ISSUE ONE
BCU
HEY THERE FIRST THINGS FIRST
3 - 4
So what’s this Hybrid business all about, ey?
5 - 6 First week back, coffee and a catch up at BTP.
LIAM BLUNDEN
7 - 10
NYC BABY
11 - 14
THE DESIGN KIDS
Liam Blunden speaks about life after graduation.
Where dreams are made; the annual Viscom trip has been launched.
15 - 16 Frankie Ratford, founder of The Design Kids gives the L6 students an insight into what it’s all about.
STUDIO VISITS
17 - 20
THE PAPER LIBRARY
21 - 22
STUDENT FEATURE MOONPIG
HINTS & TIPS
L6’s introduction to the working world, with visits to Provide and Tomorrow-People.
A chat with paper Queen, Debbie Wigglesworth.
23 - 24 An introduction to one of L6’s students work, starting off with (myself) Emily Caplan.
25 - 26 Moonpig ladies, Katie and Holly give an insight into the world of greetings cards.
27 - 28 Initial hints and tips to help you through the uni year, alongside a handful of useful resources.
INTRO
HEY THERE
o, welcome to the brand new newsletter for Graphic Communication at BCU - HYBRID. A place where you can get the insight into what’s been going on, and keep up to date with anything you can get stuck into. Designed by you, for you. Inside you will find a mixture of interviews, features, hints and tips and much much more. Time to get stuck in, and never miss a trick! BCU Graphic Communication is a hive of creative activity, with plenty of opportunities to get involved in. Whether that be the annually run trip to NYC, taking part in competition briefs led by Moonpig or joining our brand new type society run by our very own Jane Anderson. So grab yourself a drink, and enjoy! Happy reading!
A note by EDITOR // EMILY CAPLAN
F OUR
F I R S T THIN G S F IR S T
A ja for thin
What may now seem like a lifetime ago (five weeks ago, so yes, near enough a lifetime), L6 students regrouped at Boston Tea Party for a first day back catchup, from a long summer apart. Tutors, students and alumni shared the first day back chatting about what’s to come, and how to tackle final year. To all of you L4 and L5’s reading this, take note - this will be you soon! As we all know the first day back of any year always consists of a lot of talking and presentations, which can be a bit of an information overload. While it was a lot to take in, it gave us a good foundation for how to tackle the challenge that is final year. Now well underway - and many cups of coffee later - it is time to recap on what has happened so far, and what is yet to come here at BCU. Within the next few pages there will be a mishmash of everything that’s gone on within graphics, to help keep you up to date with the madness of uni life. Side note; get yourself down to BTP for a bit of brunch or a yummy coffee and a cake! A jazzy environment for some creative thinking, or a place to have a break from the hectic uni life. I would absolutely recommend their sweetcorn hash - mm mm mmmmmm...
FIVE
FIRS T THIN GS FIRS T
azzy environment some creative nking...and coffee.
Imagery from BTP website. www.bostonteaparty.co.uk
LIAM BLUNDEN
Alumni member and ex-student Liam Blunden gives us an insight into his experiences at uni, and where he plans on heading next with his design work.
@liamscoolstuf f
SEVEN
LIAM BLUNDEN
I don’t see the point in being a small part of a massive thing, when I could be a big part of a small thing instead.
So you’ve just finished uni, how does it feel to be a graduate?! Feels pretty good yeah, it’s better than being at uni because it’s pretty chilled out. But yeah it feels good to go out to actually do real work, so it’s quite nice! What’s this ‘real work’ you talk about doing at the moment? I’m doing a masters, and I’m freelancing and I’m doing work for another design studio at the moment, and I’m working with a gaming company too. I like to keep busy or you tend to slow down. You just briefly mentioned there that you were doing a masters, can you tell me a little bit about that? You should only really do a masters if you have an ‘area’, but a specific ‘area’ in mind. So I’ve done graphic design for a while now, and I’m not bored of it but it’s hard to continuously get excited about the stuff that you do. So, well for me it’s still amazing because you see incredible stuff, but I’m going to go into user interface and user experience, and I’m gonna try and push it to go into UI and gaming. ‘Cus after I did the mixed reality project last I year I was sort of like I can’t go back to editorial now!
