Kinetic Type/MyType

By popular demand - Nic Cameron's Kinetic Typography for the MyType/National Museums of Scotland project - put together using Flash.

First off, the MyType Invite (note - this version contains no audio):



and secondly, the MyType WordPlay demo (also no audio, but this one is interactive) -

The Spiller Effect

A big thanks to our newest Mentor, the Line Agency's Rufus Spiller, who delivered an inspiring talk last week to our HND Year 2 class. Rufus also popped up at the D&AD event at ECA, where he spent some time with our students doing a very useful portfolio surgery. Check out the full presentation:

Museum Lates / MyType

HND 2 have just finished 'MyType' - a brief to attract twentysomethings to a aeries of late night exhibitions and happenings at the National Museum of Scotland (currently running as 'RBS Museum Lates').

The mentors were involved in art direction on these projects and provided lots of useful and constructive criticism during the design process.

Samples of kinetic type and interactive apps found their way into some of the solutions, and here are a few samples from the finished projects.



Steven Brown - guerilla ad for 'Who Killed Gill Sans?'



Kat Rebacz - A Day/Night of Type Adshel Posters



Jordan Porteous - a night of xpresn



Michael Kerr - Fairground Type

D&AD On Tour in Edinburgh

D&AD will be celebrating their 50th year in 2012, and with their new project briefs hot off the presses, this is the time of year when the organisation tours the Universities and Colleges of the UK, spreading the word of its amazing Education Network, and delivering workshops, lectures and seminars to the creatives of the future.

These events are also a chance for tutors from the various institutions to meet and get talking about the issues of the day.

This year D&AD's education event was hosted by Edinburgh College of Art (ECA), where students and tutors from ECA, Edinburgh's Telford, Edinburgh Napier, Newcastle and Sunderland were present.

We took along a contingent of 20 HND students, and as well as a cool industry-led workshop and a series of portfolio surgeries, they were treated to a great lecture by Jack Renwick, the former Creative Director at The Partners, the UK's leading Branding Agency. Jack has just set up her own, as yet un-named agency, and had all sorts of advice, insights and amusing anecdotes about the world of graphic design.

As well as showing some great samples of her innovative work at The Partners, she talked about the importance of team-work, nurturing client relationships, developing creative ambition, and having fun whilst thinking for a living.

The tutor round-table meeting, chaired by D&AD's Director of Education Rhiannon James, featured Dave Ward from Realise, Edinburgh's leading digital agency, presenting 'UpGrade' - an industry/education initiative piloted in collaboration with Edinburgh's Napier.

The project gave a class of undergraduate designers a six-week placement at the agency, shadowing key figures in the organisation and developing a short digital project with a virtual budget of 50K. Realise hope to roll out this model of employer engagement to other institutions.

As usual, everything D&AD does is inspiring and this was another great event.

Our HND Year 1 and 2 students will be assigned D&AD project briefs during the first week of January 2012.

Graduate Come Back!

Our annual review night, originally scheduled for Nov 30th, has now been moved to Dec 7th. This year we've invited many of our former students back, to meet up with our current crop of student designers, and to catch up with former mentors and tutors in a celebration of our recent successes.

We've just distributed a nice poster for the event, entitled 'Graduate Come Back', designed by HND Year 2 students Kat and Viktorjia.

This year we've also issued a digital promo, 'we still love design, etc' showcasing many of our awards and achievements, all packaged up in the emerging format of the moment, HTML5.

We look forward to seeing you all there.

D&AD 2012

A first batch of five D&AD Student Awards 2012 briefs have been published.

The sponsors and clients for these briefs includes Channel 4, IHG, Interbrand, and Ministry of Sound. For the first time ever, D&AD have also opened up one brief to anyone under the age of 26, and to all recent graduates. Full details and download packs are available if you log into the D&AD site.

The long-awaited 2011 D&AD Annual was also published earlier this week.

The book, published by TASCHEN, is an example of ethical and environmentally sustainable publishing. Its carbon footprint is apparently 82% less than the 2010 edition, which received some criticism for its bulk and environmental-unfriendly production methods.




Sustainability expert Nat Hunter and graphic design icon Harry Pearce of Pentagram collaborated on the final product. You can read ahow the annual was designed and produced. Hopefully a few of these books will be turning up in our studio mail during the next few days.

D&AD will be in Edinburgh next Thursday, 17th November at Edinburgh College of Art, and we have 20 places reserved for HND1 and HND2 students. Not everybody will be able to get to this, but we'll announce the arrangements later this week during studio time.

Type Games

Here are two great type games, guaranteed to amuse and possibly to inspire the current HND 2 Project 'MyType'.

The first one is KernType - where you can adjust the kerning on a word and receive a score out of 100. The second one is shapetype - where you can adjust a glyph by manipulating anchor points.

Call for Entries YCN

YCN have just published their Call for Entries of the 2011/12 YCN Student Awards. This year's live creative briefs include clients such as ESPN, SEGA, M&S, Heinz, The CO-OP, and the Independent.

The deadline for submissions is March 30th 2012 - and the briefs can be found here.