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Hand Lettered Christmas Card!

I finished my skillshare class! (sort of) Here are some process photographs from my early sketches to the final product, a printed christmas card! For my first post just scroll downwards, or if you're lazy click this link

My main influence here was the woodblock letters on my first mood board. I originally liked the idea of defining a square around each letter but thought they started looking a little like Alphabet blocks!

After finishing this drawing I couldn't help but think that it felt a little two dimensional and flat, so I had the idea to make the lettered look chiselled - again leading back to the wood block idea.

Using a block as a guide, I looked at one solution for including the swishes and foliage. A couple of the letters weren't quite proportional at this stage (see 'E' and 'O'). Now that I had a clear idea of how all the letters would look together, I produced more detailed sketches to be scanned and digitised. 

After scanning the images in, I put them through photoshop - adjusting the contrast and using the magic wand to get rid of the background. Afterwards I put all the letters into Illustrator and used Image trace. One image traced, I went into each letter with the pen tool to edit curves and delete un-needed ones. This was a pretty lengthy process, and looking back I would have been far more careful with sketching!

When coming to printing, I had a lot of ideas. I wanted to emboss it (too expensive) foil it (way too expensive) and maybe print on watercolour card stock. All of these - needless to say - were impossible given my budget! In the end I settled on a pint on matte cardstock, which turned out wonderfully. Here are some really arty photos I took of them. Enjoy. 

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Skillshare Lettering Class

A couple of week’s ago I signed up to Mary Kate McDevitt’s Introduction to Hand-Lettering class. I’m not massively far through the course yet, but I thought it might be nice to share my progress here!

I joined the skillshare class with a specific goal in mind - to hand letter my family’s christmas card this year. After talking with my parents over what kind of message they wanted illustrated, we finally settled on ‘Noel’.

I’m a little disappointed that I won’t have the chance to illustrate a longer message, but I guess this means every letter of Noel can be really really intricate!

As per Kate’s instructions, I wrote down a list of words that I associated with ‘Noel’ and tried to draw some parallels. I found this was a really useful technique as somebody who usually just rushes in and comes out with a slightly disappointing product (See below, my initial scribbles)

From this list, I identified two themes. The first was based on the words mistletoe and wreath - I liked the idea of doing the letters in the style of botanical drawings, or like illuminated text. The second is based on the actual meaning of Noel (thanks for clearing that one up wikipedia) around carols, victorians and brass instruments. 

I used FFFOUND, tumblr and Pinterest to make some simple mood boards in Illustrator. For the first mood board I went for historical and scientific images first, then looking at more mainstream nature-related illustrations and typography. I think my second mood board is probably more adventurous - black letter typography, abstract letters and patterns mixed in with vintage sheet music. 

Having gathered my inspiration, it was time to start the first lettering warm-up. I think it really shows that I don't have masses of experience with letters here! 

I think that theres a lot of lettering practice to come before I feel like I have anything that can go on a card, but hopefully I can get there by December 1st! Hope to keep you updated with my progress!

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The Secret Power of Brands

This month I've been taking a course on FutureLearn called 'The Secret Power of Brands'. It's been pretty interesting so far, and recently we've been asked to write an article on which method of brand management is better - loose management or tight management?

See my thoughts below!

If our definition of brand is a set of ideas that sum you up in the minds of consumers, then a successful brand is foremost a strong set of ideas.

  In the case of controlling a brand’s output though a Chief Branding Officer or Brand Identity Head, this set of ideas remains static, controlled and consistent. Naturally, this can have both positive and negative repercussions.

  By keeping a brand’s visual output and ethos consistent, fierce customer loyalty can be developed. This is exemplified by Gap’s re-brand in 2010. Falling on tough times economically, Gap sought to boost sales with a more contemporary logo – a line of Helvetica and a jaunty blue square. This caused an outrage online, consumers seeing it as a betrayal of the company’s heritage and values. As a result, the new identity was pulled.

  This example really demonstrates the importance of brand values to the consumer, especially when it is so well established and part of our collective memory. In the same way, Tropicana’s 2009 packaging re-design had a similar reception.

  In the cases of Gap and Tropicana, the Internet had a big part to play. The critiques of the re-brands, and the consumer’s perceptions of each company on the web were out of their control in a very negative way. In this respect the ‘adopt and adapt’ model is more suited to the modern consumer.

