Form Design

Paula Benson, Co-founder of Form, takes time out to uncover the studio's ongoing attempt to explore every possible creative outlet. Oh, and explain a penchant for smutty packaging from overseas...

Form works because we're passionate about design." Paula Benson, Co-founder of the multi-disciplinary design firm appears to be intent on redefining what 'graphic design' means. "I hate that term," she says. "It seems such a narrow way of describing what we do". 
For example: "Last week we were doing location hunting and clothes styling for a band." Now, asks Paula, "Is that graphic design?" Probably not, but what does that make Form? Paula moots the idea of a 'communications' company but then adds, "Well no, we're not BT!" 
Some might see the diversity of Form's work as a dilution of effort, but there's a guiding principle which prevents this: "We're creative people," says Paula. "And we're driven by ideas." This approach has led Form to motion graphics, identity, web design, publishing and even a successful clothing range, UniForm. It's also won them a client list that takes in everything from Top Shop to the ICA, with TV and music giants in-between. 
Formal identification 
Paula and partner Paul West founded Form in 1991, brought together by a mutual love of music. "That's where our backgrounds are," says Paula... "art directing and designing identities and record sleeves." With much of the work coming from major labels such as Virgin, Polygram and EMI, Form's music-related work has frequently involved high profile acts such as Depeche Mode, All Saints and Girls Aloud. 
"We still work in design for music," says Paula, because this is still an important part of Form's identity. "But the kind of work we do now is much more varied in terms of the formats, media and type of client we work with." The musical roots have proved important though, not least for the solid foundation they've given the firm's subsequent expansion. 
The other important thing, Paula says, is: "We've developed good business sense." This is something Paula obviously feels is critical: "I respect any business that can make it work for as long as we have." And although it's clearly at the heart of what they do, Paula's convinced that creativity alone just isn't enough. 
Perhaps a little controversially, she begins, "It's relatively simple to sit around being creative." Not everyone would agree with that opinion, but few would disagree with what she goes on to say: "Balancing that with an understanding of clients' needs and expectations, together with the management of money and all that malarkey takes a different kind of skill and tenacity." Clearly, Form has that malarkey fully squared away. 
Dressed to impress 
Not content with the work that happens to find them, Form occasionally likes to flex its creative muscles to a tune of its own. "We set up UniForm - our T-shirt and accessories company - a few years ago," says Paula, alluding to the primary example of this. Thanks to a strong fan base in the design and music communities, this has provided the firm with a lucrative sideline in creative expression. 
Sporting bold, stylised illustrations of food and drink such as 'Pie' and 'Mash', the first range of UniForm clothing was codenamed 'Tuck 'n' Dibs'. Still going strong seven years later, these have been the most popular series to date, prompting Paula to add, "They've become something of a classic!" 
Meanwhile, excitement is mounting ahead of the February launch of the latest line, christened OP. Described by Paula as 'rather graphic', the new range features instant winners such as 'Chromaphobe' - a person afraid of colour. This idea was 'spawned' by discussion at a night class on arts curation. Paula explains: "We thought we'd play on the word, with a sense of irony." 
A Plopp in the ocean 
