John Cheesman

Today we wandered over to the Loughborough University School of Art and Design Degree Show. We went last year, and knackered ourselves out by taking the whole thing in. This year we decided to miss the foundation studies and 3D design sections. Foundation studies are interesting – there are some brilliant sparks of ideas, but nothing has the final polish on it. There is a bit of everything – textile, graphic communication, fine art, 3d design – and I’m not knocking the artists, but with limited time and energy, we decided to concentrate on the final-year work. 3D design (pots, chairs and stuff) don’t hit the spot like paintings, photos and sculptures do, so we missed that also for similar reasons of time and energy.

So, did a round of the textiles (woven, multimedia and printed) then on to the main event – the fine art.

I have to say, the standard was absolutely excellent, with some incredibly talented people displaying their work. Certainly some names that we should be hearing more of in the future. I was particularly impressed with Vanessa Raw who showed some absolutely huge portraits. She has fitted in a degree in Fine Art whilst also being a professional triathlete.

Other notable entries include an assortment of used toothbrushes arranged around the gallery space with a little story about each one. We’re assuming they’re fictional, but you can’t quite tell. Unfortunately, the artist’s name badge was missing – I will try to find out.

(Artist name TBC)

There was an installation by Lara Owden with interesting objects in wooden boxes. It doesn’t sound so exciting, but you could watch people’s reactions from the mezzanine gallery for possibly more fun than looking in the boxes yourself.

Lara Owden

Then how about some of Christopher Bassford’s videos, mimicking abstract sculptures. Most amusing indeed – the sculpture would be pictured alone first, then he would come into the scene and set himself up as the sculpture. This one involved shoes which were attached to their base board making the entrance quite clumsy.

Christopher Bassford

Next, how about “Hornby Double Oh?”, or as I like to call it – death by train set. Scott Illingworth’s kinetic sculptures were a little alarming, especially with their setting in a dark room. The one pictured was the least surprising of the bunch.

Scott Illingworth

There are far too many others to mention, it’s well worth a visit if you’re around – running until Thursday 17th June.

See if you can guess which was H’s (who has been quoted saying “that’s not art it’s just stupid”) favourite. I will give you a clue…

That IS art.

Well done to all of this year’s graduates. Once again a fantastic show, and some great accomplishments.

See how the baseline is nice and clean

Unfortunately, the word ‘photography’ has ascenders, and so there’s some trapped white space in the logo. Fortunately, the century gothic font has a large x-height and therefore the ascender are not huge. But still… there’s a little trapped space:

Trapped space

Were I to use a font with a small x-height like (God forbid) Papyrus, you’d see the effect even more markedly:

Trapped space AND terrible font

Now, there’s a classic solution to problems of competition in business. If you can’t possibly compete in google, for instance, with the business you run, then what do you do? You run a different business. Example: you can’t find a decent Donkey Hairdresser in the midlands. So if you were to set up a site for Donkey Hairdressing, you would have a very small audience (obviously), but every one of that audience would find you. It’s a ‘find the niche and fill it’ method.

So, using that methodolgy, if I want to avoid trapped space in my logo, I need to go for a new career path:

New career?

Problem solved!

New Website

Old Page vs. New Page.

If anyone would be so kind as to send me a screen grab of the new one, I’d be very grateful (I want to check how it looks on other machines without my choice of font installed). And if anyone knows alternative fonts to Century Gothic and Adobe Caslon Pro that I can put in the suggested font list, that would also be appreciated.

There will probably be more going in soon, but this is a good start so I can happily release the address on my leaflets of which I’m about to print a thousand.

What does that have to do with curry?

It means that I’ve earned my right to have curry-based noms for tea. I am now going to sign off and start cooking them!

My commercial services advert (centre pages) from a second read of the design book (April 2010)…

I guess this is why it’s important to read, digest, try and then read again. So much more made sense this time round – and last time I visited the printers’ we spoke the same language (for the first time).

Who’d have thought—while I was at school feeling that I couldn’t do art or design—that I’d be where I am now?

Do I need to name the book again? The Non-Designer’s Design and Type Book

If, like me, you have any interest (or need of interest) in design and/or typesetting but no formal training, it’s well worth a read. And it seems there is currently ten quid off the price. Bargain!

Of course, it helps that I have more portfolio now, too. The previous lot were not all commercial jobs, and some were taken very early in my career.

Today I declare myself officially hooked. I haven’t even read it for a few months… it must have been osmosing.

What is wrong with the following? It’s an address label I printed this morning (no it isn’t a real address)…

I’ll tell you, shall I?

Microsoft word has placed the lines nicely spaced as they should be, but my eyes thought it looked all wrong. From reading the book, I realise this is quite typical – lines, words and even individual letters shouldn’t always be placed mathematically. In this case, it’s the lack of descenders on “Old Mansion Road” that makes the gap between it and “Syston” look wrong. Too much air.

So, lowering “Old Mansion Road” by 9pt and raising “Syston” by 4pt gives a much more aesthetically pleasing, if mathematically incorrect rendering…

If that’s just an address label, there’s no hope for me on things that really matter!

The Red Epic Scarlet.

Fortunately, after widespread public criticism in 2007 including a 25,000 signature petition and other cries for it to be changed, a London 2012 spokesman allayed our fears, saying “The emblem is flexible and will evolve over the next five years.”

So… how’s it doing after three?

It’s lost the yellow and the shade of pink has changed slightly. Granted that’s an improvement, but I still think that pretty much anyone armed with a pack of crayola could do better.

Sorry… I was just looking at a 2012 site and reminded how completely awful the thing is!

Here it is!

I’ve also moved the photography blogging (the professional stuff at any rate) onto the Latest News page of the site. I’ll continue to ramble inanely on this blog, don’t worry!

Incidentally, I have to say I’m very proud of those little buttons along the top that light up and stay lit and stuff. That took some real life programming like wot I used to do as a day job. I got a little nostalgic.

The challenge this time is to redesign without rebranding. My business cards and stationery are all good, I think – giving the view of quality and competence. The site needs a revisit and that revisit is about to start.

Incidentally, as loyal blog readers, have a sneak preview of my new slideshow Update: Deleted since I’ve redesigned the whole site. I haven’t finished adding photos to it yet (the repeat is too soon), but any comments would be welcome.