Design (just about) Digested
I began my year out away from my graphic design degree at LCC way back in June last year and it has been one of hell year in all honestly. I’ve learnt so much not only about what I want to do, but also about myself as a designer, met some amazing people along the way and been involved in some fantastic internships, freelance work, exhibitions, projects and everything else in-between. The highlights have included:
BRAG/Firehouse weekend in Brighton, YCN/Becks Fusion Live Studio, Print Club, ongoing involvement with UK Street Art, YCN Live: 250 Shoeboxes, 1 Superstar, Blyk/YCN Workshop, NOISE Festival 2008 short-listing, Not Actual Size, the BBC ‘Big Mic’ in Berlin, eBoy, A Delivery of Typography, Deutsche Kinemathek Alfred Hitchcock exhibition, Pentagram Berlin, ContainerPLUS, Cunning, THIS IS Studio, D&AD Student Awards, G20 music video, Type Tarts, Tunnel 228, the Ghibli Museum, breakfast with John Maeda, Trashed, Pecha Kucha Tokyo, Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo, Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition, Don’t Panic, Little Music Break to Paris, Wieden+Kennedy London, London Design Festival, Adobe Creative Bursary nomination and ideAporting.
A massive thanks goes out to all the people this year who have helped me, discussed projects, taught me and lots more. Ron and Chuck from Firehouse along with Jamie, Rhys and everyone else at BRAG. Nick, Sarah and the rest of the YCN team. Fred from Print Club. The UK Street Art team, Mark and Tom. Dan, Simon and Stephen from Not Actual Size. Svend of eBoy. Anja and Barbara from the Buchstaben Museum. Justus, Uta, Josephine, Christiane and Nikola from Pentagram Berlin. Luise of ContainerPLUS. Aidan, Becca, Spencer, Olly and everyone else from Cunning. Barney, Dougal and Richard from THIS IS Studio. Vicky, Danielle, Richard and the rest of the KK Outlet team. John Maeda. Alan, Simone and Mark from Trashed. Mark and Tomoko from KleinDytham. Eric and the rest of the W+K Tokyo team. Joe from Don’t Panic. Sarah, Sandrine and Camille from We Are Social, Guy from W+K London and everyone else who I have met along the way.
I came into this year thinking I wanted to be an ideas person in either an agency or studio and I’ve come away knowing that I want to be and ideas based designer. My typography skills have improved greatly as well my computer software skills. I’ve developed a much greater appreciation for the finer details of design and I know that I will always work on projects that excite me. I’m now collaborating more and more with interesting people and believe it’s the only way to produce the best work. People know something you don’t and you know something they don’t. I’ve learnt and developed greatly this year and have had so much fun doing it. I start back at LCC today and I will take what I have learnt this year and use it to get the most out of my final year, as a graduate and beyond.
For the immediate and long term future, I am currently working on ideAporting, which you can sign up for here, working on my dissertation which is based on the theme of Digital vs. Print and carrying on with my final year self-initiated project (watch this space). During my final year, I am hoping to continue the experiences I have had whilst interning, by working at a studio for 1 day a week, so I’m currently designing some self promotion and sourcing studios for that. I am also involved with a newspaper publication about student and graduate experiences with written and visual contributions that is soon to be produced. The project is being run by fellow designers Alex and Charlie. I am continuing to work with Pecha Kucha here in London, Trashed, UK Street Art, Don’t Panic and finishing up projects with Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo. I’ve also recently completed the identity for web based activists Turnfront which can be seen here and then finally, I have more self-initiated projects in the pipeline, both online and offline.
I now have a Twitter account so you can follow me at http://twitter.com/pauljenk and www.theshavedhead.com is soon to re-launch with a new design and new projects so watch this space. You can also continue to follow me on Flickr as well here. It’s been a pleasure to keep everyone updated about the last 16 months or so and thanks to everyone who has commented and emailed me. I’ve had 125 posts on the blog, documenting every creative thing I have done and over 20,000+ blog hits. I’m currently designing an outcome to summarise this year out so check my website for that soon. If you want to get in touch, drop me a line at paul@theshavedhead.com or on +44(0)792 166 7913. Finally, I will starting up a new personal blog soon so keep your eyes peeled for that.
That’s all, cheers.
Paul
Graniph Studio Visit
This morning I went to visit Graniph in Shibuya (in west central Tokyo) and to meet up with David Smyth from the company for a chat. Graniph are a t-shirt company based here in Tokyo that produce a mass amount of t-shirts every month, I was told the in house design team of 6 produce 85+ every month plus Graniph scout out images that would work on t-shirts from artists, designers and studios the world over. They currently have stores in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Jakarta and Dubai and David told me about their futures hopes to push the company towards Europe and beyond.
Graniph, currently only based in Asia, have however used designs from numerous UK based artists and other well known creatives from around the world including James Joyce, Non-Format, Emil Ruder, Rose Stallard (co-founder of Print Club), Mr. Bingo, Anthony Burrill and Andy Forshaw with many more listed in their artists section.
We talked about Tokyo in general, Graniph, and how it all works and the company’s background as well as about my year out. It was great to meet David, who looks after the international side of things of Graniph as well as scouting out fresh designs on a monthly basis. I’ll be staying in touch, and there are way too many nice t-shirts that I want to buy before I leave Japan. I’ll also hopefully be working on a design submission in the near future.
‘Power in Numbers’ + ‘Said Why Eggs?’ + ‘CUM*’ Exhibitions
Thursday evening was spent doing a whistle stop tour of the East End’s show openings; visiting the ‘Power in Numbers‘ exhibition at the Bodhi Gallery on Brick Lane, which I previously submitted work for, unfortunately not selected this time around. I also went to the ‘Said Why Eggs?‘ show at the Swanfield Inn which was curated by the East End Arts Club and finally onto KK Outlet to see their new exhibition by ‘CUM*‘, a group of pornographic and provocative influenced street artists.
Unfortunately, it was a bit of disappointment in all honesty for most of the exhibitions. ‘Power in Numbers’ had a few good pieces of work, but questionable whether they suited the theme of the show. The above print was a nice image and print in general however. The gallery had a gas leak downstairs where most of the work was, so I may pop back next week to take a look at the rest of the screen prints. ‘Said Why Eggs?’ had s much better quality of work on display and thought put into the show with a nice array of alphabets designed at the front and what seemed to be the alphabet displayed within kitsch themes in the back room as seen in the A/B/C image below. There was even alphabet sweets at the front on the reception desk! ‘Cum*’ at KK Outlet was meant to be a show of erotic street art, but I wasn’t really impressed with anything on show and questionable whether some of it was even street art. In saying that though, it was great to take a look around a few exhibitions even amongst the elbowing of crowds to get a beer.
Links to the exhibitions: ‘Power in Numbers’ here, ‘Said Why Eggs?’ here, and ‘CUM*’s’ Facebook event page here.
Print Club Internship
I have just started with fellow designer Kayleigh Thompson, at the water based screen printers in Dalston, Print Club. We will be both helping out weekly with workshops run by Fred, one of the creators of Print Club. We were in this week showing the creative promotion team of MTV how to screen print! Cleaning the studio, sorting through prints, cleaning and exposing screens, setting up print beds and the best bit, PRINTING.
We are now also members of the club and with 24/7 access, this will be an invaluable resource. As I am wanting to get back into screen printing this year, this has provided me with a great opportunity.
Digesting Design 
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