Zeitype - Research

Kara Zichittella started Zeitype, a typographical studio, in 2015 when studying at Leeds Arts University (Leeds College of Art at the time) for her masters degree. Now based in Berlin, she produces a range of of impressive typography led design projects, in an It’s Nice That interview she describes her process as - “I apply a conceptual and pragmatic logic to the design process. I’m very interested in the way complex ideas can produce simple and effective work”. Kara’s design ranges from typeface design, to branding, sometimes involving music, and sometimes editorial work. She often works freelance individually, occasionally collaborating with friends. 

I really like how Kara has created a breadth of work from individual projects but it still retains a similar style, and how her typeface designs all maintain a narrative relevant to the subject material. Seeing as she studied in Leeds and is now in Berlin, it would be interesting to ask about how location can effect the design process.

1. For you, how much does location and environment change the way you work?

2.  Your work often retains a fairly monochrome colour palette, is this to give more attention to the type and its form?, and if so, do you think this is a stylistic choice that has become associated with your design work now and is a part of your style and identity as a designer?

Rabbit Hole - Research

For over ten years, Rabbit Hole have created distinct brand identities, design and web development for brands which are commonly associated with arts, music or culture. Whilst creating a range of designs such as posters, album covers and logos they also have a lot of digital design touchpoint, so it will be interesting to get some insight on that seeing as digital design is becoming so big. Their expansive art direction and branding is very concise, stylish and covers many touch-points/outputs - I.e. logo, publications, posters, website, wristband, merchandise, motion graphics, they are really very thorough and create a strong sense of continuity within a brand. 

As well as the three main questions, I’d quite like to ask rabbit hole about digital/web design; it’s something which is increasing within the graphic design industry to the point where I wonder whether it’s essential that designers should have knowledge and proficiency in it. I ‘d also quite like to ask about their branding process and how they create such an expansive visual identity. 

1. Digital and web design is a core element of what you do at Rabbit Hole. As an element of graphic design which has drastically increased in use and importance in the 21st century, do you think it’s essential that every aspiring graphic designer should have at least some level of knowledge in screen and web based design?
2. One of the reasons I think your branding work is so impressive is its continuity across so many touch-points, when you’re creating such an expansive visual identity, how do you start this process, and furthermore ensure this continuity is retained across all the different platforms?

Félicité Landrivon - Research

Félicité Landrivon’s work has a clear and distinctive style, it displays a fantastic ensemble of vintage and underground imagery and type in bold colours, often referencing counter cultures like psychedelia and punk. She works with studio ‘Grrrrnd Zero’ in Lyon, does work for the feminist magazine ‘Panthère Première’ as well as a lot of solo ventures. Félicité has talked about how she believes the visibility and promotion of female designers is very important as well as how she doesn’t believe in ‘elitist design’ and simply wants her work to be fun, relatable and stand the test of time.

The first three questions on the list here are ones that I already came up with to ask Ben Arfur - these are quite broad questions and not specific to any one designer. Asking another two questions will give me the chance to demonstrate that I’ve done my research, but these questions in particular I think not only apply to the sort of context of the report in regards to covering the topics of posters and music, but also I think it would be very interesting to compare answers from different designers.

1. Poster design has always been something a lot of designers are drawn to, its certainly a favoured method for contemporary designers to generate work. Do you think poster design has or will ever lose its value in an ever increasingly digital discipline?

2. What personally appeals to you about designing work for musicians and music events, do you think music and and visual arts have an inherent connection?

3. To what degree do you subscribe to the idea of having a ‘signature style’ - should this be sought after by aspiring designer? 

Question Ideas

Collage style

Standing the test of time - vintage style

Your work has a playful and fun narrative

Your work has a distinct vintage feel 

4. I read in your article on It’s Nice That that you want your work to travel time and still be relatable in years to come, do you think it’s important for the style of your work to evolve over time in order to stay constantly relevant or do you think your process will stay very much the same?

5. What appeals to you about the vintage collage style of your work as opposed to exploring something more contemporary and graphic?

