Friday, 12:00pm
14 September 2018

Noted #88

Karlssonwilker, Ultramarine’s new 7", Forme 01, Good Trouble, Good Chemistry Brewing’s branding and Design For Today

Here are a few things that caught our attention in recent weeks.

Karlssonwilker – the New York-based design studio founded by Hjalti Karlsson and Jan Wilker – recently launched a new website. The duo’s site is a coded kaleidoscope of patterns acting as an interactive, moving-image exhibition of their work. See ‘Reason and rhymes’ in Eye 63, which includes Karlssonwilker’s design for John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble’s A Blessing (OmniTone).

Screenshot from Karlssonwilker’s kaleidoscopic new website.
Top: Spread from Richard Ardagh’s Forme 01.

Karlssonwilker

Electronic duo Ultramarine have released their limited edition four-track 7'' EP Blackwaterside (St Jude’s Prints, £12.99) with design collective and print gallery, Random Spectacular.

The project draws its influence from the Blackwater Estuary, where the river meets the sea on the River Blackwater between Maldon and West Mersea in Essex. Glaswegian printmaker Bronwen Sleigh created the three-colour lithograph for the wraparound cover which contains the vinyl and a 28-page booklet featuring photography by Ian Cooper of ‘Survey East’ and poetry by Philip Terry.

Cover images from Blackwaterside EP which brings together photographer Ian Cooper’s black and white imagery with Bronwen Sleigh’s subtle, three-colour line drawings, 2018.

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Forme 01 (New North Press, £7.50) is the first of a new letterpress zine edited, designed and printed by Richard Ardagh of New North Press. The striking three-colour publication – described as a ‘typographic exploration of words, language and understanding’ – delves into the subject of ‘Untruth’ with an article written by cognitive neuroscientist Neil Garrett who explores the world of fake news and misinformation, revealing how our brains react to potentially false messages, and what motivates us to investigate further. The broadside publication is set in wood and metal by hand, with Garrett’s essay set in hot metal by Harry McIntosh. The next issue of Forme will look at swearing.

Spreads from of Forme 01: Untruth, designed by Richard Ardagh, 2018.

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Good Trouble ($10) is an independent sixteen-page broadsheet newspaper with ‘Unmanifesto’ supplement, edited by Roderick Stanley (ex-Dazed) and designed by Richard Turley and Sophie Abady. The second issue (no. 22, the magazine is counting down rather than up!) celebrates the culture of resistance, publishing stories of politics and protest merged with art and humanities. It is a heartening read, including a conversation with activist and Second World War veteran Harry Leslie Smith (‘Rebellion is a damn good thing’) and a short interview with the 60-strong Resistance Revival Chorus, among many other features. See ‘Taking care of business’, Simon Esterson’s interview with Turley, in Eye 90.

Cover and spread from Good Trouble issue 22, designed by Richard Turley and Sophie Abady, 2018. This covers, showing five members of The Resistance Revival Chorus, is one of four different designs.

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Cover from the second issue of Good Trouble’s supplement ‘Unmanifesto’, 2018.

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Good Chemistry Brewing is a Bristol-based brewery with eye-catching ‘data-driven’ labels – each beer is represented by an infographic illustration that ‘describes’ its flavour – designed by Nahim Afzal’s Confederation Studio.

Good Chemistry Brewery beer labels, design by Confederation Studio, 2016.

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To celebrate the 40th anniversary of East London printers Calverts, Design For Today published The Print Shop: A Celebration of Print (£10). The miniature concertina-fold artefact, illustrated by Alice Pattullo, is formed of fourteen double-sided panels that document the process of printing a book, from design to finished product. This beautifully crafted leporello book incorporates various printing techniques in its own composition, from Risograph printing to foiling and die-cuts.

The Print Shop: A Celebration of Print, with illustrations by Alice Pattullo, 2017.

The Print Shop: A Celebration of Print and 40 Years of Calverts, Illustrations by Alice Pattullo, 2017.

The Print Shop: A Celebration of Print and 40 Years of Calverts, Illustrations by Alice Pattullo, 2017.

The Print Shop: A Celebration of Print and 40 Years of Calverts, Illustration by Alice Pattullo.

Mhairi Lockett, illustrator, Eye editorial assistant, Brighton

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.