by Ian West | Jul 3, 2012 | Typography
The first whiffs of new technology were blowing through the world of typographic design. Display fonts were the typefaces that were available in large sizes to create headlines in designs and advertisements – such faces as Grotesque No.9, Gill Sans Ultra or...
by Ian West | Jul 2, 2012 | Working designer
Student life cannot go on for ever and work experience seemed a logical stepping stone. I had played around local folk clubs and found that people from the Manchester advertising scene were very well represented in that particular community. I approached a few people,...
by Ian West | Apr 28, 2012 | Working designer
Cut and paste – there was a time when it meant just that. Artwork for print was assembled by physically cutting out pieces of typeset text, photographs, illustrations and other graphic elements, and carefully sticking them on pieces of art board. The cutting...
by Ian West | Apr 9, 2012 | Design education
In the summer of 1966 I heard that a silkscreen printer who specialised in producing the ‘flags’ that estate agents place outside houses for sale, had suffered a major fire. Racks full of stencils repeatedly washed with white spirit, drums of solvent based inks and...
by Ian West | Apr 8, 2012 | Design education
Design education – the delights and tribulations of typography A key subject in the curriculum, and one that was to become particularly important to me, was typography. In the days before computers and desktop publishing, all text had to be set in type – either...
