Stories from the Fold

Programme

6.00–6.20 pm Brian Webb The Forty Year Apprenticeship

Thirty years of designing for commercial clients builds a fair amount of armour plating. For the last ten years, designing books that we have written and created has been liberating.

Brian is a graphic designer at Webb & Webb Design and previously at Trickett & Webb. He has designed postage stamps for Royal Mail, posters for London Transport, graphics and exhibitions for commercial organisations, museums and galleries and done the odd bit of book and cover design, including Salinger covers for Penguin and centenary books for Marks & Spencer. Since 2003 projects have included Design, a series of monographs on designer artists, commissions from the V&A including Frank Pick’s London due in the Autumn, artist monographs for the Tate and new adult covers for the Harry Potter series due any minute. He has lectured around the world and his work is in many museum collections including the V&A and the Museum of Modern Art. @webbandwebb / webbandwebb.co.uk

6.20–6.40 pm Zoë Bather Content: Oh, can I do that bit too?

In 2010 Zoë started work on a book that would change her mind about what she wanted to do as a designer. Zoë will talk about what deciphering Brian Cox’s Solar System was like; why designers should be more involved with content; and why she’s now developing a children’s cookery brand.

Zoë is an acclaimed designer who has gained international recognition over the past decade through her award-winning work. She studied graphic design at Kingston University and upon graduating joined Frost Design where she was later appointed co-creative director of the London studio. In 2005 she co-founded the renowned Studio8 Design, where she ran a small but talented team working across multiple disciplines. In 2012, Zoë began working independently as a freelance creative director and designer. As well as her design work for magazines, books, brochures, campaigns and identities, Zoë is an Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts and regularly guest lectures at institutions across the UK and abroad. She has sat on several judging panels and conceived bespoke workshops for both students and design studios. zoebather.co.uk

6.40–7.00 pm James Huggins Old Tricks, New Dogs: Illustrated Storytelling in the Digital Space

New digital technologies, mobile devices in particular, have created exciting new possibilities for designers, illustrators and authors. From digital adaptations of existing physical picture books and comics to new forms of digital born stories, Made in Me is exploring the creative and commercial potential of the children’s app market. In this talk James will share some of the experiences and lessons they’ve learned in the process.

James is Managing Director at Made in Me, a children’s digital publishing company founded in 2009 to inspire young children to learn by exploring their creativity and imagination. The company partnered with Ladybird to launch the award-winning and BAFTA nominated The Land of Me, an interactive picture book world where young children and adults can play together across a variety of activities including music composition, dance choreography and storytelling. In late 2011, Made in Me launched Me Books, a picture book reader app that allows children to create their own interactive versions of classic stories. The company has fostered relationships with major publishers including Penguin to introduce more titles to this exciting new publishing platform. Prior to Made in Me, James was the Managing Director of Escape Studios, which became one of the foremost visual effects academies in the world. madeinme.com

7.00–7.20 pm Break

7.20–7.40 pm Clare Skeats A New Beginning for Pushkin Press

In April 2012, Clare Skeats and David Pearson were approached by the new owners of Pushkin Press to redesign, well, pretty much everything. In her talk, Clare will discuss the brief, their solutions to it, and whether it’s ever a good idea to work with your partner.

Clare has been working in book design and art direction since 1998 when she began her career at Penguin Books. After a move to Random House, Clare went freelance in 2004. Since then she has worked on covers and internal designs for a number of UK and International clients. In addition to her work as a book designer, she also teaches Graphic and Communication Design at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design. clareskeats.co.uk

7.40–8.00 pm Claire Mason Follow this Book

Claire will be discussing, rules, design by instruction and the role of maintaining typographic standards across Penguin Books.

Since studying Design at Goldsmiths, Claire became a multidisciplinary graphic designer with a thirst for typography & letterforms in all their many semblances and formats. From animated type to the printed page, a preoccupation with type, words and language has been a consistent presence within her work. She has worked for organisations such as Book Works – working on both artists publications and books for artists –, has had work featured as public art installations and, in 2008, taught the experimental typography course at London College of Communication. For the past three years she has held the post of Text Designer at Penguin Books UK. Armed with a current desire to ‘adhere’ to the rules of typography, her role draws on her enthusiasm for typographic legacy and the recognition of the typographic and design heritage at Penguin Books. flushleft.co.uk

8.00–8.20 pm Nicky Borowiec Design for Academic Publishing

Nicky will talk about the impact of the design studio at Palgrave Macmillan, and how a new design strategy was shaped and implemented.

Nicky is Head of Design at Palgrave Macmillan, the Scholarly and Higher Education divisions within the Macmillan Publishing group. She graduated from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design in 2003 and joined Macmillan from university. In 2009, she established Palgrave Macmillan’s first in-house design team – which is now a global studio responsible for all of the company’s visual material. @paldesignteam / http://pinterest.com/palgravedesign/our-designs/

8.20–8.40 pm Break

8.40–9.00 pm Jon Gray The How, the What and the Why?

Gray318 – designer of book covers, jackets and amazon jpegs – discusses work, practice, and working practice. (And his fear of all three).

Jon Gray or gray318 designs and illustrates book covers for publishers around the world. His work is featured on the covers of amongst others: Jonathan Safran Foer, Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace, A.M Homes and Roald Dahl. Other clients include Nike, Stüssy, Hewlett-Packard, The New York Times, Newsweek, The Observer and the Berlin Opera. His work has been recognised by the D&AD, AIGA, TDC and ADC. He has exhibited at various galleries including the V&A in London and as part of the Gateways series in Porto. gray318.com

9.00–9.20 pm Emma Langley Phoenix Yard Books

Although less than three years old, Phoenix Yard have quickly established a reputation for publishing unusual and slightly quirky fiction and picture books with a strong emphasis on design, and a niche in publishing French books in translation. In her talk, Emma will share with us her insights into life as an independent publisher and how she chooses books for publication.

Emma is the co-founder and Publisher at Phoenix Yard Books, an independent children’s publishing house based near King’s Cross in London. Emma is responsible for introducing UK readers to illustrators such as Barroux, Marjolaine Leray and Stephen Michael King. Phoenix Yard won the Newcomer Award at the Independent Publishing Awards 2013. When she is not being a publisher, Emma is doing a Masters in Education at Cambridge University and regularly spends time in local primary schools testing books and ideas. phoenixyardbooks.com

9.20–9.50 pm Ligaya Salazar and Sam Winston Making Memory Palace

Ligaya and Sam will discuss the making of Memory Palace, an immersive exhibition experience currently showing at the V&A. The exhibition is a walk-in story that brings to life a new work of fiction by the author Hari Kunzru, visualised through a series of commissions by 20 internationally acclaimed illustrators, graphic designers and typographers.

Ligaya is the co-curator of Memory Palace. She has curated the V&A contemporary exhibition Yohji Yama­moto in 2011 and Fashion V Sport in 2008 for which she also edited the accompanying publications. She devised the V&A Friday Late Programme from 2008 to 2010 and a series of fashion-related V&A Friday Late events in Paris in 2012 and curated numerous Friday Late events including No Strings in 2011, British Fashion and Pen-Paper-Scissors in 2009 and Crafting Couture in 2007. vam.ac.uk

Sam is a graphic artist based in London. He creates sculpture, drawings and books that experiment with language and words, both as carriers of message and meaning, and as visual information itself. Sam’s works can be found in many museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and the Tate Galleries in London. samwinston.com