My main take-out from visiting D&AD New Blood was how strong the graphic design and typography was this year. It was very encouraging to see the attention to detail and understanding of traditional typography on display, as well as a lot of screen printing. In this digital age of animation, apps and mobile interfaces it was refreshing to see that a lot of traditional skills are still being taught. That said, Creatives these days have to work across a multitude of new media and channels and it will be interesting to see how some of the graduates lucky enough to find work adapt to the current commercial climate that we’re working in.

It seemed to be an even bigger show that previous years so I can’t say that I managed to see everything however so I’d be interested to hear other people’s opinions on the standard of the work on show…

D&AD, Graduates, New Blood

Design Week have just announced that they’re stopping the magazine from next week and continuing purely online. The statement on their website tries to put a positive spin on things; “We believe that by concentrating on just digital we can improve our information service to you, ensuring that we remain at the heart of the UK design industry”.

Like most of us, having grown up with Design Week is certainly feels like the end of an era, although one that should have probably ended years ago – when the reason most people buy it is to look at the ’sport’ pages (ie the job section) you know that the magazine itself is in trouble.

For me, it had become very much a collection of design agencies press releases rather than actually having much insight into the industry. For example they had an article about the rise of hand-cut lettering a few months ago, probably around a year after this trend actually started gaining momentum!

It will be interesting how the online presence is developed (or not) to stop people cancelling their subscriptions. Especially when their sister publication, Creative Review has such a good website and blog. Having said all this, do people really care?  Is it a further nail in the coffin of printed magazines? Will Creative Review and magazines like Eye (heaven forbid!) eventually follow suit? Thoughts…

Design Week, Magazine, Print

We’ve just completed the first in a series of quarterly books, taking the conversations from this blog onto the printed page. 20pp, digitally printed (by us, of course) on Conqueror CX22. Keep commenting on posts and you might even make it into print in the next edition!

Blog, book, comment, Linney, Print

Saw these and fell in love, brilliantly Saul Bass inspired, enjoy.

movie posters, Saul Bass

This guy really has a passion for print!

lego printer

Take a peak at the latest addition to our finishing department

PACE Guillotine from Linney Blog on Vimeo.

PACE Guillotine

Prague-based designer Pavel Fuksa (a.k.a. jergot+gotroch), ambitiously designed 178 different matchbox designs for use in a new music video by Navigators.

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This morning at our Creative Forum we had the pleasure of the company of Simon and Liam from Progress Packaging, who presented work and brought samples to show us for us to pour over. Simon spoke with passion and experience giving us an insight into the bespoke packaging industry and all who attended left with a lovely gift pack including a lovely tote bag! Photos of the forum, plus information on where to find the video/audio will follow…

Progress packaging