Published on: 18th August 2010
The 2009 London Underground map (Image: Transport for London)
Last week the UK’s design community was rocked (or nudged, depending on your viewpoint), by a frosty televisual exchange between information designer David McCandless and the infamously opinionated Neville Brody. Appearing on BBC 2′s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight, the pair debated the validity of information design, with McCandless in favour and Brody against. Whilst the jury’s out on whether information graphics is indeed “the language of the eye” (McCandless) or just “beguiling and seductive”, (Brody), it was a treat to see graphic design go ‘mainstream’ – even if it was at a quarter to eleven on a weekday night. However, all this talk about information graphics got me thinking about the value of information design, and about the influence of one info-graphic in particular.
Continue reading…
Published on: 6th July 2010
The Joy of Cycling, now scandalising the crowds at the London Transport Museum
A few weeks ago I was delighted to find my entry to the Association of Illustrators Cycling in London poster competition had been shortlisted as a prize-winner.
Continue reading…
Published on: 6th July 2010
Just because it's social Notworking, don't think I won't be putting the effort in! (Image: Glug)
The speaking season is clearly upon us, since I’ll be speaking again following my presentation to The Typographic Circle, at Glug Brighton on Friday 9th July.
Continue reading…
Published on: 18th June 2010
Airside: Typadelic, a talk at the Typographic Circle 24th June 2010
Just a quick update whilst I’m on holiday, but I wanted to let those who might be interested that I’ll be speaking at The Typographic Circle along with Airside’s Alex Maclean on the 24th June 2010.
Continue reading…
Published on: 19th May 2010
The Joy of Cycling, Five Essential Tips To Get You Riding
During my time at Airside I’ve pitched a great number of ideas to many different clients, but as with all pitching, some of the ideas that you’re just convinced will go through inevitably fall by the wayside. Most of the time they fall for a very good reason, infact most ideas reveal themselves to be quite half-baked with the luxury of time. However some ideas, a very select few, become fondly remembered like an old eccentric uncle you can’t quite forget. The Joy of Cycling is one of these projects.
Continue reading…
Published on: 7th May 2010
Greenpeace's Airplot identity (Image: Airside)
I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the Airplot identity I designed at Airside has won a place in the 2010 I.D. Annual Design Review.
Continue reading…
Published on: 5th May 2010
Margo the narrowboat, she's doing her best
Following Bertha the tram, here’s Margo the narrowboat, another machine with a stoic name and a heart of iron.
Continue reading…
Published on: 30th April 2010
'What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given about graphic design?'
If I told you that by the end of this article you’d be a better designer would you believe me? It’s a bold statement and not one I make lightly but I’m willing to put your trust and my reputation on the line to share with you what could be the most useful piece of advice concerning graphic design you’ll ever hear. Even if you disagree, I’d still argue the following advice is an incredibly effective take on the design process.
Continue reading…
Published on: 27th April 2010
Bertha by name, Bertha by nature
All aboard Bertha, a tram with a big heart. Hot on the heels of An Occurrence on Godiva Road I’ve once again limited myself to three colours as I work on my next screenprint series. This is the first of three screens, more to come.
Published on: 21st April 2010
But is it art? Stroke chin... Now!
Coming out of a meeting with Transport for London I swung by everyone’s favourite converted (that rules you out Battersea) powerstation, Tate Modern, and saw this.
Continue reading…
Published on: 21st April 2010
All the legendary Airside t-shirts will be there...
From Friday 23rd April to Saturday 24th April 2010, Airside will finally be hosting a huge clearance sale of every single Airside product we’ve created since the studio began nearly 14 years ago.
Continue reading…
Published on: 2nd April 2010
The previous attempt, now a wrinkled, smelly reminder of failure
With the first potato printing experiment having gone slightly awry, I decided to return to the medium with a slightly more focused process.
Continue reading…
Published on: 1st April 2010
Kitchen cupboard postcards
Returning from a holiday I’ve come to appreciate the simplicity of the postcard. There’s something about the resemblance of the medium to a very slow text message (you can fit too much into an email) that fascinates me: simultaneously throw-away and intensely personal.
Continue reading…
Published on: 31st March 2010
49 Objects Found Lurking in the Kitchen Drawer, limited edition Giclée print
To the horror of my mother, this illustration was the result of rummaging through the household ‘junk’ draw.
Continue reading…
Published on: 30th March 2010
The Stuff Music is Made From, limited edition Giclée print
A couple of years ago I created The Stuff Music is Made From to bring to light the forgotten influences of great music. Some believe it’s sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll that makes a great album, but I beg to differ, they’ve obviously never heard a great kazoo solo.
Continue reading…
Published on: 29th March 2010
An Occurrence on Godiva Road, limited edition silkscreen print, and my submission for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2010
I’ve attempted to submit a print to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition for over 10 years now, but each and every March I’ve experienced the same regretful pang as I realise I’ve missed the deadline. As I’m sure you’ve experienced, something always seems to get in the way.
