3. Practitioners

The two guest lectures I am writing about shows the diverse opinions about design, the two lectures both demonstrate each passion from type foundaries to ideas, moving image and experimenting. Most of all I wanted to write about these two talks as I was inspired by the enthusiasm and dedication of both lectures.

On Friday 24th October 08 I attended the Liverpool Design Symposium event where I viewed some of the best design and advertising work in the industry.
Bruno Maag who is the managing director of Dalton Maag, which is a type foundry based in London, gave a lecture about his work and typography. Bruno studied both typography and visual communication at Basel School of Design; he then immigrated to England working for Monotype. He founded Dalton Maag in 1991. His talk was very gripping as he explained his love for typography, and visual noise that can come with it. He explained the fact that typography is all around us and this can generate visual noise especially with everyday signs and newspapers such as The Mirror, not considering typography and having the type shouting, whereas The Guardian considers the design and is visually quiet.

The passion and obsession of typography is apparent, Bruno’s processes and methods of workings will continue his fascination with typography. In his lecture I liked the fact that he took us to the beginning of type, starting with the carvings and how this affected typefaces with serifs and the craftsmanship, the Gutenberg Press and how revolutionary this was. It industrialized, educated and gave freedom of speech, as this was the first moveable type, the book of Celts that is the first book to introduce lower case lettering.

When he spoke about type he spoke with passion and determination to make people believe his point of view. Throughout the lecture he kept you on the edge of your seat and made the symposium fall to a stand still. His attention to detail and his love for classic typefaces such as Helvetica showed the functionality requirements a typeface needs to follow, and how imperfections change the textures of type and how this then communicates on a page. He explained how technology has changed typefaces with bitmap fonts and also how type faces need to work with technology such as a satellite navigation, as the type face (Fruitiger) needed to fit on the screen.

The talk was informative, clever and witty and no one wanted to give there opinion about the 2012 Olympics logo in spite they might have been shot down by Bruno straight away as he clearly gave his opinion about the logo in such disgust and hatred for the logo, he spoke what we all felt like it could have been designed by a five year old. Bruno’s methods of working is that of a true professional typographer, that seems quite strict and precise about his work and attention to detail is mandatory. I think this method of working is important in a designer, as we are all particular in different fields of design. I believe if you are truly passionate about design this should and must show throughout your attitude and be evident in all aspects of the work. It was aspiring to view Bruno’s work and have him speak soulfully about it and makes his work more inspiring.
In comparison to Bruno on Friday 21st Nov 08 I viewed the lecture of an ex Stockport College student Grant Gilbert who founded Double G Studios. He has worked for some renowned companies. He started his career at Planet 24 where he worked behind the scenes for the channel 4 programme The Big Breakfast. He then moved to New York in 2000 for a year and worked for the agency Attik, unfortunately the agency shut the offices so he moved back to London and decided to work freelance. He has been working freelance ever since and Double G Studios has been running for two years consisting of himself and other freelances when he lands bigger jobs, as well as working with design agencies. The first piece of work he showed us was for a Channel 4 music promotion where he wrapped neon cable around dancers and filmed the projection of the lights on the dancers whilst moving. The short clip was interesting and showed the method of which he actually made it with neon cable.

Grant seemed very experienced and interesting to work with. He considers himself a designer however he believes designers should be an all rounder and be able to work with moving image as we would with print. He showed us some work he produced for the idents of More 4 the free view channel from Channel 4. This was a very prestigious piece of work and made the platform for the rest of his success. He explained his influence from Saul Bass and his interest of design and 3dimentional navigation systems. He also explained how fast an idea could change after months of hard work. He told us that the More 4 logo and idents took roughly five months to complete as well as working with a full team from the design company Spin.

It seemed throughout his lecture that he thoroughly enjoys everyday of his job; he gave advice about experimenting whilst we are still studying and how simple ideas always work the best. As More 4 was a success he was offered to work on the BBC logo and new idents. He explained how he felt controlled by the BBC as they are almost scared to take risks however when he worked for Channel 4 he believed they were more free, risky and enjoyable to work for. He showed the development of his ideas from using the globe shape, which BBC is renowned for and how some ideas got knocked back and he needed to start again from the drawing board. He showed the development of the BBC typeface, which he produced with Spin and the idents with swimming CJI hippos swimming in a circle that produces the letter O for one. He explained how he worked with fontsmith and how the logo needed to be kept its traditional red colour. The overall aim of the brief to create idents that ‘brings everything together’. He was honest to tell us how much the redesign of the logo and idents costs £1.2 million and how much this caused controversy in the media as it is the tax payers money.

The lecture was exciting and very commercial. He gave tips to always being two steps ahead of everyone else, keeping design simple.

Both designers were very interesting however their specialisms were incredibly different, one specializing purely on typography and the other creating ideas, logos, moving image and short films. Both designers spanning off into what they enjoy the most. They were designing completely different pieces of work but the most influential element from both of the talks was the fact that they were so passionate about their chosen area, they are both motivated and enthusiastic about what they do and that is the only comparison between the two as they are so diverse.