"Paul and I have been collecting packaging with humorous names for over 13 years," says Paula. As hobbies go, this isn't as bad as it could have been. But wait: "We design music campaigns, CD sleeves and DVD packages so we're naturally interested in packaging design." Sounds reasonable enough, go on. 
"Foreign supermarkets are a great source of reference for us, so we often slip into a few when abroad to check out the local wares." These things always seem so simple at first, but once they take hold... "Even a humble tin of sardines takes on a new aesthetic when it sports a foreign language and an unfamiliar typeface." 
Eventually the shelf scanning began to yield a whole crop of bizarre new products and the packaging collection started to slide into obscenity: "Basterd sugar sat on a Dutch shop shelf with innocence; Plopp chocolate appeared bold as brass in every Swedish sweet shop." Cross-cultural double entendres like this have really taken Form by storm: "After a while, the hunt became a little obsessive," admits Paula. "A trip abroad wasn't complete without an outing to the supermarket, no matter how rushed the trip." 
According to Paula, shelf life exposes itself in many places. It's this element of the whole sordid venture that makes it so compulsive: "There's a real sense of discovery about it." 
Shelf life 
As if things weren't already in an advanced state of weirdness, Paul and Paula then found out that friend and branding expert Rosie Walford was also an avid collector. "Her display was brilliantly laid out in themes such as 'drugs' and 'sex' in an antique display cabinet in her hall," explains Paula, sounding impressed. "Wine-fuelled dinner parties at Rosie's would often end with us loitering next to her infamous cabinet saying, "We must put our collections together and do a book about this one day." And so the concept was born, a strangely compelling one it is too. Form designed a book proposal and took the idea to a number of publishers, Bloomsbury eventually taking the bait. "They got very excited by it too," recalls Paula. There then ensued a prolonged period of research aimed at obtaining permissions from the owners of the relevant packaging. 
This comment gives you some idea of the pain involved: "Imagine trying to find the maker of matches found in Tibet 18 years ago!" says Paula. Though it demanded a feat of endurance, eventually there were enough permissions to make a book, and Shelf Life emerged to occupy shelf space of its own. 
Paula only laments the favourites which didn't make it: "The brand manager of Grated Fanny tuna was at pains to tell us the product was named in honour of his sister Fanny and he didn't want us to shame her." Other favourites which didn't make it included Superpiss, Mini Dickmanns, Super Dickmanns, Fetiche and Krapp toilet paper. Could any of this really be accidental? 
Better by design 
"I think the design scene is very healthy creatively," says Paula, who is encouraged by what she sees. "There's no shortage of ideas and talent." However, she adds a caveat to this: "Creativity can only flourish if the clients are there." And this, it seems, is the problem: "I sense a lull in the number of decent projects out there and this has affected a lot of the design companies I speak to." 
Despite the dark clouds, Paula remains ebullient: "But that won't stop us!" New projects include another book, this time about 'a well-known furniture company' and a new range of T-shirts and tops. This range, which draws on Pagan and Wicca culture, will be called 'Dark Forces'. 
"We're also working on identities for a printing company and a new fashion label, there are quite a few music projects and we're talking about some exciting collaborations with moving image and web specialists." All this leads Paula to speculate that, "2005 looks like it's going to pan out to be a good year."