What would you say was your biggest achievement while being at uni? I know you’ve had your fair few mega moments, what would you say was the highlight? Uhm biggest achievement – that’s a toughie man! I think probably a little thing was being in Computer Arts maybe. That wasn’t a very big thing, but to me it was pretty cool. They only knew about it because I went to LIFE agency with my swatch portfolio, then they handed that in, and Luke, from the agency, gave it to them because they wanted to a sort of do a promo issue. Then they emailed me when I was on my way back from the dentist (after having a tooth out!), forgot about it, then a couple of days later it actually sunk in. And maybe the other thing was probably going to Hong Kong, helping out there with the letterpress workshops and stuff there. How did you get into going to Hong Kong, was it offered to you by uni or was it off your own back? Fun story actually, while I was doing my undergrad I was treating it as a full-time job whenever I wasn’t actually working, or I didn’t have other stuff on. I was in over summer always working on something and trying to improve myself. I started this art group called the 21 Pirates, and it got a bit big so gaming companies were contacting us asking if we could do this and that, but it was all unofficial so I just ran it. And then one day I was just talking to Andrew (Kulman) who knew about it because he had been to one of my shows, and was saying I was going to try and push for a show in Hong Kong, then Nathan (Tromans) walked past and was like “did you just say Hong Kong”?! Then got talking and eventually he was like yeah you should go to Hong Kong and help these guys and get some more artists in and do a show over there. I got TONNES from doing that.
“This Is” newspaper.
EIGHT
LIAM BLUNDEN From all of your accomplishments, what would you say has helped define you as a practitioner to help you progress into the ‘real world’? The swatch portfolio. I was interviewed two weeks ago for BCU Marketing because they had seen it, and they wanted to show perspective college students portfolios and things like that. And I still get emails about it, I mean I’ve refined it now so it’s quite cool, but every studio I handed it into was like this is wicked! That’s the biggest thing that got me around, the guys that I worked with at this design studio called Fluid, they actually redesigned it for them to give it away which was pretty cool. I mean I gave them permission to do it so they didn’t steal it or anything, and they still give it out at the licensing awards which is a big deal, and when they go and meet gaming studios they give out this swatch that I designed basically. Where do you aspire to be in say, 5 years’ time? Oh, 5 years? Well there’s these games called the ‘triple A’ games which are the big games, then there’s ‘indie games’ which are like the little ones. So I’d like to be working in a triple A studio as a user face designer and 5 years maybe gets to the point when I’d even maybe consider being a producer? I mean that would probably take more like 10 years, but yeah that’s what I’d like to be doing. Freelancing is good and I do like it but I like being able to go to places sink my teeth into it and not worry about the money. I always freelance on the side anyway.
Swatch Portfolio.
Is there anywhere in the country you would like to be based, or are you not fussed? Most of the studios are in Leamington Spa. (Oh so you wanna stay local?), yeah I wanna stay pretty local but the one I’ve been talking to that is pretty good is just outside of London, which is about 3 hours away. I don’t want to live in London at all though, I have no desire to live in London. I turned down two jobs because of it! I don’t see the point in being a small part of a massive thing, when I could be a big part of a small thing instead. I mean I guess if I was on a massive wage as a director of something then I’d probably move there. I know people that have moved there now after uni, probably 80% of them hate it and wanna move back. Which is controversial yanno, everyone’s different. Let’s talk inspiration. Are there any go-to inspirational people out there that inspire you? Or do you stick to the whole ‘inspirational is everywhere’ mantra? I don’t think about it. I don’t look for inspiration. I think that if you go out looking for inspiration then you end up regretting ideas. I think you should just go places and do things, and not go to think oh I’m going to get inspired. Just go and do things and do stuff. I’ve been inspired by stuff like typography from amines, colour theory from like women’s magazines. Just random things, just don’t get narrow minded, look everywhere! The only guy I met who I really wanted to meet, and thought was really cool, was Vince Frost. And he signed my book and in it he told Pentagram to give me a job…who knows! I don’t think many people inspire me, they tend to be non-designers, so non-designers are the best inspiration because half the design world is just auto pilots. It’s the same as any job, you just sort of do your job then just go home…I dunno, it’s a complicated issue.
