Circle: A Public Space
A study of the circle. During one week of September 2008 I observed and wrote my thoughts on the happenings and surroundings of five public squares in London, with the focal point being the circular section of greenery at its centre.
16 page letterpress book that is currently being printed. The book will be an edition of 125.
This book was presented and on sale at the St. Bride event 'Letterpress: A Celebration'.
Black Box
A collaboration with Elliot Hammer from Action Committee, Tim Hutchinson and Ben Prescott of Bark to design a workshop for the 3rd year Typo/graphic students at the LCC.
Students were split into 8 groups, given a range of materials and an envelope containing a word which they were to construct the days project around.
View the online invitation to the project.
All images taken for this project were by the extremely tallented Harry Watts.
To view all imagery and read more about the project please visit the Black Box website [coming soon].
4th Dimension Qualia
A project in collaboration with Simon Hessler.
A book and poster set about the combining of two modern thoughts: Qualia and the 4th Dimension (Space-Time). Using the space surrounding an object we aimed to create an image that would intrinsically appeal to the senses; the 4th dimension, a mental realm, means one would not be able to identify common 3rd dimension objects due to the lack of qualia.
This work was displayed at the Pinboard exhibiton; New Cross, London - August 2008.
No Place Like Home
A group project set by Europa Design. Working in collaboration with Elliot Hammer, Cian O'Sullivan and Daniel Mather.
Over the years the Elephant & Castle has famously been condemned as an 'eyesore' of London, and an area in need of regeneration and redesign. We were asked to design a commemorative plaque for the Elephant & Caslte of 2008.
Our group went to the slowly dissapearing Heygate Estate and noticed a number of things were missing. We decided to design/mimic a 'Missing' poster/plaque to generate some focus from the community to the objects that had been removed.
The plaque - designed in Microsoft Word using Arial - to the right reads:
MISSING!
HALF A BRIDGE
LAST SEEN NEXT TO THIS HALF
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
COMMUNITY WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO SEE IT
RETURNED
PLEASE CALL: 020 7525 4992
Good Type, Bad Type
Asked to consider the opinions and issues discovered at the LCC so far regarding typography; what is the criteria for good typography and how can this be utilised.
During this period of the course I was particularly interested in Swiss modernism which influenced the making of this 22 x 17 inch broadsheet.
Transitional Spaces
The brief for Transitional Spaces was dealing with spaces in London that were to be observed: the people, the objects and everything else that interacts with the space. My designated space, ASDA carpark on the Old Kent Road.
After observing the carpark for several days it was clear that the project had to be about cars, in consequence monitoring all cars that entered the car park on a set day for 2 hours. The outcome had to be represented with two A1 posters, one colour, one black and white.
Opting to use letterpress to produce these posters gave a texture resembling the grittyness of the car park itself, which was also reflected in the colours as they mixed with the lead, which could not have been reproduced with a digital print.
This work has been featured on Many Stuff's blog.
(More pictures coming soon)
5 Hat Racks
Asked to find five genuinely discarded objects from the environment I accumulated a variety of objects: a lampshade, an exhaust pipe, a builders hard hat, a candle holder and a bottle of Magners. The project had two parts, the first being to run these objects through a system known as the 'Five Hat Racks' which consist of: location, alphabet, time, category and hierarchy. Each system had to have an A1 visual outcome for each object, this was aimed to make us look closer at our objects and become familiar with them.
The second part was to take these same five objects and run them through an emotive set of categories and produce another five outcomes that could be a size and format of our choosing. Some of the emotive categories were as follows:
Temperature / hot - cold
Intrigue / fascinating - banal, dull
Sentiment / soft, tender, alluring - hard, tough
It was during this point of the project I started to become frustrated, after having a few bad critiques by tutors about my first set of posters I started debating whether the categories listed above were actually emotive, in my opinion they are descriptive. Being able to emphasize my hatred towards the project in this emotional part of the brief I decided to show this by breaking the objects into pieces using a hammer. Questioning why we were doing a project like this on a graphic design course that specifically focuses on typography, it dawned on me that this project was more 'fine art' than design. This lead me to design/photograph the objects in the style I did, purposely mimicking and ridiculing the brief with a parody on fine art.
This work has been featured on pH Magazine's blog.
Ken Garland Interview
This interview took place on the 26th of October 2007 between the hours of 11:30 and 13:30. The interview involved Ken Garland and myself. It was conducted at Ken Garland's personal studio in Camden, London.
Please download the interview [PDF].
Vogue Brands
Logo identity for online clothing retail start-up, Vogue Brands.
Website will soon be live.
Letterpress LCC Website
The Letterpress workshop at the London College of Communication needed a website that could be easily updated to inform people of upcoming events and classes, aswel as showcasing a range of student and project work completed in the workshop. Using a content managment system supplied by Indexhibit the website is easy to update for the client during the busy acedemic year.
You can see the website here.
Harry Watts Website
Harry needed a website that could be easily updated from his current base in Brighton. Using a minimal design that enables the photography to be the centre of attention, combined with a content managment system supplied by Indexhibit the website has achieved effortless use from both the user and the client.
You can see Harry's website here.
About
James Allen is a London based designer currently studying in the 3rd year of the Typo/graphic pathway at the London College of Communication (formerly the London College of Printing).
Please download my CV [coming soon] for further information.
To understand my inspirations and interests please visit my blog.
Contact
To contact me please send an email by filling in the form below. Please note: all boxes marked with a * must be filled.
Links
A randomly ordered list of links to close friends and those that appear on this site. (please note: all links throughout this site open in a new window)
- Varvara Zaytseva (under construction)
- Elliot Hammer: Action Committee
- Harry Watts
- Phil Baber (under construction)
- Cian O'Sullivan (under construction)
- Simon Hessler
- Jon Leverrier (under construction)
- Lee Bosio
- Europa Design
Listed below are blogs that I read on a regular basis and highly recommend you see. (see link in the navigation for my personal blog)
Copyright
All the pictures and writing on this website are under the copyright of © James Allen. You may not use any content taken from this site without prior written permission.
