WYNNE ART EDITOR Seeking climes befitting his Siberian soul, Mark visited Austria over Christmas. And there he found solace in the biting winds and gelid snow that both mocked and mimicked his wintry thoughts… Happy New Year! AARON POTTER PRODUCTION EDITOR The time has sadly arrived for the sun to set on Aaron’s Computer Arts tenure, as he swaps comic sans for comic books by beaming himself over to SFX. He’ll miss his CA brothers, though, if only for the Bing Bong chat.…

ESSAY Plotting a new course for graphic design education Bill Strohacker on reevaluating how graphic design is taught, and what needs to be done now! Principal director, Strohacker Design School www.strohackerdesignschool.co.uk For me, a lot of graphic design courses don’t prepare students for the workplace. It’s a bold statement, but I think it’s true. We need to address this shortcoming by providing students with a pathway that is increasingly absent from our overburdened modern educational system. We need to re-introduce the fundamentals that underpin the design process. If done, such practices will help produce independent creative thinkers and secure the industry’s future. When studying graphic design, I was taught by highly talented people from the industry, quality lecturers with industry experience. Today, there are so many courses where this talent…

JUMP IN PREPARED “Make sure you have enough money in the bank for at least three to six months,” says Tom Muller, “and have at least one client you’re already working with. It takes time to really get rolling as a business.” IMPROVE CASH FLOW “Charge 50 per cent of your project fee up front, or bill in stages rather than waiting to invoice everything at the end,” recommends Common Curiosity’s Paul Felton. “Get a good accountant on board from day one.” KEEP OVERHEADS LOW “You don’t need as much as you think,” says content strategist Sarah Seaton. “Start with the basics, Adobe subscriptions, a laptop with good RAM, a decent accounting software and go from there. Keep your costs as low as possible.” INVEST IN THE RIGHT TOOLS “A…

Whether you work in design or advertising, chances are you’ll know of D&AD. Founded as British Design & Art Direction in 1962 by luminaries Alan Fletcher, David Bailey, Terence Donovan and Colin Forbes, the not-for-profit has been nurturing, inspiring and rewarding creative excellence for almost 60 years — and it’s now truly global in its scope. It all culminates in the annual D&AD Awards – set for 23 May this year. For many bigger agencies, it’s their main, sometimes only, contact with the organisation. Taking home a Yellow Pencil would be the highlight of most designers’ careers, but the elusive Black Pencil is the ultimate achievement. Over the past two decades, the list of Black Pencil winners includes landmark campaigns such as Guinness’ Surfer, Cadbury’s Gorilla, Honda’s Grr, and more…

1. D&AD AWARDS Every year, D&AD invites around 250 of the world’s greatest creative practitioners to judge the year’s finest work. After much deliberation, the juries decide which projects are worthy of a Pencil, and of what colour — Wood, Graphite, Yellow, White or in rare cases, Black. In 2019, new Craft categories have been introduced to reward the best Cinematography and Direction as well as Illustration and Typography. Budding professionals can also enter the Next categories, which showcase emerging talent. 2. D&AD IMPACT D&AD Impact supports great creative ideas that have the potential to have a positive impact on our lives, and rewards those that have already done so. Awards categories have been developed in line with the UN’s Global Sustainable Development Goals, with pricing designed to be affordable…

The Association of Illustrators (AOI) is a not-for-profit trade organisation promoting contemporary illustration and maintaining industry standards. Established in 1973, the AOI works to increase the standing of illustration as a profession and improve commercial and ethical conditions, and support illustrators at every stage of their career. INTRO TO VR PRODUCTION Lai TS Virtual Reality is an old technology that has now been popularised by modern high processing hardware. It creates an immersive world for users to explore dynamic environments and experience a new level of interactivity by relying on 360 cameras. From games played through the Oculus Rift to Google’s Tilt Brush, VR is still a medium with endless possibilities we have yet to develop, capable of creating engaging illustrated worlds we want our audience to indulge in. The…

Awards season is just around the corner, what with Computer Arts’ Brand Impact Awards call for entries opening on 18 February, and D&AD’s entries closing on the 20th. It’s an important time of the year to take stock and appreciate some of the great work created by the many talented people working hard in the industry… but is design getting fair praise? That’s something we investigate on page 66 in relation to the industry stalwart D&AD Awards. Nobody’s suggesting that the not-for-profit is in any way not totally awesome — a look at its New Blood Shift initiative makes that clear, not to mention all money made from the annual awards goes back into the industry. It’s just that Design doesn’t seem to get as many coveted Pencil awards, or…

NICK CARSON FREELANCE WRITER Nick has been enjoying the rollercoaster existence of working from home with a three-month-old, balancing dad duties alongside copywriting. He also found time to dig deeper into D&AD – see page 66. ROSIE HILDER OPERATIONS EDITOR, CREATIVE BLOQ Rosie celebrated turning 32 by eating a lot and going to the cinema. Now she’s a ‘real grownup’, she can fully enjoy her presents, which included a blender, cushions and a pair of slippers. Wild night out pending.…