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/interviews/form

DS Emotion

Craig Grannell meets Chris Hassell of DS.Emotion and finds out what happens when a bunch of normal design bods start to “shout a bit”

“We’re a bunch of people who won’t blind you with bullshit and try to get one over on you,” says company director Chris Hassell. This is DS.Emotion in a nutshell. But you might be forgiven for thinking “DS.Who?” DS.Emotion is the design agency behind the brilliant Franz Ferdinand website, but the team also boasts an eclectic client list that includes Nickelodeon, Orange, Fox’s Biscuits, Remington, and many more.

The company’s history dates back to the nineties: “We were very much a Leeds based agency at the time, and were just beginning to creep into new media,” Hassell explains. “Before 1999, the company was primarily a design and marketing agency for property development, but the web side of things soon took off.” As Emotion Inc, the company won a pitch for a BT Cellnet project that evolved into phonefactory.com – BT’s first foray into selling pre-pay mobile phones online.
“It was a fantastic project,” says Hassell. “We were involved in the branding and development of the site, right through to fulfillment processes, as well as designing all of the packaging and stationery.” But Hassell isn’t one to blow his own trumpet: “One reason we haven’t done much PR is because we just crack on with things. Most work comes in via word of mouth.”
Hassell is aware that being personable is proving increasingly important in the current market. “You read about some companies, and they come across as quite arrogant,” he says. “I think one of the things people like about us is that we’re down to earth.”
So they’re just normal blokes doing design, then? “Very much so,” Hassell admits. “Actually, we just won a pitch with a government-funded body, and the final presentation was more like an informal chat – very much a team chemistry meeting, to see if we all got on.” According to Hassell, the company’s open, relaxed and honest approach has paid dividends with all of the company’s clients.
Telling it like it is
“If a client asks for something and it’s not rocket science, we won’t say, “Oh, that’s complicated and will cost you thousands”. We’ll say, “That’s fairly easy: only a slight tweak”,” says Hassell. “We’re not idiots – we charge money – but you have to be honest. If a client thinks something will take a few minutes and you have to say, “Actually, it’s a bit more involved than that and will take a day”, they’re more likely to take this well and trust you if you’ve been honest and up-front right from the start.” So does this way of working mean that clients give the team more space? “I think they do,” Hassell agrees. “Clients always want to feel that they’ve added something to the project – and more often than not, they do – but often we’ll have a client, Nickelodeon, for example, who’ll ask us to do something for a promotion. We’ll send some concepts, they’ll pick one, and then we’ll pretty much finish the job. Typically, we only ever have to make a few minor tweaks – and that’s it!” Hassell is surprised at what he hears some people say to clients: “Sometimes you think, “Well, maybe they’re earning way more than we are”, but I don’t think that’s true. Clients are becoming more aware of the industry.” And that, presumably, makes the “no bullshit” approach even more important.
“Initially, only a few people understood the internet. Clients thought it was complex, so there was a lot of bullshit flying around – and huge costs for everything,” says Hassell. “Now, everyone’s more computer and internet literate and clients have been through website projects a number of times. They understand more about what’s involved and appreciate an honest approach.”
But what about the few that still don’t understand the business? “Well, they’re never going to go away entirely,” says Hassell. “You get clients that, for some reason, want to design everything themselves, omitting you from the equation, or those that complain that they’ve paid you loads of money, yet there’s space around the edge of the website when the browser’s full screen. And we’re like, “We could design it so it flowed to a 23-inch screen, but the design won’t work as well”. It’s not like we charge by the size of the design that we do – we don’t charge by the pixel!”
Luckily, few clients work like that. In fact, DS.Emotion has found that some clients impact on the business in a positive way.
“We did some music sites for Universal a couple of years ago, and then Franz Ferdinand happened. We did the website and then everything snowballed,” says Hassell. The team enjoys creating music websites because people want to visit such sites and the feedback is immediate.
“The fans are straight up about everything, but to generate that kind of feedback around a brand website is much harder to do,” Hassell explains.
Starting to shout The Franz Ferdinand site marked something of a turning point for DS.Emotion, not only in terms of recognition, but also because the company started dabbling in a little PR. “We met Harry at Hot Cherry, and he got incredibly excited about the fact that we were doing the Franz Ferdinand site,” Hassell explains. “So we thought maybe we should just start shouting a bit now.”
With the business effectively looking after itself, how did “shouting” change the business and its relationship with clients? “Well, I’ve noticed that people know our name a lot more,” Hassell admits. “We’re not into egos, but the recognition certainly builds confidence in the team, and we’ve also noticed that our existing clients have even more faith in us now. Someone sees us being asked for opinions in the press and it somehow reaffirms for them that we know what we’re talking about!”
So what does it take to work at DS.Emotion? “Personality is a big draw for us. It’s more your passion for what you do than the degree you’ve got,” says Hassell. Having been burned a little by the “dot bomb” fall-out, the company has focused on staying small, but there are plenty of diverse personalities: “This works well for us – we don’t want to be an agency with a “house style”. We want the flexibility to put the relevant people on the briefs we get in.”
Hassell says it’s essential that each member of his multi-talented team has skills in the development process. Although most have some agency experience, others were recruited from school. Hassell joined straight after taking his A-Levels and rapidly learned how to deal with clients and run the digital side of the business.
All the indications are that DS.Emotion will continue to flourish. Hassell believes that digital marketing spend is on the up, and that this will only increase in the future. “We believe that digital will soon be leading campaigns, rather than being something of an afterthought,” he says. “We see the company working on bigger projects, and getting increasingly involved in the strategic side of a client’s marketing.” But the company will never move away from production, because “that’s what keeps us all going”.
And, presumably, the company’s approach will continue in much the same way as it always has? “Absolutely,” says Hassell. “Although the work itself is a massive part of your success, a lot of clients contact us via word of mouth, so the relationships you build with stakeholders – employees, clients and suppliers – count for a lot. After all, the sooner a client “gets” what you’re trying to do, the more smoothly the rest of a project should run.”

