Monday 30 April 2012

Artists in Residence Scheme 2012

Visual Communication graduates may be interested in the The School of Art and Design ‘Artist in Residence Scheme’ that encourage practicing artists to engage with the School and its students. The scheme replaced the previous AA2A programme and has been extended from four artists to ten artists and these are across many subject disciplines. The relationship with the artists, students and the School is seen as really important for all involved and in 2011 has proved to be very successful bringing many benefits.

Scheme•1 day volunteering, plus £10 per day travel expenses gives the artist 1 day access to the School’s facilities. A maximum of 30 days is agreed.
•10 artists covering a range of different subject areas
•Existing artists in residence need to re-apply if they wish to carry on.
•Opportunity open to both graduates and other artists i.e. AA2A, Next Move – but not students studying during the period of residency
•The scheme period is September – August
•A contract is signed setting out what artists can expect and what the School expects. Where artists do not engage with the School as expected consideration can be given to ending the contract earlier.

Process
Artists complete and submit an application form.
Deadline for submissions: Wednesday 13 June 2012
Application form, submissions and queries to: Claire Dunn, art-design@wlv.ac.uk

Thursday 26 April 2012

MA Study 20% Discount

This blog has previously posted about a number of the enthusiastic MA students pursuing a variety of exciting design projects in Visual Communications. If you missed these pieces information can be found at:

http://www.visualcommunicationwolverhampton.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/andreas-olymbios-ma-student.html


http://www.visualcommunicationwolverhampton.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/free-box.html

http://www.visualcommunicationwolverhampton.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/lena-matthies-ma-student.html

Have you thought about undertaking an MA within the School of Art and Design? The University is offering its graduates a 20% loyalty discount to students progressing from an undergraduate programme to a taught postgraduate programme, where both courses are studied at the University of Wolverhampton.
More information can be found at:
http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=30214

For detail or to discuss your MA options within the Visual Communications division, please contact Lester Meachem Lester.Meachem@wlv.ac.uk

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Art and Design Summer Schools

Are you interested in expanding your creative talents? Do you know anyone else who is interested in trying out a new art and design area? If so, The School of Art & Design has a wide range of short courses available for you to take part in this June.

We are opening our doors for two weeks to host a programme of bespoke courses and workshops in a wide range of subjects. So, if you want to try your hand at a new skill, or brush up on an old hobby this is the perfect opportunity for you.

By taking part in one of the numerous courses available, you will have access to our excellent facilities and workshops, which are considered to be amongst the finest in the UK. You will be taught by industry professionals and international practitioners, who will help you to discover how exciting and rewarding working in the creative arts can be.

To find out more visit:
http://www.wlv.ac.uk/docs/SAD/summer-schools.html

For more information call 01902 322058 or email art-design@wlv.ac.uk

Bookings can be made online at www.wlv.ac.uk/sadstore 





From time to time this blog highlights distinctive, useful fonts that are free to download. Today’s highlighted family is Cabin Font from Impallari. It is a humanist sans inspired by Edward Johnston's and Eric Gill's typefaces and has a touch of modernism. Cabin brings together modern proportions, with optical adjustments.

Cabin Font can be found in 8 weights generously available free with the option of a pay what you want donation

Monday 23 April 2012

Creative team placement - RDM London, Central London

Creative Copywriter Placement

A great opportunity to work with a creative digital design team, writing copy for various websites, brochures, etc. You will have the opportunity to take information and data provided by clients and create and write the copy text to appear on the respective websites or brochures. You will be working closely with the design team and also (depending on the project) be asked to come up with creative copy for advertising/marketing campaigns.

Great industry experience will be gained from the role and skills learnt will include working with client briefs, adapting work to suit certain sizes and graphical forms.

Please send an email with your name, contact details and what your field of study is, and examples of your work/CV to:
daniel@rdm-ltd.com

Trendtablet

trendtablet.com explains how trends grow, evolve and flow; helping us to better perceive and understand they interact with our daily life. This new social media platform designed and curated by Lidewij Edelkoort and can be accessed free of charge. It explains how trends grow, evolve and flow, and helps us better understand and perceive how they interact in our daily lives. It shows the connections between trend forecasts and a piece of art, a plant, a dress, graphic design, a car and much more

Edelkoort announces the concepts, colours and materials which will be in fashion two or more years in advance because as she claims: 
"there is no creation without advance knowledge, and without design, a product cannot exist."

