Upperby Road Photoshoot Outtakes

These photographic outtakes will be featured in the forthcoming book and BBC4 documentary; Classic Albums: The Making of Upperby Road.

As you will be aware, Upperby Road has proven to be a seminal album with an iconic cover. Its influence lingers on down the years and can be easily discerned in the works of such diverse musical artistes as Dr. Dre, Slayer, Radiohead  and The Krankies.

Exhibition Prep

We haven't posted much lately (sorry) because life is quite hectic around these parts. We're currently getting the end of year exhibition together and preparing to exhibit at the D&AD New Blood graduate showcase in that there London.

The end of year show will be finished by the end of this Friday but we thought we'd tease you with some photos of the 'work in progress'...


Year 3 students recreating the famous workhouse routine from Oliver!


See above


Year 3 illustrators painting a wall (do you see what we did there?)



Lauren: "Let me out please" Onlookers: "No!"




Who else...

Guess Who?

evan hecox’s work

Evan Hecox has been a hero of mine for years. I found him through his work for either Chocolate Skateboards or Carharrt Clothing. His style has evolved over the years but never really looked like anything else other than Evan Hecox’s. Graphic and bold with composition that almost makes clunking noises as it comes together, his work has always seemed crafted and calm despite it’s ‘Urban’ credentials.

A Song For Friday

Please take some time out of your busy life to watch the first 7 minutes 47 seconds of this...

GRILLUST™ Releases It's First Long Playing Record

PRESS RELEASE 

The GRILLUST™ team are proud to announce the release of Upperby Road, their first long-playing, 12" phonographic disc.

It contains 10, self-penned, toe-tapping numbers and is released on GRILLUST'S™ own Apple Crumble label.

Here's the track listing in full (all songs by Davies,Millington,Peart,Robinson,Bell,Garnett-Scott,Dodds,McCartney):

Side One:

When I'm 33

You Never Give Me Your Crumble 

Fool on the Fell

Maxwell's Digital Arts Class
All You Need is Leading
 

Side Two:
While My Ukulele Gently Creaks
Why Don't We Do It In the Refectory?
Happiness is a Warm Bowl of Soup
She Came in Through the Studio Door
Pantone Yellow (109 C) Submarine

Upperby Road is not available for digital download.

self promo times

It’s that time of year again, when thoughts turn to self promotion and sending your work off into the real world. If you find yourself in this situation, Creative Review have an interesting article on a current print trend that might be worth a look - here.

And if you are interested then these are the people to get in touch with. The prices seems quite attractive to me. Newspaper Club.

adrian johnson & stussy

From Stussy's site -
For our Summer 2012 collection, we worked with British illustrator Adrian Johnson. We met up with Adrian at his studio in Lewes.

Over the years, Liverpool born Adrian Johnson has developed a unique and strongly identifiable body of work. His trademark economical, highly crafted, graphic work is constantly evolving, whilst always maintaining a healthy distance from current trends and passing fashions. Adrian’s work has already led to a prolific working career and a client list which includes Paul Smith, Adidas, Monocle, The New York Times and Unicef. He also has exhibited work in London, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Attention to detail, humor and a simple timeless sophistication mark him out as one of the leading illustrators currently practicing.

Breaking News...

GRILLUST™ Instrumental in Creating the University's First 'Conceptual' Car Park

H.R.H. The Typographer Royal and Grillust™ operative Rhiannon Robinson (33), is pictured below proudly opening The University of Cumbria's very first 'conceptual car park'. A small, but excited crowd looked on as the ribbon was cut and the car park declared officially open (although not for cars).

 

Conceptual car park? Officially open, but not for cars? How so? Well, thereby hangs a tale...

 The Grillust™ team have looked on in admiration and wonder as, over the last three months, an area of unremarkable lawn and wildflowers has been transformed by a team of highly skilled Paviors into a tessellated, duotone masterpiece.

We soon discovered that creating a car park is a painstaking and time-consuming craft as day after day, we watched this group of accomplished professionals lay as many as 20 brindle or charcoal, 200mm x 100mm block pavers.