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/interviews/ds.emotion

Vince Frost

ince Frost

“Nike and Apple are design companies. In terms of identity we all have a brand, a unique point of difference.” Garrick Webster talks to Vince Frost about building Frost Design’s unique brand

Designer Vince Frost is a man of big ideas and even bigger ambitions. Frost Design has 35 staff and is growing fast. Based in Sydney, the agency works with clients as diverse as Warner Music, major banks and hotel chains, and various education and arts organisations. A 360-degree approach means that it can tackle print, advertising and identity, together with digital solutions, broadcast and environmental design.

In addition to running the studio, Frost has lectured worldwide on design and is an advocate of green design solutions. He’s also won several D&AD awards and was a member of the judging panel for this year’s Typography entries.
CA: Moving from the UK to Australia, how have you found the design scene?
VF: Actually they’re pretty much the same, but there isn’t much of a history of design in Australia and there’s no class system like there is in England. I find that totally refreshing. There’s no one putting you down or putting you in your place. It’s like the sky’s the limit and you can really achieve what you want to achieve.
CA: Your company has grown rapidly to a team of 35. How is it organised?
VF: It sounds funny but I was never taught how to run a business, so the business has always been based on what work we had coming in and then getting assistance. But over the last year we’ve restructured. We have a full-time accountant, a couple of receptionists, an archivist, a project manager, a strategist, an architect, a product designer, graphic designers, and a whole bunch of digital people including programmers and digital strategists.
We want to cover a whole spectrum of opportunities so we’re only as good as the opportunities that come our way. So when we get those opportunities we want to make the most of them – not just focus on one aspect but go for a whole 360-degree approach. I have a really great office manager and strategist, but I’m still just as involved as when I was working alone. We’re working on dozens of projects and I’m working on winning one pitch, while working on solutions for another. But I don’t think we can grow any bigger with this approach, which is why I’m restructuring the business.
Right now we’re 35 people but in three years’ time we’ll be 300. We’re going to open offices in other countries and I really want to maximise the potential we have by maximising our brand. Nike, Apple – design companies are all the fashion. A design company isn’t a company based in Clerkenwell doing layouts for annual reports. A lot of people see design in terms of nostalgia, of trends like Mods and Rockers, but we’re all unique. In terms of identity we all have a brand, we all have a unique point of difference.
CA: Are there any areas you’re focusing on right now?
VF: A big focus this year has been digital. For a long time we had one person – a web designer – and struggled, so we’ve turned it around and we’ve now got eight people in that team. Also there’s 3D stuff, environmental graphics – that’s signage systems for galleries, museums and office developments around the world. We’re doing a lot of that. It’s really about maximising that experience with a brand. Often companies go out to separate companies for print and digital, and there’s very little that holds them together except for a logo.
CA: How has the environmental graphics aspect grown?
VF: It was something the company had a history of before I came in. Obviously with Australia being a very big country and doing a lot of building, there’s a massive requirement for building naming, marketing, strategy and positioning. As Frost grows we’re getting recognition for this and it’s exciting. We’re working on some of the tallest buildings in the world – we’re in South Korea, Shanghai and Dubai.
