Studio brief 2: Primary research

Today I went long to Leeds Print Festival which was a day of professional talks, hopefully gaining knowledge about practitioners who specialise in prints. The day mainly focused on the running of their business, freelancing and advice which was interesting because it is getting your work out there which is the hardest part and most daunting to me as a university student currently. 

DR.ME

Having already heard a talk by DR.ME and been part of one of their collaging workshops, I was interested as to what they would choose to talk about today. The talk they delivered focused on curation and the different events they have been part of and set up. 

'The waiting room' was one of the first curation opportunities for DR.ME. It was a 1 day exhibition each week that they selected art of artists who were not big, but who they just genuinely liked and screen printed all of their work as posters. This was a way of showing an interest into other peoples artwork, but also displaying their own design style and ability to hold small exhibitions. 

I found the idea that taking no for an answer in curation is not an option valuable, showing that you have to be passionate and consistent or you will not be able to build up a reputation in the field. A letter of rejection they received from Stefan Sagmeister did not stop them including his work in the exhibition, instead they created a print based on the rejection letter. 

Ali Hanson 

Ali Hanson is the art director from It's Nice That. Graduating from Leeds College of Art, he then worked his way up to be the first in house magazine designer. 

The Graduates 2016 - The expansion of the company has allowed for a graduate scheme to be put into place. A PDF booklet is published each year on the website offering guidance to those about to graduate. Although I am not about to graduate, I still found the inspiration and procrastination section really useful. It listed a number of websites and videos that they think are useful for inspiration.

The explanation on Printed Pages was interesting as he spoke about the design process of the magazine in detail, informing how I approach future briefs. Printed pages is a magazine published twice a year, sold for £10 and it is simply a physical embodiment of the online content. 


The S/S 2016 issue is based on the youtube video 'don't hug me i'm scared'. The idea was to treat the characters like celebrities; holding a photoshoot that captured the glamour of being a celebrity and presenting the characters in a way that allowed them to look alive and connect with the audience. I learnt that the process to making a magazine is a pretty long one, starting by making a list of intended content is a way to ensure that the design style works well to communicate all of the media included. To ensure that the design is consistent throughout the magazine, the pages are printed off 23% of the final size and stuck up across a wall to make sure it all flows. 

Pat Bradbury 

I found this talk particularly interesting as working abroad is something that I would like to do once I have graduated. Pat was an art intern in Vietnam, working in a school to make a mural in the playground and other illustrative pieces around the school. The work with the children was to allow them to see the creative process behind any final piece and allowing the children to determine the final outcomes to be something they could engage with around school. One of the pieces that I thought worked well was the collaging piece; it was all of the body parts of imaginary creatures and instead of finalising the arrangements, the pieces were made to be magnetic so that the ideas could continuously be created and changed by the children. 

One piece of work relied on the fact that he had set himself no rules, something most artists do not agree to be effective. The collaged piece was left n the floor for a year and he kept on layering to create an abstract piece. The piece was then used as inspiration for a set of individual prints. 

Things I took from Pat's speech:
- Apply for residencies and interns abroad
- Travel as much as possible
- Be experimental with approach then feed into something you cannot control e.g. a scanner, photocopier etc. 
- Take a phrase of word to drive the visuals
- Personal projects show passion and often get the most positive attention

Macroy Smith

Macroy is the director and founder of @peopleofprint, the website started as a directory in 2008, sharing the designers, illustrators and printers that he was personally inspired by. The website is now in a book form, printed by Thames & Hudson, but Macroy didn't like how they now owned the  name 'people of print'. He created a magazine called Print Isn't Dead and by using Pure Print as the printers, he is able to use fluorescent inks in order to overlay in the same way that screen printing would allow. 
The Posterzines are magazines meet posters - a mini monograph magazine which folds out to an A1 format poster. It has been given it's own ISSN number and is noted as a publication because of the way that it fold in on itself, differentiating it from a pamphlet which is folded like a concertina. 

ADVICE:
- You're free to do what you want to do
- Always use animated effects
- Share your passion 
- Don't sell out (all the time)
- Business is business
- They can't be competition if they are on your side
- Make something from nothing
- Solve a problem 
- Don't fear the fall 
- Look at the numbers
- Ask questions
- Pressure makes diamonds
- Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners