The Poster King - Exhibition

I recently went to the exhibition at the Estorick Collection of Edward McKnight Kauffer's poster designs. He was best known for his creations for Shell and the Underground. Given he worked as an artist and the term graphic designer wasn't even coined yet, I was really impressed with his attention to detail and strong use of typography. Particularly as his work progressed he worked on integrating type within the imagery. His attention to composition, layout and grid led to him producing some magnificently styled posters and set him apart from other artists of the time.


His posters worked as a great means of advertising and it was appealing to see them with such an artistic focus. It's nice to see beautifully and creative thought out pieces, whereas foreseeably a lot of advertisements focus on the 'bad is good' concept. With the examples of cheesy songs, "choo, choo, choose the train line.com", "we buy any car" or "go compare." The use of annoyingly cheap and tacky themes works as they are memorable but only because of their dire and woefully crass. Or to put it in the words of Trevor Beattie in a recent Evening Standard article, "some of it is bloody awful... People aren't rocking the boat enough." If anything the mentioned adverts should spur creatives on to produce something that deserves to be remembered. Believe it or not it's been 4 years since the infamous Cadburys' Gorilla. The days of beautifully designed and innovative need to be grasped and not fall into the easy route of a quick laugh ad.


Here are a few examples of Kauffer's work.

Website - new design

I've been planning to update my old website and after a surge of ideas I've finally got round to it. This new design uses a selection of pages rather than a one page site (like my previous one). The style of the site suits itself to my practice in graphics, being clear with a coherent theme running throughout and shows exactly what it needs to - my work. 


My actual site can be seen via this link www.matt-thom.co.uk

Pop-Up Shop - set up

Some photos of our second year pop-up shop set up. The show was a create success and thanks to Kate for organising it, as well as  everyone else who contributed. It featured a great array of reproduced work, ranging from zines, book, prints, bracelets, badges...

We had a fantastic private view night, making over £1200 to go towards our degree. Thanks to everyone who came along, supported us and of course bought our products. 

Tower Bridge - video and photography

I have recently bought a Canon 60D and took the opportunity to take some photos of Tower Bridge and footage. Video is completely new to me and was one of the main reasons I opted for the 60D and was something I wanted to explore and still do. 



These were all recored with a 100mm F2.8 IS USM and a 14mm F2.8 II USM.

Book - design interventions

I've been meaning to put my photographs and records of my litter design interventions into an appropriate format to view. I spent the last couple of days designing and making this book to reference them all and display them in a hard copy. 

Cigarette litter 5 - design interventions

My final couple of design interventions focus on the cigarette packet itself, as a means of easily getting smokers attention and giving them no reason not to be aware of the issues of littering. This first design works simply as a sleeve, informing smokers of the problems that their used butts can cause. I have tried to give the message a harder impact by relating it to people, and how deadly used cigarette ends can be to us. Displaying the fact that the chemicals left in the butts from a 20 pack are capable of killing 16 adults. 

The final intervention takes this idea a step further by designing the sleeve to feature a waste section for used butts, thereby providing a solution for to smokers throw them away. One issue is the lack of bins for butts, there are some products for smokers to buy such as portable ash trays. However, most people can't be bothered to buy them or simply aren't aware. 


This sleeve centres around a storable compartment to store their fag ends, which can been thrown away when the packet is finished. The compartment is foil lined to stop the butt burning the package. It uses a push mechanism for easy access and is designed with a maximum opening distance to avoid spilling its contents. 

Cigarette litter 4 - design interventions

My next intervention leads on from my previous bus stop poster. It takes inspiration from the 'face in a hole' stands you see at zoos and such places. The idea being a fun way to emphasise the horrific amount of cigarette butts dropped each day, playing on the idea of drowning ourselves. This encourages interaction for people and is hard to miss due to its size and the 3D form of the hands reaching out of the poster. 

The last photo illustrates my following design, which co-incidently worked well alongside the bus stop poster. This print uses the road warning signs as influence, altering the meaning from water to cigarette butts. It is a simple idea but clearly gets across the message and makes people aware of the issue, although not as tragic (yet!) as the sign makes out. These can simply work as fly-posters around town and would be more impressive as an actual road sign.

 

Cigarette litter 3 - design interventions

This next intervention plays on the idea of scale of dropped cigarettes, emphasising how millions are dropped each day. I created the large cigarettes out of paper and by tearing and burning the edges to represent cigarette butts. Each one shows the fact that 122 tons of cigarette related litter is dropped everyday, making the message evident. People couldn't help but notice these when walking by and they are clearly recognisable as giant cigarettes. 

Cigarette litter 2 - design interventions

Here is a large scale poster I created for a bus stop, again targeting smokers who are tempted to light up while waiting for their next journey, as well as promoting general awareness. I chose the bus stop for the location of my poster, as I related the weight of the littered cigarettes to London buses, to highlight the amount of cigarette rubbish on the streets. In this case it is equivalent to 17 double decker London buses.


I took photographs of a mass amounts of piled cigarettes, to get across the message of 120 tons being litter a day. We all notice cigarette butts on the street but having them presented complied together clearly conveys the vast scale. 


The poster caught people's eye, and was convincing as an intentional poster because it was designed to fit the window in the shelter, making passers-by judge it as a genuine piece. 

Cigarette litter - design interventions

Here I have opted for a more hard hitting approach, of questioning people's behaviour outside their home. No one would want to be at home amongst a pile of cigarette butts, so wouldn't we rather clearer streets to actually enjoy the most out of our environment. The scene below comfortably illustrates this, by covering furniture with scraps of cigarette packets and butts. A framed poses the question towards littering by smoking. 


This intervention successfully gained people's interest as they walked by and it would prove hard going not to notice such a set.

Cigarette Bin Solutions - design interventions

I have continued with my target intervention, creating an attachment for bins. This uses a circular design was made for bins in a nearby park. I redesigned the appearance of the piece so it is more pleasing and uses a colour combination better associated with cigarettes, of orange and black. 


I left the design on the bin and a day later it is still there, however it is difficult to actually capture it in use as after waiting a short while no-one smoking ever walked by. 

Cigarette Solutions - design interventions

Due to most of my previous interventions having quite a serious undertone, I have decided to implement a fun theme. In this case basing it around an interactive target game, taking inspiration from the boards with holes cut for kids to kick footballs through. The obvious difference being it's for cigarettes to be flicked through, and into a bin or waste bag of sorts. 

I have only created the board itself rather than the bin, which could be an extra attachment if created. However, after testing the design I have decided that my next intervention should be a specific form to fit onto existing bins. The main issue is there are barely any specific cigarette bins (clearly emphasising my cause) and the few there are are quite small. Therefore my next piece would render the chosen bin (it's attached to) just for cigarettes.