Def Motion formed by Billy Read

Final year graphics student Billy Read  (shown here centre stage) will be participating in Deaffest, the UK's leading Deaf-led film and arts festival, hosted by Light House Wolverhampton 25-27 May.

Def Motion was formed by Billy Read in March 2011 in collaboration with Deaf choreographer Rebecca Ann Withey. Together they recruited young, talented individuals and set out their ambitions to create and perform visual entertainment through dance and sign-song inspired by the works of Michael Jackson.

Def Motion will be performing during Deaffest at the Ben Steiner Bursary Evening and the Keep Calm and Carry on Signing Party.

For more information about Deaffest visit:

Friday 20 April 2012

When typography speaks louder than words by Jessica Glaser and Carolyn Knight

Have you ever read Smashing Magazine? It's an exciting online publication for professional Web designers and developers, with a focus on useful techniques, best practices and much more. Sections include articles on coding, typography, graphic design, usability and user experience.
Take a look at 'When typography speaks louder than words' by Carolyn Knight (ex graphics lecturer) and Jessica Glaser. This illustrated article is the first of 2 that looks at how the power of typography takes control of meaning. The second, to be published soon, will develop this theme and deals with why subtle typographic changes make all the difference. 

Static

Static is an attractive, contemporary free font constructed with strong geometric forms in monospaced style. What makes it really useful is its availability in a number of weights, completely free of charge.

Static has been designed by Slava Kirilenko - a graphic designer from Almaty, Kazakhstan and is available to download from http://fontfabric.com/static-free-font/

Toni Williams Animation

Many readers of this blog will remember the work of Toni Williams and her success in Shropshire review magazine:

http://visualcommunicationwolverhampton.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/toni-williams-in-shropshire-review.html

Toni is now working on a magical animation featuring her own distinctive Plastisine characters. Her work is as yet unfinished, but this design in progress can be seen below. The finished version will be posted soon.

Thursday 19 April 2012

Artworker - KentLyons, London

Artworker
KentLyons are searching for an excellent artworker, please send work samples and CV in PDF format to info:@kentlyons.com

Ben Kelly and Louise Fenton research presentations

Readers of this blog may be interested in attending research presentations by Ben Kelly and Dr Louise Fenton. Their short talks will be as part of the next Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation (CADRE) Research Afternoon on Wednesday 9th May in MK507. The event beings at 2.00pm and includes presentations from other researchers with SAD. Louis's talk is entitled Cultural Collisions: Myth and Reality in Representations of Witchcraft and Voodoo in Montego Bay and Salem and is scheduled to take place at 2.30pm. Ben's talk 'Recent Paintings' will begin at 4.00pm.

Refreshments will be provided

Monday 16 April 2012

Freelance Designers - Realise Creative, Hoxton, London

Freelance Designers

We are a young and ambitious studio working in branding and art direction. Our clients, who span F1, automotive, architecture, telecoms and FMCG, come to us for concept-led design and art direction. With a growing list of clients and work load, we’re now on the lookout for freelance creative designers for some up-coming projects. We are looking for great designers with amazing design skills and strong conceptual ideas. You need to be proactive and able to take a project and run with it when needed, so broad experience of freelancing at other London agencies is a must. As well as being an all-round great creative, Realise is a very down-to-earth and happy studio, so we’ll be looking for like-minded folk we can get on with too. Please send your cv, your rates and short pdf of your best work (max 4mb total) to freelance@realisecreative.com. Strictly no agencies.
Note: We’ve been so busy we don’t yet have our website up and running, but we will show you what we’ve been up to if we ask you to pop by.

Brand Coordinator-Established & Sons, London

Brand Coordinator
Award winning London-based design and manufacturing company, have an exciting opportunity for candidates with a passion for design.

We are looking for someone to work alongside the Design Director, taking design lead of all brand communications.

This is a hugely varied role, including development of the look and feel for the brand across catalogues, invitations, mailers, advertising, exhibition design, brochures and all branded packaging, from concept and execution. Interest and basic knowledge of website design and CMS is a bonus but not essential.

We are looking for someone who is proactive and very organized who is able to work independently, manage deadlines and budgets.

Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and minimum of 1 year experience required.

Junior Designer - Tokyo Digital

Junior Designer
We are looking for a talented designer to join our growing team in London. You’ll have at least 1-2 years experience, ideally in a digital agency, but we’ll consider someone who hasn’t had solid digital experience.

