LCC Head of College blog

‘Waste’ was the theme of Green Week’s fourth day at London College of Communication.

Today’s Guerilla Gardening is run by Joyce Ward, an FdA Interior Design student. After filling up empty used coffee cups with soil collected from outside the College, Joyce puts in seeds of potatoes, vegetables and flowers and left alone to blossom in the containers outside.

Edori Fertig is one of the Skip Sisters, referring to their pleasure in searching the skips of South London for raw materials. Originally from the USA, educated in illustration and printmaking, Fertig came over to the UK to finish a fine arts course. Now led mostly by colours, her leitmotiv is ‘collecting memories and materials from the past and turning them into something new’. Today she collected big sheets of used paper from the College’s print room and turned them into colourful jewellery paddles.

Food for Good is an initiative of three Graphic and Media Design students and founded in 2010. Martina, one of the founders says: “While working in a restaurant during my study I saw a lot of food wasted after closing time. I immediately thought that could be handled in a better way”. Teamed up with Chiara and Anna they understood the problem of restaurants and supermarkets not wanting to throw away left-over food but at the same time also not willing to pay for the transport to bring it to charities. Chiara adds: “We pick up the food from the restaurants after 10pm, put it in our van and immediately bring it to charities. At the moment we deliver 50 – 80 kilos of food per day of which most of it is bread”. At the moment they collect unsold food from a bakery, a restaurant and a supermarket and transport it to two charities.

Day three of Green Week at London College of Communication was themed ‘Change’. A few hightlights from the day.

A Free Zine Factory was set up by four BA Graphic and Media Design and FdA Design for Graphic Communication students to create a handcrafted magazine. One of the students explains: “We collected paper from mainly the library that was used on one side only. Students can contribute by drawing or writing their thoughts down on the unused side of the paper.” The individual pieces are put together to create a story. A fanzine is created by scanning the seperate pieces.

Sarah Bagner

Sarah Bagner from Supermarket Sarah studied Graphic Design in Brighton and has developed a fun spin on consumerism. She likes to turn plain and boring materials into something new and beautiful. Her work is now displayed in Selfridges and is regularly featured in various media from Style Bubble to the BBC news. On Green Week’s third day she teamed up with Tiziana Callari and created a quilt made out of discarded plastic bags. Tiziana says: “I like the concept of a second life and turn stuff that is thrown away into something new”. Website: www.supermarketsarah.com

Barbara Salvadori

FdA Design for Graphic Communication and BA Graphic and Media Design students worked together on their Human Sketchbook Bookmaking Machine workshop. Using scrap paper found around the College like old posters, off-cuts from the printing department, even old envelopes, the team create everything from handy sketchbooks of varying sizes to beautiful paper art sculptures. Students could then screen pint their own card covers to add to their chosen book. The workshop is designed to highlight the creative ways in which to use scrap material.

5th BFI Future Film Branding by Samuel Mensah-Bonsu: Photograph taken at Brick Lane

Artwork by London College of Communication (LCC) graphic design student Samuel Mensah-Bonsu has been selected to publicise the British Film Institute’s (BFI’s) 5th Future Film Festival taking place from 18 –19 February 2012 at BFI Southbank.

Displayed both digitally and in print, the photographic designs are the result of a student project led by LCC BA Graphic and Media Design tutor Sian Cook and BFI designer Piccia Neri. Eight students from the College’s BA Graphic & Media Design course were invited to develop a new brand and identity for the festival before pitching their ideas to the BFI marketing team.

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Day two of Green Week had the theme Upcycle and included a variety of bike related sustainable activities.

Dennis Gould

Mike White from Boneshaker Magazine talks about the magazine they produce quarterly: “The articles are written by people who have a passion for cycling. It shows the human side of the activity and celebrates the cycling culture”. Boneshaker was set up in Bristol and is distributed to independent book stores, art galleries and museums in 24 countries worldwide. Also, Dennis Gould letterpress cyclist, poet and activist exhibits his work as featured in Boneshaker magazine and speaks about his love of cycling and his belief that cycling is a political act.

Picture by Gareth Williams, Year 2 BA Photography

Magnificent Revolution

is about cycling, movies and ecology; a bicycled powered cinema. The founders, originated from bike city Cambridge, came up with the idea to watch movies in a clean energy way. Jenny Sherriff and Juliet Chard from the Collective explain: “Four bikes power the sound system and a projector to watch a short movie. With twenty bikes you can provide the power for a full-length movie. One bike creates 50 Watts, enough to power the sound”. The installation will provide pedal powered workshops at various UK festivals and is working on pop-up presentations at cinemas in the coming months.

The Face Shields: People Affected by Climate Change - The Camp for Climate Action 2007 at Heathrow Airport

Time2Act: Climate Camp - Graphic Design by Jody Boehnert at EcoLabs - Photography by Amy Scaife, Kristian Buus, Mike Russell and others.

Jody Boehnert from EcoLabs is exhibitioning during Green Week with a series of eight Face Shields and four panels from Time2Act from Climate Camp 2007 at Heathrow Airport. Both bodies of work are important artefacts from the recent history of environmental activism in the UK. Jody says: “The Face Shields were used as part of a mass action at Heathrow against the proposed third runway. These images were put on cardboard boxes, and handles were attached to the backs.”

Monday saw the start of a week long schedule of events for Green Week at the London College of Communication with the theme of Found. Here is a snap shot of activities that took place in the College.

