The 100 Archive

A steering committee of four, 100 founding supporters and 600 submissions: from this comes the 100 Archive, the first and only living archive of Irish graphic design. In development since 2012, last week saw the launch of the first batch of selected work, from 2010 to 2013, and browsing through the HEAPS of top notch work was a keen reminder of just what high quality work Irish designers are creating and clients are commissioning. I thought I'd pull out a few of my favourites, but I really encourage you to wander through the archive to find your own - you'll have no shortage of work to choose from...

LX Type

Lisbon is a city with a particular look, feel, colour palette and lifestyle: all of it beautiful and warm. One of the many things that gives the city character and charm is the tram system, particularly the old yellow trollies that rattle up and down Lisbon's many hills and through its rambling streets. Inspired not just by the trams themselves but the cables that interrupt the city's blue sky, Lisbon has a new typeface. LX Type is constructed from the tram's cables to create a distinct and individual typeface.

Tom Eckersley at LCC

Last week I went along to the opening of Tom Eckersley: Master of the Poster at London College of Communication. Running until 29 January, this exhibition explores the work of graphic designer and educator Tom Eckersley and shows a range of his work for London Transport, the Whitechapel Art Gallery, the United Nations and the College itself (formerly London College of Printing). In fact, LCC is home to a substantial archive of Eckersley's work, as he founded the College's graphic design undergraduate programme, the first of its kind in the UK.

Noodge

Launched at OFFSET2012, TypeGroup is a type foundry from Dublin-based graphic design studio Conor & David. First introducing Orga, followed soon after by Kettle, TypeGroup released their third typeface back in August, named Noodge. Inspired by the work of Wim Crouwel and 8vo and constructed using a modular system, Noodge comes in three styles - 20, 80 and 320 - which are differentiated by how many units are used to create them. Noodge is designed by Steve O'Connell and Simon Sweeney and the pair have created a type family reminiscent of early digital typography but with a fresh feel.

Here's the Heads Up #17

Welcome to the first London/Dublin edition of Here's the Heads Up, with some info on current and upcoming design exhibitions and events that a) I've been to, b) I plan to go to or c) I wish I could go to but am sorry to say I'll miss. Enjoy!

Whisky Galore!

On Wednesday night I FINALLY got around to watching Whisky Galore! An Ealing Studios comedy made in 1949, Whisky Galore! is set in the Outer Hebrides northwest of Scotland and tells the story of an island that's run out of whisky and its inhabitants' attempt to steal the spirited contents of a merchant ship that's run aground. It's a pretty charming film (particularly when accompanied by a dram or two) and well worth a watch :) Its most recent re-release was paired with a beautiful DVD cover and poster by London-based Sam Ashby Studio. Clean, bold and crisp in a great colour palette, Ashby's work does the movie real justice, portraying the mammoth task of stealing - and hiding - the whisky and the massive payoff the inhabitants will have if they pull it off. Click through for stills from the movie, including a great shot of the doctor enjoying a dram with his patient. The doctor provides the best lines in the movie, including this gem about a lightweight islander: "It's a well known medical fact that some men were born two drams below par". Now there's some medical advice...

Make Your Mark: Public Vote

Recently the O2 Academy invited artists and designers from all over the UK and Ireland to submit work to be considered for permanent installation in the Glasgow music venue (there's info on the competition here). While the artworks for display will be chosen by a panel of judges including Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos, the winner of a public vote will also win a prize! As I Like Local has been chosen as a media partner for the competition you can vote here: just click through to see the many submissions and pick your favourite before 14 August!

Make Your Mark

Glasgow's iconic music venue the O2 Academy on Sauchiehall Street is looking for some new permanent artworks and has invited artists and designers from the UK and Ireland to submit ideas. Four panels will be displayed in the venue's main auditorium and the winners will be selected by a judging panel including Alex Kapranos from my favourite Glasgow band Franz Ferdinand. Along with having your work displayed in the venue, there are gig tickets £1000 up for grabs for each winner. There will also be a public choice award with gig tickets and £500 for the artwork that receives the most public votes. Deadline for submissions is 30 July, for more information and templates visit Talenthouse.

Update on 1 August: The deadline for this competition has been extended! You can now submit your ideas until 6 August and the public vote will run from 7 to 14 August!

Edinburgh Art Festival Identity

With Edinburgh International Film Festival opening this week and brochures for August's 7 million festivals (approximately) beginning to circulate, festival fever is starting to build here in Edinburgh. With a programme that includes a host of flags saying 'Hello' across the city's skyline, a number of site-specific installations and an Edinburgh Complaints Choir (I have a few...), Edinburgh Art Festival is one festival I'm definitely looking forward to. It's also the festival with the best identity thanks to London-based Fraser Muggeridge studio, giving the city's most visually-oriented August event a bright, bold and clean feel.

A Chunk of This City's Soul

Launched last week, Ireland's newest stamp celebrates Dublin as a UNESCO City of Literature. It features a short story written by Dublin teenager Eoin Moore as part of the Fighting Words creative writing programme. The stamp was unveiled at the Fighting Words Centre in the north city centre, a place founded by Sean Love and Roddy Doyle and beautifully designed by Grafton Architects to house creative writing classes and workshops for children and teenagers. See Eoin pictured below with our literature-loving president, Michael D. Higgins at the unveiling in the centre. Eoin's story evokes Dublin's energy and pulse, and eloquently describes the particular way the city has of brimming with history while spilling over with life: simultaneously being old and new, looking to the past while being full of youth. As someone living away and missing Dublin more than just a little, this story really touched me and the part I love best is:

Every High King and scholar, every playwright and poet, every politician and every rebel, every merchant, student, and busker who ever set foot in the city holds or held onto a chunk of this city’s soul; every one of them stepped to the city’s heartbeat. I listen to the streets at night and I can feel the city’s lifeblood pumping through me; I can feel myself flowing through it.

