electric angel /design for life

porcelain by post

invitation to the opening of ‘resolutions’ by gabrielle naptali which is showing in our tiny gallery until 24th november.

we liked the idea of posting a little piece of potential artwork out as part of the invitation and so these invites were handmade by gaby and ourselves – the card folds to seal in and protect the fragment although we did hear that one piece had escaped in transit. it is probably now crossing britain in the corner of post bag. the porcelain is layered black and white – the same material that the two main pieces in the exhibition are made from and their random broken shape (each is unique) reflects the element of chance that is part of gaby’s current work in ceramics.

iSaint

iSaint came about as a response to a call from designed and made for their items that could be given or lent to people as part of 100% design (aka london design festival) which is happening this week. the idea of the project, called ‘love me live with me’, is that people live with an item for a couple of weeks, then respond with how/if it made an impact on their lives in some way.

iSaint is a secular icon – you write your name on the front and hang or place it by the door to be reminded every time you leave the house of your potential to play a positive role in the world.

you can follow progress of our iSaints (there’s a thousand of them out there somewhere) and look at the other items that are part of the project at www.lovemelivewithme.com

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.

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.

stencils roasting on an open fire

it’s getting to be that time of year, and about his time last year james was busy hand stencilling christmas cards for create arts development ltd. we had the insides pre-printed on this translucent material so that the light really shines through – each front was sprayed by hand with gold paint. the cards were posted out in envelopes made of the same translucent material so the card design could be seen through the envelope beyond the address.

enterprising britain – the goodie box

we wanted the judging team to take home a reminder of their day in scarborough and something to take back to the whole national judging panel, so the postcards were packaged in these boxes, to be opened on the journey home.

the ‘waking sleeping beauty’ roundel follows through on the postcards, box and rock.

we had two more tricks up our sleeve… that means two more blog posts.

enterprising britain – people and postcards

the potential problem in visiting a wide range of people and places is that it goes by in a blur leaving the judging team reeling. so we had to think about how we might give them opportunity to revisit at their leisure their whirlwind tour of scarborough’s renaissance.

well, when you go to the seaside you send a postcard back home… and as we wanted real stories, we asked the people we were meeting to write their own postcard message.

and we packaged them as a ‘goodie box’ – we’ll blog that next tme.

photography on postcards by tony bartholomew plus james rush [nighttime harbour shot] and darrell hooper [digital scarborough pic], film stills from ’900 miles’ by ollie banks.

fresh expressions on the edge

fresh expressions is an initiative of the church of england, exploring and supporting innovative ways of being church. we were invited to develop dvd packaging for their latest publication after they saw our work for the run ‘more than this‘ conference.

the style was to be organic and edgy – standard cd/dvd packaging solutions would have been too glossy so we designed a custom folding cover with integral booklet on cartridge paper-type stock with a large recycled and elemental chlorine-free content. the whole package features grungy, random and sometimes abstract type.

the pack opens to reveal quotes from the dvd and then opens further to access the dvd and booklet.
the packs were hand-assembled at electric angel hq with the dvd’s fixing to the cover with self-adhesive circular tabs.

the dvd menu, disc surface print and promotional flyer were also designed as part of the project. feedback so far has been that we achieved the perfect tone with the design.

the boys brigade programme packs

programme packs designed for the boys brigade anchor and junior sections – prior to our revamp of the brigade’s visual identity. these were the first use of the anchors and juniors logos logos we designed which aimed to give each age group of the organisation its own identity. the packs provide material for leaders to use in running their local group and content is themed in three zones. the programme ideas are collated according to theme for which we designed a suite of icons [below]. these follow through onto stickers that the boys are awarded and can be stuck on a wallchart tracking their progress towards a badge.

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.