Grillust™ 'Lifts' Article from Local* Newspaper Shock!!!

You may remember a recent post in which we told you how one of our Blog posts was 'appropriated' by our local* newspaper The Evening News & Star.

On seeing this fascinating news headline recently...



...it struck 'old Grillust™' that 'what's good for the goose is also good for the gander'.

So, with that in mind, here's The News & Star article reprinted in full, on our Blog, for your delectation.

It makes for a fascinating read, and we hope you enjoy it. But remember, you read it here second!

Click on the image below to see it in full.



*Small circulation figures

First Years, Second Project

For the last two weeks we've been mostly looking at:

1. the anatomy of typefaces
2. the third dimension
3. tactile experience
4. craft skills
5. fuzzy felt

Here's a wall of the final pieces. Click on it and then keep on scrolling...

a Great British obsession

Here at Grillust HQ, we’re all for a bit of obsession. Between us, Grillust operatives are proud of many obsessions including bike tyres, quality stitching, photographs of abandoned bags of cement, classic pottery, dogs outside shops and fantasy band names.
When year one student, Aimee Stewart, told us she would like to use her Dad’s ‘Model Train shed’ as a location for a recent location based project, our obsession radars went on overdrive and we were more than happy to go along with Aimee’s plan. We had no way of knowing the wonderful levels of obsession and commitment we were about to be confronted with. But I don’t need to try and explain or describe, no, because Aimee’s Dad has a youtube channel, so you can all enjoy.
Good work that man!
Here’s a couple of our choice picks

What Typeface are You?

It could be argued that everybody has their own font. Could you be Rockwell or Perpetua? Futura or Franklin Gothic?

Now, thanks to our friends at world famous design company Pentagram, you can find out!

Click the photo below to find out just which type you are…

PS Works best with Firefox.

Grillust™ Blog Post Reprinted in Local* Newspaper Shock!!!

The Grillust™ team like to feature interesting and amusing posts in the hope of keeping you, our beloved followers (117) entertained and informed. We were also aware that we have a high profile in the world of internet search engines (77,200 page views and counting) but believed our existence was unknown to the 'real' world of normal people (not that we're saying you're not normal...)

This illusion was dramatically shattered on Monday 17 September when this Blog article was reprinted by our local* newspaper The Evening News and Star (see photos below). They also ran it here on their website, but unlike us, didn't embed a weblink to the Grillust Blog™.

How did we feel? Confused, elated, soiled, proud? Well, as they say, imitation is the best form of flattery and although no permission was sought, we were still 'over the moon'. In fact, we'd like like to make a suggestion to the The News and Star: why not feature this blog post about you featuring a previous blog post of ours in a forthcoming edition of your newspaper?

We could then re-blog that article (and so on Ad infinitum) thereby creating the world's first never-ending digital/analogue media feedback loop that, in theory, could have the potential to rip the space-time continuum apart. 

Come on News & Star, that's got to be worth a go hasn't it?

* small circulation figures

Friday Songs

This week, the moon...

WILL RIO DO IT BETTER?

We might have witnessed one of the best Olympic games ever this summer in London - and proved that Britain really can put on a fantastically successful event - but one aspect let us down. That logo and that typeface! Grillust operatives had to bow our heads in shame every time we saw such a miserable offering representing the output of our profession. So what will Rio be putting before us in 2016? Here's a sneak preview of their Olympic typeface taking shape - not only a lesson in producing something much more elegant but also just how much effort and time is spent refining what most people think of as just another set of 26 characters...Click on this photo to read all about Rio's new typeface being developed.

google doodle

Google ‘doodles’ pop up on the search engine’s page from time to time and this one, celebrating American illustrator and animator, Winsor McCay has got to be one of the best they’ve ever done. For info on the background of the artist head here

Band names (part 7)

Just the latest in our series for emerging bands struggling to find an appropriate 'handle'...

Name: Abandon the Grouse

Genre: Retro-New-Romantic

Debut Single: Born to be Shot

Name: The Dangling Connotations

Genre: Crusty Folk-Rock

Debut Single: Prosthetic Limb Festival

Name: Ghost of a Rectangle

Genre: Geometric Prog

Debut Single: Galadriel's Geometry Set

Name: There's Nothing Digital About the Next Two Weeks

Genre: Dub Accordion

Debut Single: Jimmy Shand knew my mother

Name: The Inconsistent Indents

Genre: Barber's Shop Quartet

Debut Single: Two Hyphens in One Short Paragraph

Grid me up!