At first I was quite nervous about the whole 3D environment because previously most of the work we had done was 2D. It was identities and magazines and publications, and to take the same approach, that clarity and simplification of information, into a 3D environment is really exciting. We’ve just done American Express’ HQ in Sydney, the signage system for Brisbane Airport, three hotels in Australia and two in Bahrain.
CA: You’re a big advocate of green design. Do designers have a responsibility to promote it?
VF: It’s obvious that print has a limited future, as much as I love it. I’ve grown up with it: my dad was a printer and I love magazines and books. But it’s a very antiquated process today. In a world that is changing constantly print doesn’t change, and print has a limited audience because it’s about physical interaction. With digital the whole world is your audience and the potential is far greater than anything you could do with print.
I was brought up with green and ethical considerations. But it’s only in the past few years that it’s become popular. It won’t be long before it becomes law. There’s this phenomenal waste being produced and natural resources are being obliterated. We’ve been working on being green for about ten years, printing on recycled paper and recycling everything in the office. We’re now a carbon-neutral studio and we’re pushing our clients more to work in the digital media.
I think designers have a huge responsibility to be leading this, because we are the specifiers of so much garbage – we specify the paper or the packaging, and we over-package things or use materials that aren’t biodegradable just because it looks nice.
CA: How can digital art compete with print? How can you sell that to a client?
VF: That is the dilemma – that’s something we’re trying to find out as a company. You shouldn’t think of the web as a piece of print, but as a different experience. It’s a screen-based experience and so you have the massive advantage of making it tactile – it’s as tactile in terms of pushing buttons and interacting as a piece of print. Celebrate the potential of moving footage.
Digital media such as television can actually become life, as opposed to print, which is always passive. It’s no longer down to the big networks and broadcasters. The whole world is interacting and creating their own content.
CA: Have you got any advice for other designers making the transition from print to digital?
VF: Don’t go for a formula. In print we use A4, for example, but we don’t say every bit of print has to have a menu in the top-left corner, or has to have this because that’s how things are done. Rethink and explore.
CA: Would you say you’re a type geek?
VF: I love words and language – I love playing with layouts and headlines. When I was at Pentagram, there were something like four fonts we used: Helvetica, Franklin Gothic, Garamond and Bodoni. It was a limited palette and at the time they were proud of that fact, because they said you could do everything with these fonts. But now there are millions of fonts and people creating them, and I think design needs that variety of expression.
CA: How do you work with clients?
VF: The way that I work is a continuation of how I worked as an individual, because there isn’t a meeting room for dealing with clients and a design room that is sacred, as there was at Pentagram. I’ve learned to include the client in the process, and really get under the skin of what it is they need to achieve. Do lots of research and try lots of stuff, and let them see the sketches. Get the clients to give you feedback.
We edit everything down to appropriate ideas and intuition plays a big part. We don’t work separate from the client, make something and say, “Here you go. You can have that.”
CA: What are your influences?
VF: My father and my children. My children are prolific mess-makers and they’re constantly expressing themselves. But I like Paul Rand, Alan Fletcher and a lot of people who are dead. Alexi Brodovich. People that really understand problems and problem-solving, and the elimination of all that crap to make something simple. I really love Zaha Hadid; architecture is going through a phenomenal time – there’s this boom of creativity. Because of the technology, anything you draw on a piece of paper can become possible.

