Remembrance

Andrew Metcalf 4 August 1967 – 21 July 2009

I met Andy in 2003 as a mature student coming back into education after he had trodden a number of different paths. He had found himself unemployed, and having learned some web design software, decided to take this further than he had self-taught, although he had already created a website for the British Touring Car Championship – motorsport being another passion. Andy struggled at first, settling in with  a group of 16 year olds, and found it frustrating at times, learning new software and studio techniques alongside those who had followed a more direct artistic route to get there. He persevered.

He challenged himself further throughout the first year, but it was at this time he began to show signs of ill-health, raising much concern with his colleagues in the group. When the tumour was diagnosed, many of us feared the worst. But when he strolled into college several months later looking like a frankenstein pirate (he had a gruesome scar and an eyepatch!) I was staggered. To say that he persevered took on a whole new set of dimensions. I followed Andy’s progress as he recovered through radiotherapy and got to know his partner Susan better.

Andy was determined to finish his course and go to university, and so back to college he came in September 2004 and continued to make progress with his sudies and his health – there are few of us who will ever forget the day he regained the sight in his eye!  He went on to complete his National Diploma in Graphic Design in June 2006 and was presented with an Award for Special Achievement by the Principal of the college at the Corn Exchange in King’s Lynn. He had also succeeded in securing a place on the BA (Hons) Graphic Design course at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

Shortly after, Andy and Susan were married and I am proud to have shared their special day, but I won’t mention the dodgy dancing to the Celidh band – his, mine or anyone elses!

Over the following year, Andy’s health deteriorated once more and further tumours were dignosed and removed, frustratingly scuppering his chances at university. He had, by this time, lost the sight in both eyes. As I left the hospital one grey evening after his last operation, I wept for a good man as I walked home, angry and impotent at this seemingly pointless injustice and of the path his life had taken.

This time Andy returned home blind and largley incapacitated. With the loving and dedicated care of a devoted wife and the battallion of carers visiting several times a day, he persevered. With the support of his family and friends, as well as the prayers from their church, he persevered. It is fair to say that they all did, Susan especially.  Andy made some improvements during this time, giving us signs of hope and displaying the kind of perseverance that would test the very strongest amongst us. The strength of their faith was as strong a medicine as those administered intravenously.

Andy persevered until the last, and we should hold on to that thought as Susan, their families and friends persevere through the difficult time of grief ahead.

Rest in peace Andy, you will be missed, but not forgotten.

A Quiet Week

The blog has been a little inactive over the last week as I am switching into summer mode. I’ve just updated my hardware and software, getting everything set up the way I like it, but I’ll be posting again at the end of this week. There’ll be no ‘What the F…riday’ for a little while, although I’ll be monitoring the competition and posting any new entries as they come in.

The image above was taken earlier this month at Hunstanton when the weather was a little better and just as the tide was going out. It is representative of how I feel right now; meditative and introspective, and a little melancholy too.  I am sure that normal service will resume in due course.

Competition Time!

Winner of the crappy font/logo competition

From 13 entries there emerges a winner! This was really difficult as they were all really good and worthy of recognition. Initially, my idea was to choose my favourite on the basis of its ability to make me smile. Unfortunately for me, they all did. So the winner was chosen on the basis of my own opinion out of a strong field:

Stuart Ritson

Out of all the crappy fonts used, I guess any of the Frakturs are the most abused. I love the way thay the font has become synonymous with gangsta culture (kulcha?) and then re-assigned to the most kitsch of worldwide brands.

Well done Stu, I will make a book especially for you… email me with a mail address.

Thanks to everyone for entering – all submissions were worthy of winning.

New Competition!

This next competition is (as you may have already guessed!) to come up with the designers ‘perfect shortcut’ key! Just take a pic of your keyboard (or use my image above) and use a bit of know how to insert a shortcut key that graphic designers would use. It could be serious, funny or ridiculous.