  Where the ‘control’ model is based on earlier styles of advertising (where the consumer to producer conversation is one-way) the ‘adopt and adapt’ method has a more progressive approach, acknowledging the consumer’s power to spread word about their brand and working with it to implement change.

  One emerging brand that exemplifies this is PhoneBloks – a modular phone venture. PhoneBloks founders started out by appealing to the Internet for support for their fully sustainable and customisable phone. Through this appeal, the venture gained a lot of press and attention that helped them to land their investors. After this success, PhoneBloks founders continued to involve their supporters in the design process, asking for ideas and drawings to be submitted.

  By engaging their users and asking them to shape the set of ideas that underpinned the brand, PhoneBloks effectively made their consumers chief branding officers of their own. Since they had a hand in making the product, the consumers/branding officers are likely to feel an obligation to share it and protect its image.

  In summary, I believe that though strict brand management can be successful in creating a strong set of ideas, the more unconventional method – adopt and adapt – is the way forward.

The looser method of brand management creates a more inclusive community, whereby consumers are able forming the set of ideas that make their favourite brands tick, making them more likely to have an emotional attachment to the brand that keeps them loyal to it.

                ­

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Phoneography #8

October in London

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Hand Lettering Projects

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, so I just wanted to share one of my new freelance projects with you! It's for a student play in Leeds called 'Let's Get Lade'. Pun intended. 

'Let's Get Lade' is a comedy set in 1960's America with a catastrophic hotel mix-up. The play is based on a book, and will be performed for the first time ever in Leeds!

The plays producers (friends from university) were familiar with my handmade type project last year, and wanted something similar for the play. 

I started with drawing some lettering free-hand (big mistake) and then re-drew it and digitised it this weekend. Here's my process. 

I did this version today in my new Behance Dot Grid Notebook. It is absolutely perfect for this kind of thing. Haven't bought a notebook in years but this was so worth it. 

On a slight tangent, I'm really fond of the 'A' in Lade. The low crossbar and serifs at the bottom and top just look really classy. Pretty proud of that one. 

After drawing it out (over one or two episodes of New Girl) I scanned it into my laptop, upped the contrast in photoshop and did an image trace in Illustrator. I was expecting the result to be pretty bad but I was really nicely surprised!

I've done a couple of versions of the title below. 

This has been really fun to do so far and I'm really forward looking to applying it to posters and all that other fun stuff. I'll keep you posted. 

Words by Rebecca Duncan

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Book Covers In Waterstones

It's beginning to look a lot like winter here in London. The temperature is steadily dropping (as I write this I'm covered in cardigans and scarves) and the weather's getting rainier. 

I spent yesterday morning in Islington in the rain, running a few errands and things were looking pretty miserable. So, when I was done I ducked into the nearest Waterstones to take a look at the books. 

Here are some that caught my eye!

Knowledge is Beautiful - David McCandless

David McCandless is the person responsible for my love of infographics - his last book and blog 'Information is Beautiful' is one of my favourites to flick through. From a design perspective the infographics he creates are really bright and visually striking, so It's great to see one blown up to fill the cover. I also really like that the image filled the spine and back cover as well. Lovely!

Letters of Note - Shaun Usher

I haven't taken the best photo of this one I'm afraid, but I hope this will do! I like a couple of things about this cover. Firstly, the Spot UV coating on the text is a really nice touch - it makes the book look so new and inviting! I also love the lettering on the cover and the natural variation in thickness in the letter stroke. Finally, the all-over pattern is really nice. Not relevant to the book's content (as far as I know) but oh well. 

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour - Joshua Ferris

Another nice cover with hand-lettering! I also love the britishness of this title, it really sounds like something that my grandfather would have said. The toothpaste illustration is pretty great too - the style is like a cross over between Saul Bass and Rob Ryan's work. The colour is really bold as well, I get the impression that this would really stand out on your bookshelf. 

Also the quotes on the cover are pretty funny - "The Catch 22 of dentistry"  is my personal favourite!

Crumb: The Baking Book - Ruby Tandoh

Last, but of course not least is Crumb by Ruby Tandoh. I'm a big fan of the Great British Bake Off and I really liked Ruby as a contestant, though she did get a lot of flack. Back to the book cover - I think the way cloth covering has been used here is actually pretty inventive. It's not often that you see text printed on cloth covering on the front of a book and I actually quite like it. Also, points for the typeface. Very nice. 

