Curated By Part 1: Morag Myerscough

Designer Morag Myerscough started the award-winning Studio Myerscough in 1993. Best known for their work in the integration of graphics within architectural settings, acclaimed projects include Westminster Academy, the Kentish Town Health Centre and the Barbican Arts Centre. Myerscough believes that letter forms are amazing, expressive and beautiful.

Discovering Morag Myerscough for the first time 2 years ago, I rose at the opportunity to hear he talk at Curated By. Hosted at my University (Sheffield Hallam) Morag began by telling us a background about herself, her grandfather was a clown, her mother was from France and her English dad was a classical musician. She explained her growing up as 'A strange mix up of things". I enjoyed getting to understand her history, as personally I'm very inspired by my Chilean mother and my Irish dad, and yet growing up so close to London. I also am inspired by strong women and relate to how a mixture of cultures growing up has effected my design and the expression.

What I specifically remember is that Morag said she never gets a creative block, she described how living in an inspiring place like London maintains a long list of constant ideas."where do you get your inspiration from? Work is all about understanding whats around you. You have to go out and look at things" Traveling was key, she explained as she showed us pictures of her travels but not the usual photos, there was photos of patterns and repetition.

Which went into the next point of collections, I love making my own collections and love discovering other peoples too. Morag described the reason she collects things is obession, which is also a nice word to describe things. One of the obsessions she used to have was neon color, which I could tell with my her work. Another was chairs/stools and she once made an exhibition on the chairs she owns, and the stories behind them, which I thought would be a really interesting thing to document, discovering the characters of each furniture piece and so on. Additionally she collected tomatoes and documented their growth. This made me really expand the way that I collect already, opening my eyes to using something that I would have never thought of before.

When starting up Supergroup in 2010, she said it was not about being heavy moneywize but about being responsive. Here she works with artist she has worked before and have the same kind of experience as her. Within Supergroup she continued on her obsession with chairs, one of the first things that caught my eye was her stools. She said "I just had fun playing with words, putting silly words on stools".

I was really captivated by her work within hospitals and schools, she showed a strong enthusiasm in the fact that the schools grades went up in being in a nice environment and how and environment can have an effect on happiness. Below is a photo from the dinning room from the children's hospital. I love the colours and patterns with this typeface, I think it's absolutely amazing. "If you want to make people belong, you have to understand who they are" 

To conclude, Morag was a great start to the day. I have learnt a lot from her, and she has made me look at some parts of design differently. She has a really great way of capturing my attention not only on paper but in her lecture as well. I also have really been inspired by the way she has really brought together many different inspirations, like 70's patterns with modern white space and fonts. A great start to the show.

Other quotes by Morag
"Better to think deeper and carefully rather than to think trendy"
"Allways re-evalutate what your doing"
"Do excatly what you want"

Rescourses Used
supergrouplondon.co.uk/index.php/morag
www.studiomyerscough.com
www.globaldesignforum.com/speakers/morag-myerscough

An Insite to Hornall Anderson's Design process

Situated in London and Seattle, Hornall Anderson design has worked with a range of big names from Marmite to Madison Square garden. (A little note is that Im throughouly impressed by their website) Considering I'm about to start my out design process, I thought it benificial to read about a successful design companies design process, to discover what I can learn from them.

The Brief: brand identify for frappuccino and to develop a unique brand identity which not only positioned Frappuccino as a new beverage but as a new beverage category in the market place.

The container was provided by Pepi Cola, a wide mouthed bottle, which was reminiscent of the old fashioned American milk bottles. The audience was for both kids and adults, and the container had to cover the ingredients inside as the liquid became unappealing in transit.

The first sketches were in black and white, as the first stage was to consider the decoration of the whole bottle. In addition to lively lettering, spritley characters. As a background to the graphics swirls, spirals and icicles were lined up. Combining all the ideas, they were shown to the Vice president of Starbucks to get feedback.

Now moving into colour, A series of bottles took the elements from the Sublime to the chaotic with dancing type and swirling backgrounds. Each bottle retained the Starbucks logo as an important feature and developed the shaded layers of milky coffee. "took much coffee and not enough focus on the milk" was a reaction at this stage.

Studio Designer George Tanagi developed the lettering separately, the green and red dot shadows were added to evoke the Italian heritage of the cappuccino. Additionally days of work was spent determining the exact shade of colour and graduation from top to bottom.

Anderson explains his tips on good design
1. Stay away from the computer - it freezes design
2. Brainstorming - we encourage "borrowing" ideas
3. Know what to change and what not to challenge. Then add creative value to it

The final product has spanned the range of market outlets and gained a loyal following, Anderson's words are "a classy looking bottle" This incite to Hornall Anderson and his design process has been very beneficial, it's made me re-think my own design process, and widened my opportunities i have in pencils. I also have realised the important of slowing myself down and starting right at the basics.


Rescourses used
www.hornallanderson.com
50 Trade secrets of graphic design