Following on from their intuitive layouts, second year students spent last week exploring a number of alternative grid structures in editorial layout. Part of the project was aimed at revisiting editorial and typographic conventions as well as the mechanics of InDesign; but the real trick was not to let the perceived constraints of working with grids from adversely affecting the impact of the spreads.

Here are some of the many visual opportunities the students discovered in their grid structures...

The Freezer Defrosts: splash spread by Dominic Tunstall (21)

Being Wiggo: splash and turn spreads by Ami Swift (21)

The Freezer Defrosts: splash and turn spreads by Sam Kallagher (21)

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First Years, First Project

Our intrepid new Year 1 students have just finished their very first project. They were given two weeks to produce an ISSUU publication that captured the spirit of a chosen location.

Sounds an easy enough task, doesn't it? Well, it's not!

The point we wanted to get across right from the start is that engaging design and illustration are all about having personal thoughts and opinions about your subject matter and then clearly identifying what you want to say about it.

This is probably the most difficult aspect of design that any student has to face as it requires both bravery and confidence.

Did they rise to the challenge? Hell, yes!

Have a look for yourself below...

Kate Patterson, Reece Crowder & Abigail Pearson (all 21) take an anthropological approach to a local bus stop  
 

Bethany Mincher & Josie Howker (both 21) go for a lark in the park in the dark
    

Lucy Hadley & Kate Budniak (both 21) spent time at Carlisle railway station  
 

Connor Palamino & Kianna Poskitt (strangely enough, also both 21) attended an open mic night at one of Carlisle's many fashionable cafe-bars 

 

Sophia Linley (21) also went to the park (but didn't do anything that rhymed) 

 

Cameron Holland, Jessica Heaps & Abigail Johnston (21, 21 and 21) spent time in Carlisle's largest secondhand bookshop

 
Sophie Driffield (21) and Jenny Read (also, also 21) have been hanging around in a back alley...

This is just a small selection. You can see many more goodies here.

Monographs

Our eager and talented 3rd year graphic designers and illustrators have just finished their first project after the summer vacation. Asked to respond to a given word and produce a printed monograph, they approached the project in their usual inventive and exploratory manner. Here are just some of the highlights from a really varied, creative and carefully produced set of projects...

It's going to be an great year :-)

Yvette Earl (21)

Megan Steen (21)

Stephanie Stilwell (21)

Ben Walton (21)

IT'S OFFICIAL* WE'RE 100%* STIMULATING!

*From the 2012 National Student Survey (NSS)

Staff have made the subject interesting: 97% agree
Staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching: 97% agree
The course is intellectually stimulating: 100% agree

Of course, we consider ourselves fortunate in that we have "100% stimulating" students to work with day-to-day; and that just spurs us on to do our very best for them.

Pleased? Here's a 100% stimulating Grillust™grin.

The best thing you will ever see. Ever.

Great Website for the Retro Curious with a Head for Heights

Ever wondered what your hometown looked like in the past, but from above? We know we have...

Now a fantastic website has come along that can satisfy our yearnings for a precipitous perspective on our past. Britain From Above contains over 16,000 images of 'Britain from above' taken between 1925 and 1953 (the year black and white aerial photography was finally banned).

Carlisle (home to the Grillust™empire) is well represented in a series of photographs taken in 1925 from the passenger seat of Virgin Airlines' very first aircraft; an ex-W.W.1 Vickers Vimy (with one careful owner).

Way back then, we worked out of a mill building in the city centre and used a slightly different logo (see the photo of our eye-catching roof stencil above) but the staff (pictured below in 1925) have hardly changed at all in the intervening years.

2nd year intuition

The super keen second year graphic designers and illustrators kicked off the new academic year by each producing a whole raft of intuitive layouts last week. There were lots of little rules to follow but the trick, of course, was to manage copy, image and negative-space to create spreads with attention-grabbing impact!

Here are just some selected highlights...

Ruth Fogden (21)

Yvonne Kennedy (21)

Mike Mann (21)

Adam Norfolk (21)

Josh Robey (21)

Jenn Sproat (21)

Jasper van Looveren-Baines (21)

Rachael Ellis (21)