Do you have any words of wisdom to pass on to us budding graphic design students? Uhmm, well graphic design is such a blanket subject so I will keep it kind of blanket. I would say listen to peoples advice but don’t just act on their advice. Like think is this actually good advice or is this person just trying to look cool? Which a lot of the time they are! And I would say learn additional skills that are outside of your practice. So there was this guy last year called Liam Roberts, he was branding and he knew he was branding, but he was in the mixed reality project for a while, he did a 360 video before that, he learnt motion graphics and he also dabbles in 3D. And now he works in a really good studio down in London actually. But yeah I think have additional skills, you need them! You won’t stand out if you don’t. And finally, do you have any regrets from being at uni? Ooo, while I was at uni? Hmm, probably chasing the grade, especially first year. Definitely shouldn’t have done that, because design generally you don’t have to go to uni to succeed, you just have to have a good eye, good portfolio skills that kind of stuff. Also not finding out what I want to go into sooner, I want to go into UI and UX but I didn’t discover that until the last two months of uni, so then that’s why I’ve gone on to do my masters to give myself a bit of time. Just do what you want and do it well.
NINE
LIAM BLUNDEN
www.liamblunden.com
All images accessed from Liam’s website
TEN
NYC BABY
I can honestly say it has been one of the most amazing experiences I have had to date. L E T ’ S TA L K The annually led New York trip run by Viscom has officially now been launched – and is already fully booked! This is one of the highest demand trips run by BCU, and is well worth getting involved with.
WHEN? 29th January – 2nd Feb 2018 PRICE? £690
Drawing from my own experience having gone on the 2017 trip, I can honestly say it has been one of the best experiences I have had to date. The amount of things to do and see is incredible; a very surreal experience going having only ever seen it in films. I would 100% recommend this trip, even if you have never even considered going to America, it will blow you away! THINGS TO DO? Times square / Grand central / Lady Liberty / Ground Zero / 9/11 museum / Wall Street / Macys / Central Park / MoMa / Rockerfella Centre / Ruby Tuesdays / Shake shack / Flat Iorn building / Madison square park / Brooklyn / Manhattan bridge / Brooklyn bridge / Washington square park / NYU / Greenwich Village / M&M world / Hard rock café / Chelsea market / The Highline / K-Mart...The list goes on! Need I say more? Keep an eye out Viscom students for when your chance to go comes around!
ELEVEN
Empire State, Street View. New York City. Friday 10th February 2017. Emily Caplan.
View from the top of the Rockefeller Centre. New York City. Wednesday 8th February 2017. Emily Caplan.
TDK
A global community for students and graduate designers, to help you get a kick ass job in the design industry. www.t hedesignkids.org
One of BCU’s newest guest speakers, Frankie Ratford, founder of The Design Kids, gave the L6 students a whistle stop presentation all about TDK, and her journey in the design world. Frankie went over to Melbourne, Australia, when she was 18 for university - and never looked back! Frankie has one of the biggest creative networks ever seen, and has even worked for Vince Frost himself. She is so passionate about design she decided to set up The Design Kids to help other creatives get themselves out there! Currently in her 5th of her 6th year world tour with TDK, she kindly took some time out of her busy schedule to talk to the L6 students and share her experiences. The Design Kids is a creative community for students and graduates, providing an online resource for countries all over the world. It aims to educate, inspire and connect fellow creatives together. TDK gives you (free) access interviews with designers in your chosen region, see what’s going on and access the local TDK Tuesdays - where creatives can get together and chat about all things jazzy! Anyone can also tag an instagram post using #TDKPeepShow, to get their work featured on their instagram page!
FIFTEEN
TDK
@t hedesignkids @frankieratf ord
S TUDIO VISITS
OVERVIEW As part of L6’s Negotiated Study module the tutors have scheduled in some studio visits, starting off with a handful from around Birmingham. This is to help make the students aware of what is around and what sort of environment they might like to work in. As the module progresses they will also be conducting visits to studios in Manchester and London!
