Handmade 2012

Wallpaper magazine has employed the services of various designers and illustrators to create a series of handmade covers for their August issue. With the involvement of artists and designers such as Alan Kitching, Anthony Burrill, Rob Ryan and APFEL the result is obviously quite impressive to say the least.

The 30 covers will be displayed  at London's KK Outlet from 5 to 25 July.

Personally, I felt I had to include this short but very moving film of Alan Kitching making his cover, but you can also check other artists at work here. 

*all images from wallpaper.com, artists featured in order are Anthony Burril, Tom Hingston, Alan Kitching, APFEL, Supermundane. Film by Jake & Josh featuring Alan Kitching.

Page 1: Great Expectations

Great Expectations has always been one of my favourite novels by Dickens, so I couldn't resist posting about this interesting experiment, even at the expense of posting about books again!

In the words of GraphicDesign&: 

"Page1: Great Expectations is an unusual typographic experiment designed to explore the relationship between graphic design, typography and the reading of a page. Crafted to engage the culturally curious, Page 1: Great Expectations collects the responses of 70 international graphic designers when posed with the same brief – to design and lay out the first page of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, a text chosen in part because it directly references lettering as Pip searches for clues about his family from the letterforms inscribed on their tombstone."

Some of the contributors are APFEL, Experimental Jetset, Studio Frith, Spin and the extremely talented and skilled Phil Baines. 

And yes...it will soon be mine!

*all images by GraphicDesign& from their website

Turning over a new leaf...

The end to 2011 proved quite hectic and exciting with some new additions to the printing "family". After a long trip in a lorry and under considerably heavy rain, our "new" beautiful Arab Press arrived ready to get inky and press some paper.

It also saw some interesting work, I do not want to show off too much but I do get the best clients... you know who you are! And it seems that the start to 2012 is not going to be any different. I'm referring here to the level of busyness, as the nature of the work regards... well, let's say that it maybe slightly different. Being one that rarely says no to a challenge Inkthread Press has taken on a new adventure in the murky waters of publishing... the project is still taking shape so enough said for now.

I promise some photos soon but in the meantime I leave you with a bit of magic...




*images via Vimeo by Serviceplan for Austria Solar

Full circle

Some days you start checking something important on the web, and then you find a link that looks interesting, maybe an image that intrigues you, and then before you know it you have visited more than 20 blogs and websites that you had never seen before.

Today was such a day and somewhere down the line I came across some extremely neat and interesting work by Swiss designer Rosario Florio. Clean layouts, plenty of white space and beautifully crafted typography, I'm glad I took a web detour.

If you have a spare couple of minutes do take the time to check the website, in the meantime here is one of the featured projects: Printed In, a magazine made from blog entries, blog articles given the editorial treatment they deserve (or aspire to deserve) and restored to a physical medium... Call me sentimental but I find this project quite touching. As much as the immediacy of the internet cannot be disputed, there is a cultural disposition to printed matter that I cannot -and in all honestly, do not want to- avoid, and that inclines me to appreciate and trust the content further.

And if you don't really care about my melancholic disposition, just enjoy the work...

found via Print & New Media blog after a few twists and turns...

*all images from Rosario Florio's website.

So much to catch up with

That I hardly know where to start. Let's consider this post something of a three course meal:

Our starter, I think, should be enticing enough to open our appetite without spoiling it completely. So, how about a piece of delicious and dreamy work by Maria Fischer, in particular her book project Traumgedanken ("Thoughts on dreams"), a collection of literary and scientific texts on the subject of dreams. Connected networks of threads and words form vague and fragile patterns representing the elusive nature of dreams.

Then, for our main course the amazing 10 minute animation The Thomas Beale Cipher by Andrew Allen, an intriguing story as beautifully detailed as stylish. A feast of textures and vintage patterns that will delight the senses and while engaging the brain since it includes 16 hidden messages to help you solve the riddle, a challenge that cannot be refused!

And finally for dessert, some letterpress eye-candy from the expert hands of Studio on Fire designed by canadian collective Point Form. Printed to perfection on duplexed French Poptone Sweet tooth and Lemon Drop card, as tasty as it sounds. Yumm!