It was while observing this daily demonstration of craftsmanship, relatively precise geometry and, above all else, pride in a job quite well done, that it struck us that this exquisite work would quickly become  ruined by cars. The blocks would become oil stained and rubber marked, the rectilinear geometry compromised by badly parked Micras and Golfs and the foundations potentially weakened by any vehicle weighing more than 30kg. It was unthinkable - we had to act!

Happily The University of Cumbria is a farsighted organisation and readily agreed to preserve the integrity of this virgin space before it could become sullied by vehicular ingress. On 25th April 2012 its future as a pristine, paviored parking space was secured when it was officially designating a 'conceptual' car park by the University board of directors. In this case. the word 'conceptual' was used in recognition of the fact that the 'idea' of a car park without cars is much more interesting than the physical reality.

Initially, it was thought that a simple gate would suffice to deny motor vehicle access but it was soon realised that this would be visually unobtrusive and so the final, typographic solution (illustrated in the following images) was adopted.

One unexpected bonus of the use of 1,600,000 pt type for the word 'no' has been that the adjacent Grillust™ H.Q. has never been easier to locate from space (see satellite view below).

Three Banana Songs for Friday

Why bananas? Because they're potassiyummy!

3-d anyone?

You may not be aware, but that's why Grillust is here, there's a new way of looking at the world. Pretty soon your "2-D" (we're not sure what the D stands for but it's probably an impressive science word) print experiences will change for good. With the aid of some rather whacky specs, flat print is brought to wonderful life or "3-D". It's quite a thing. We even hear boffins have plans to bring the experience to the talkies.

Captain Simon Davis seen here embracing the new technology.

Nature's sceptic, Rhiannon refuses to be drawn in.

3-D, what will they think of next?

The "duvet"

My friends, this grillust operative has it on good authority that what you see here is the next big thing, the future, the answer to your bedding conundrums. Always with one sleepy eye to the future, I introduce to you the "Duvet" (a futuristic blanket. The magic being it's quite thick). Fling those nylon sheets out like so many used space-hoppers and slide luxuriously beneath one, yes only one, of these space-age God sends. You heard it here first folks.

The future's bright, the future's slightly thicker than a blanket.

Year 2 Illustrator, Yvette Earl, featured on Creative Review Site

Plucky year 2 illustration student, Yvette Earl (21) has had a great year and it just got better! She's got some work featured on the Creative Review Feed website.

Click the picture to see more or just click here to go straight to her website.

Well done Yvette.

Jasper's Autopsy Video!

No, don't be afraid! You're not going to see anything yucky or nasty on this blog (give or take the odd unfortunate hairstyle or fashion faux pas).

What we have here is a smashing little animation created by our very own Jasper Van Looveren-Baines (21) in response to a Year 1 project brief.

The students were asked to creatively document the deconstruction of an object, in this case a delightfully 'old school' TV, complete with cathode ray tube, rendered in an appropriately 'low-tech' style.



Animation isn't Jasper's only claim to fame as he is also the reigning 'student with the longest name' champion with an impressive 23 characters in his name (not including the hyphen). With a name as lengthy as Jasper's you may think he doesn't have much competition but you'd be very wrong! His rivals include:

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Price Edwards, Year 1 (21 characters)

Katherine (Katy) Thew-Thwaites, Year 2 (21 characters)

Natasha Shrimpton-Dean, Year 1 (20 characters)

You'll have to agree that's a pretty impressive list.

To ensure Jasper's long-term, long name superiority, we've been trying to encourage him to marry and then divorce in quick succession Lizzie and Katy before finally 'tying the knot' and then 'sticking' with Natasha. In so doing he would become:

Jasper Van Looveren-Baines Price Edwards Thew-Thwaites Shrimpton-Dean

a name, which has a certain ring to it.

Sadly, Jasper hasn't shown any desire to make this dream a reality.

If you think he should, please write to us at the usual address...

Friday songs

Only one song this week. Sporting a fine Grillust™ beard we have...

James Bradley's Manifesto...

...was featured this week over on the ImagineThat! blog. Take a look.



You can see more of James's work on his website and blog.

R.I.P. Maurice Sendak

Arguably the world's most famous Illustrator, Maurice Sendak, sadly passed away today aged 83.

We'll let his work do the talking...

mca aka Adam Yauch

On May the Fourth a hero of mine passed away having lost a three year fight with cancer,

Adam Yauch, aka MCA of The Beastie Boys will be sadly missed.