PROVIDE @provideshop
Good design, independent culture. Provide, located in the Jubilee Trade Centre (alongside Rope Press), creates small collections of clothing, that aim to create honest, practical and beautiful designs; often collaborating with other designers and friends to produce products. At the moment they purely produce clothing, however they are looking at branching out into other areas of merchandise, such as home-ware.
SEVENTEEN
Provide Studio. Birmingham Jublilee Trade Centre. Monday 23rd October 2017. Martin Donnelly.
Tomorrow-People Logo.
S TUDIO VISITS
TOMORROW PEOPLE www.t omor row -people.com
Develop a market, not just a campaign. Tomorrow-People is a content marketing agency located in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. Steven Walls, director of TP, gave the students a talk about what it is like to work within his agency, the type of people he would look to employ and what will make you stand out as a designer. TP a very digital based agency, and have a heavy focus on their research in order to gain an understanding for what they need to deliver to their clients. They focus on B2B (business to business) communications, and have a very close working relationship with their clients.
T WENT Y
THE PAPER LIBRARY
DEBBIE WIGGLESWORTH www.t hepaper librar y.com I am the co-founder of The Paper Library alongside my business partner Mark Stansfield. I’ve worked in the paper industry for 30 years, and for 16 of those years I was in product development and brand management for G F Smith Papers, so it was quite a diverse role but part of that role was helping the development of paper and I still do that now – developing actual paper with companies. My actual role in The Paper Library is all about taking paper to a wider audience. So obviously within institutions, hundreds and thousands of designers we’re hoping to touch their lives with paper. And obviously within industry as well, you’ve seen today we work with Moonpig, last Friday we put a paper library into Sainsbury’s home with the design team there. I went to visit Toast which is a ladies’ design, fashion brand part of French Connection. We have the Paper Library in London and we are about to open one in the Portico Library in Manchester, so we are a hub if you like for any creative that wants to come and absorb themselves in paper, and we are available online to advise on paper. We put the paper library in BCU a year ago, we are soon going to be in 20 universities, and we’re also in Glasgow School of Art, Staffordshire University, we’re going to be in Sheffield Hallam, Cardiff school of Art and Design over the coming months. It’s a resource for creatives, in industry and education. The libraries in universities are for students to help them start engaging with paper, and for them to understand, well first of all what’s available, but hopefully for some it becomes almost a lifelong passion – a love affair of paper. They start to realise just what a wonderful substrate it is, how diverse it is, all the different characteristics it has, even a simple colour, texture and different finishes, and actually what you can do with it. Different print processes – can it be lithographed, digitally printed, can you foil emboss, can you blind emboss, all the different processes and how paper works hand in glove with different processes. I always say that when students come and see the paper, and by the time they leave the room they have a new sense of appreciation for paper. And as I said it will become a life long obsession for some.
@t hepaper librar y T WENT Y ONE
THE PAPER LIBRARY
It’s about giving paper a voice, and allowing it to arouse the emotions within you.
T WENT Y T WO
S TUDENT FEATURE
EMILY C APL AN
I am interested to find out and explore how printed matter is still important, in a digital age.
So I’m Emily! I am a third year graphic design student here at BCU. As a way to kick off these student feature pages, I am here to introduce myself to you all and showcase some of the work I have been doing as part of my final year. This entire magazine, in theory, is my feature! The entirety of HYBRID was created by myself; the interviews, the layout, the editing and everything in between. To the left you will see the typeface I created/edited especially for this edition, using Manson as a basis designed by Jonathan Barnbrook. Projects? This is merely one of the projects I am working on as a part of my final year, alongside competition briefs, personal projects and my dissertation - titled; “The power of printmaking, paper and printed matter. The survival of tactility in a digital age”. Negotiated study, is a warm up for what’s yet to come in Major Study (the second module), so now is the time we have to make the most of exploring different avenues ready to define down in a major project! All things to look forward to, L4 and L5s! Passions? I have a personal interest in editorial design, with a passion for printed matter - I absolutely looove magazines. For anyone else out there that shares my passion for printed matter, you should subscribe to Stack Magazines (insta: @stackmagazines). For £7 a month you get sent a brand new magazine which arrives as a complete surprise. I have been receiving Stack’s magazines since the start of summer, and have not yet been disappointed. Okay, yes, each magazine you get sent may not be your cup of tea, but that’s half the fun! It allows you to open your eyes to the independent publishing scene and explore what you do and don’t like. I love it!