*image credits in order: Maria Fischer from her website, Andrew Allen via Vimeo and finally Studio on Fire from their blog.

The alphabet by hand

...it made me smile.

*video and calligraphy by Job Vouters found via his website

Printing with threads

So, you decide to research the possibilities of combining crafts and new technologies, printing and colour theory and you have excellent skills with a needle... add quite a bit of patience and dedication and ...ah yes! your name is Evelin Kasikov, now you have all the key ingredients for these beautiful and intricate books, craft at its best.

And as much as the finish work is a thing of beauty it's always interesting to see the process and sometimes if we are lucky to get a peek at previous work and experiments that lead to it. I find the work in her sketchbooks equally fascinating, maybe due to the unfinished and less controlled nature of sketch work.

all images by Evelin Kasikov, obtained from her website

(via It's nice that)

ABC 3D

Back at Christmas -you may remember- I mentioned the ABC 3D book by Marion Bataille, well I have just found this short video demonstrating how all the letters come to life as you pass the pages. Enjoy!

*unfortunately I haven't been able to find much about Marion Bataille so I have no link to her work.

Not on paper

Hard as I try I cannot explain where the fascination with type comes from, there is something about repetition I guess; the rhythm of curves, lines and spacing, the contrast between the lines of type and the empty space around them. When type is used in all its beauty it seems to sit on the space as if carved into the paper...

And then sometimes it really is carved, a deep impression into wood or stone and it takes my breath away. Gordon Young is a visual artist who creates sculptural public spaces with an abundancy of typographic work. I had seen some of his work featured in design books and blogs before but I came across his latest piece during the past week when checking Why not Associates' website -I'm a big admirer of their work and I check them from time to time. Images below: work in progress for Crawley Library... I have no words.

*all images from Why not Associates' website

It's all so quiet...

So...Inkthread was closed for a bit...I've been on holiday, hurray! I intended to keep myself as far away from the computer as I could and I managed pretty well, thus the period of silence. Back and supposedly refreshed (I feel like I need another holiday to recover from the first one), I thought I'd share some of my holyday pics...

From the very elegant and stylish to some funny signs type is everywhere, couldn't resist... what did you expect photos of me eating ice-cream, honestly!

Out of Print

This month I have been briefly tutoring at Glasgow School of Art and wasn't it a nice coincidence that the exhibiton that was on (just by the Computer Studio where I was) was entitled Out of Print.

Unfortunately it's over now, sorry about the late post -and my photographs taken on my mobile phone don't do it any justice- but it was worth visiting, though I wished there had been more samples of work. Featured aboved are Edwin Pickstone's works in letterpress. I find them extremely beatiful; simple in appearance, black ink on small pieces of crisp white paper, and an accurate balanced use of space and printed type. On a completely different style was the work of Marc Baines (photos below) screenprinted poster size pieces vibrant with colour. The strength of the exhibition was probably the fact that each one of the exhibitors work in a completely different media and have very different styles, however I still felt I would have liked to see more from each one, but maybe that's just me being greedy!

Experimental Jetset

One of the good things that came out of going to see the Helvetica film was that it reminded me of dutch design studio Experimental Jetset. I had seen their work before but -like some many things you read in blogs- I had forgotten about them. They have designed a mesmarising piece, a vinyl record stlyle sleeve for the Blu-ray high definition disc of the Helvetica film (above) and I think it represents a lot of their work. Their work is beautifully typographic and clean and if you've never heard of them I'd go straight to their website...now.

*images above the text form the Helvetica website, images underneath from Experimental Jetset's website.

helvetica

At last the Helvetica film has made it to Glasgow... I missed the Edinburgh screenings so I thought I'd have to resolve to watch the DVD (I believe it's already out). But oh, lucky me, the nice people at the Six Cities have organised a screening tomorrow the 11th at the GFT, I think it's already all booked but they have a reserve list and you know what people are like, someone may never make it. I booked my seat as soon as I found out... I'm such a geek!

In the meantime you can have some fun helping Helvetica let Arial know who's boss in here.