electric angel /design for life

tiny poetry

what’s the point of having space if you’re not going to use it? ok, so we only have a tiny little space but let’s use it anyway. so as seen as our current exhibition is all on the walls (literally – see here) we thought it would be fun to use the gallery floorspace for some poetry gigs while it was on. there’s the loose theme of the sea/surf/coast to tie in with the exhibition, but we’ve told the poets ‘do what you want’ and we can’t wait to hear what they do.

for full details download a flyer here.

hey, who’s been doodling on our walls?

tsk, you open your studio to an artist and next thing you know there’s graffiti everywhere.

actually we’re rather delighted with these montages that snake around the walls – a visual trail along the coasts of spain, portugal, france and morocco – to accompany the paintings in ‘view from the back: journal of a surf trip’. the paintings aim to evoke the 6 month surf trip which in kathryn’s words “is as much about encounters with people we met, the surfing lifestyle and the landscapes as the surfing itself”. kathryn is also exhibiting postcards she created and sent to her then one year old niece from the journey which document the minutiae (even the camper van sink!) as well as the bigger stories.

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preview is this friday then it’s open whenever we’re open – usually 9.30-5.00 monday to friday or just get in touch if you’d like us to open up specially – we’re very happy to do so.

the shop of priceless things

our most recent public art commission – a collaboration with poet john w clarke. the shop of priceless things is in rotherham town centre.

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more than this

flyer for the 2008 run national conference. brian mclaren will be a big draw as he’s probably the USA ‘name’ most commonly associated with church in postmodern culture.

the flyer folds our from being little larger than a cd case to reveal a design than can be read in several ways. the flip side contains details of the keynote speakers and booking form. it’s one of those designs that seems to have attracted attention and has already brought a few out-of-the-blue inquiries.

iMatter

dvd cover and cd-print design for run. the idea of iMatter is that it’s a give-away item – something designed to pique interest rather than be an answer in itself – hence the inside cover of words that ask ‘what matters?’ tight production deadlines on this meant we had to design the packaging from the script rather than see the finished film that’s on the dvd. having now seen the dvd i think we got the feel just right – not that we’re taking all the credit, this is the result of good communication and the run folks are good communicators.

designs lent for lent

it’s always nice to hear of how our work has taken on a life of its own – sometimes it feels a bit like having children and sending them out into the world. mark – a friend from back in the day when we did things with dance music and digital projectors in churches – got in touch to say he’d been using our mount series posters in the chapel of northern general hospital, sheffield during lent. they’re accompanied by a leaflet that lists the original passages the posters were based on and offers a prompt for reflection. a compilation of some photos of the posters in the chapel above. thanks to other folks who have also got in touch to say they’d used them.

annual reports – the new harvest festivals?

some organisations issue annual reports because they have to. some use them as an opportunity to celebrate the last 12 months and share a few stories. the latter are always more enjoyable to read.

i remember a friend once observing how most contemporary jobs lack a ‘harvest festival’ moment – the point in the year when you reflect on the past 12 months of work and celebrate the result of your labour. of course, churches still have harvest festivals but the focus has remained on agriculture meaning there is no celebration for the office worker, the shop assistant, the council employee, the graphic designer… as a result there’s little sense of spirituality – however you choose to define that – in many working lives. it can become an endless working grind.

so there’s a good case for annual reports and for them to come accompanied by a big party, a day off work and a celebration in the church, the mosque, the temple or wherever you choose to celebrate life. and then maybe we’d all feel a bit better about our work.

images are of artworks annual report from last year – the first using the new visual identity. we’re just about to complete this year’s. has 12 months gone that fast? we need a party…

god is a dj

today sees the launch of the new proost website at greenbelt festival. if you’re of a religious bent then we’d describe proost as being on the cutting edge of worship resources since 1997, if you’re not, then we’d describe proost as being an independent london-based record label catering to a niche audience. whichever, the proost posse are heroes and it’s been a pleasure to work for them.

the brief was to help relaunch proost on their tenth anniversary as they moved to the next stage in their evolution offering not just CD’s and books, but movies, mp3′s and pdf’s as downloads. they’re also on a mission to discover fresh creative talent with their ‘unusual suspects’ campaign and so there’s lots of stuff on there that no-one has seen before.

we invited gordon (aka scarborough-based sneakytrick) to work with us on this project and he should take credit for the clever stuff happening when you use the site. basically it’s an online shop with a slideshow as the main interface and a media player to preview audio and video. much of the content is available as physical products or downloads and there’s a cracking subscription offer that gives you access to all downloadable content for 12 months. it’s built in joomla! – an open source web application framework. we’ll blog more about the philosophy behind open source sometime soon, perhaps when we’ve shown you a few more sites we’ve been working on recently that were all built with similar technology.

i confess a vested interest here. a few years ago proost published a track i wrote on the cd ‘spirit of the new’ and as a result it was also picked up by a publishers to go in a youthwork resource book/cd-rom. thanks jonny for spotting my badly produced original! so should you be interested you can log on at www.proost.co.uk and take a listen – it’s called ‘spirit draw near’. and while you’re there why not take out a subscription…?

the mission continues

year two report for the mission partner project.

on a mission

one from the archives. thornbury mission partner project ran in the community in which we were based in bradford – it’s aim to try and find common ground in a diverse cultural setting and thus sow the seeds for a more cohesive community. these reports served the dual purpose of informing local people of the project’s progress and in attracting further funding from various charities and trusts. the project was successful in extending it’s initial thee year funding to a five year period.