Ben Arfur - Research

Ben Arfur is undoubtedly one of my favourite contemporary graphic designers right now. The self taught designer’s bold work demonstrates strong visual collaborations between type, bold colour, imagery and illustrations. A lot of Ben’s designs supposedly come from thoughts dreams and loose ideas and he see’s graphic design as a good medium to “pull them all together and give them sense of practicality”. This is evident in his work and how intuitive and harmonious the combinations of type, colour and imagery are, his grid systems and layouts are all very intuitive as well. The types of projects Ben undertakes are really interesting to me as well, mostly lying within the realm of music branding and events. His use of 3d graphics and illustrations give his work a whole new sense of motion, dynamism and perspective.

Subjects to Cover in Questions

1. Posters
2. Design for Music
3. Freelance vs. Studio?
4. Being Self Taught
5. Ideas
6. Individual style

1. Poster design has always been something a lot of designers are drawn to, its certainly a favoured method for contemporary designers to generate work. Do you think poster design has or will ever lose it’s value in an ever increasingly digital discipline?

2. What personally appeals to you about designing work for musicians and music events, do you think music and and visual arts have an inherent connection?

3. Being a self taught designer, what informed your creative process the most when you first started off? Did aspects like grid systems and typography come naturally or did you have to teach them to yourself in a more formal sense?

4. I saw in one of your It’s Nice That articles you mentioned that you draw from experiences, sound and sometimes even vague dreams to create work. If you have a project and nothing is immediately jumping out at you, how do you generate and apply these ideas?

5. To what degree do you subscribe to the idea of having a ‘signature style’ - should this be sought after by aspiring designer? 

Creative Report - Ideas

I found it quite easy to decide which designers I want to contact based on who’s work I like and has influenced me however one thing I struggled to decide was a context/over-arching theme for the creative report. The designers who I want to contact are:

Ben Arfur - Originally from Cardiff and now based in London, Arfur is a self taught designer who started of by designing promotional material for a clothing store he opened. Now he creates Posters, Vinyl Sleeves and branding, often for musicians or clubs. His work is bold and vivid and often incorporates 3D imagery and type.

Felicite Landrivon - Felicite Landrivon is a French designer based in Lyon, Originally inspired by Xeroxed posters on the streets for club nights and gigs, Landrivon heavily draws on the same collaged aesthetic, incorporating imagery and type into colourful fun compositions which are often very stylised and retro. 

Zeitype - Founded by Kara Zichittella in 2015, who studied for her masters at Leeds Arts Uni, Zeitype is a studio based in Berlin which focuses on the development of ‘playful and contemporary’ typography. Often doing branding and poster work, Zeitype’s monochromatic portfolio of work is geometric, unique and refined.

Rabbit Hole - Based in Leeds, Rabbit Hole provide bold, playful and decisive branding and design. From album artwork to digital branding and design to full blown branding identity Rabbit Hole often design for musicians and events, one of their most impressive projects being the visual identity they created for the Leeds International Festival.

All of these studios/designers have produced work which I personally really appreciate aesthetically and conceptually, they have all also produced a fair amount of design for music which I am very interested in. While I think that will form a component and prominent theme in the questions I ask them, it wasn’t enough to be a whole concept or theme for the project. Then I decided that the theme could be poster design - I produce a lot of poster designs as part of my personal work which I post on instagram so it would be an interesting idea to look at. All the questions I ask won’t simply be about posters however there could be a few questions such as ‘How relevant is a physical poster in an ever increasingly digital landscape?’ Or ‘Do you see the concept or format of the poster as we know it changing in the future?’. Using this is a theme would very much inform the design and production of the actual physical creative report. Because I have picked this theme, I’ve decided that I will create a poster for each designer/studio which will have the questions I’d like to ask them on and I will attach it in the email - this will demonstrate to these designers/studios my commitment and engagement to the project and hopefully therefore be more likely to provoke a response from them.

Now what I have to do is do a bit more individual research on each designer/studio, decide what questions I’ll ask them and create the posters. From there I will write out the emails I’ll send them. I will probably ask about 5-7 questions, I don’t want to ask loads because then they won’t be bothered to answer. There will be probably be a few fundamental questions which I ask to all of them however I think I’ll probably have questions individual to each of them as well, based upon their own practise.