Central St Martins - Degree Show 2014

Yesterday evening I was invited to the private view of the Central St Martins Degree Shows at their (nearly new) Kings Cross home. It was a beautiful evening and the show was well attended, laid out on the ground, first and second floors.


The two departments where I spent most time were the BA Graphic Design and the MA Communication Design.

It was a very busy show with lots of thought-provoking work on display. Interesting (for me) to see just how many final projects still involve paper and printing.

 

Here was one particularly colourful project titled 'The Jungle Book' by Kat Garner which not only involved paper but also clear coloured transparent film and Perspex. www.katgarner.co.uk

Thanks to all the tutors and people I know at CSM for the kind invitation and a chance to see the work of the new graduates.

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.06.2014

Halo 9

This is the latest issue of Halo which is the Central St Martins magazine for business published by University of the Arts London.

Central St Martins Innovation is an interesting concept, as part of the university which works with over 300 businesses.

This magazine is an interesting read; articles about Science and Art being reunited, CSM Students working with the Paralympic GB team (narrative environments) and of course a description of the new Central St Martins 64 acre (!) campus at Kings Cross.

The magazine itself is 210x270mm, portrait, saddle stitched with a 4pp cover and a 32pp text. The cover is an uncoated offset (250gsm?) and the text is printed on our Marazion Ultra 115gsm giving the publication a substantial feel without making it feel like a brochure.

Editor is Dani Salvadori, Director of Enterprise and Innovation at CSM. Printing is by Chapter Press.

 

www.csm.arts.ac.uk

www.chapterpress.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 08.06.2011

You saw it here first!

Here is some truly excellent news! In the Summer I wrote about the Central St Martin's MA Communication Design show that I went to and about a few people's work that was very special, including a photographic book on Soviet buildings in Bulgaria. http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.com/2010/06/central-st-martins-ma-communication.html

Well,  last week one of those students, Kristina Kostadinova, was in New York at the International Photography Awards competition, otherwise known as the LUCIE awards collecting the  'Discovery of the Year' prize having won the historic/architecture photography award.  

Here are some of the images from her work titled: " AMNESIA; House of Bulgarian Communist Party"

For more information on the work, follow the link:

http://www.photoawards.com/en/Pages/Gallery/zoomwin.php?eid=8-16449-10&uid=62286&code=Historic

And here's Kristina after accepting her award.

Congratulations to Kristina on this fantastic achievement and I look forward to hearing about what she does next and where she goes on to work ...if anyone offers her a job, don't forget where you saw her first!

www.behance.net/kkostadinova

http://luciefoundation.org/

http://www.photoawards.com/

Posted by Justin Hobson 10.11.2010

Central St Martins - 2010/2011 Course brochure

Here is a really excellent piece of literature, which I guess we would all hope for and expect as it's for Central St Martins.

There's also one thing in particular which I would like to point out [below]. The job size is 165x240mm which is an economical size to produce from a B1 sheet. It is printed on our StarFine White which is an uncoated with a good bulk but you wouldn't describe it either as toothy or smooth! It has a 4pp cover and only a 24pp text. Potentially this could have posed a problem, because a printed spine was considered important and part of the design brief but by using 130gsm  for the text it gave a 2.5-3.0mm spine width which is about the thinest that you can successfully perfect bind (and it's been very well finished with the 6 point, I think, type on the spine)

Now the thing that I have noticed about this piece and that I want to point out is that the cover is not as heavy as most people (that I speak to) would use - but it really, really works. It is only on 200gsm and the
point is that the relationship between the text and cover is perfect. It just flows and feels perfect in the hand. The cover doesn't feel cheap or insubstantial. Getting the relationship between the text and cover right can make or break the piece of literature -it's crucial - heavy covers do not always give a job a prestigious feel, often it makes a brochure unusable! ...so don't always reach for the 350gsm, just get the relationship right!

This piece is designed by Paulus Dreibholz who runs his studio in London and lectures at CSM and University of Applied Arts in Vienna amongst others.


Print is by Principal Colour.

http://www.csm.arts.ac.uk/
http://www.dreibholz.com/
http://www.principalcolour.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 23.08.2010

Central St Martins - MA Communication Design

Last week I went to the Central St Martins show for MA Communication Design at the Rochelle School in London E2 for the private view.

It was a beautiful evening and the bar was outside in the sunshine!

The show was well attended and well layed out both on the ground and first floors.

There was a lot of great work on show but there are two students in particular who produced great pieces of work (...on paper, obviously!) which I will try and show here:

Firstly, Hila Ben-Navat (hilulimb@gmail.com) who has produced "The Genocide Project" which comprise  several pieces of exceptionally well produced literature plus a series of posters. The disturbing work covers the subject of genocide from the Holocaust up to "ethnic cleansing" of the present day and is a very powerful piece of work. What this project in particular shows is the way she has considered the relationship between the subject, design, imagery and the physical material substrate, printing and binding.

The second student is Kristina Kostadinova (kristina.kostadinova@gmail.com) who produced a fantastic project showing the most amazing photography (she did all the photography) of dozens and dozens of Soviet built edifices in her native Bulgaria.  The project not only documents the current state of their decay, but illustrates their history and makes a social commentary about the current lack of any kind of national pride in these once great monoliths.  

It goes without saying that my pics here do very little justice to either of these projects and there was also a lot of other really great work on display as well, it's just that these are two projects which particularly stood out, specially with my papery angle on things!

Thank you to the course tutors who invited me, Roz Streeten and Maria Da Gandra.

www.csm.arts.ac.uk/2010-degree-shows

Hila Ben-Navat: hilulimb@gmail.com

Kristina Kostadinova: kristina.kostadinova@gmail.com

Posted by Justin Hobson 18.06.2010