Since graduating in 2014, freelance designer Ewa Lefmann has been busy creating work that straddles graphic design, architecture and art. Despite these inroads, her imaginative spark began in an area totally unrelated. “My first creative passion is actually music,” explains Lefmann. “I’ve been performing and writing music since I was a kid, and now I have two bands I perform and write with. As much as I love being a designer, finishing a song, or performing live, is a unique kind of satisfaction.” This same satisfaction translates to Lefmann’s personal work, which she deems very important for navigating the competitive field of graphic design. “People demand this experience of you that no one wants to give you,” she says. “Plus, it’s a chance to work directly with others and just…

LUKE MANNING Founder and creative director, Pencil Studio www.pencilstudio.co.uk We once had a seven-way pitch to the National Trust. The aim was to engage with a younger audience, and we were told there’d be a group of eight to 15-year-olds present at the pitch. We researched the location, Brownsea Island, and found it was one of the few remaining places where the red squirrel was still dominant. So we decided to get one of our staff to dress up as one. Hours before the pitch, a dog spotted Harry dressed as the squirrel and went for him. Thankfully, we were quickly able to separate its jaws from Harry’s leg. We told the children the reason the giant squirrel was with us was that we’d found him on mainland, away from…

FASHIONABLE FONTS STORYTELLING SERIFS by Fontsmith www.fonsmith.com London-based type foundry Fontsmith has unveiled a trio of serifs, each intended to offer a bold alternative to the current trend of online typefaces. FS Kim, FS Neruda and FS Ostro are aimed at anyone with a story to tell, being versatile enough to use for headlines as well as smaller body copy. “Everyone’s getting tired of the same old geometric fonts we see online,” says Fontsmith founder Jason Smith. “Screens are so much better these days and audiences are much more educated, so you don’t have to dumb down fonts. People want to read things properly, and to see and importantly feel something different — we can, and do, use serif typefaces digitally.” “There’s a backlash beginning against a lot of online…

REFLECT YOUR PERSONALITY “With time your portfolio becomes more diverse,” explains illustrator Sue Doeksene. “A portfolio reflects who you are or how you work, so only show the types of projects you want to continue doing in the future.” IDEAS ARE KING “We like to think we don’t have a style,” Paul Felton, graphic designer at Common Curiosity, enthuses. “Our work isn’t driven by trends. We really like seeing great work for more unusual clients – a portfolio with some brilliant outcomes for less obvious institutions is always a good sign of a strong portfolio.” FILL IT WITH LOVE Sweden-based designer Jenny Theolin suggests that making it memorable is key. “90 per cent of the portfolio sites I see are instantly forgettable — I would much rather see your take…

“A prolific maker with a knack for making graphically charged things”FOREST YOUNG, HEAD OF DESIGN AT WOLFF OLINS Nejc Prah has been getting a hell of a lot of attention as of late. The Slovenian-born, New York-based designer creates work that’s gloriously fearless — testing the legibility of type and pushing the limits of editorial design, all the while delighting in merging acid-tinged colour palettes, '90s-style gradients and bizarre combinations of imagery and shapes. Prah has been a designer at Bloomberg Businessweek for three years now, and he loves the content he gets to play with. “The world of business and finance is very exciting,” he says, “it’s good material to work with, even if it doesn’t seem so.” It’s a leap from his personal work, though, which takes in…

Until Mark Bonner’s presidency in 2015, judging for the D&AD Awards mostly happened behind closed doors — the curious could wander through the vast display of entries for an overwhelming burst of inspiration, but there wasn’t a huge amount of ‘live’ insight. One of Bonner’s introductions was D&AD Judging Week, which threw the doors open on the process with a packed programme of events, talks and exhibitions, including behind-the-scenes tours. Over the following few years, D&AD Festival has grown exponentially, attracting a raft of inspirational keynote speakers as well as big-name headline sponsors such as Adobe and Microsoft. D&AD Festival 2019 is set to be the biggest yet, and the longer-term ambition is to develop a more design-focused answer to the advertising industry’s annual blow-out at Cannes Festival. “We have…

