electric angel /design for life

our next project…

…will be the area shown below.

we’re pleased to announce that we will be working artist rachel welford to provide a piece of public art on the old scarborough-whitby railway line, now part of the national cycle route and an increasingly used alternative transport route into urban scarborough.

the artwork will form part of a new track surface near the road bridge at the bottom of woodland ravine in scarborough at the intersection of several routes. the work’s function is to act as a waymarker and signpost and will be visible to users of the line and by pedestrians and vehicles from the road bridge. adrian and rachel [taking a snap on the pic below] produced the winning design in a competitive submission with rebecca providing some vital technical insight to bring the idea to fruition.

the project will involve local community groups who use the track working with poet john clarke to generate text for the artwork. this project will be something of a new venture for us and we hope, lead to us applying for similar work in the future. we’ll blog progress on here as it develops. workshops with the community groups should begin in the next couple of weeks with completion of the project in october of this year.

some links:
friends of the old railway line
the cinder track – a project by university of sheffield students. summary of the cinder track project in this issue of renaissance news.
sustrans

watch this space

we seem to be always popular with work placements, perhaps partly because so few design studios offer them (shame on you!). and we like to give our placements something fun and real to work on if we can.

recent 6th form placement sabina impressed us with her photography so we suggested working on a centrespread for the july/august issue of ‘scarboroughs future’ that encouraged people to look at possible future renaissance projects. these include the spa and surrounding area taking in the roundabout [possible future use as a surfers changing and shower area?] and controversial disused cliff lift, the far harbour area, the ‘argos building’ [space better put to use as a market square?] and the grand-daddy of them all – the futurist on the seafront.

sabina created this photomontage with the addition of our words and typography. it’s a little different to some of our previous scarborough-focussed projects in that we’re not trying to make scarborough look good, but rather encourage people to reimagine spaces and how they might be transformed.

for us this also hints at some future projects we have lined up in which we’ll be exploring space in scarborough and in one instance, helping the physical transformation of an area.

give ‘em the old razzle dazzle

invitation inviting representatives of US-based aerospace and automotive companies to a reception at the house of commons and ‘tech-tour’ of british companies. the link between these companies is that they all use pipe-bending machines designed and manufactured by scarborough-based unison ltd.

although pipe-bending might not get you really excited, it’s worth knowing that it’s this technology that ensures your car works and that the plane that takes you on holiday is as safe as it is (unison technology is helping build the new airbus 380 as well us used in the RAFs AWACS early warning planes). you can also add to that that these folks have developed technology that is also eco-friendly by reducing waste and energy consumption.

we rarely work with other businesses so this might be seen as a bit of a departure from our usual work with the voluntary and arts organisations but we took this on because it seemed to have much in common with work promoting the area – it’s about building image, not least another jewel in scarborough’s enterprise crown.

the invitations – printed by scarborough printers mcray press – use a foil-blocked cover with the house of commons crest, a textured paper for the invitation and matching cream paper for the fold-out itinerary and letter. we hear that they’ve received glowing comments from all involved, one quote in particular that it was the best piece of marketing material they’d seen in several years.

who let the designers in?

typical – there’s an iconic hockney hanging on the wall not a few centimetres away and here we are looking at our own work in a rather self-obsessed manner.

we did look at the art too, honest.

that’s some crazy art

we’ve been working on the legacy documents for the ‘crazy, damn right i’m crazy’ exhibition – art from the arts council collection which was shown at the ferens gallery, hull earlier this year. you might remember that the art was chosen by the ferens art ambassadors and marketed to the same age 16-25 age group. the docs aim to provide information and advice to anyone embarking on a similar project .

we didn’t post any images of our work in the gallery at the time, so here are some pics courtesy of art ambassador hannah. thanks hannah!

this is the banner advertising the exhibition hanging in the atrium area – visible as soon as you enter the ferens gallery. below it is joseph beuys’ ‘intuition… instead of a cookbook’.

one of several banner stands which were also used at freshers fairs to attract students to the exhibition (see pic below), door panel (with blackout curtains due to possibly offensive content) and if you look carefully, floor graphics that lead from the gallery entrance to the exhibition.

exhibition info panels (above) and artwork labels (below) continuing the style of the promotional booklets.

feedback sheets encouraging visitors to leave their comments in the manner of artist ross sinclair’s t-shirts. 1100 people did.