electric angel /design for life

intervening with CHART Scarborough

CHART Scarborough is one of the big projects were currently working on. the main focus is a map of scarborough based around cognitive mapping theory aka legible cities thinking, that has the intention of encouraging people to navigate the town via cultural destinations. to raise awareness prior to the launch and to encourage some wider participation in the project there’ll be a series of ‘interventions’ around the town over the next few weeks.

some are pretty straight forward like the sign above that went up outside the library yesterday, some will be more situationist guerilla art. i’m not saying any more about those… if you’re in scarborough you’ll hopefully discover one by chance. there’ll also be a week-long competition in the local newspaper.

the library sign is the first time – if you discount the progress reports on www.chartscarborough.com – that an section of the map has been seen in public. this is still a work in progress and there’ll be some changes to this after a couple more community workshops and feedback from the interventions, but it will give you a good idea of what it’s going to look like. the map will be packaged as part of a leaflet in which we intend to break away from the traditional imagery found on publications promoting this part of the world – ‘map as art object’ is one of the phrases from the original brief…

espionage, blackmail, romance and menace!

ah, just a typical day in the studio.

actually that’s how we’ve chosen to describe the 2010 scarborough literature festival. our design work includes posters (copywriting too on those), flyers, bookmarks targeted at adults and kids and the festival brochure. it’s a good line-up again and this year’s main image is in the style of a pop-up book with each pop-up suggesting one or more of the authors and events in the festival – this theme follows through into the brochure. we’re particularly looking forward to the beano event – tickets are on sale now from scarborough tourist information centre.

sssshhhhhh….

uh oh, looks like there’s about to be some menacing on our blog. dennis is coming to town for scarborough literature festival. we’ll blog our brochure, poster [excerpt above], flyers and bookmark designs next week inbetween laying paving stones.

what is a creative?

synchronicity – you gotta love it. whilst on a short break in liverpool this last week rebecca and i visited the tate to see the seagram murals but also took a look at this is sculpture as seen it was on having no idea what would be exhibited.

you never leave work behind, even on holiday and i’ve had wayne hemmingway’s philosophy on designers being thinkers, not just do-ers in my head since he spoke at the opening of woodend. i imagine it’s his off-the-shelf speech but it struck a chord because electric angel is becoming more multidisciplinary with each passing year and a tightly defined perception of what a designer does or what medium he/she works in is increasingly irrelevant. you’re known by what you do, not by how you describe yourself. if you can think creatively about a problem, it doesn’t really matter if the end result is to be drawn, printed or built – you can learn a new practical skill or even better, utilise another’s expertise to help realise an idea, but the ability to design is nurtured over time and through experience.

wayne had curated one of the rooms in the sculpture exhibition (hence the synchronicity), complete with disco-funk soundtrack and colour-changing dance floor. has anyone told him he’s a designer and should stick to boots? not for years. he’d done a good job at the tate and brought his trademark man-of-the-people approach to the sometimes stuffy and clichéd world of art galleries.

so wayne’s philosophy was in my head as i wandered round and had a quick boogie, not least as i knew i’d be returning to a studio where the job list includes designing maps, concrete paving and school uniforms.

and posters and leaflets of course.

[image: sketches for possible uniform styles at graham & raincliffe schools]

updates-a-go-go

yep, it’s update night at the first creative coast of 2010 with news and opportunities from the north yorkshire creative network and on local projects. essential if you want to know what’s going on and how you might get developed or commissioned (courtesy of a new scheme offered by the north yorks network). rick of chrysalis arts and wendy of create will be spilling the beans. it’ll be nice to be back at the merchant too. 5.30pm. link to creative coast facebook group.

not long to go

it looks our public art collaboration with rachel welford and john clarke will be installed w/c 8th february. you can see progress of the project over at www.railwayart.com

rachel and i presented the project to students on the school’s creative and media diploma at the start of the year which prompted some good questions. the students are in process of delivering a project about documenting sense of place so there was lots in common with our piece.

[note to self - must blog about the diploma soon...]

the writing’s on the wall

typography-art commission at york and hull medical school – part of scarborough hospital. the work was commissioned by hafney [hospital arts for north east yorkshire] responding to some specific requirements:

it’s situated in a corridor which doubles as a waiting area for people arriving for interviews with windows on each side – one looks into the library and the other into an office. the work was required to obscure the office window giving some privacy without blocking light, reference to the library would be appreciated [hence a design made of words] and a some relevance to the medical school in general. we selected words from the school’s prospectus for an initial design and then further words were suggested by the school’s staff.

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what a complete waste of a day

artists book for rachel howfield. we designed this towards the end of 2009 in time for rachel to take copies to new york where she was exhibiting at a.i.r gallery. rachel’s work often explores the tension of being a practising artist and a wife and mother and she led a discussion at a.i.r on the topic. intrigued? why not follow rachel’s blog. say hello and she might even send you a book.

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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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when is an annual report not an annual report?

not a joke from a christmas cracker but artworks creative communities annual report 2008-2009. similar to the report-cum-calendar we designed for coast and moors voluntary action, our solution for artworks responds to the challenge of keeping a report in people’s hands throughout the year.

it’s a little unusual in that most of the pages are blank. artworks trade in creative ideas so we thought it appropriate that they gave away sketchbooks in which other people could put their ideas. inserted at intervals throughout the book are pages of handwritten and stuck-in information on specific strands of work that can be discovered by chance. the covers both fold out to reveal the generic information.

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