My second week in Nonconform

Well after a busy weekend it was time to get back to the serious work, starting with Christmas cards for CEL Group.

I based these ideas around simple motifs that incorporated the work of each CEL subdivision. With about ten groups to design for we decided to just design for three at a time as the client needed to choose the designs. The first idea was to play on the snowflake idea, hopefully creating a beautiful pattern in the process.

The second idea was taking the motif designs and printing individual wrapping paper. Then photographing "real" presents.

Midweek we worked on ideas for Halton Housing Trust, a Runcorn based social housing landlord. They needed an overhaul, design wise. So we came up with ideas for the front ramps at the Grange House branch. Basically make it look a bit better than plain white. Also having a go at the logo, just a simple tweak really. Making the figures look a bit more human; and alive.

Then having a go at the front of the Grange House branch.

Later on wednesday and thursday we all had to come up with ideas for a PFH advert. This was supposed to show how the company brings people together and in a spirit of collaboration. I worked on a few ideas for this.

My first week in Nonconform

Well it was especially nice to be back at Nonconform for a two week placement. And this week I was straight back into things as they needed illustrations and ideas for a small promotional booklet, before heading off to the PfH Conference

Based around the story of the three little pigs, my initial idea was to have illustrations of pigs (Obviously). I struggled to make these work in the context of a promotional handbook, mixing typography and photography. Spending most of the week drawing little pigs and re-writing the fable.

In the end a serious sit down and re-write from Andy and myself resulted in a more coherent looking booklet, coupled with ideas from Sophie and Chris. Incorporating a graphic idea for each page and spread, there was to be no visual reference to pigs. The deadline loomed and Friday morning came and went, ending up with me backseat designing much to the annoyance of Jas. He's just forgot all his Indesign skills.

In this week I felt I got a lot out of communicating with people. Andy in particular, I really had to push forward my ideas and accommodate His ideas of the booklet, I felt this only really happened on the Thursday night. Still that was a great experience and gave me a good feeling of confidence and greater sense of expressing myself.

Deanne Cheuk

A New York based art-director and graphic designer. Famous for her work with Tokion and Big magazine. Her approach to type design is similar to that of Non-Format, creating effeminate, swirling headline text for magazine spreads. This mirrors the typographical approach that Non-Format employ in such magazines as The Wire and Varoom.

This has led her to be commisioned by Nike, Converse and MTV2. Definitely in the playful camp of type designers, however like M & M and Non-Format she is a dedicated art director capable of re-vamping magazine layouts and bringing an informed eye to fashion projects.

Deanne has also collaborated with Non-Format on the Magic Waves CD type and been featured in The Guardian's G2 supplement.

Adam Hayes

The outstanding redesign of The Guardian also led to a radical rethink in the graphics and illustration. The Guardian is the foremost daily publication to use illustration as an alternative to photography. Adam Hayes is one of many emerging talents to be utilised by the publication, I have picked him for his stunning use of hand drawn type, a resurgence in this form of illustrated graphics has been seen over the last few years.

Adam has worked for National Geographic Channel, New York Times, Howies and Orange respectively. His work has involved motion graphics, magazine spreads and identities for companies and art groups. Combining both a fun and naive style with well drawn accessible imagery. Technically his drawing for the Royal College of Art magazine ARC is fantastic, his personal work (such as hand drawn type) really combines a good sense of typography with flowing, intricate line work.

Adam Hayes straddles the no mans land where beautiful, succinct typography meets purposeful illustration. Its a conjoining of the the two artforms which has been somewhat seperated since the heyday of pushpin studios.

Christian Schwartz

Another type designer based in New York, Christian Schwartz has much in common with H & FJ having also won the 2007 Prix Charles Peignot for outstanding contribution to type design. He also worked under Tobias Frere-Jones at Font Bureau as an intern in 1996. Famous (in the design world) for creating 14 families of egyptian in the re-design of The Guardian. His fonts are beautiful and hard-working, winning also the black pencil award from D & AD. "Using a typeface with an extremely wide range of weights gave us the flexibility to just use one typeface throughout the whole newspaper. That is one of the things that, I think, gives the Guardian a very special flavour." Mark Porter Creative Director of The Guardian.

Also known to collaborate with various designers, Schwartz was trained at Pittsburg's Carnegie Mellon University in communication design. After this he worked at Meta Design Berlin developing typefaces for Volkswagen and in particular the typographic sytem for Deutsche Bahn rail network. This he designed in collaboration with Erik Spiekermann, while working at Meta Design. The design for Deutchse Bahn won a gold medal from the German Design Council (Rat für Formgebung).

