Posts Tagged ‘Letterpress’

Missing type

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

November 2009

A lot of type has gone missing from the letterpress workshop in Central St Martins over the years, resulting in incomplete sets. The situation is particularly bad with wood types. A poster was printed to encourage the return of the missing letters and also to mark the start of this project.

February 2010

Catherine Dixon suggested archiving the existing wood type by printing each tray. The resulting prints were then compared to a font scheme to identify any missing letters.

We decided to re/create the missing letters, not as exact replicas but rather as make-do letters. It was a response to the situation, an opportunity to learn new skills and to experiment with different materials. (Bootleg Gill Sans)


And also as an open invitation for others to re/create.

March 2010

Capital F by Payne. This letter was first spotted by Helen Ingham in the Caslon tray. Obviously hand crafted, with engraved name on the back. Who is Payne?

On going.

Tags:
Posted in We are currently... | No Comments »

Ta Love

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

_MG_2210

Tags:
Posted in Things we have done | No Comments »

Cook for a day

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Concept

As part of the degree show we met every week to discuss what had been done and what tasks needed to be carried out. However, half way through the year this process had become rather tedious. We felt we needed a break from the meetings. Rathna, our tutor, suggested we should run a workshop colleagues of hers had set up on the Ma at Central Saint Martins. Annagrete Molhave & Paulus Dreibholz had conceived a workshop that involved a day of cooking for creatives.

The day

We announced that, that weeks meeting would hold a mysterious workshop and collected the names of the people who were interested in taking part. On the day they showed up people were split into five groups and asked to pick out a piece of folded paper. On the sheet of paper was a nationality. If a member of their group was of that nationality they had to re-pick until it was not the case.

We then briefed them that they were not to do any form of design that day, and that their purpose was to cook. Teams were asked to venture off and research their given nationality, the aim was to find out its national-cuisines and to learn how to cook them. However, all of this information had to be obtained through social interactions, whether that meant going to Brick Lane to an Indian restaurant and speaking to the cook, or going to a Turkish supermarket in Haringey and speaking to the staff there. There was certainly no internet, no phones and i-phones used in the process.

IMG_3249DSC_7798

The end of the day

By the end of the day each group was to bring back their prepared food to the studio and group by group present their dishes and share their experiences of the day.

L1030246L1030264

While all made amazing food, including the famous French snails, some went further and made their own menus and unifroms to wow the crowd.

DSC_7821L1030257

It was a fantastic evening. A humble candle lit table laid with newspaper transformed the studio into something magical. The aromas of the eclectic dishes fused into a delightful aroma and the food was brilliant. It was a day well spent!

L1030277

Publication

As a part of the workshop we wanted to produce a publication for everyone who took part and contributed. We focussed the publication on what dishes were cooked and how each group obtained the recipe for each dish, as it was clear from the evening that the stories from each group were not only highly fascinating but their individual experiences varied greatly. The publication was letterpress printed and is available from YCN online shop for £3.

_MG_2110

_MG_20

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Things we have done | No Comments »

Lisa Williams

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

A collaborative project between Felix Ackermann, Ken Kirton and myself. The project entailed developing a fictional character and proving its existence to a given audience. Our character was Lisa Williams, who was the result of Enzo Mari’s game ‘Living’.

Enzo Mari’s Living game

Enzo Mari’s Living consists of a deck of 80 cards, broken up in sets of 10. Each individual deck represents a particular piece of information from a persons life, and is dealt out to the participating group. Collectively the cards are the foundation of a fictional character.

I live in…
I am a…
I live with…
I own a…
My neighbour is…
My wife/husband is…
My house is near…

Enzo Mari first used the cards during a course of workshops and lectures at the Urban Planning Laboratory of the Architecture faculty of the University of Milan. Each student was asked to not only create a fictional character but also build his or hers life, understand his/hers history, friendships, daily routines etc. From understanding their fictional character each student was then asked to design their fictional characters ideal home.

From the cards Mari distributed he defined the identity of each student and began to build real life stories. He outlined the personalities, the relationships and the hierarchies of the characters, as well as the value and the meaning of places and objects: he created complex scenarios that became the foundation of the residential projects he developed afterwards.

Character development

We were given the following cards: I live in the rocky mountains ‘I am a Mayor’, ‘Ilive with three female friends’, ‘I own a big tree’, ‘My wife is a nurse’, ‘My neighbour is a General’, ‘My house is near a swimming pool’, ‘I live in…’

IMG_5663

We began by developing our character through a rough A4 sketch, keeping in mind the ten cards we were presented with. Having built an image of our fictional character we still felt that we needed to understand more about her life and therefore further developed Lisa’s life through a game of consequence between the three of us. We first developed our character through drawing.

drawing

During this development, a love story became apparent between our main character Lisa Williams and her neighbour Archibald Mooney. However, Lisa was unaware of Archibald’s strong feelings towards her and the story ended with him spying on her.

In order to prove the existence of our character we arranged for a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to our critique, addressed to Lisa Williams, to establish her existence within the subconscious of the group before we presented. For the presentation we read the story out loud, only revealing the name Lisa Williams untill the very end and watched the class realise the truth behind the undelivered flowers.

Recording the process

We chose to letterpress the story, which not only continued our collaborative process but also became a juxtaposition to Lisa Williams digital creation. The spelling mistakes in the story have not been corrected to stay true to the process.

_MG_1197

_MG_1228

_MG_1232

Tags: ,
Posted in Things we have done | No Comments »

Curiosity

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

We were invited to design an item to sell at the School of Life sermon. The sermon was based on the subject of curiosity, and was delivered by the scientist Robert Winston. Robert believes that the more we see the mysteries of our universe the less certain we ought to become. We focused our research in the realm of science, for curiosity is the driving force behind creativity.

Through researching and examining various scientific experiments, we were reminded of a famous experiment thought up by the Austrian Physicist Schrodinger. The experiment symbolises the endless possibility of an ‘unopened box’. We wrote a poem as a tribute to Mr. Schrodinger and his famous cat.

Picture2

We letterpressed the poem into greeting cards to be sold as a permanent reminder of the power of curiosity.

_MG_1174

_MG_1168

L1040058

L1040057

Tags: , ,
Posted in Things we have done | No Comments »