Magomed Dovjenko

1. First of all we would like to thank you for taking the time to provide abduzeedo.com with this interview. Please tell us more about your art and design background and what made you become an artist and designer?

I was always, since my childhood drawing and doodling around, together with my father. He teached me to draw until I could draw my first dragonball characters, and that's where it all started!
Some years later ( 3 years ago ) I wanted to take it to the next level for fun, so I tried out doing work in a digital way, per photoshop.So after experimenting for 1 year, I finally got to Illustrations, which I practice professionally now.

2. Your work is pretty unique and full of creativity. Where does your inspiration come from?

It mainly comes from Music and the artists that I've got around me, aswell as everything I see. You have to always keep your eyes open on everything as you would never know when
something would inspire you, so the important thing is to watch out for inspiration.

3. Could you describe for us your typical 'start to finish' workflow when working on a design?

I think it would be me brainstorming ideas first, then directly starting from scratch in Illustrator and visualizing my ideas. Later on I move it all into Photoshop and finalize it, sometimes I additionally draw elements later in Illustrator to keep adding them to the main Illustration that is being finished in Photoshop at that moment. Also I draw a lot stuff with Graphite/Ink, which I scan in, "retouch" and work into the composition.

4. What are your tools of the trade, both hardware and software?

My tools of the trade are usually mainly Illustrator/Photoshop, but sometimes I need to get those pencils out and draw elements, I just love that playful look they give when combining them with digital work, it just gives such a fresh effect that makes it look way more interesting than just a pure digital illustration.

5. What, for you personally are the pros and cons of being a designer?

Pro's :
If you're lucky you have the opportunities to work with the people you look up to, like musicians or similiar, you might get to see your tee-shirts being sold at big stores near you, which gives you a decent level of pride on your own work.Also, you might get hired by an agency outside of your country, so that you can gain expirience , e.g learning the country's language, socialize with people etc etc...It's much fun to see yourself succeed, it gives you the power to aim for more.

6. How does your job as an artist and designer influence your life? Do you feel that you see things around you differently for example?

There are definitely things going a different way now! You see most of the things with different eyes now, for example, before I started doing Illustrations/Graphic Design/etc. I was loving all those ad's people did for the industry and it's clients, but nowadays they look way more different than before to me, in a negative way most of the time. And when you try to explain your friends e.g what is looking wrong on something they think you're crazy, haha.
You got a whole new feeling to the things you see around you, you ain't getting impressed as easy as before anymore as your taste for the look of things gets more and more expirienced and better, so that you judge things not in the same way as before.

7. What are your coming projects?

I currently work on a series of Illustrations for Nike football, which will be available in 2011, a few tee-shirts aswell for nike but to be sold at the Footlocker 's in Europe, aswell as 3 tee-shirts for Lamar Odom's Clothing label " Rich Soil " and more secret stuff is in progress... Really became productive in the last quarter of the year, the busy part started this time at the end of the year for me. Expect some interesting projects in 2010 from me, until then, stay tuned.

9. Once again , thank you very much for the interview. As a final word, do you have any tips for upcoming artists and designers?

Never stop to AIM, aim higher everytime you reached a goal. Aim for the highest, so that the other things won't be that hard to reach compared to that big goal. And if you got to the point that you reached your biggest goal, just keep going like that. Simple.
Thanks a lot for the opportunity!]

 http://abduzeedo.com/interview-illustrator-magomed-dovjenko

I like is style of melting type and images and his use of more abstract shapes. I feel at times the work is similar to Si Scott's with a more liquid look. I feel the whole use of the inky look and type is something which has interested me i think mainly because it lets you play more with type rather than just the kerning.

Radim Malinic

I Like his work even though i think aspects of it are overdone and there is at times too much unnecessary aspects to the design. I really like the style of the typography within his work and how he makes it more image based and more integrated as a design.

His more abstract designs i like and its something at times I've tried to replicate within my own work as i think its something that isn't always and appropriate way of answering the brief. Some of his work i feel that the use of abstract shapes and bright colours looks a little overdone and seems that too much has gone into the designs.

Dan Tobin Smith Interview

I like his work and the use of colour and perspective and arrangement to create letters and shapes from objects. I think its quite an original idea and think that much of this consideration to the layout affects the way i see the layout of my work and the way in which the the various elements can interact.

Mads Berg Interview

How much time did get to spend on those theme park images, they must have took quite a while and how do you go about producing something with that amount of detail?

- It takes approx one month. I take 500 photos on site for research. I use Google earth. I use Google maps street view.

Your styles across various posters seem to be inspired by past designers and illustrators are there any particular designers who inspired you to take this route?

- Sven Brasch, Juan Gris, Ludwig Hohlwein (all in different directions)

Do you usually try to use type as part of the image or do mainly try to use it to get the information across?

- part of the image definitely!

As an illustrator how much time do you spend on the type and do particularly enjoy it?

- I enjoy it just as much as the illustration. It is not just a container of information.

As someone who doesn't really dabble in typography that much do usually just have a few fonts you stick with because you know they work with your styles or do you just find fonts that fit with the illustration?

- I tailor-make fonts or specifically pick them. Not that I do not have favourites, but each job deserves a unique consideration