@egcdesigns
MOONPIG esign manager Katie Bear, and senior design Holly Sims kindly answered some questions after launching their annual design brief, providing us with an insight into the world of greetings cards. Can you tell me a little bit about your role within Moonpig? K. So my role as design manager means that I manage the in-house design team, I currently look after four designers. I look after briefing them, and we have weekly design meetings so we look at how the designs are going and we offer feedback. Bit like a crit really! And obviously just to make sure their work load is okay, I do analysis of the cards that are selling and well and that helps inform what we are going to design next. I also work with a lot of freelancers which does include graduates, so each designer has a certain look so when we look for our freelancers we look for something that we don’t already have within our in-house team. We have a lot of projects that we are working on, and if we don’t have a style that we need then that’s when we reach out to freelancers. I actually do a bit of designing myself, because obviously I was employed as a designer to start with and then went to senior designer and then went to design manager. My design time is significantly less, but I still get to do artwork – so you basically get to look at what the designers are doing and then tweak what they are doing. H. As a senior designer I develop my own ranges, I have a bit more freedom than other designers. They get briefed into doing specific stuff whereas because I’ve been there so long I get a bit more freedom. I support Katie with the design management, I help with the briefing as well, and also researching new ranges, gaps in the website, that kind of thing. Also sort of go through the website every season and get rid of old designs.
Holly Sims (L), Katie Bear (R). Birmingham City University. Monday 9th October 2017. Martin Donnelly.
Be persistent & don’t get discouraged.
Do you think it is hard nowadays to come up with unique, really different ideas? Especially in the greetings cards market when there are so many designs already out there. K. I can see why you would think every design, style or idea has been thought of, but I think every year we do a lot of trade research we go to trade shows and new changes are always coming through. You can even be influenced by things that are happening in the news, it could be topical it doesn’t have to just be a nice design. It could even be a card that was designed three years ago but redone in a more modern way. So things like typography, a couple of years ago it was all very font based where as now it’s all very handmade, which is a big thing that we have seen. I think that this is something that will carry on but I feel like it could still go the other way and fonts could come back and be quite big, but it could even be a mix. There’s always a way to push a design.
T WENT Y FIVE
MOONPIG I’ve seen you’ve recently gone through a re-brand for your visual identity! As well as a complete redesign of your website. How did that come about, why did as a company you felt this needed to be done? H. People in the company have been wanting to change the logo for a while, but there was that fear of if we changed the logo then what would happen? I think that any company that has a re-brand then there’s a lot of work that goes in and it’s probably years in the making. I mean obviously as Katie said Moonpig has been around for 17 years, and we’ve always had that same logo, there’s been slight tweaks to it but essentially it’s always been the cartoon pig. It was very much trying to get in line with our competitors, not just our main competitors but general online retailers as well. K. I think if you want to increase sales, sometimes you need to do something fully new like a re-brand. We’ve just had a new CEO, about a year and a half ago, who came from being the CEO of EBAY. It’s always good for fresh eyes to come and have a look at the brand and to offer a new perspective. I think they did a lot of market research, and I think a lot of customers thought we were a bit cheesy so we tried to get away from that. H. We feel like it matches our content a bit more now, we’re more on trend and illustrative. It’s also about trying to get this illustrative style pushed forward, this may not be the styles that sell the most but it is attracting to a different audience. For example, people in your age range maybe might get their cards more from Papercase or Scribbler, but we still do offer that kind of thing online. We have that kind of thing available but people might not necessarily be aware of that. We’re also doing it our own way, it’s about making sure that yeah it is quite a radical change but it is a bit more indicative about what we sell. What made you want