Key Skills:-
- Ability to take a concept sketch through to a beautiful final design
- A conceptual mind to be able to answer a brief with multiple treatment options
- Knowledge of user flows and GUI design
- An inquisitive brain that stays up to date with new technology and online trends
- Expert knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite

To apply, email jobs@tokyodigital.co.uk with your CV (no bigger than 2mb please) and links to projects you’ve been involved in.

About Tokyo:-
We are the new digital agency on the block, but actually made up of hundreds of thousands of hours worth of collective experience. Whilst we are young (in agency years), we are definitely not wet behind the ears. In fact, we’re currently working with some of the best names in TV, film, publishing, advertising and technology developing award-winning campaigns that incorporate all manner of web, mobile, video, cross-platform and social-media goodness.

Clients include Cartoon Network, Guinness World Records, Oakley, MOBO and Channel 4.

Saturday 14 April 2012

The Design Museum, London, shortlists Final year Graphic's students for their innovative ideas

Congratulations go to Alex Steer, Christian Leoci, Raymond Chan, Caroline Gibson, Ben Pritchard, Katie Howell and Bradley Ankers, Final Year Graphic Design students who have been shortlisted by The Design Museum, London, to represent the University of Wolverhampton with their innovative ideas developed whilst undertaking the Design Factory Ideas brief. Ideas for this design challenge came following the briefing visit to London as part of the Final Project module 6VC003, featured previously on this blog:



Sarah Green, Design Museum, was keen for Graphic's students, rather than product designers, at Wolverhampton to participate in this renowned briefing to encourage more design students in 2012 to work across disciplines and interrogate the designs, communications and products we interact with in day to day life toward the future. Through design thinking, creative play, experimentation and problem solving students were invited to question the unquestioned and propose innovative and critical redesigns of the everyday.

A selection of the Design Factory submissions will very soon be showcased on the Design Museum website:

These shortlisted Graphic's students will visit the Design Museum in London on the 14th May to meet leading international designers plus collaborate with an exhibiting Designer from Designs of the Year 2012 and also discuss/network their innovative ideas, from environmental waste card systems to media remote control app concepts, with other shortlisters from international universities.

Graphic Design Administrator - Professional Sandwich Placement

Graphic Design Administrator - Professional Sandwich Placement (40 week placement) for current Level 5 student - Coconut Creatives, Bournemouth.
Hilary Price, Employment and Placements, Ground Floor S.A.D has an interesting, paid, Sandwich Placement opportunity to offer.

Deadline for applications is 30th April 2012.
Placement & Internship Opportunities


Graphic Design Administrator - Professional Sandwich Placement (40 week placement) for current Level 5 student

Coconut Creatives
Coconut Media is a marketing and media agency that specialises in the franchise sector offering full service consultancy and short-term projects. We motivate and energise franchisors to achieve their franchise recruitment objectives. Along with our sister company Coconut Creatives, we are the award-winning and leading marketing company in the franchise industry. Headed up by qualified chartered marketers and PR professionals, we are the only published author on franchise recruitment marketing. Based in a seafront office in Bournemouth, you will design and artwork advertising and promotional collateral - sometimes creating a concept from scratch and sometimes with the aid of brand guidelines to provide work that answers the briefs and meets the requirements of our franchise clients. You will bring a fresh perspective to our franchise client activities and our CIPR and CIM accredited Directors will support your development as a marketing communications professional. Ultimately, you will have the ability to work in a fast-paced environment with a great variety of clients.

Closing date 30th April 2012

You will be required to create graphics across a wide range of disciplines including: advertising and branding, brochures, e-newsletters, promotional material for events and web-based design activity. This job is an excellent opportunity to develop your artwork skills whilst gaining a valuable insight into the franchise sector - the only sector to experience growth in this difficult economic period. The role allows for much creative freedom and has good career progression.


Duties and Responsibilities


  • Supporting the company’s design work for our business and for our clients
  • Designing and creating advertisements: print and online
  • Monitoring ad bookings, liaise with media and maintain a schedule of work
  • Attending external events such as conferences, workshops and exhibitions
  • Support the development of marketing materials from draft to print stage
  • Brand Guardian for Coconut Media, Coconut Creatives and our clients
  • Produce brand guidelines for clients
  • Liaise with printers for quotes and production
  • Provide status reports and updates as necessary
  • Attend client meetings with a Coconut Director
  • Maintain the firm’s website; keep site content fresh and updated in coordination with the our external webmaster
  • Undertake market research
  • General office administration tasks

