meant to blog this earlier in the week. today is the last chance to ‘listen again’ to last friday’s most groovy and sometimes out-there concert by medeski, schofield, martin & wood on radio 3. funky hammond n guitar ruffness with abstract tendencies. yum. listen here.
the illustrious cap’n ants is documenting beached at: www.upforit-site.co.uk/webcam2007.html
and whilst you’re there you can get a taste of tonight’s jazzy star turn, the geoff laycock big band. nice.
sometimes being a designer means having a rather hermit-like existence. on glorious sunny days we disappear into a studio, draw the blinds [so we can see the monitor screens properly] and emerge squinting against the light many hours later. so it’s always nice when people call in for a coffee to remind us that the outside world still exists. this week we’ve enjoyed having someone round every day which gives you a picture of the stuff we’re working on at the moment:
on monday it was sue balf and a colleague from nybep. sue and i worked toegther as part of a team planning digital scarborough last year. yesterday we were making plans for a creative coast event to introduce the schools creative diplomas [more about this nearer the time - it's exciting stuff for the borough's creative industries and education].
tuesday saw hugh from wae group call in, turns out he was at school with andrew clay [who i'm looking forward to chatting with later this month]. was impressed with wae’s samples of large format printing – i’m now trying to think of a job where we can print onto unusual substrates…
wednesday saw chris and richard from scarborough civic society and tom mutton from the parks and countryside services. we’re just starting on a large sign for the south cliff gardens – richard has drawn a beautiful map which we’re now going to turn into an information board. an enjoyable project this as the south cliff gardens is a bit of a regular haunt for weekend morning walks.
also on wednesday carl from 24-7 group called in to sort out some financial stuff for creative coast – he’s the treasurer. that gives us good excuse to point you towards 24-7′s rather fab 360 panoramic photography.
and yesterday malcolm warrington from the arts council called in for a chat.
but today the diary is blank! but if you’re passing do call in and we’ll put the kettle on…
the beached stage is going up in the south bay – i took this photo on my way into work this morning. this 4 day music festival kicks off tonight with a screening of little voice – starring michael caine, jane horrocks and ewan mcgregor it was filmed on location in scarborough. the site of the little voice house is just round the corner from electric angel hq but was bulldozed after the film and is now home to a new samaritans building. [little voice factlet: michael caine, who won a golden globe for his portrayal of a washed-up impresario, has written into his film contracts that he can keep any clothes worn in his acting roles. he declined the wardrobe from little voice...]
tomorrow is big band night with the geoff laycock big band who wowed the crowd last year with classics from the swing era plus the odd nirvana cover… and the main festival happens on saturday and sunday with nine black alps and alabama 3 headlining. there’s also the truckstage showcasing local unsigned acts and an extreme sports set-up. the whole thing is free and surely has the best view of any festival in britain? full line-up here.
teaser postcard/invite to the artworks relaunch – the first time the new brand was seen by the public.
scarborough has played host to steam excursions for the last few years, beginning with the ‘flying scotsman’ in 2005, the ‘green arrow’ last year and this year a range of locos including an A4 pacific ‘union of south africa’. ok, so it may not be particularly cool to get excited about steam trains but c’mon – don’t you just find them irrepressibly romantic? not just that whole brief encounter thing, but the triumph of 20th century engineering, man and machine in harmony, the brute power, noise and smell, the luxury and whole hand-crafted feel of the carriages compared with today’s buses on rails.
and then there’s the speed battles indulged in by the big four train companies of the 1930s of which the A4 pacific is a result. the most famous A4 is the mallard (now housed in the national railway museum in york) which still holds the world record for the fastest steam train. it’s that big blue thing that looks nothing like a steam engine. the streamlined casing still appears, to my eyes at least, fantastically modern. perhaps because we supposedly now live in a postmodern culture where technology constantly breaks our expectations, the mallard will always look modern, it was one of the last points in our history where we thought we knew what the future looked like. it even sounds like the future.
