Made In Earnest

As the 2011 SPILL Festival has just finished this seems like an appropriate time to post about SPILL: On Agency, a book of writing, thinking and conversation on and around the SPILL Festival of Performance which I designed last year.

The book (114 pages of 185mm x 235mm), edited by Robert Pacitti and Sheila Ghelani, ‘brings together a range of people who have been involved in SPILL across the past few years: all of the artists within the festival to date; Kira O’Reilly in her capacity as SPILL Thinker-in-Residence 2009; a series of chapters written by members of SPILL: Overspill; and Manuel Vason discussing the SPILL Tarot. Artists discussed in the publication include: Jan Fabre, Romeo Castellucci, Needcompany, Julia Bardsley, Forced Entertainment, Ron Athey & Lee Adams, Visions of Excess, Gob Squad and Victoria, to name but a few.’ The book includes information and images of events from both the SPILL 2007 and 2009 Festivals.

It was a lot of hard work to do but totally worth it, especially when you hold a printed copy – the stock is ‘right’ – something which you can do, as the book is available to buy here.

I should mention that the tricky and time-consuming six page cover section (shown as a single image below) was done with the help of Krista Nyberg, who is now living and working in Stockholm, Sweden (tack så mycket, Krista).

I’ve been the designer of Historic House magazine for the Historic House Association since 2002 and during those years the magazine has been gradually tweaked and amended and hopefully improved. The latest design alterations came about in time for the Spring 2011 issue and have been received favourably. The Summer 2011 issue is in production and the new look is taking shape nicely…

Wim Crouwel is quite simply one of the best designers on modern times and rightfully the Design Museum are going to celebrate his legacy with an exhibition from 30 March to 03 July. If you a fan of design you should go. Full details of the exhibition after the jump..

In December I posted about a new jazz venture that I had created the identity for and I mentioned how I hoped they were successful as I could see a whole range of possibilities for the posters and flyers. Well, thankfully the new year has started well for The Jazz Meet and there is even talk about the event going weekly! Until that happens it is still a monthly affair, which suits me fine as it means we can have a new posters for each month – speaking of which, the posters for March and April are below.

.. of the new ‘anti-branding’. More to come as and when I have them, but this is just a sneak peak of the soft proofing (wrinkles and all) and even though it isn’t on the 540gsm GF Smith stock I gotta say I am liking the Bodini in that red.

Here’s a sneak preview of the artwork for the forthcoming Mo Kolours EP on One-Handed Music. It’s the first of a scheduled series of three EPs, all of which will feature the paintings of Swedish artist Etka. The artwork has been signed-off and the vinyl itself will be out soon but you can hear snippets now, courtesy of Rush Hour.

Last summer I was involved in a very interesting design project for the AMOS album ‘Showtime’. It was billed as an ’unique and international music and art project’ where the new album was released on vinyl with blank white covers. These were then sent to more than 400 visual artists from all over the world who created individual one-off pieces of artwork. Mine was a collaboration with Stephen Kenny at a two pipe problem. The range of designs was incredible, really; covering all design disciplines, from illustration, product and fashion design, urban street art to tattoo art and fine arts. And the artists were international – from Munich, Berlin, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, on the Phillipines, in Budapest, Rome or Barcelona. The price for each artwork was set by the artists themselves and have been for sale since August 2010 in a custom online gallery.

Well, it looks like the project was a success as I have just been told that a few days ago, the Industrie Forum in Hannover has decorated AMOS ‘Showtime’ with one of their sought-after iF communication design awards. The whole music and art project was awarded in the ‘Advertising | Campaigns’ category and the ceremony will take place on March 18th in Munich. I don’t think the 400+ designers are being invited, but still, the iF design award belongs to the most renowned prizes of design industry, so, well done to everyone involved. Back well and truly slapped.

It is something I eagerly await because it is simply one of the best pieces of design, year-in-year-out. What is it? It is the Feltron Annual Report.

Something I know I wouldn’t have the patience to do myself while simultaneously wanting to be able to say ‘I did this.’ However, I can’t say that, so I contend myself by buying it and luckily you can too – in either the classic Annual Report form or in it’s poster form. The report is limited to a run of 3000, while the poster has a smaller run of just 500.

The 2010 Annual Report is an encapsulation of Feltron’s father’s life, as communicated by the calendars, slides and other artifacts in his possession and it really is a thing of beauty.

For those that do no know him, Nicholas Felton spends much of his time thinking about data, charts and our daily routines. He is the author of several Personal Annual Reports that collate countless measurements into a rich assortment of graphs and maps reflecting the year’s activities. He is the co-founder of Daytum.com, a site for counting and communicating daily data, and frequent designer of information graphics for numerous corporations and publications. His work has been profiled in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Wired and Creative Review.

Let’s start the new year the way we plan to go on – with good design in mind and in sight. Saw this fantastic calendar by This Studio at the ever-excellent Blanka and although its big (A1) at only £20 it should be bought I think…

At the moment we are, not surprisingly, in the process of getting ready for the festivities but work hasn’t stopped just yet and the initial designs for the SPILL Festival of Performance 2011 brochure are coming together nicely. With that in mind comes another job we have done for Pacitti Company – the design and production of the Civil DVD.

Civil is a solo performance exploring issues of liberty and disobedience, first made in 1996 by Robert Pacitti as a response to Quentin Crisp’s seminal book ‘The Naked Civil Servant’. This DVD features full documentation of the live work performed by Richard Eton at the Barbican in London, shown as part of the SPILL Festival of Performance 2007, filmed by Manuel Vason and Bobby Whittaker. Accompanying the full length documentation of Civil this disc also includes a one-minute short on why Pacitti Company make work, short extracts of Intermission performed by Sheila Ghelani, and a 10 minute trailer of the large-scale international group work Finale. With any luck, this will be just the first in a series of DVDs for Pacitti…