Different

Today I went to a talk at Design studio Different as part of this years Design Event, the talk was titled "can you be the master of all trades". They talked about how with being a company in the North East you have to be able to cater to all you clients needs, where as if they were based in London you would be able, if you wished, to become a specialised company as there is a higher demand. I personally think that it's better to have a wider knowledge and ability rather then to limit yourself to one aspect as it would create a wider client list and it is easier to give your ideas and opinions on a project. We were also told how it is very important now-a-days to be able to design for digital media and consider the best platform for you client to convey the message and impact they want. After the talk we were given a tour around the studio which spanned across 4 floors. This would be a great company to get a placement at as most Newcastle based design studios are quite small and it would be good to get the chance to experience how a bigger studio works.

Night Shade

I also went to the Night Shade preview night, this was a collection of works presented entirely in black and white. The artists that took part in this exhibition were Amy Dover, Emily Forgot and Alaric Hammond, I was particularly inspired by Emily Forgot's work and how and image was created by several other cut out images creating a surreal look.

Emily Forgot

Amy Dover

Exquisite Corpse

The North East Design Event 2010 began last week with a running theme of "Conversation". On the first preview night was an exhibition called Exquisite Corpse this was curated by local design studio Sumo and based upon a visual game of chinese whispers. I was amazed by the work and thought that although they worked great together as a collection each piece could still stand on its own and create an impact.

White's Book Covers

Former Penguin designer David Pearson is one half of the team that set up White's books.  They focus on classic stories that are normally treasured by their readers and commission illustrators to redesign the covers. I love the timeless feel of these books, they are all hard back with the illustrations printed on a cloth bound case with foil blocking. The books are beautifully designed, with the simple sans-serif, uppercase typeface complimenting the illustrations, I especially like the illustration used for the Charles Dickens christmas collection as I think this expresses the mystical, magical feel that surrounds a family at that time of year.

Think and a Drink - The Battle

A couple of weeks ago Newcastle College's performance academy hosted Codeworks Connect's Think and a Drink event. The event was called The Battle, it started off with 8 designers all armed with photoshop, a graphics tablet and a mac. There was three rounds and for each round a different theme starting with urban then army and finally computer games. The battlers were given a handful of stock images to used related to the theme and 20 minutes to create a piece on the subject. The judges then whittled down the contestants at the end of each round based on their design skills in the round.

Most of the pieces created were very inspiring and it was amazing to see what could be made in such a short space of time using limited resources and software. I came away from this event very inspired and motivated to experiment with short tutorials to expand my knowledge of the software i use.