2011 ISTD Awards

So this morning I was delighted to receive my copy of this years International Typographic Awards (ISTD) booklet through the mail. An e-mail earlier this week informed me that my copy was on its way which lead me to wait in anticipation for the remainder of the week. Now I'm not saying the book was a disappointment, far from it, in fact ISTD always produce gorgeously designed books (it's expected of them). I did however feel a little let down by the content.

I would like to state right now that I am not questioning the quality of any of the featured designers work as the work truly is beautiful and in some cases very inspiring (plus I never got in myself so I don't exactly have a leg to stand on in bagging on someone else's work lol). I do however have an issue with a repetitive comment made by the judges throughout the book that certain projects and how they were executed were 'original'. I may lose my head (or worse... my membership) for saying this but I beg to differ. Yes all the work was of a very high standard and great but I would hardly say anyone was doing anything  particularly new. With a lot of the projects I felt as though I had seen it before, perhaps not as controlled or as well executed but certainly with a similar core. It left me wondering if there was anyone out there with a truly original and "far out" idea, and if so was their work just not deemed good enough for ISTD? Perhaps it just wasn't polished enough, which is a fair reason to be overlooked... to some extent.

Overall I just wish I had turned the pages of my nice new book to be blown away with design that made me rethink the entire world of design. Maybe I'm asking a lot of a little A5 book but shouldn't we as designers be trying to push boundaries and scare one another? It's easy to scare the general public, but shocking other designers is part of the fun.

Anyway this will probably be my last post as I imagine a barrage of designers are ready to knock down my door and take me away, never to be seen or heard from again. In all honesty the work is great, just not what I had expected. Perhaps I had just built it up to much in my head.

Flatland Final

Flatland was a project I completed a while ago to help me obtain my MISTD (International Society for Typographic Designers) membership, however it's only been recently that I've decided to create a mock-up for my website. Let me tell you though, it has been no easy feet. Mocking up a project is usually fairly simple but the sheer size of the files for this project have caused Photoshop to give up on me many a time.

Anyway for those that don't know my Flatland project is a concertina folded book, hence its peculiar appearance in these layouts. Eventually a full description and layout of the project will be up on my site but in the meantime here is what I've managed to do. I still have a few small details to fix but hopefully it will be up this weekend.

Flatland

It's been a while since I've posted anything so I decided to finally upload photos of a brief I tackled several months back.  The project was to create a design for Edwin A. Abbott's book "Flatland".  The brief stated that the designer could choose to recreate parts of the story anyway they saw fit; I chose to redesign the format of the book.


You know what?  I was going to give you a massive run through of what the story is about and why I chose to design it they way I have but instead I suggest you go read the book and let me know if my design works.  The book isn't a big seller and can be found on the internet for free (I bought my own copy because I'm sad and like books).


My design only covers three chapters of the whole book, so you can imagine just how big the project would be if I was to do the whole thing lol.


I would just like to take this opportunity to thank all my models and photographer for their help during a dark time in my life (the completion of this project).


Gary Nicholson (http://munchypotato.blogspot.com/) 
Abi Dowler (http://www.madebyabi.co.uk/) 
Hannah Guthrie (http://www.hannah-guthrie.com/) 
Hugh Leoidsson (http://leoidsson.com/) 
Leanne Swift (http://www.leanneswift.co.uk/) 
Alex McIntosh (http://www.alexmcintosh.co.uk/) 
James Lodge (http://www.jameslodge.co.uk/) 
and Finally Jim Millington (photography).  

Unraveled

p.s.  Just a quick mention on the quality of the print.  Unfortunately due to my lack of connections in the world this print was with university facilities and is therefore not amazing.  The design of my book would require a professional printing company (and apparently even they would find this a struggle... I'm a little proud of that lol).