Today was another early day here in the UK. We were up and out of the hostel by 9:15 and took the tube to Bibliothèque. Once we arrived we gathered at the conference table where we talked with Tim Beard, founding partner of Bibliothèque. He went through 10 points on their principles and how they were applied to 10 different projects. Some of these projects ranged from museum exhibitions to luxury watch magazines, all of which were brilliant!
After our great lecture from Bibliothèque we came across an older graveyard, Bunhill Fields burial ground, which held over 130,000 dead, including William Blake and Daniel DeFoe. Once we left the graveyard we all grabbed lunch at the Pret A Manger eating fast, healthy, and yummy food. Eating gave us time to gain our strength as we set off to our next destination..... SPIN and UNIT EDITION!
From Pret A Manger we headed to the Tube to the only design firm across the Thames. Before making it to the firm we walked through a Kennington Park. Along our way we saw a very very very old fountain where we decided we would do witch craft. Finishing our walk throughout the park we came across another church which had two rows of large headstones lining the back fence which were all starting to erode.
Then we made our way to Spin and Unit Edition where we were met by Sam Stevenson and Collin. The conference room was filled with books published by their company, Unit Edition. Once we were all settled Collin described the project of rebranding The University for the Creative Arts. They changed it to a more flexible design which could be varied many ways. Spin created a branding system that reflected the college's goals of being unique and creative. Collin also told us about their project Sim-Smith which is a company which represents several artists who participate in different art fairs or moving galleries. They created three different personal identities that were based on movement which showed that the organization wasn't just in one spot and that they were moving around from place to place.
Unit Edition is Spin's book publishing company which designs and prints monographs on famous designers including Herb Lubalin and FHK Henrion. Also, look out for the book about Spin itself in April!!!
We made our way to Trafalgar Square where we had high tea in the Crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields which was delicious. We were quite curious if the design studios stop work at 4:00 pm and enjoy a nice pot of tea with a scone and clotted cream, a tradition that dates back to Cornwall.
After tea the majority of the group went to The Courtauld Gallery for the Goya exhibition where we unfortunately could not take any photos. In the gallery were works that we have studied in Art History such as "Bar at the Folies Bergères" by Edouard Manet and Vincent Van Gogh's "Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear." The Gallery closed at 6 and the group then split into two. Some went shopping and others continued their journey on to Big Ben and the London Eye from the top of a double decker bus!
One cultural fact that we noticed besides the love of scones and clotted cream was that there is a huge difference in the way people act on the tube compared to the subway in New York City. People riding the Tube are more concerned in making sure that people have the ability to sit down and ask constantly to make sure that they have the opportunity.
Designwise, London has a vast variety of graphic design beauty. One example of design that we enjoyed was a poster for a debut album for ibeyi which had linear typography.
At Spin we spotted some old bottle caps that they had collected from the 1972 olympics which reminded us of the Graphic Design 1 project where we designed a set of symbols.
Signing off from London,
Gina and Emily!
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