Continue reading…
Published on: 28th March 2010
Pavement slabs and Jesus, an unexpected combination
Another golden-oldie from the archive, these pavement slabs were my first project during my final year of college. I remember thinking at the time that it seemed a week didn’t go by without someone seeing Jesus in a baked potato, and so I wanted to explore this phenomenon of subjective perception further.
Continue reading…
Published on: 27th March 2010
The obligatory hands-holding-print shot
One of my favourite projects from the archive, Decisions, Decisions is an oldie that even spawned its own limited edition print.
Continue reading…
Published on: 27th March 2010
It's all in the apostrophe...
Many years ago the Students’ Union for the University of the Arts needed a fresh look, so they asked me to design a new logo that somehow managed to steer clear of anything representing five colleges.
Continue reading…
Published on: 26th March 2010
Turn it, twist it, recycle it
Long ago I had an excess of cardboard floating about and had been reading about Buckminster Fuller, subsequently one thing lead to another and soon I was creating randomly sized, modular tubes that I eventually wove together to create this ‘buckyball’ light.
Continue reading…
Published on: 26th March 2010
Just one of the plastic branches
Inspired by the number of cable-ties left strapped to lampposts I set out to take an active role in urban regeneration, to bring back a literal sense of renewal to areas hit by the deadening effects of uniform construction. After many expeditions to the local B&Q I managed to find a weather-proof material strong enough to support my idea of a cable-tie/branch hybrid – brick insulation.
Continue reading…
Published on: 26th March 2010
Danté's Tea Break, limited edition Giclée print
This print charted Danté’s descent into hell (as featured in the epic poem Danté’s Inferno) through the representational power of biscuits.
Continue reading…
Published on: 26th March 2010
Carol, a flamingo with an identity crisis
Another illustration from the archive, Carol was a picture of a plucky flamingo with an identity crisis. Nothing too serious though, it’s nothing a bottle of dye won’t solve…
Continue reading…
Published on: 26th March 2010
49 Objects Found Lurking in the Kitchen Drawer
To the horror of my mother, this illustration was the result of rummaging through the household ‘junk’ draw.
Continue reading…
Published on: 26th March 2010
Decisions, Decisions, limited edition Giclée print
Taken from the Decisions, Decisions project, this Giclée print tamed the infamously complex flow-diagram to fit an A1 sheet.
Continue reading…
Published on: 26th March 2010
American Gothic I
Another illustration from the archive, American Gothic was a homage to the work of Edward Hopper and Grant Wood.
Continue reading…
Published on: 26th March 2010
The Alter Egos of Aisle 46
From the archive, this was an illustration of just a handful of Londoners as seen through the eyes of a very bored shopper. The title refers to a game I used to play where on picking a stranger at random, say in a restaurant or at the supermarket, I would assign a movie role to them. A first-impression alter ego so to speak.
Continue reading…
Published on: 25th March 2010
A page turner
These postcards were a little mental exercise I worked on a couple of years ago, where the challenge was to advertise a shop or service using only two colours, screen-printed onto an A6 postcard.
Continue reading…
Published on: 25th March 2010
A blank canvas for a thousand mash potato beards
Although (Don’t) Play With Your Food is certainly one of my favourite projects from the archive, over the years it’s attained the heavy air of a project that could have been so much more.
Continue reading…
Published on: 16th March 2010
The raw material
I’ll freely admit I’m not the cleanest person in the world, but during an odd spell of spring-cleaning I stumbled across a couple of green potatoes that my girlfriend assured me would lead to a world of trouble if I attempted to cook it. Not a big fan of wasting food, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to have a go at potato printing, an activity I’ve been hankering to do for a while now.
Continue reading…
Published on: 18th January 2010
Another project my girlfriend was roped into...
Another old project that’s become a firm favourite are my ‘carrier’ bags. Inspired by a transparent bag I was using to collect my rubbish, I created a pair of carrier bags to quite literally carry the shopping.
Continue reading…
Published on: 17th January 2010
How can a business card stay on a client's desk, and not in their pocket?
Of all the older projects from the archive, my growing business card has definitely remained the most popular. For a quick project, designed to get my foot in the door, I’m amazed at how far the Another Bloomin’ Designer project has spread across the design press and the internet. A friend mentioned that even a Google Image search (at time of posting) for business card will bring the project up, crazy.
Continue reading…
Published on: 16th January 2010
Les Demoiselles de Nike
Following the exhibit of Robot Feitsh Party at Free Range 2005 I was asked by Nike to create a piece of artwork to decorate their new ID store in Marylebone. The result was a piece that converted their Nike colour chart into a swarm of over-helpful nymphets, all attempting to influence the colour choice of one lucky customer.
Continue reading…
Published on: 16th January 2010
Hello lawsuit
When attending Central Saint Martins I had the privilege of being able to work on a lot of gig and event posters. Graciously the organisers used to give me the freedom to interpret the events as I saw fit, and with event titles like this – well, it was a gift.
Continue reading…
Published on: 12th January 2010
You know, there's a reward for the 5th missing cloud
A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of exhibiting a few projects for my Central Saint Martins work-in-progress show at Westbourne Studios, a cavernous space found beneath the Westway bypass. Designed to take full advantage of the vaulted ceilings unique to the building, ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ was an installation that bought a light touch to a ceiling of motorway concrete.
