Showing posts with label Alistair Hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alistair Hall. Show all posts

Tuesday 8 March 2016

St Bride Student lecture

Yesterday, I attended a lecture day at St Bride's put on for students which was funded by the Wynkyn de Worde Society Charitable Trust. The speakers at the event were Alistair Hall (from We Made This), Sharon King-Chai (an author-illustrator and book designer) and Chris Bounds (from Carter Wong design). There were around a hundred students from universities around the country. I spoke to some from Kingston, University of the Creative Arts and University of Reading.
Alistair Hall gave a special insight into the way that the Ministry of Stories initiative started followed with an amusing set of anecdotes about the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies - truly this is an example of where design has helped changed people's lives for the better - over a thousand children helped with writing every year.  
Sharon King-Chai spoke about her career, from her arrival in the UK to getting work experience, her work designing album covers and her transition into the world of publishing. One slide in particular struck a note with me ...be nice
Doesn't matter who you are - being nice is the right thing. Even when you have to say NO, you can still do it nicely.

I took a few printed examples to show, to inspire students about the quality print work that is out there and what can be achieved.
It was a very interesting day and I'm sure the students that were there found it inspiring and useful. The print workshop was also open which gave people the opportunity to print some letterpress keepsakes to take home.

If you would like to stir the greymatter, how about going to the Type Tuesday event this evening, run by Eye magazine? The archive evening is hosted by Paul Barnes and there are half a dozen speakers talking about their favourite items found in St Brides. You can read about it here: http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/type-tuesday-archive-night-with-paul-barnes and you can buy tickets from Eventbrite - only £12.00. Go on, get out and feed the brain!

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.03.2016

Thursday 7 January 2016

Shakespeare Schools Festival

The Shakespeare Schools Festival is the UK's largest youth drama festival, offering students from all backgrounds the opportunity to perform Shakespeare on their local professional stage. Alistair Hall and his Clerkenwell studio 'We Made This' was commissioned to create a promotional pack of exercise cards to send out to schools. The brief was "to challenge, support and inspire teachers to inject some SSF style creativity into their classrooms"

They created a stunning box set of hot foil-blocked cards featuring quotes from Shakespeare's plays.
This size of the box (outside dimensions) is 160x222mm and the depth of the box is 16mm. The box is a two piece 'tray and lid'. The cards are all A5 (148x210mm), hot foil blocked and 'round cornered'
Click on images to enlarge
The cards are printed on our Colorset Light Grey, 350gsm (above) which is 100% recycled and the natural kraft colour below is printed on our Plexus 350gsm (below)
Click on images to enlarge
The quotes are set in bold, engaging lettering on the fronts of each card and are beautifully hot foil blocked ...just look at the image below:
Alistair says "the client's response was - They are beautiful! Thank you so much, I couldn't be more pleased" and it was lovely to have that passed on and to receive a file copy and his kind note
The superb execution of the project is by Benwells. They produced all the print, foiling and finishing of the cards - all of which is superlative. Paul Haslam at Benwells oversaw the project.

The exquisite boxes are produced by W. MacCarthy & Sons Ltd, who are based in Woolwich in South London.

This project is a truly outstanding piece of design, typography and print.

http://www.ssf.uk.com/
http://www.wemadethis.co.uk/
http://www.benwells.co.uk/
http://www.maccarthyandsons.com/
Posted by Justin Hobson 07.01.2016