He has a love of reading and fashion "I try to keep an eye on what’s going on right now, not just in graphic design but also in fashion, music, television – serious culture and pop culture, all at once – so I buy more magazines than I care to admit" A mix of attention to detail but with Erik Spiekermann functionality thrown in makes this type designer one of the best in th world.

Hoefler & Frere-Jones

Jonathon Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones two award winning type designers and type historians, are based in New York. Taking influence from the world around them, typographic history and New York signage in particular. Having recently designed Gotham based on the archaic shop signage of Manhattan; it was given the honour of being the typeface chosen for the foundation stone of the soon to be built Freedom Tower.

Not content with merely designing typefaces, these explorers of type delve deep into research. Extensively trying out combinations of kerning pairs and weights. For example in the typeface retina which was designed for the 5pt small print of the Wall St Journal stock pages, they analysed 129 American and international papers. They kept a binder containing 3800 unique examples of ways in which news agate is used. Not content with this they also tested the typeface on press to make sure their solution, with enlarged counters and 'traps' to collect pooling ink worked perfectly.

It's precisely this attention to detail which has earned them legendary status amongst the graphic and publication community, though they remain hidden preferring to scour through the archives in search of the perfect type for the job.

H & FJ have also designed for They Might be Giants, Barbara Glauber of HeavyMeta design a neighbour commissioned a font for the album "Factory Showroom". This has since been released as 'Giant'. Other clients include Rolling Stone, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times and Esquire.

In 2002 Jonathon Hoefler won the prestigious Prix Charles Peignot awarded by the Associated Typographique Internationale to designers who have made an outstanding contribution to type design.

Non-Format

Non-Format, originally a London based two-man outfit, consists of designers Kjell Ekhorn and Jon Forss now based in Oslo and Minneapolis respectively. Working in much the same way that M & M seem to operate, working in music circles designing for album covers, posters etc, collaborating with photographers and fasion powerhouses such as Nike and Gap with whom they designed t-shirts for their RED series. They've also re-designed magazines The Wire and Varoom, they put their philosophy towards design as being based on simplicity.



"Once we’ve sorted out the hierarchy of what we want to communicate, we tend to design things using very few layers, especially if one of those layers is incredibly detailed and aesthetically busy." (1)

This results in a typographical approach, though while rooted in the same principles of cross collaboration as M & M, that is much cleaner and crisper. Their work can have a more monochromatic look, making the viewer concentrate on the message and stylistic decisions therein. They have the influence of fashion, photography and technology but combine it to a more commercial level than M & M.

Though they do share the commonality of producing bespoke typefaces for clients, this again lends them a unique voice in which to convey their clients message. I feel that this is very much a design outfit that is looking forward rather than conveying the essence of past typography, however some more type-only based poster work bares relation to futurist typographers like Ardengo Soffici. Similar to M & M approach they sometimes sacrifice legibility to deliver often gorgeous layouts and stand-alone typography.

M & M (Paris)

M & M (Paris) are a forward thinking creative duo based in Paris (obviously) largely collaborating with artists, photographers and fashion designers from across Europe. The picture at the bottom is taken from Francois Curlet's 2006 London show 'Script from a clip in London'. Often working as art directors and in advisory positions. Their role as graphic designers has changed somewhat over the years, as has their opinions and approach to image making and promotion.

"We chose graphic design no just for the sake of being graphic designers. It was some kind of social commitment, a way to earn a living & also to disseminate our ideas" (1)

Their work has an ideas driven, imaginative streak, unconfined to strict typographical ideals. Having said that it's clear that the work has a fantastic visual aesthetic, at first seemingly naive the work reveals with further viewing a graphic language that is complex and multi-faceted. Drawing in influences from photography, architecture and illustration. They act more like art directors and are indeed credited as creative consultants to Paris Vogue.

"We are not against fine art, but we believe in some kind of relationship between the work & the people who commission the work" (1)

Also when creating type for projects they use more unusual methods, the typeface for Bjork's Volumen best of album (2nd from bottom) was created from a piece of school handwriting. This irreverent approach to creating typefaces was extended to the font Cesar; M & M having commisioned a small child who didn't know how to write letters into creating this alphabet, they then took said font and incorporated it into the pattern of the carpet in a cafe on the rue de Atienne Marcel. Unbeknownst to most diners there lies an encrypted text on the floor.

(1) Quotes taken from Design Museum interview 2005