Continue reading…
Published on: 11th January 2010
'Long live the Queen!'
Something unique to the British culture is the annual sit down after Christmas lunch to watch the Queen deliver her seasonal message on TV. As a nation we need this before we watch somebody die/get married/get-married-then-die on Eastenders.
Continue reading…
Published on: 11th January 2010
Goodbye Petunia, you'll be sorely missed...
The other day I happened to stumble across the last picture I ever took of Petunia before she met a fate one can only guess of. The poor girl was just one part of Airside’s sprawling contribution to Designer’s Block, a street-wide exhibition that was part of the 2007 London Design Festival.
Continue reading…
Published on: 10th January 2010
Missing Links, book jacket, headache
Missing Links was my D&AD Student Awards submission from yesteryear, and looking back through the haze of time I realise it was an idea that nearly didn’t make it.
Continue reading…
Published on: 4th January 2010
A couple of years ago I created The Stuff Music is Made From to bring to light the forgotten influences of great music. Some believe it’s sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll that makes a great album, but I beg to differ, they’ve obviously never heard a great kazoo solo.
Published on: 3rd January 2010
For external use only
Here’s an illustration from the vault: Something for the Weekend. The details escape me right now, but from what I can remember, this was a quick illustration done sometime around 2007 for an agency somewhere in London.
Published on: 3rd January 2010
The wedding mark de-bossed onto the invitation's cover
This year one of my oldest and dearest friends will be getting married and I was honoured to design their wedding invitation.
Continue reading…
Published on: 3rd January 2010
Space and graphic design, the final terrifying frontier (Background image: NASA)
Seeing how planetary exploration rarely graces the pages of Creative Review, it’s easy to picture the expressions worn by an audience comprised mainly of creatives, as I wheeled out the first slide of my talk: ‘A Graphic Designer’s Guide to: The Pioneer 10 Plaque’.
Continue reading…
Published on: 2nd January 2010
The Design Museum (Image: The Design Museum)
Last summer, as part of the Design Museum’s Super Contemporary season, I joined fellow Airsiders Nat Hunter, Fred Deakin and Malika Favre to talk about every (yes, every) single job that had passed through the studio in the past 6 months.
Continue reading…
Published on: 30th December 2009
If there's only one free poster with a national newspaper that will prepare you for a wondrous world of work - it's this one
Recently the Guardian newspaper got in touch requesting a poster to highlight just some of the exciting objects a new employee could expect to find throughout the wondrous world of work.
Continue reading…
Published on: 30th December 2009
My contribution to the YCN alphabet
A few moons ago I was asked by the good people at the Young Creative Network (or the YCN for those in a hurry) to contribute a letter design for a typeface they were compiling for the 2007/2008 YCN Book.
Continue reading…
Published on: 30th December 2009
Handmade typography used to print the Airplot identity (Image: Airside)
Seeing how this is the first post of a new blog, I’m conscious that things look a little sparse. With this at the forefront of my mind I think it might be useful to link back to a few of the more coherent posts I wrote for the Airside blog over 2009. A good place to start would be some of my Process posts.
Continue reading…
Published on: 29th December 2009
I could make a pun here about this illustration being a tad flat, but I won't
A long time ago (though not in a galaxy far far away) I had the pleasure of doing this little illustration for the organic clothing company Howies to be featured in their 2007 Summer catalogue.
Published on: 1st December 2009
Danté's Tea Break, mind those bowges!
This illustration charted Danté’s descent into hell (as featured in the epic poem Danté’s Inferno) through the representational power of biscuits.
Published on: 28th March 2009
The main logo
When I was asked to create a logo for the fashion magazine She_She, my research involved royalty, boating shoes and various demands for a stylist “right now!” All solid gold Jackie Collins, and soon to appear in a forthcoming autobiography.
Continue reading…
Published on: 27th March 2009
Stop Staring
What’s the first thing you do when you spot an unattended bag? Braver people would do the decent thing and ask for it’s owner – but the majority of us (including myself) have become somewhat expert in the art of staring and sweating.
Continue reading…
Published on: 25th March 2009
The chocolate's original clay mould
Another old project from the archive, Say It With Chocolate was an idea I had one hot summer to create an insulated chocolate box that would melt its contents. Although this could be seen as a downside by chocolate lovers, for this experiement I wanted to see if I could cause the melted chocolate to print a message onto the box’s inner lid. To achieve this I had to design quite a heavily insulated box along with a double-sided chocolate that would allow the sender to lay out a message to surprise the recipient.
Continue reading…
Published on: 15th March 2009
Tom Selleck, need I say more?
I’m sure at some point everyone’s come across a decorative plate. These are curious things, wholly impractical objects that somehow manage to retain a strong presence in most grandparents’ households.
Continue reading…
All content copyright Jamie Wieck 2000-2010, unless specified otherwise. Content is not to be used or taken from this website without express prior permission.
© 2010 Jamie Wieck – Design, Illustration & Creative Thinking — Powered by
WordPress