CRAIG OLDHAM Craig Oldham goes in-depth on his new, prop-centric book series for Rough Trade on page 10 — the first of which centres on John Carpenter’s cult film They Live. www.craigoldham.co.uk EWA LEFMANN On page 16, freelance designer and musician Ewa Lefmann explains her ability to balance two creative outlets without letting client work fall behind. www.ewalefmann.com MARK BONNER Former D&AD president and GBH creative director Mark Bonner is just one of the insiders shedding light on the not-for-profit awards show on page 66. www.gbh.london BIANCA BERNING On page 82 Dalton Maag’s creative director, Bianca Berning, reveals how the typeface design studio continues to make inroads with modern type in 2019. www.daltonmaag.com PAUL WOODS Paul Woods is the author of a new book titled How to Do Great Work…

who says print is dead? Books and magazines have always had a transformative effect on readers, and few films illustrate this as brilliantly as John Carpenter’s 1988 cult-classic, They Live. And now the film — famed for its scene where leading man Roddy Piper dons a pair of sunglasses and has an epiphany while reading a magazine — is finding new life in the latest project by British designer Craig Oldham. They Live: A Visual and Cultural Awakening is the first in a new series of books from Rough Trade that turns hero props into a physical reality. And for Oldham, it was a chance to work on his favourite John Carpenter film. Having forced the film on a friend back in 2012, Oldham was struck by the idea of…

Born in Italy, Gianluca Alla is now based in London, having moved there a few months ago from Switzerland. His introduction into design work came in 2013 when he was still at university. "One of my teachers asked me if I wanted to be involved in a fashion project," says Alla, "and we designed some catalogues for an Italian brand." Currently freelancing and building his own business, Alla is constantly experimenting with typography. "My last personal project is Letterzip, a series of short animated answers (GIFs) where users can send them through any application, just by searching ‘Letterzip’ while they are typing," he tells us. "Letters are my biggest inspiration. I always try to be consistent in what I do, manipulating lettering and using it on different applications," he says.…

PRESIDENT, LP/AD www.lpad.ca Though it may seem unlikely to some, people on the autistic spectrum have been an integral part of the creative industry for decades — whether the industry is aware of it or not. The ability to imagine something unique has built careers, won accolades and created business success. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are programmed to think differently and have affected critical change for a very long time throughout history and today. When my oldest son was two, we discovered that he has autism and I was lost on what that meant. He’s now five, and I’ve come to understand it better. Autism is a gap in communication and those on the spectrum find it difficult to connect with others, often finding themselves in a disconnected…

“His classic, dark sci-fi aesthetic has built up a cult following of designers”JAMES GILCHRIST, WARRIORS STUDIO CO-FOUNDER Of all the hippest, most-aped designers around, David Rudnick is right up there. He’s spearheaded a certain approach to visual communication — especially within music (clients include Evian Christ, music magazine Volume and record label Turbo) — which is experimental, typographically rigid and consistently unexpected in form and application. “He’s a bit of an icon,” as James Gilchrist, co-founder of Warriors Studio and Graphic Design Festival Scotland, puts it. “His work influences and touches so many areas of the practice at so many levels, from lo-fi merchandise designed by aspiring students to all-encompassing global rebrands by ad agencies. You can see elements of his work everywhere. The visual language David has developed through…

For those who haven’t been to Graphic Design Festival Scotland, more’s the pity: it truly is unlike any other graphic design festival. Not only is the speaker line-up great, and the annual poster exhibition a visual distillation of everyone and everything that’s brilliant about contemporary graphic design, it truly feels like a festival: the Tennent's lager is flowing, no one takes themselves too seriously and everyone is having a really good time. It’s joyful, international yet utterly Glaswegian — if only more graphic design festivals were like this. The festival celebrated its fifth birthday in 2018 (with balloons and a kids’ party theme, naturally); and since it was started by James Gilchrist and Beth Wilson of Glasgow-based design practice Warriors Studio, the team now encompasses studio manager Victoria Donnelly and…

What is D&AD’s purpose in the industry? D&AD believes that creativity can drive business, shape culture and tackle some of the most pressing global problems. They also know that a more diverse and genderbalanced industry will perform better than the one we inhabit now. What is D&AD’s greatest strength? I think its status. D&AD is a not-for-profit educational organisation, and I still don’t think everyone realises that. Put simply, every time you invest in an award entry, or attend an event or masterclass, that revenue is reinvested into funding education programmes. And how can it improve? The scaling of D&AD’s education initiatives is the key next step. For example, New Blood Shift is an intensive night school that enables non-graduate talent to enter the creative industries. It’s now in its…

1. CONSISTENCY “As type design is such detailed work, we are always looking to develop systems and processes that streamline the design process and ensure total consistency,” says Dalton Maag software developer Jany Belluz. “This could be focused around enhancing the precision of our designs across multiple scripts and thousands of characters, to streamlining the process for delivering font files to clients. The goal in the future is to ensure we’re as efficient as possible, to allow font developers to focus on the most interesting and valuable part of their job: designing.” 2. VARIABLE FONTS There’s a lot of excitement around variable fonts right now, and while use cases are presently still sparse, it’s a technology Dalton Maag is taking seriously. “As a typographer and type designer I am eager…

REAL TEXTURES Using our own textures was very important in order to create a rich, detailed and welcoming feel for the visuals. DETAIL The idea of a magical book and the story being alive was key, so we put lots of detail into each scene, including things not mentioned in the text. LIGHTING The lighting of each scene was very important. It gives a huge amount of depth and richness using both shadow and light.…