electric angel /design for life

illuminating hidden words

what started out as an long-standing idea by charlotte to transform scarborough’s italian gardens into a typographic trail became reality on saturday evening. over 150 people came down to explore this tucked away part of the south cliff, normally in total darkness but for one night only filled with light and music and with words from local young poets and songwriters.

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the ‘hidden words’ were musings on life in scarborough – a mix of honest, revealing and optimistic thoughts that might ordinarily not be heard by such a wide audience. it was great to see so many people turn out and to hear such positive comments about the trail.

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the trail of hidden words was made possible by funding from ideas tap (charlotte was one of 9 recipients selected from over 200 applicants) and with support from scarborough borough council. thank you!

a trail of hidden words

we’ve got a lot to be excited about right now at electric angel with some lovely design projects and public art commissions arriving from lincolnshire up to the lake district, but what’s promising to make us a bit giddy (and a tad nervous) this week is more local – the trail of hidden words.

charlotte has passion for putting words into the physical world, taking excerpts from poems and books and placing them in context. it’s one of the reasons she seemed such a good fit to join electric angel when james emigrated last year. this passion led her to apply to ideas tap who fund exciting creative projects by young people with her idea of using poetry and song lyrics by younger scarborough residents in one of scarborough’s public gardens.

saturday’s event is the culmination of this idea when the italian gardens on scarborough’s south cliff will be transformed at dusk with words and lights from local writers jamie mcgarry (founder of valley press), lee simpson & martin hughes (from band ‘everyone an army‘), ben sullivan (from ‘lazlo‘) and james koppert (rapper and founder of scarborough hip hip school.)

the event is free and takes place between 7.30-9.30. it’s suitable for all ages and has disabled access. head for the clocktower on the esplanade and you’ll find us.

the great typographic scavenger hunt

this weekend (25/26 august) i am ‘artist in residence‘ at the sea swim beach huts in scarborough’s south bay.

i’ll be encouraging whoever passes by to collect stuff off the beach to spell out a word they associate with swimming/splashing/paddling in the sea. i’m hoping that by the end of the weekend we have enough words to form a scratch poem entirely made from scavenged shells, pebbles, seaweed and whatever else the tide has brought it.

the rockpools and beach beyond the starmap are best for this. hightide is at lunchtime so the afternoon looks to be the best time to pop along and join in. it’d be great if you can make it. i’m officially in action from 10-4 so when the tide is in i’ll be around the area photographing previously collected stuff.

i’m also hoping to collect enough shells to form a complete alphabet which will be the start of a project i’m calling ‘shellvetica’ (see what i did there?). perhaps you can help with that too? stuff that’s created over the weekend will be posted on or linked from this blog so check back next week.

[image: 'scavenge' created from photos taken at scarborough south bay yesterday]

leaf typography

this is something that james (on photography) and i (on leaves) were messing about with last year. the text was collected by writer dina murphy talking to older folks around the town and we tried to choose, use, arrange and photograph the leaves in a way that added a further resonance to the text.

in retrospect i wish i’d put a lot more effort into the lettering but we were just seeing if the idea worked and how it photographed before we expended hours on it. so i figure if i post it here, it’ll shame me into developing the project further.

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typobike

if you’ve taken the most cursory glance at james’ blog, tweets or photography portfolio you’ll know about him and bikes… i know about james’ ability to use a mouse and keyboard with one arm in a sling. so whilst it’s unlikely i’ll also be flinging myself down mountains on two wheels anytime soon, i was recently given a long discarded rusty old gal which prompted this repaint and spur-of-the-moment typography job (you’ll see i didn’t really bother tackling too much of the rust).

having a bike again has prompted something of an affair with the cinder track (site of the wayfinding artwork we created with rachel welford) which i’d only walked various sections of before. having tasted the scarborough end of the route on bike and loving the ravenscar stretch on foot i’m rather tempted to attempt the whole scarborough-whitby in one go. but should this sound all rather athletic, no fear – there are plentiful opportunities for ice creams, cream teas and pub lunches on route.

settled

we (me on typography, james on photography) created this as an offshoot to the creative coast windows project (first fruits of the project here). it uses words from retirees in scarborough. writer dina murphy had conversations with older folks on benches around the town, which given the hilly nature of scarborough get regular use – she then selected phrases from those conversations as the source material for one of the windows.

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we borrowed some of the phrases to create a few temporary text interventions around town of which this is one. it’s exploring a potential approach to future public art projects – a small part of an idea we first had about 5 years ago and which has been stewing away since then. we’ll be revisiting this on different scales as we grab a bit of spare time here and there.

as for the windows project, we’re just chasing permission for our preferred building in the town centre. the window design will also feature illustrations by rachel welford alongside some wonderfully evocative text created/curated by dina. there’s also a design by another local writer-artist-designer team that will shortly appear on the former scarborough music shop opposite boyes department store.

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

collect the set

this post on carl hopkin’s blog reminded me of our old business cards from the bradford days.

these were sent out upon moving to a new studio – each pack contained a card slotted into a larger flyer announcing the move and declaring each card part of a limited work of art. you could own the full work by collecting the full set of cards [below]. the idea would have worked best if we’d had 10 staff, each of whom’s card could be collected. as it was, this was the early days of electric angel when it was just me, but the idea caught people’s imagination and i received lots of complimentary feedback and requests for full sets. they also worked a treat at exhibitions when i could lay out my business card as a full picture – it was an easy conversation starter.

we need some new business cards, maybe it’s time to resurrect this idea.

around your world in 80 days

we’ve been sent a travelling moleskine on the theme of ‘stuff that makes you go ooh’. you can read all about the travelling moleskines here, but as a quick summary it’s a whole host of sketchbooks being passed around as part of the big draw and will result in an exhibition in september. there’s a flickr group for it here.

above is my contribution to the one that’s arrived with us. expect at least 3 more from us as it travels round the studio before we pass it on.

magic lantern pics

a few photos from the ‘peasholm magic lantern’ at coastival. poet kate evans’ idea was to combine haiku, music, photography and typography in a 20 minute projection in the faux-oriental pagoda on peasholm park island.

my contribution was typographic interpretations of kate’s haikus.

a last minute health and safety panic meant we were all called in to ensure people got safely on, and more crucially, off the island. cold work but it was great to hear feedback – the last people off the island on saturday commented on how they’d enjoyed the ‘eye poetry’. we had 200 people visit on the saturday and were having to turn them away at the end.

pics above: text arranged to look like swans/geese on the lake; haiku about fallen leaves; attempt to use letterforms to suggest goslings.