It’s almost time for the Twelfth London Design Festival to kick off in the capital, and here are Grafik’s top recommendations for the graphic design connoisseur about town.
As usual this year's London Design Festival is bursting at the seams with interesting design-related shenanigans – and if you can battle your way through the rather impenetrable LDF website you're sure to stumble on a good number. While we’ve come to realise that graphic design will probably never play a major part in the LDF, if you look hard enough there are a number of exciting exhibitions and events to pique your interest when you’ve seen one too many uncomfortable looking modular sofas and artisan crafted wicker lampshades. Read on for our top graphics and typography events from this year's festival...
Type lovers should sign up for Better Letters' highly recommendedone day intensive signwriting workshop, hosted by the legendary Mike Meyer. Suitable for everyone from total beginners upwards, it’s a great opportunity to learn from the master and develop those rusty hand skills...or just try something new. Better Letters is also hosting an evening screening at the Roxy Bar and Screen of the classic Sign Painter movie along with a short film about Carter and Sons' super talented Joby Carter.
On Monday 21 September, Better Letters’ founder Sam Roberts will also be bringing his hugely popular Ghostsigns Walk over the river for the first time, exploring the area and looking for glimpses of fading advertising history around the areas of Bankside and Southwark.
There’s more typographic fun during Graphics Weekend at the V&A with Type Tasting queen (and Heston collaborator) Sarah Hyndman’s fun packed workshops. These promise to bring type to life for both enthusiasts and professionals with a raft of interactive games and demos, including the intriguing-sounding font sniffing, which involves matching different smells and typefaces (we reckon Comic Sans would smell a bit like Fruit Salad sweets).
If you didn’t manage to catch it at the De La Warr Pavilion earlier this year, the gloriously indulgent nostalgia fest that is Ladybird by Design continues at The House of Illustration in King’s Cross. And if you’d like to see more, head over to the LCC for an exhibition of reimagined Ladybird artwork courtesy of the LCC's School of Design.
Carrying on with the book theme, there’s a chance to hear Unit Editions’ Tony Brook and colouring-in queen Johanna ‘Secret Garden’ Basford talk about their respective publishing success stories at the V&A. Joining them will be author of one of Grafik’s favourite publications from earlier this year, Craig Oldham, who will be talking about his labour of love, In Loving Memory of Work. Also at the V&A, you can catch talks by Europa, The Beautiful Meme and Pentagram's Harry Pearce.
Information design (in the form of signs, maps and data) features in several LDF exhibitions. Over at DN&Co’s brand new GroundFloorSpace, Co-ordinates features a collection of original limited edition maps, with designers revealing forgotten and unseen parts of the capital. There are more maps over at the Map House, which hosts an exhibition celebrating ten years of Justine Smith’s Money Maps.
Made North’s 50th Anniversary of the British Road sign features new signs created by 50 leading designers which can be found dotted around the capital, with a special installation and more information about the project at the Design Museum. Meanwhile over at the Protein Space in EC2, private_i, promises to be a fascinating and thought-provoking exhibition exploring the concept of anonymity and the dark web brought to you by data specialists Signal Noise.
Finally, the Global Design Forum is keeping it simple this year, with six masterclasses from LDF stalwarts including Tom Dixon and Barber Osgerby, and first lady of supersized type Morag Myerscough waving the (neon patterned) graphic flag at the V&A on 20 September.
Find full listings and up to date information on the LDF website and its accompanying guide which can be downloaded here.