to dive into the greetings cards industry? K. For me I’ve always been interested in greetings cards design, so even when I was really young I made cards for friends and family. My first job was in Selfridges and that was actually working in the greetings cards department, whether or not that steered me I don’t know. Then I did textile design because I was really into patterns, and I think my love of greetings cards has always been there through my degree. I then started to design greetings cards and gave them to loads of different companies to see if they wanted them, and because I worked at Selfridges luckily I got to know the buyers so gave them to them; from working there on a Saturday I then got to have my cards on the shelf. I then saw a job come up at Moonpig and the rest is history! What advice would you give anyone looking to enter the greetings industry? K. I would say that it is a great industry to be involved with, you can come from a lot of different backgrounds. I did textiles, Holly did illustration we have graphic designers. I would just be persistent and don’t get discouraged. I got a lot of my cards rejected early on, but you hear that kind of rejection a lot and I think it just takes that one opportunity. Some of it is who you know, even you talking to us now that’s a connection you’ve made! I would always be willing to send samples out or an online portfolio, just don’t get discouraged if someone knocks you back. If you’ve got a good idea, it will sell! You might not even be thinking about greetings cards but you’ll be amazed at how many things can be applied to a card. H. Even if you’re not doing anything new but doing it in your own style…I always used to worry about that when I graduated, like it’s so hard to be original nowadays, because everything’s been done! But just do it, I see things online and think I could have done that, why didn’t I just do that? Just do loads of work, send off loads of stuff to loads of people…keep doing it and someone will give you a chance!
T WENT Y SIX
As a student at BCU, it is key to share all of our hints and tips to making it through the year. Whether it be related to the course, or dealing with flatmate drama, hopefully this will be a place for you to regain some sanity! A note by Editor // EMILY CAPL
This is the time to experiment, and to find what works for you, what doesn’t; what you like and don’t like... T WENT Y SEVEN
L4
L5
Make the most of everything! Get stuck in, go to as many workshops as possible, force yourself to do something new! Whether that be a crash course in InDesign run by technician Tony, or a printmaking workshop all about relief printing with Naomi - try everything! The sooner you get your name known to the staff the better, because this will help you later on in your degree when you need help. This is the time to experiment, and to find what works for you, what doesn’t, what you like and don’t like, because this will help guide you in your projects for L5...
DESIG NERS
HINTS AND TIPS
ANTHONY BURRILL @anthonyburrill www.anthonyburrill.com VINCE FROST @vince_frost www.vincefrost.com GEMMA O’BRIEN @mrseaves101 www.gemmaobrien.com SEB LESTER @seblester www.seblester.com HATTIE STEWART @hattiestewart www.hattiestewart.com
Try to start thinking about what it is you like about specific projects, and what you don’t like about them. Now is the time to start thinking about the direction you want your work to head in, there is nothing worse than getting to your final module and having no idea what to do! Balancing lots of projects all at the same time is also something to master in this year, start out slowly with maybe two projects and try to build on it from there. This will be a key skill to have when it comes to L6...
LUKE TONGE @luketonge www.luketonge.com SHEPARD FAIRY @obeygiant www.obeygiant.com MORAG MYERSCOUGH @moragmyerscough www.studiomyerscough.com OWEN DAVEY @owendaveydraws www.owendavey.com
WEB
Stock up on coffee! As an L6 student myself, the only advice I could pass on would be to keep calm, and keep organised! Organisation will keep you on track with your projects, and attending regular tutorials will help you carry on moving forward successfully. Work hard, and it will pay off! In order to get the best out of your degree, you have to put the work in to make it worthwhile. You get out of it as much as you put in!
www.it’snicethat.com www.creativereview.co.uk www.peopleofprint.com www.creativebloq.com www.thedesignersfoundry.com
BOOKS
L6
Just My Type Simon Garfield Editorial Design: Digital and Print Cath Caldwell How to be a Graphic Designer without losing your soul Adrian Shaughnessy Fanzines Teal Triggs Know Your Onions: Graphic Design Drew De Soto
T WENT Y EIGHT
WITH THANKS TO
Liam Blunden Provide Tomorrow-People Katie Bear and Holly Sims Debbie Wigglesworth