Finished Finally

A day in the Life Final

Adding some character

Added a few more letters and i'm really pleased with the 'R'

Face Lift Extended

For my personal project i'm creating a typeface, combining non latin (Chinese) and neutral latin alphabets. I'm about half way through and i'd love some feedback on it if any one has time to have a quick look over it.

PS All the letters arent sized quite right yet but they will be when its finished. Also if anyone has any ideas for curved letters like C & S i'd love to hear them.

Also i havent thought of a name so suggestions for that would be nice too

Advertisement. Visit Manchester

Double Page .1: Evidently Chicken Town

Advert idea

Chosen the quote i'm going to use,

"The thing about Manchester is...it all comes from here"
From Noel Gallagher, pointing to his heart. BBC2 September 1998.

There were a few i preferred but as its aimed at students old noel seemed the most apt.


The first half of the quote will be laid out just horizontally, the second half around a heart shaped path which i think is maybe abit obvious, but actually conveys him pointing to his heart as well. This also helps me test out my concrete poetry idea which is great

Manchester Quotes

This is a list of some comments, pleasant or otherwise, made about Manchester through the ages. The list starts with the most recent quotes and works backwards.

"Lost in Manchester's city centre - architectural chronicler Nicolas Pevsner called it " one of the most confusing city centres in England" one senses Manchester's enduring grittiness, particularly in the bohemian Northern Quarter. But much of it has followed American cities' example of transforming industrial zones into "warehouse districts". Manchester's cotton mills, insurance halls and warehouses have become lofts, restaurants, bars and graphic design HQs." From " A bright outlook in the North" by Oliver Bennett, Daily Express, October 1998.

"I still..... have yet to gaze upon (Manchester's) cathedral.. .containing some of the richest medieval wood carving in England - or, for that matter, upon Marx and Engel's old rendezvous in Chetham's, Europe's first free public lending library. But I have sailed in a narrow boat, heard one of the world's great orchestras playing Stravinsky and drunk the cheapest ale in Britain, although not quite at the same time. Can a man ask for more?" From " A taste of the floating world: cheap beer, gourmet cuisine and canals all figure in the new- look Manchester" by Jim Gilchrist, The Scotsman, 3rd October 1998

"The thing about Manchester is...it all comes from here" From Noel Gallagher, pointing to his heart. BBC2 September 1998.

"Anthony Wilson says that for a big City, Manchester is just small enough. It's true. People know each other, collaborate, cross-pollinate. Ideas can mix and match. It's easy to get things moving. But Manchester's size also makes the social processes more visible. Things can't be contained. Even as you stroll round the new urban pleasure zones you can see the collapsed excluded communities. You can see how things are developing. Where they might end up is another matter. ..Will everything keep spinning and never actually fall down?....Who knows. But Manchester, as Mancs love to tell you, has been ahead of the game. Perhaps it'll be the first place to show us whether our new cities work." From "Manchester Divided" by Jim McClellan, Esquire Magazine, June 1997.

"The first time I came here I knew it was a place rich in culture. Italian restaurants in the city centre, China-town, Asian restaurants in Rusholme, the Gay Village, the English pubs, the cafe bars, and then you've got the inner city in Moss Side. Manchester reminds me very much of San Francisco. Even the weather's the same. The thing is that the English don't do a good job selling England - but they do an excellent job selling Florida. There are so many people in America who need to come because they think England's full of cobbled roads. When I go back home to California, people ask me if I'm homesick. How can you be homesick in Manchester? There's so much going on here." Mark Delaney Robinson 29 year old, American captain of Manchester Giants basketball team. Interviewed in the Manchester Evening News, 20th February 1997.

"By no stretch of the imagination is Manchester a picturesque city. It is however, emphatically if unconventionally beautiful. In common with all things beautiful...It is fundamentally flawed. It has a compulsion to preen and show off. It is narcissistic, contrary and wayward, and yet you cannot help but love it. It is both admirable and maddening." From "Change and Contradiction" by Chris Lethbridge, Diverse City 1994.

