electric angel /design for life

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.

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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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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how on earth did scarborough win
the european enterprise award?

if you’ve been asking yourself this, then get yourself down to the international business forum event at the spa today or tomorrow and pick up a copy of this brochure.

another award for scarborough – the international association of public participation project of the year – prompted this new piece of literature. alas we didn’t get to go to san diego for the ceremony, instead we had to turn a brochure around, from concept to delivery in two days. ok, so that was delivery to london and taken from there to san diego, but we think that’s pretty speedy nonetheless. the brochure uses text and a visual timeline to tell the story of scarboroughs’ renaissance over the last 7 years. it’s also pretty candid about the situation that scarborough faced and how the council was basically told to work in partnership or not get any more money.

although you probably won’t hear as much about this award, to my mind it’s probably the most important as it recognises that scarborough’s recent achievements have come through people working together with shared vision.

crazy, the legacy

following on from the ‘crazy, damn right i’m crazy’ exhibition, we were asked to design a legacy document that documented the process which resulted in the exhibition. the intention is to provide a resource for others planning a similar process or exhibition.

our design is a pack of booklets, collated in a black envelope with orange print matching the exhibition’s publicity material. the envelope also contains the poster and promo booklet and a ‘found object’ – namely one of the t-short comments visitors left at the exhibition.

we were also invited to write about our approach to designing for the exhibition. you can read that excerpt here.

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.

reporting on a calendar

‘how do we keep our annual report in people’s minds over the whole year?’ is a conundrum many organisations have. one idea developed with coast and moors voluntary action was to have the annual report also be a calendar, keeping the annual report on people’s desks through the year.

the front of each card in the plastic case is of a particular project with a quote from someone in the community. the rear has the annual report stuff on.

photography was by sarah photogirl, carl rudlinton and james here at electric angel – some photos are as they were taken, others have been manipulated to enhance the effects of a fish eye lens.

are you ready for the weekend?

this weekend sees the third scarborough literature festival with a line up of thriller writers, poets and a strong bbc presence [including a cyberman!]. we were invited to design the programme and publicity material following our work on the festival last year which received some really nice comments.

because the festival is still something of a new kid on the block albeit one already developing a strong reputation, building an identifiable brand is important. to this end we recommended using a dominant image that had a recognisable relationship with last years ‘bookchair’ illustration. the illustration this year incorporates the festival title and dates as paper ‘stickers’. the travel stickers continue through the programme to highlight the themes running through the festival.

pick up a programme from any north yorkshire library or look at the details online.

coastival programme

the coastival programme was launched this week announcing a fantastic line-up for the festival in february. our challenge in designing the programme was to create a cohesive look for a wonderfully diverse weekend in which you might go see feeder, watch laurence olivier in wuthering heights, visit a video installation in an underground carpark and spend some time in the company of a best selling author.

we’ve identified the 8 strands of the festival with hand-drawn icons and a colour-coded system. the first two ‘openings’ of the programme reveal a general then genre-specific intro to coastival, the reverse is a full page of what’s going on over the whole weekend categorised by strand. we wrote the copy for the introductions.

as with all work for festivals like this the priority is to create something that is as usable as possible. all the venues are numbered and can be found via a map on the rear of the leaflet. plus there’s an at-a-glance listing so you can browse each day chronologically.

if you’d like a programme posting to you free of charge send an email titled ‘Please send me a Coastival programme’ and containing your name and address to contact@create.uk.net