Courtesy of Plastic Seconds

Maria Papadimitriou, founder of Plastic Seconds, presented her jewellery line from recycled plastic. Maria started by sampling bottle tops because of their different colours and shapes and turning them into new objects. She now also uses plastics from printers and small soya sauce bottles that you get when ordering a sushi take-out. She says: “It is quiet special that plastics seem to fit in one another seamlessly and by accident”. Papadimitriou completed a Fine Arts course at the University of Edinburgh.

Simon Collingwood, final year student from BA Graphic and Media Design: Design for Information at the London College of Communication, produced a graphic reproduction of the rise in global temperature based on NASA figures. His work should be ‘read’ from left top to right bottom with the different shades of yellow and orange showing the increase in temperature from 1990 to 2009. Simon adds: “you already see a lot of preaching and telling people what they should think about climate change. I wanted to make it visible in a clear and graphic way by using actual figures”. Collingwood expects to graduate in Summer 2012.

Gregor Garber, 3D Technician, shows his handmade toys using discarded wood he has found in and around the buildings of the College. He has found everything from shelving to broken easels and remodelled them into blocks and shapes for children’s toys adding: “The wood is mostly good quality hard wood that would be very expensive to buy. I advise students to always look at what they can remodel and reuse first rather than buy new”. Garber also shows example models used by Interior Design students that incorporate a variety of scrap materials including plastic, reclaimed wood, cardboard and even old lamp shades.

Jack Lee, a recent graduate from London College of Communication’s BA Graphic & Media Design course, opens a new exhibition this evening (2 February) where he will display a series of striking graphic design works created while studying at the College.

His artworks are expressed in conceptual and bold presentations, demonstrating his exploration with grids, geometric shapes and letter forms. The exhibition features original artwork, large-format posters and silkscreen prints, alongside commercial works for clients and development progress.

If you’d like to attend the exhibition details are as follows:

What Else Is There: Jack Lee Graphic Work and Play
03–05 February 2012
10am–6pm
McCoy Studio, The Rag Factory, 16–18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ

Private View
02 February 2012
6pm–10pm

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LCC BA Graphic and Media Design alumnus Paul Jenkins has been working as a design volunteer for the three year long Design Ventura project at the Design Museum since October 2011. In the project students in years 9, 10 and 11 from schools across London are asked to create a product to be sold in the Design Museum shop. The product this year must be based around the theme ‘play’ and cost under £10 to manufacture.

Paul says: “I helped to run workshops with ideas such as London themed finger puppets, a replica block puzzle of the Design Museum, small travel card size games and a make-it-yourself puppet kit called Mr. Glover. The products developed were fantastic. Not only in their design, but with environmental, financial and manufacturing to be taken into account as well and it was pleasure helping the students develop and prototype their ideas.”

All entries will have their own celebration exhibition at the museum in February. More information on Paul Jenkins’ work can be found on his website.

We host some really interesting lectures at LCC on subjects related to graphic design and are keen to develop an archive of these vital and useful events which allow all our students to view them at their leisure and perhaps see the discipline from a new perspective.

Joshua Trees and Sarah Temple from the School of Design have documented a unique series of talks in which they invited LCC alumni to contribute ideas on the subject of where the discipline of design is now, at the start of this decade.

Neville Brody, who in his first months as Head of Design at the Royal College of Art spoke with passion about the need for us all embrace digital technology, to reinterpret the potential of design, to question what design actually is.

Award winning illustrator Chrissie Abbott and typographer David Ottley spoke about their developing craftsmanship, their education at LCC and their life long commitment to developing their creative making and skills.

Lucy Brown and Stuart Price discussed integrity, provenance and ethics in design and referenced Bruce Mau.

Sophie Thomas & Peter Clarkson spoke about their commitment to sustainability and sustainable practices and clients: Communication design company, ‘Thomas Matthews‘ is still quite rare in its total embrace of these vital issues.

Angus Hyland & Fabian Herrmann of Pentagram explained their design processes at Pentagram, first learnt at LCC and discussed the increased importance of semiotics with current relevance to some international projects.

Finally, Wayne Daly & Eleanor Brown looked at recent publishing and self publishing activity and explored the importance of small collaborative communities. We really hope that these lectures will be valued, enjoyed and kept for posterity.

The lectures are now available on iTunes and can also be viewed on the College’s ‘Teaching and Learning‘ playlist on YouTube.

Smile for London, started a year ago by LCC Graphic & Media Design alumna Jo Kotas, is ready to launch the first digital art exhibition in the London Underground with a moving image exhibition called ‘Word in Motion’. Poems from established poets were transformed into 20-second-typographic-films to uplift and inspire commuters from From 16th January onwards.

Kotas says: “We LOVE London. Following the great support and feedback from the pilot exhibition in 2011, we’re proud to present ‘Word in Motion’ that blends the world of literature with the world of art. Our mission is to unleash creative minds to explore the medium of silent digital film with the aim of engaging, uplifting and inspiring commuters.”

Also read our previous blog post about Smile for London here.

An interview by Sarah Temple from LCC’s School of Design has just been published in Bracket Magazine in Singapore. Each issue surveys 16 individuals around the world on critical issues that surround the creative profession.

Bracket has been conceived as a beautifully designed publication that features everything ‘in-between’ – ideas, voices and processes that are often overlooked. The collection contains eight volumes. The interview appeared in the third volume and explores questions related to design education. Other volumes will be published on craft, hunger, ethics,failure and spirit.

“Never has there been a more important time to celebrate the importance of a creative education”, says Sarah Temple.

For more information on Bracket see www.brckt.com