I've only just caught the news that Vince Frost has been elected to the Executive Committee of D&AD, joining Neville Brody and Mark Bonner on the Design comittee.
Vince is the first Sydney-based member to be elected to the Executive Committee and over the coming three year term, Vince will help raise the profile of D&AD in Australia.
Now I go back quite a long way with Vince and worked on many D&AD projects, so with that in mind I thought I'd do a little retrospective of some of his D&AD work and our paper!
It was in 1995 that Vince designed the highly regarded D&AD Newsletter. The great thing about this series of publications is that they were produced very simply, not in an overblown way and had a disposability about them. Printed in just one colour, all these great images are just reproduced as halftones. Finished size is 315x445mm, portrait. They are unbound and are a 16pp self cover.
Above: Cover image by Matthew Donaldson
Below: Cover image - Cacharel by Jean-Paul Goude
Above: Back cover by Graham Fink
Now everyone seemed to be a fan of this format and loved the use of images, however when it came to review and they asked opinions, apparently (so I heard) the advertising audience didn't think it was colourful enough. Also because it arrived with an endorsment fold (folded in half) some people said they couldn't collect them in pristine condition!
Therefore a new more colourful publication called Ampersand was born in May 1998 and launched for the awards. It contained more colour and industry related features and profiles celebrating the world’s most inspiring creatives. The format was a more conventional A3 portrait size with a 4pp cover and 20pp text and saddle stitched. Below are the covers of &0 (the launch issue) and &1:
Now it was at this stage that D&AD was trying to find sponsorship from printers and paper companies, so unfortunately we got pushed out of the frame by free paper supplied by a company which doesn't even exist now!
However what goes around comes around and in 2004 it was time for a refresh and again our materials were called upon. Vince, working with Matt Willey at Frost in London, produced this all time favourite of mine - &20. The format was reduced to 195x255mm, 24pp self cover, saddle stitched but (and this is the really clever thing...!) the material used was our Clervaux [1 sided] 110gsm which is an uncoated material which is smooth one side and rougher on the reverse. By working with the printer and playing around with imposition, you get a smooth spread, followed by a rough spread etc and then some spreads which are smooth and rough. It works really well.
...and then, yet again, we got pushed out of the frame by free paper supplied by another paper company sponsor - ho hum! Anyway, maybe what goes around will come around again!
Congratulations to Vince on his D&AD appointment - he'll be a valuable asset and an inspration carrying Australian (oops, I mean British) design around the world.
Posted by Justin Hobson 27.10.2010
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