"Manchester's got everything except a beach." lan Brown former lead singer with The Stone Roses.

"Manchester, so much to answer for." From "Suffer the little children" by The Smiths, 1984.

"Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery." Historian AJP Taylor.

"Manchester....the belly and guts of the Nation" From "The Road to Wigan Pier" by George Orwell.

"(Mancunians) make an affectation of candour and trade a little on their county's reputation for uncouthness." From "Hobson's Choice" by Harold Brighouse, 1917.

"For Manchester is the place where people do things.... 'Don't talk about what you are going to do, do it.' That is the Manchester habit. And in the past through the manifestation of this quality the word Manchester became a synonym for energy and freedom and the right to do and to think without shackles." From "What the Judge Saw" by Judge Parry, 1912.

"...Looking for the Apollo music saloon on London Road one Saturday night in 1849... "Itinerant bands blow and bang their loudest; organ boys grind monotonously; ballad singers or flying stationers make bold proclamations of their wares. The street is one swarming mass of people. Boys or girls shout and laugh and disappear into the taverns together...From the byways and the alleys and back streets fresh crowds every moment emerge." Angus Reach, The (London) Morning Chronicle.

" But the most horrible spot .... lies....immediately south west of Oxford Road and is known as Little Ireland. The race that lives in these ruinous cottages, behind broken windows, mended with oilskin, sprung doors, and rotten door-posts, or in dark, wet cellars, in measureless filth and stench....must surely have reached the lowest stage of humanity." From " The Condition of the Working Class in England" by Frederick Engels, 1847.

"Certainly Manchester is the most wonderful city of modem times." From "Coningsby" by Benjamin Disraeli, 1844.

"When entering for the first time a town like Manchester, a stranger, overwhelmed by the new and interesting spectacle presented to him, scarcely dares look this giant full in the face at once...." From "Ireland, Scotland and England" by J.G.Kohl, 1844.

"On this waterlogged landscape....are scattered palaces and hovels....It is here that the human spirit becomes perfect, and at the same time brutalised, that civilisation produces its marvels and that civilised man returns to the savage." Count Alexis de Toqueville, 1840.

"Manchester is frequently represented as under the visitation of perpetual rain, but in reality the air and the climate of this place do not....differ from other parts of the county." From " History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County Palatine of Lancaster" by Edward Baines, 1824.

"I arrived in a shower, in the wet now set off, Eight days in the place I remained: Seven days, seven nights and a quarter, I vow, By Jove! it incessantly rained. What then? not a day nor an hour was I dull: The Lancashire lads played their part: I found every friend of politeness brim full, And myself in the midst of the arts. May Manchester flourish! and if once again By chance I should ere be brought hither, I hope that from weeping the clouds may refrain, And grant me a peep at fine weather." From anonymous poem written at the coach-office and appearing in the Manchester Chronicle, 1821.

"Manchester is large, opulent, well-built. The women are esteemed handsome. Manchester is the best regulated town in England." From "General History of Europe" by Barlow, late eighteenth century.

"If I should be so blessed as to revisit again my own country, but more especially Manchester, all that I could hope or desire would be presented before in one view." From the letters of Robert Clive (Clive of India).

"Mancestre....is the fairest, best buildied, quikkest and most populus Tounne of al Lancastreshire" From "Itinerary" by John Leland, 1538. Some really nice ones in there, not sure on what sort of length i should go for to get the most from it visually.

Getting Started...

So heres whats been decided...

I'm going to promote visiting manchester, using famous quotes.

I will use choice of type, weight, size etc and the use of grid systems to get the most from the quote. Not Sure on the quote yet.

My Two articles will be:

One on the poetry of John Cooper Clarke. Going to be really interesting using the actual body of text as a piece of art. I've already emailed asking for some hi res promo photos from his website.

The Second is on the 'a day in the life' of a art and design student. Already planning to use a journal, obsessive handwritten style here. Probably going to be partly personal partly fictional. Not much else planned yet, so until later heres a day in the life by the beatles...

Diaries

Tried to find some examples of diaries for one of my article ideas. Just a quick look through google etc.

