Caleb Lee, a Ravensbourne MID student, was featured in Computer Arts’ Student Showcase this year. Whilst the video above is not the winning work, the winning work stills looked funny and quirky, so congratulations!

Furthermore, speaking of the graduate showcase, the design in general was extremely strong, however Graphic Design in general seems to be letting the team down! Don’t get me wrong, some of the work in the graphic design section was beautiful and deserved to be there on merit, and yet if some of the work included was the best then I fear for Graphic Design!

I’m hoping that this was just because most final year Graphic Designers did not submit their work, rather than thousands worldwide submitted their work, and these were the best chosen. Don’t get me wrong, some of the work was strong, but some of it was rather weak.

As Luke pointed out, the D&AD professional awards also saw a record low pencils for graphic design, with no one seemingly winning a yellow pencil. So this can either mean one of two things. Firstly Graphic Design has hit a period of stagnation, which I don’t necessarily believe. I’d rather see it as there is a lot of good design around, so to stand out of the crowd has become harder. Secondly, and this seems more plausible, that design judging has seriously lost any credibility is once had. The results for the awards I have seen so far have been shocking in some cases, whilst again these works are balanced by others that deserve to be their on merit. Some may argue that this is always the case with awards, and it’s subjective as to what is good and isn’t, and I accept this point.

However I am looking forward to seeing the D&AD and YCN winning work for this year to see whether my gut feeling that graphic design judging standards are becoming alarmingly shocking has any substance

LOL

Just saw an interesting ad on tv for a programme on channel 4 on sunday.

It is all about the unseen horrors of high-street shopping culture, focussing especially on Primark and their use of child labour in Asia. To really open peoples eyes they open their own sweatshop in east london and invite people to try it out

With so many people focussing on fashion for editorial design, I thought this was extremely apt. Having said that I am by no means saying that it wouldn’t have been worth watching otherwise

so I hope you all watch it

I thought once was enough lol

I love acoustic renditions of songs and acoustic guitar in general, and when you really talent you just have share. He’s got great finger speed… well worth a listen

Born in 1928 near Interlaken (Switzerland) Adrian Frutiger is one of the predominant figures in 20th century European design. His career has taken him to many countries, and his work has touched designers around the world, inspiring generations of newcomers since the 1950s. On May 24, he will be 80 years old.

Adrian Frutiger’s career path is legendary. During the late 1940s, while he was still a student in Zürich, he created an extraordinary piece for his graduation project: a woodcut series of lettering styles illustrating the evolution of the Roman alphabet. After Charles Peignot at the Deberny & Peignot foundry in Paris received a copy of the prints, he quickly brought the young Adrian Frutiger to France.

Although he returned to Switzerland many years ago, Adrian Frutiger spent most of his professional career in Paris. For almost a decade, he was employed by Deberny & Peignot, until he set off on his own in 1961. Over the course of three decades, he designed numerous typefaces still used around the world today, including Avenir, Frutiger, Meridien, OCR B, Serifa, and Univers.