Designs on 2013

Parlour Lighting, image courtesy of I Do Cartwheels

This article was first published in Architecture Ireland #267

2012 is over and a new year has begun, and ‘tis the season for making plans, reviewing past projects and kicking off new ones. With that in mind I spoke with a number of designers, collaborators and curators to get a sense of what they’re planning and hoping for in 2013. Some have kicked off the year with major projects, others are putting the wheels in motion for events later in the year, but it’s clear from all who I spoke to that 2013 will be filled with much design activity.

Dont try to be Original, Just try to be Good

Exhibition shot including portraits of Rand by Steven Heller

Easily one of the highlights of this year's Design Week (which ran from 5 - 11 November) has been Don't try to be Original, Just try to be Good, an exhibition exploring work by iconic American graphic designer Paul Rand. Curated by the guys from Curate and Design (who you may remember from a small exhibition of work by Dieter Rams in 2011) and funded through Fund It, the show opened in Ebow Gallery in Dublin 2 on 2 November and runs until Friday 16 November. The exhibition features a small number of specially-licensed reproductions along with a pretty decent number of original books and magazine advertisements designed by Rand, giving someone like me - with only a basic knowledge of graphic design history - a really nice introduction to and overview of Paul Rand's work.

Here's the Heads Up #13

Fuschia MacAree at the Bernard Shaw

26 October - 19 November:
Fuschia MacAree at the Bernard Shaw, Dublin 2
Blessings and Curses is the first solo exhibition of uber-talented illustrator Fuschia MacAree. It runs for three weeks in the Bernard Shaw in Portobello, do go if you can.

31 October:
Eva Franch at IMMA @ the NCH, Dublin 2
As part of the Irish Architecture Foundation's series of talks entitled Agents of Architecture, director of New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture Eva Franch comes to Dublin to speak on the evening of 31 October. The event is free but booking is essential here.

How To Say The Most With The Least

Recently showing at London's Kemistry Gallery was 'How to say the most with the least', an exhibition of work produced in a collaborative 6-day workshop in São Paulo run by Brazilian studio Mesa & Cadeira and led by British designer Anthony Burrill. The result of the workshops was a series of bi-lingual posters employing some of Burrill's trademark simplicity and minimal use of language to create strong messages. As someone having to come to terms with Portuguese, I was particularly interested when I came across this project. The workshop participants have explored the language barrier between English and Portuguese and found bridges between the two languages, creating a series of work that plays with (twice as many) words to great effect. Scroll down for some lessons in Portuguese... and life, judging by some of the statements in the posters :) A set of 12 prints as well as individual prints are available to buy from Kemistry's online shop.

Orfeu Negro & Orfeu Mini

I've spotted books published by Orfeu Negro in various bookshops in Lisbon and can't help but linger over them every time. This Portuguese publisher has been re/producing books exploring critical thinking on various art forms since 2007, such as Le Modular/Modular 2 by Le Corbusier, The Empty Space by Peter Brook and french writer Jacques Rancière's Le Destin des Images, with a beautifully-designed cover by Portuguese studio Alfaiataria, pictured above.

SAL - Surf At Lisbon Film Fest

Today sees the kick off not only of Ireland v Spain but also the kick off of SAL, the Surf At Lisbon Film Fest. Running for four days (until 17 June) in Lisbon's iconic Cinema São Jorge on Avenida da Liberdade, the city's main boulevard, Surf at Lisbon screens a number of documentaries, features and shorts exploring surfing, along with exhibitions and gigs around the city.

OFFSET2012, Part 2

(Making Marks panel discussion in OFFSET second room)

This article was first published in Architecture Ireland #262; read OFFSET2012 Part 1 here.

From Friday 9 to Sunday 11 March Ireland’s premier creative festival OFFSET returned for the third time to the newly-renamed Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. Over 25 designers, illustrators, animators, artists and more from Ireland and all over the world presented their work and shared insights into their practices to attendees twice in excess of the last edition (my guess is there must have been about 1500 people there). Over the course of 3 days in 2 rooms from 10 in the morning to 7 in the evening we the audience were exposed to top-quality work from many disciplines and saw the fruits of ambition, determination and a whole lot of labour. And now to condense all of that creative inspiration into 800 words or less... here goes...

OFFSET2012, Part 1

(Image courtesy of OFFSET)

It's been a full ten days since OFFSET2012 ended. And it took most of this time for me to process what I saw and heard over the course of what really has become Ireland's premier creative festival. My first task was to try to condense 24 or so presentations, discussions and interviews over 3 days in 2 rooms in Bord Gáis Energy Theatre into a relatively coherent 800-word review for Architecture Ireland. That, which will be posted mid-April and entitled 'OFFSET2012, Part 2', was a difficult task, and while I think I just about managed coherent, keeping to 800-words was Not Easy. So much so that here's some further outpouring of thoughts and questions and excited reactions to the whole thing:

Here's the Heads Up #11

(Jim Field's apple from 50/50 Grow)

Ongoing:
50/50 Grow, a digital orchard
The boys over at Studio Aad decided to plant a digital orchard in aid of UNICEF's East Africa appeal. The idea is simple: designers, photographers and illustrators contribute an image of an apple, and you can 'water' one of them by giving a €5 donation. In return you get a high-res version of the image(s) you've chosen (the one I picked, above, is currently my desktop wallpaper).

Brick Book Bag

People have been all a-twitter about Conor & David's Brick Book Bag, which has just been revealed as a reward for backing the OHD book on Fund:it. I think it's a pretty clever and cool graphic, and I'm now even happier that I clicked "fund:it"!