Plus Design Festival in Birmingham

I attended the Plus Design Festival on Friday in Birmingham. The 'event' was small, but included some interesting workshops and design work. It was great to see students get involved with a 'hands-on' approach to typography by experimenting with some letterpress letterforms. Unfortunately there was no printing press, but the process of inking the letters and printing with them made a few people realize the expressive nature of craft again. The amount of ink, bleed and the how the ink transfered to the paper all made for a more tactile design.




It was great to see Gabriel from Hummerstone doing some actual stone carving. He hand rendered the letterforms over the course of the event and began carving them in slate for a headstone for John Baskerville as part of the Baskerville Project. A real craftsman at work. (see image below)







The highlight was Jamie Wieck from Airside talking about the trials and tribulations of designing their new brand logo and the new 'greener' promotional items. It was certainly an eye opener, considering how many designs and variation they went through before ending up with the final solution. The thinking was clever and it was great to see all the 'rough' designs to see the routes through and working processes. I have asked Jamie if he will give the same talk at the University and he has agreed, schedule permitting so watch this space for a guest lecture.

I for one am very pleased I attended, even though I got lost trying to navigate the Birmingham motorway systems. Pleased to see so many of NTU's level 3 students were there and also Laura Andrews from Level 2, who was an event volunteer and did a great deal of valuable networking. Good luck with pursuing the Airside Japanese work placement.