OUGD502: Leeds Print Festival 2014 // Print Talks

Following the, extremely sudden, recent realisation that this course affects the rest of my life, I've decided to get more involved in Graphic Design and it's culture. Yesterday, I attended Leeds Print Festival 2014's Print Fair, Today, LPF were hosting talks in Leeds College of Music, which is why the lecture theatre/performance hall looks extremely classy. 

The talks consisted of Mr. Bingo, talking about his love of illustration, and his hate mail scheme - he was a fantastic illustrator, and a very funny guy, I really enjoyed his talk. He talked us through his career, his previous works and what he's doing now. It was a fantastic insight to see how he works. After a brief interval, we then heard from NOMAD Letterpress. He showcased his works and showed us what he's currently doing, how he works with his father a few days a week in a traditional print studio, using a dying breed of print methods. He also showed us a project he did, whilst at Glastonbury, how he and a small team, one of the members being The Print Project, attempted to create a daily newspaper, however due to equipment issues they were unsuccessful for the first few days. 

Si Scott was unable to give his talk, so instead, as a last minute stand in, we heard from The Print Project and Print for Good, who did a sort of 'Adhoc Q&A', where they spoke about the collateral for the festival - which was amazing, created using GF Smith's wonderful stock. Finally, we heard from Creative Review. Who showed plenty of underground forgotten Printers, who all use traditional printing methods, and creating fantastic prints. Plenty of short films were shown to give us an insight into the print studios. 

Now onto the loot...

Copper-plated press, from Print for Good, the stock has a lovely deboss from the printing press, on a thick GF Smith stock. It looks wonderful. 

On the left, you can see the ticket, produced by The Print Project on GF Smith's glitter-highlighted paper. It looks and feels fantastic, something I'm certainly looking after. 

GF Smith Loot, a sample book and other stuff!

OUGD502: Leeds Print Festival // Print Fair

As a developing professional, I thought it's about time I should start going to events, experiencing some of the culture associated within our industry. So, myself and a couple of course-mates who I live with decided to go to Leeds Print Festival - the third annual Leeds Print exhibition. 

I managed to snag some freebies, a programme which contains all the dates and information about Leeds Print Festival, a NOMAD Letterpress card, and Ditto Press swatch booklet. They all feel fantastic, I really love the feel of the slight debossing on letterpressed prints.

I found this really amazing bound book, using book rum and paper to create a hard case bind. It looks and feels fantastic, something I really want to try!

A small collection of fantastic little note books. All of which using different methods of binding and different process to create them. 

A range of great screen prints. Such high quality inks used, and some very interesting artworks. 

A pencil case with a debossed look. Covered in print technical info. 

Leeds Print Festival info sheet. 

OUGD502: Personal and Professional Practice 2 // Numiko Visit

Yesterday, Grace, Adam and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit Numiko, a web design agency based in the heart of Leeds. I thought I might benefit from visiting a web design studio, to see how it operates and what the staff are like - mainly because after seeing their work, I'm very interested in applying for an internship there. 

http://www.wahoo.wateraid.org/uk/

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/

Above are two the sites they have worked on, both the sites are due to go live soon. They showed us previews of them, and how they worked and the design process involved; the scamps and wireframes, the designer's work and the developers and their work. It was really exciting to see the process from how some wireframes, simple drawings, are transformed into wonderful functional websites.