Make sure that they are no larger than 276×276 pixels and 72dpi and named in this format skinnerchristypo.jpg (obviously using your own name!) or .png or .gif  and email them to me for inclusion. If you are sending more than one image, please add a number to them also.  Please note that if you are sending me images, then you are giving me your consent to publish them on the web. Don’t send them if you don’t want them uploading. These images will only be used for this purpose and my own personal jocularity.

I’ll pick a winner on Monday 3rd August… I’ll custom make another sketchbook for the winner. Best of luck, and pass the word around…

What the F…riday! #2

Ahhh! The great smell of Brylcreem and ‘something for the weekend’, yes it’s Barbershop time! This great album hails from the early seventies, when we expected typography to be like our fashions – bright, flashy, and very tastless! And if you thinks this is over the top, take a look on the other side:

Some close ups..

Well, I think we know all we need to know about this lot! As for Dave, judging by his expression,  might actually be ‘taking the melody’ with Charles…

New Books

Regular visitors to this blog may remember some ceramic book covers I made. Well I have worked on them a little further and made some new ones.

As I mentioned in the first post on this, I intended to make my own paper. I used a commercial/craft paper pulp mixed with water for this, no magic tricks or alchemy, and what I have is 9 sheets of reasonably white, soft paper, around A4 size with a deckle edge.

They vary in weight, from quite thick to very thin (so thin they are easily torn) and I also made about the same amount with added material, namely shredded and torn pages from the original book, Margarets Choice:

A very satisfying process, with lots of potential for adding unusual substances to the mix, for extra texture, colour and stability. Of course, I could just go and buy some lovely stuff from my local craft store, but where’s the fun in that, eh?

…

For this next book I made a mould of a piece of old steel cut from a boat and made two terracotta cast peices, drilled them before they hardened fully and set them to soak for a couple of days. I used this stuff to cast one of the Helvetica ‘a’s a while back. It’s a kind of reddish plaster mixed with iron powder, so when you’ve had it in some water for a while and then expose it to the air, it rusts! As I couldn’t use the original peice of steel (it was to be made into a sculpture by Ben) I thought this was a good alternative.

The terracotta cast is very heavy owing to the iron content, which is a nice counterpoint to the choice of binding. I decided to use coptic binding for this, as well as commercial cartridge paper for the book stock.  I like the idea of the delicate, exposed threads holding the rough and heavy covers around the clean, regular pages. The book measures approximately 210mmm x 95mm.

What the F…riday!

In a new regular weekly (or thereabouts) section I proudly present ‘What the F…riday!’ – a showcase of odd, funny, poor or interesting graphics. I’ll kick off with this, which landed on my desk this morning courtesy of Mr. Gibson…

If I could think of anything to say about this I’d say it now, but I think it speaks for itself…

If you have any weird and interesting graphic items you’d like to share with the world, email me with an image and you may find your own oddments right here on ‘What the F…riday!’

Competition Time!

We designers can get awfully snobby about type. I know, because I do it myself. But now its time to take another look at those much maligned, ridiculed and over abused fonts. Lets celebrate their, erm, exsistence by substituting them into famous logos. Why not use Jokerman for McDonald’s? Curlz for Coca-Cola? Algerian for Nike? Ah, the sweet promise of corporate abuse and typographic tomfoolery!

Pick a crappy font and creatively marry it to a company logo. That’s it. Who knows, this could be the start of the next big trend!

Make sure that they are no larger than 276×276 pixels and 72dpi and named in this format skinnerchristypo.jpg (obviously using your own name!) or .png or .gif  and email them to me for inclusion. Please note that if you are sending me images, then you are giving me your consent to publish them on the web. Don’t send them if you don’t want them uploading. These images will only be used for this purpose and my own personal jocularity.

I’ll pick a winner on Monday 20 July… I’ll custom make a sketchbook for the winner.

Rant #3

First, some images of Milpa; a pamphlet designed by Edward Wright in 1988.