Not only was he The Beastie with the best voice (in my opinion) but he was a video director, production company owner and activist. This was a man who fought for our right to party as much as he fought for Tibet's right to be free of Chinese rule. He was mates with the Dalai Lama and he'd snogged Madonna. 

He was a truly creative man and he's a sad loss.

The following three videos were directed by Adam under the pseudonym Nathanial Hornblower
oh and they're quite sweary, you've been warned

The best pop ever made - FACT

and here it is live showing that Adam was a beast of a bass player. The Beasties started life as a punk band in early 80s New York. If this doesn't give you goose bumps or make you want to jump about like a loon then you're beyond hope.

Here's Your Invite to the End of Year Exhibition

While we're talking about the exhibition we thought we'd give you all an official invitation (don't mention it, you're welcome), so here's your very own private view invite:



And here's the accompanying poster...



These eye-catching numbers, designed by Mica Connelly (21) of Year 3 Graphic Design were judged the winners of an Exhibition Poster competition open to all students.

Winning not only allows Mica to see her work go to print and ultimately be displayed on notice boards near and far, most importantly she receives a reward for her efforts.

What reward could it be we hear you ask? Book vouchers, art materials, hard cash?

As GRILLUST™ is fiercely proud of its Cumbrian homeland we decided to give Mica a suitably Cumbrian reward; her own weight in Kendal Mint Cake!

PS We will never reveal how many bars that was.

It's May and Our Thoughts Turn to the End of Year Exhibition

Exactly five weeks today our annual exhibition will open to the public. With that in mind a briefing was held last week with the graduating year 3 students. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do to to surpass last year's hugely impressive and memorable installation piece. However, armed with a few of these...

 

... a little vision and a mass of student creativity, we're well up for the challenge - bring it on! We promise try to keep you posted with all significant developments. 

You can also follow what's going on across all the Arts Faculty courses by visiting this special site, created by the University of Cumbria's truly, excellent and highly proactive web team (give us the £5 later).

The briefing was undertaken by our charismatic leader, Captain Simon Davies. Although the captain knows how to work a crowd, this year he was preceded by a warm up act, our very own half-man, half-computer Hugh Leoidsson (pictured below).

 

Hugh kept the large crowd entertained with a quality stand-up routine, including the odd self depreciating Mac joke such as:

What's the difference between a Mac User and a Terrorist?
A: You can negotiate with a terrorist. 

Actually, we're just pulling your leg. He conducted a first-rate master class on how to effectively harness the power of the web. We did tell you he was half-computer, didn't we? 

 

Kevin Roberts (CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi) Pays Us a Visit

Last Friday our students enjoyed a guest lecture from Kevin Roberts, worldwide CEO (or, as Kevin puts it, 'Chief Excitement Officer') of the world's most famous advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi.

Kevin says "Hi" to his audience

For such a larger than life personality the lecture and its execution were appropriately dynamic. The visit was timed with military precision (a technical support team preparing the ground in advance) with Kevin arriving on campus a minute before the published start time of 1.30. Sadly this left no opportunity to allow him to sample our legendary crumble...

Kevin is officially greeted by event organiser
Zoe Garnett-Scott. Please note: Zoe's pose is the result
of Kevin's massively charismatic hand shake - she's
not laughing at his Manchester City top.

Kevin's lecture was a customised version of his 'Winning in the Age of Now' speech and you can read a synopsis of it here. 

His message of 'social capitalism', positivity, pro activity and global thinking was liberally scattered with buzzwords and phrases like 'screenager' and 'the abominable no man'. Kevin also showed lots of Saatchi TV ads from around the globe (see below).

It's difficult to describe a Kevin Roberts lecture without resorting to similes like 'force of nature' or 'whirlwind'. With his machine-gun delivery, opinionated stance and strong empathy with his audience, he's part evangelist, part stand-up comedian and part CEO of a worldwide creative ad agency. Here's a short sample...

Year 3 student Dylan Sewell (21) summed it up neatly when he was overheard saying; "I'm so inspired I'm going to have to lie down!"

 The lecture was enthusiastically received by a packed house of our students and we'd all like to thank Kevin for an unforgettable afternoon.

The many, many faces of Kevin Roberts