Found a good blog

http://blog.journalcraft.co.uk/

Also looking through the recipe journals on that site gave me another idea for an article.

Maybe to do a recipe in that journal style, for something typically Mancunian, like an eccles cake or something.

Create your own Fanzine

Great tutorial i found a few years back will be pretty useful during this assignment i think.

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/2d__and__photoshop/create_your_own_fanzine

Advertising Concepts

Came up with two ideas, one of which i like considerably more than the other.

Idea 1: Boring Postcards

Found a book in the library called 'boring postcards', and it was just a collection of postcards that had really boring photos on them, like a photo of a tower block or something.

The idea of a postcard in itself is pretty fucking boring, the way you get a photo of what is basically a quick snap or some badly thought though idea of a monkey wearing a hat which bares some slight relevance to something slightly relevant to what initial theme was, with 'wish you were here' just placed arbitrarily in the corner or something equally cliched.

The idea would be to kind of subvert this, using 'anti postcard' pictures with 'anti postcard' tag lines. will think of examples.

There is a lot of thought needed on this but as a concept i can see it going somewhere


Idea 2: Famous quotes

I have been told my strengths are in typography, layout and neutrality. I quite agree with this, so I may as well use it to my advantage.

The idea would be to get famous quotes about Manchester, using typography and their positioning to re enforce their message.

Articles of interest about interesting things

So the topics i have thought of are,

Idea 1: A Day in the Life...

A day in the life of a graphic design student in Manchester. Thought it would be a good chance to write about my thoughts about the design in Manchester, but more importantly the hardships you have as a student, and having to go to work in a crap part time jobs.

So rather than being a ringing endorsement of being a student in Manchester its more a warning about the difficulties.

I thought the subject matter would lend itself well to a sort of diary style layout, which got me thinking about the sort of obsessive diaries you see, written in scrawly type and with bits of photos stuck in. A good example is in the film 'seven', I'll try to find examples.


Idea 2: Musical Locations of Interest.

Manchester has a hundreds of famous musical locations. Examples would be 'Salford lads club' from the famous smiths poster, the original hacienda.

Thinking about the layout of it, the whole 2 page spread could be a huge map of greater Manchester with zoomed with highlighted areas.


Idea 3: A History of The Fall

While not nearly as well known as The Smiths or Oasis etc, The Fall are an amazingly influential band from Manchester with a pretty checkered past, having released over 25 studio albums, god knows how many live and bootleg albums, and have had something like 280 different members over their 35 year career.

The front man of the band, Mark E. Smith, possibly one of the most anti hero's of music is also a really interesting character to focus on. Famously sacking band members on a whim, and having years of drug addiction have made him quite a volatile interviewee and live performer.

Not thought much about the layout of this one but will have a think.

Idea 4: John Cooper Clarke

John Cooper Clarke is a preformance poet from Salford from around the punk era. Often named as a punk poet. One of his poems (chicken town) features in the film control about Joy Division

Not some much of an article here as more of just a show case of some of his poems. Would let me look at the layout alot, maybe using the idea of concrete poetry, something i mentioned in previous blog posts.

A spot of free lancing

A friend has asked me to help design some flyers for his club night in london. Just a few initial ideas at the moment.

Face Lift

Started work on a new typeface today, only got the initial concept for the uppercase 'A'. Its supposed to be a neutral san serif influenced by chinese alphabets. Any comments would be greatly appreciated

Paper & Card

Been looking into paperstock for final portfolio and stuff.

Check out

www.gfsmith.com

You can no doubt get free samples so you can try stuff out

Cracking

Yep so ive managed to fall down some stairs and break my arm. Took 15 minutes to put my shoes on this morning.

Going to have it re x-rayed on tuesday to see how bad it is and how long it'll take to heal.

Updated Media City

Concrete Poetry

Abit more work on letterheads.

Starting to think about the actual body of text, came across something called concrete poetry. Its probably not a great idea to commit to an idea like that for every letter i would send out but its still an interesting idea.

"Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on."