we have these trains and their engineers – notably sir nigel gresley – to thank for the invention of the inter-city rail network as they slashed travel times up the east coast mainline. so please excuse my geekish enthusiasm and absence in the studio later this afternoon as i take my son to see the future steam out of scarborough station.
feeling geeky yourself? – more about the A4
‘T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity’ by David Parrish
no catch, click here to download the full book as a pdf
having given you a taste over the last couple of weeks of what artworks are about and some of our previous designs for them, it’s time to show you the brand we’ve been developing for them. one of the challenges of branding is to gain an understanding of an organisation in a short space of time in order to try an encapsulate and embody their activities and ethos in a visual identity. our approach to this is often via a creative session, but in this case we had been working with artworks for several years and had a good understanding of what they’re about – we’d often acted in the role of ‘artist’ working in communities on several of their projects and so seen them in action from different perspectives as creatives and residents.
the key to continued success for artworks is to present themselves not as ‘those people who paint inner city murals’ but as a force for social change. art is the tool, transformation of communities is the end result. artworks reevaluated what it is they do and chose to portray four main areas of activity. a folder format was desired for the main promotional tool in order to be flexible in a wide range of situations – a standard format was also important due to budget and to ensure simple and affordable additions in the future. we suggested having colour-coded staggered inserts so all the areas of activity were available at a glance and could be used as a full pack or customised for one particular target audience. the colour coding extends to a strip of four blocks in which the colours alternate according to the content of the publication they’re used on.
as you can imagine an organisation that uses art, graffiti, rap, photography and performance in communities will have some fascinating images – but not always professional-standard photographs. these are often snatched shots, capturing a moment on a mobile phone or digital camera. the results are honest and vibrant but sometimes come with problems – especially people who would rather not have their image reproduced in publicity material. the design challenge therefore was to develop a way of using images that allowed for unusual crops without digitally manipulating images which we considered would be dishonest and contrary to artworks philosophy. the solution was partly inspired by bradford’s most famous son, david hockney and his photomontage work.
the photo grid system means that images can be interlocked in any variety of combinations – it’s a surprisingly organic way of working as the demands of the image often dictate there the resulting shape will flow. this in turn suggests how the rest of the document is laid out. one of the requirements of the brief was a brand that wouldn’t be too fixed and could evolve and be as creative as the organisation itself. we’re really enjoying using it on different designs and seeing how it adapts – we’ll post more examples as they’re done.
the rubber stamp on the reverse of this folder was originally developed as part of the identity to allow individual customisation of business card-booklets. it’s been extended to be used on envelopes and packages so the brand arrives before the contents are revealed.
the east coast’s own online culture mag is called hightide and the august issue is out now featuring an interview with andrew clay, recently appointed director of the creative industries centre. check it out here – you can download it as a pdf but even better than that it will email you with local listings of cultural events. essential!
we’re just in the process of putting together the august issue of the renaissance news. last month’s edition is now online in an adapted format for screen reading and in a large text version for printing out on the renaissance website. it includes a feature about creative coast.
the original concept was that the newsletter would be produced by a team of students at the university of hull scarborough campus who worked on the original concept of the new format. alas that project bit the dust when the school of arts and new media was formed but we’d love to have some student involvement still.
so… if you’re studying design at college or university level in the local area (or have just graduated) and fancy a couple of days in the electric angel studio helping to put a future issue together do get in touch. we’ll involve you in client meetings and the whole design and publication process. the only catch is that we don’t currently have a spare pc running xpress and photoshop although we do have a desk and a large monitor to plug into… so you’ll need to bring along your laptop or cpu when you’re in the studio. in return the newsletter will include a little feature about you, your studies and what you’re hoping to do next. the newsletter currently goes out to over 1500 local residents and businesses, so that’s not bad exposure, plus you’ll have a piece of real world work for your portfolio.
electric angel design studio, scarborough, north yorks uk
incorporation no. OC336155 vat reg no. 927293892
'city of invention' - public artwork in derby
'echo funnel' - at enchanted parks 2011
'everybody's always somewhere' - public artwork
CHART Scarborough - cultural map, trails & more
adrianriley.com - he talks about interesting stuff
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