OUGD502 - Experimental Type

As a response to my interest in experimental typography and Wolfgang Weingart, I tried to imbed this within my Responsive module.

Penguin Student Design Awards

Weaving the typography to manipulate and abstract the forms.

Deconstructing and breaking down typography is an area of my practice that I aim to explore further because it blurs the line between design and art.

Visiting Professional - Studio Build

Build is an award-winning creative agency with an international reputation for creating strong visual narratives. Utilising art direction and graphic design, we create brand identities, websites, packaging and books for design-led clients around the world. Michael C Place [Founder + Creative Director] of Build came to give a talk about his practice and working in his studio.

At the beginning of the presentation, Place played short, flashing images of his work which was a really engaging way to introduce himself. This also kept the audiences attention away from him and on the presentation. This is something that I can utilise in order to make me feel more comfortable at the start of a presentation. 

• Music had a big influence on Place, and would arguably be his primary reason for pursuing graphic design due to the expressive album covers. 

• Learnt graphic design pre-computer, using letraset typography, inspired by the DIY punk fanzines, which is still an interest to him today. 

• Place introduced me to - 'The graphic language of Neville Brody' which reveals the motivations and meanings at the root of his designs. This would benefit me because I am intrigued how Brody's designs have been accepted, in a commercial sense, and how he justifies his experimental design decisions.

• 'Don't be a slave to Modernism.'

• Rod Clarke - Underground Magazine was a big inspiration due to the experimental approach and lack of consideration for the rules:

• Vaughan Oliver

• Trevor Jackson

• Designers Republic

• Place doesn't consider himself a good graphic designer, more an interesting one. He went on to say he looks at software for what it can't do rather than what it can do. 

• Produced the covers for Aphex Twin

• Focus on iconography - Strong geometric shapes create high impact communication

• Place collaborates with specialists out of his field of design such as web developers, illustrators, etc, rather than attempt something out of his specialist knowledge. This would also make managing time easier. 

• Build naturally tries to surprise their clients which makes them unique and desirable, however this can sometimes backfire depending on the client. 

• They take on around 6 briefs at the same time

• Place highlights how important a real passion is for design which studios will recognise and be attracted to. 

Place has opened my eyes to a method of design that I can relate to as I take a lot of inspiration from album art and was also part of the reason I wanted to get into graphic design and he has showed me how to imbed a passion into design. He also encouraged an experimental approach to design which suited the music clientele.

OUGD502 - Modernist Design Principles

Cop made me more aware of Modernism and their objective approach to design which aims to achieve high function and consistency. This year I aim for my work to be completed to a professional standard therefor I intend to increase my understanding of formal approaches to design.



Adrian Shaughnessy

Pragmatist: Underplay the importance of aesthetics. Designers who design for a service industry, supplying the 'packaging' for business messages. Clearly objective designers work pragmatically such as Wim Crouwel. 

Aesthetes: Overplays the importance of aesthetics. Sensitive to art and beauty. Designers who see design as aesthetic expression driven by inner compulsion.


I aim to be more of a pragmatic designer because I often overplay the importance of aesthetics rather than theory and content. This encouraged me to take a step back and apply design principles to help me move forward.

Vignelli Canon

Although I discovered this book last year, I have used it as a tool to aid my design process:

My understanding of grid systems was very basic however Vignelli's succinct definition and purpose of the grid made it clear that the grid ratio changes depending on the format and amount of copy.

I have previously used grid systems such as 9x9 however the grid systems below organise the content into simplified columns. It is clear that their is no need to use a 9x9 grid because it can be simplified and help organise content vertically, as apposed to horizontally.

Vignelli's section on Ambiguity in design is really refreshing as he provides a positive interpretation. Throughout COP I identified that a lot of established Modernist designers avoided ambiguity because it isn't objective.

'Great caution is recommended in using these spices.'

I aim to evidence this research within my Studio Practice blog as I have failed to do this in the past.