Essential Skills & Attributes
  • YOU MUST HAVE an eye for detail
  • Good understanding and experience using InDesign, Photoshop and other design software
  • Fluent Mac user and competent with Microsoft Office
  • Ability to interpret a design brief
  • Positive and confident telephone manner
  • Willingness to learn with a positive ‘can do’ attitude is essential
  • Organised, self-motivated and the ability to work well within a team
  • Graphic Design/Communications degree
  • Ability to manage multiple projects while prioritising work assignments
  • Good working knowledge of social media applications: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook
Desirable Skills & Attributes
  • Knowledge of the franchise industry
  • Ability to adapt to, and work within, the company’s creative, fun, vibrant culture
  • Knowledge of website marketing and experience of CMS systems
  • HTML knowledge to build branded e-newsletters would be an advantage
  • Experience in other software programmes and photography is advantageous but not essential.
Please contact Hilary, if you are interested in making an application H.Price@wlv.ac.uk

Friday 6 April 2012

Junior Designer - Purpose, London W1

Junior Designer

A great opening for a Junior to support our design team and bring strong ideas, solid design skills, energy and enthusiasm to a diverse range of projects (print, digital and brand).
For a full job description, please contact becky@purpose.co.uk

Project Manager-Sherry Design Ltd, London

Project Manager

Sherry is a creative design agency based in the Old Street area of EC1. Visual communication and brand development is what we do both on and offline. We pride ourselves on our creativity and our ability to always find the answer. To keep things interesting we work for lots of different clients from many different sectors: music, sport, science, transport, live events and entertainment are just some. We’re looking for a project manager with a creative agency background to help ensure the smooth running of projects through the studio. The role requires a candidate who is extremely sharp, who will add value to our projects, who is able to remain calm under pressure, has the ability to juggle multiple projects, and also has a willingness to learn. You’ll need to be impressively organised, highly motivated with excellent attention to detail and want to work as part of a great team.

The ideal candidate will have experience of project management and will have worked on both print and digital projects. Proficiency in Microsoft Office is essential.

Reporting directly to the Managing Director your responsibilities will include:
General administrative support
Managing project planning i.e. costs, timing, resource
Maintaining good knowledge of all agency systems and production processes
Keeping up with the status of all jobs on a day-to-day basis
Working alongside creative teams
Managing client expectations with exceptional service
Client liaison – building and developing relationships
Quality control of all written communication with client and contractors
Please address a cover letter to Celeste McNamara and send with your CV to celeste@sherrydesign.co.uk by Monday 16th April.
No agencies please.

Junior Artworker - One Big Company, Clerkenwell, London

Junior Artworker
One Big Company is a full-service design agency based in Clerkenwell.

We’re currently looking for a junior artworker to help us grow. We’re not the biggest agency, but we have a good client base of well-known names. And while this isn’t a role that’ll develop into a design position, there will be scope to be an integral part of the studio’s development and take on more responsibility.

Supported by a senior creative, you’ll be required to produce a wide variety of work across our portfolio of clients – from publishing and fashion to property. Although your main focus will be a multi-national property brand.

Taking existing creative campaigns, you’ll translate them across window cards, brochures, leaflets, press ads and more – delivering print-ready files. As well as helping out on a variety of other tasks to keep the studio running smoothly.

Sector experience is not necessary but a good attitude, attention-to-detail and the ability to manage workflow and work quickly and efficiently is. A good knowledge of In-design and Illustrator is also essential, while PhotoShop skills would be a real plus.

If you’ve got the skills we’re looking for, please send your CV, examples of your artworking skills and salary expectations to:jobs@onebigemail.com

To find out more about us, visit www.onebigwebsite.com

Closing date for applications is Monday 16th April

Layout Design Intern - Blighty Boutique, London/Watford

Layout Intern
Preferably a graduate who specialises in layout, typography & printing, who also has an interest in cycling. If you have publishing knowledge, even better, along with good research skills.
To work with young start-up company, ‘ Blighty Boutique’.

Blighty B. is currently working towards self publishing a photography book in commemoration of late Nottingham based cyclist, Sid standard. The book will be a celebration of his life in cycling told through his own photographs and stories & anecdotes from people who knew him.
The book is to be launched in sept 2013, so this is a long term project.
We are looking for someone can can commit to staying with us for the long run.