 And the whole thing in sequence:

I’ve just finished reading a short volume on the typographer Edward Wright, beautifully designed and produced by the Department of Typography at the University of Reading to accompany an exhibition a couple of years ago. Although I enjoyed what his friends, students contemporaries wrote about him, I found myself thinking about how little I knew about him and his work, and tried to recall other books, articles or interviews that featured Wright, or even mention him. So I ‘Googled’ him. Lots of references to the three words individually, but only a handful of them combined to be relevant, and they added little beyond what I already had read. Check them here, here, here and here.

As a typographer, Wright appeared to be one of those rare people who simply ‘understand’ type. This is obviously a very clumsy statement, and I need to use an analogy to make my observation a little clearer. There are those who write beautiful and uplifting symphonies, and there are those who can arrange the music to get the best from an orchestra. Wright, to me, is one of the latter. I suppose many would consider this a slur on the fine work he created and those he influenced, but I mean it with the highest praise.

As a lecturer I need pitch my teaching level at post 16 students and know that there are a number of graphic designers and typographers that will appeal to most of them, strike a chord with a few others and hopefully give one or two a kick start into a project. There are quite a few ‘stars’ to gaze at during the 20th century, with some others rising as we draw the first decade of the 21st to a close, and there always will be, as we designers, despite not really wanting to admit that we are inspired by anyone in particular, will aspire to, emulate or be jealous of.

Most of my students over the last few years could probably assemble quite a list of my ‘favourites’, that is, the ones I refer to the most to students. There are others though, and Wright is one of them; influential but not showy; studious and academic; driven but not obsessed. Someone who followed his intellectual interests out of a desire to develop and a love of the process. A couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to see Ken Garland  (who was at one time one of Wrights students) speaking at the St.Brides Conference. Here he put forward his nominations for unsung heroes of British design:

William Slack,

Jerry Cinamon,

Ken Briggs,

Ken Campbell 

and unusually, Alfred Wainwright, who wasn’t a graphic designer, but a casual flick through one of his meticulously hand drawn walking guides will surely convert you.

Graphic design history is generally undisputed. One history book generally confirms the other, and most of us are content with this. I am also interested in those who simply did their job – I’ve already touched on this subject here - all those commercial artists and early graphic designers, whose work is sometimes remembered and often collected, but always attributed to Anon. At the exhibition of propaganda posters at the Imperial War Museum in London I was surprised to see such a high proportion of work, whose originators gave their talents to the war efforts on all sides without laying claim. Beautiful, admirable and honest. So who are the other unsung heroes? Any more for the list…?

Further Adventures in Letterforming

Over the past month or so, during lunchtimes and after work, I have been beavering away in the workshop, continuing exploring letterforms in clay. The roman ‘g’  pictured above is the first in what I hope will become a series, of sunken or embedded letterforms. I’m working at a scale of around 35cm length here, but you get little sense of that here. I’ll take the next batch of images in recogniseable spaces to show the scale. This one will be reduction fired to bring out the brown grit of the krank clay, and emphasize the white slip erm… ‘guano’. It is designed to sit on a reflective surface for a retro ‘Vision On’ effect! 

This majestic Playbill X was an exercise in creating an angled 3D form, tapering from around 55mm at the base to 10mm at the top. It’s just bisque fired at the moment, ready for a glaze finish, but I’m not sure of which way to go yet. I’m thinking about a glossy blue glaze that will give the surface a smoother finish in places, whilst allowing the grittiness of the clay to come through on the edges. X marks the spot.

Mmm. Nice. Another unfinished one, this time an elegant ligature ‘fi’. I guess I’m a little impatient and excitable about these, posting them unfinished, with no process shown etc, but I thought you’d enjoy them at this stage too. This one I’ve given a coating of black oxide today, which when fired will give this a look of old blackened cast iron. Again, you cant see the scale here, but if you consider the crossbar to be around 15mm you’ll get the picture.

I’ve got some other stuff in progress too, but feel that I’ve neglected my bookbinding for too long, so I will finish these off over the summer and maybe start something new in a couple of months.