This is an intern/voluntary position, we as yet have no budget for travel expenses but will treat you to coffee and lunch. Will be working on an ad hoc basis meeting once a week in central London.
This is a great opportunity for someone either in their final year at uni or a graduate who has time in their schedule for a project to go in their portfolio. (will consider second year uni students)

Please send a CV with a written covering letter, telling us about yourself and why you would like to be involved in the project. As well as a few examples (3-5) of your relevant work (with details) in PDF format.

Pls send to:
samantha.varney1@gmail.com

Monday 2 April 2012

The Making of a Granta Cover by Michael Salu

Granta’s artistic director Michael Salu tells of how the cover of the magazine - which features a deeply textured photograph of type blocks - came into being. The images show some of the stages of the process.
Granta 111, ‘Going Back’, is largely about memory. How do we preserve memory and deal with the marks it has left? Many of the written pieces in the issue - an agile but emotional collection of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and photography - look at memory and its physical imprints, often tackling the ravages of war and industry.
Initial brainstorming at Granta on how to visualize memory concluded that the cover itself needed an industrial veneer, something textured, aged and primed with history and wisdom. I began to think about how our preservation of memory has evolved over the years and considered how memory is becoming increasingly virtual (with even its meaning changing somewhat). Creating a cover for this issue seemed the ideal opportunity to produce something in homage to antiquated and largely obsolete processes.
After quick-fire discussion with the Granta team, I decided the most apt response to the text would be to create a typographic cover comprised of pieces of metal type used on old printing presses. These letterforms usually appear backwards in order for the type to print the correct way around on the press, which seemed a perfect conceptual fit for our theme, GOING BACK. I simulated a quick mock-up in Photoshop, using a variety of typefaces and styles to create the title, in a way that I think compliments the flexibility of the pieces within.
For this concept to work, we needed to strive for authenticity - to create the physical object ourselves. The typefaces would need to be sourced, traditionally hand-set and photographed to give the cover the depth that the issue deserves. For this I approached St Bride Printing Library, which has long been a place of fascination and wonder for me. My first visit to the library - with its oil, wood and metal, its smell of history - made a huge impression on me.
Nigel Roche and his incredibly knowledgeable, affable team helped make this a reality. My rough visual was enough for them to work from and they set about putting together a cohesive composition. A selection of typefaces was taken from their archive and all the type on the title and back cover was hand-set by Kim Vousden – a talented typographer and designer – who volunteers at the library. With her remarkable patience for one so young - a quality evocative of the typesetters of old - she meticulously pieced together my composition in order for us to photograph it for the cover. Even the grip used to hold the type on a press is a feature of our imagery, diffusing atmosphere down to the last detail.
For the cover to work as a whole, the magazine’s masthead needed to be manufactured in a similar way. We set about finding a company that could create a cast from metal of our brand typeface Plantin, to fit with the rest of the piece. Photocast Products in Liverpool did so obligingly and swiftly, also adorning the type with the red of Granta’s branding.
The photography was done by still-life photographer Giles Jenykn. We had worked together previously on something just as intricate, producing laser-cut, smoke-addled visuals for sleeve artwork on Tricky’s deluxe edition of his album ‘Maxinquaye’, so I knew he would be perfect for capturing visceral intensity and memory in this piece. It was a team effort: Kim fastidiously tweaked and made any necessary modifications on the day and Giles busied himself with his immaculate attention to detail, while cups of tea and typography-specific conversation flowed…
We at Granta are ecstatic with the end result - and much indebted to St Bride. The cover hums with an industrial intensity evocative of the dynamic changes of our recent history - appropriate for an issue of our magazine that carries the heartfelt memories of writers from Iris Murdoch to Mark Twain.

Part-time Graphic Designer - Creative Alliance

Part-time Graphic Designer required by Creative Alliance.
This position is ideally suited to a recent graduate / current undergraduate looking for work experience. It is a paid position for about 12 hours / week with the hours to be agreed based on mutual convenience. Deadline for applications: 6th April interviews will take place on 11th April.
Creative Alliance are looking for an individual to:
Design and produce a range of print materials: flyers, programme outlines, course materials. This includes presentation material and Powerpoint presentations. Design and produce a range of web based material and disseminating electronic communication through campaign monitor and social media. Keep all aspects of the Creative Alliance website active and updated. This includes contributing to blog posts. Work with the marketing assistant to create case studies of learners/ employers and gather testimonials about their work.

You will be required to work at our offices in the Custard Factory in Birmingham.

Full Job Description available on request Please contact info@creativealliance.org.uk or call 0121 224 7308