Words By Rebecca Duncan

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Studio Research: Office

Office is a design studio in San Fransisco that specialises in brand experiences.

What Does Office Set Out To Do? Office has a wonderfully clear mission statement on their website. Even better, its in list form. Office's list of beliefs  states that they set out to create exceptional and unique designs (mediocrity is their nemesis) that make people feel something. I really love how to-the-point this is - it demonstrates efficiency and a frankness that I would definitely want in an employer. 

Who's in Charge? Office is run by duo Jason Schulte (Creative Director) and Jill Roberts (Office President). They have a small, tight-knit team of designers that often take on big projects. Schulte and Roberts have chosen to keep it this way in order to keep projects exciting and challenging and allow everyone to have an input. 

I am beginning to realise as a young designer, that though big agencies are alluring there are often too many designers for one single designer to make an impact. Though Office definitely has a client list to compare with one these 'big agencies' I really admire that they have chosen to stay small and stretch themselves in order to accomplish big things. 

What Have They Done Recently? Recently Office are (quite rightly) receiving a lot of praise for Schulte and Roberts' brand Wee Society. Office created the identity for the enterprise, as well as apps 'Wee You-Things' and 'Wee Alphas' to encourage children's learning and engage their short attention spans. This was recently recognised by Michelle Obama in the 2014 Hewitt Design Awards. 

I think it's great that Office are turning their hands to projects such as these which have a really tangible impact on people's lives. In my own experience, work like this has been some of the most exciting and rewarding that I've done. 

Favourite Piece of Work? Is it a cop-out if I say everything?! As I mentioned earlier, Office have worked with some very big brands (Coca-Cola, Google Chrome and Target to name a few) as well as smaller non-profit enterprises and exhibitons. My favourite of those has to be the identity for 826 Valencia. Here is a quick explanation of their work from the Office Website.

"Named for its address in San Francisco's Mission District, 826 Valencia is a nonprofit writing center for youth that was founded in 2002. When the founders learned that the center’s space was zoned for retail use, they opened a pirate supply store to meet city regulations. Since then, the unconventional storefront — a wildly imaginative, inspiring experience — has helped draw kids into its free writing programs held in the back"

I love this identity in particular as it really show's off Office's sense of humour and whimsy as well as their dedication to detail. Everything from the cork seals on the seasickness tablets to the descriptive copy on the label has been thoroughly thought out and created with care. I really admire that they put the same level of care and enthusiasm into a brand identity whether the company is big or small. 

Working at Office would definitely be a dream job for me. I love their drive towards creating new and unexpected design and how they use design to elicit emotion, improve experiences and even change the world. 

Words By Rebecca Duncan

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Paula Scher in Conversation with Adrian Shaugnessy

As a young wide-eyed student, there are a lot of designers who inspire me. I discovered one of them right at the start of my first year.

It was then that I came across Paula Scher. I found a piece that she'd designed to commemorate the death of Toulouse Lautrec. I loved the use of lettering with illustration, and how classical and understated it was as a whole. 

Being extra keen, I took some notes before class. 

Since that assignment I've kept track of Paula's work (mostly by listening to her TED Talks) so I was really excited when I found out she would be opening The London Design Festival with Adrian Shaugnessy, author of How To Be a Graphic Designer Without  Losing Your Soul. 

Going to the event in itself was a pretty interesting experience. Designers are generally solitary creatures, so it was strange to see hundreds of them gathered in the auditorium like you would for a concert. Having that element of 'celebrity culture' transferred to graphic design was something I had never experienced before - it was a bit of a shock to discover that people were familiar with Paula Scher outside my own personal bubble. 

The event began with a review of Paula's most recent work. She showed projects in signage and brand identity as well as her iconic maps. She had some great anecdotes to tell about her projects, in particular for her re-brand of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The museum is famous for the scene in Rocky where he runs up the stairs, and as a result of that there are many tourists on the steps and few in the building - something which Paula's rebrand cleverly solved. You can see the identity here.

Another of her projects for The Brickell City Centre involved some very experimental environmental signage - an area that Scher previously knew nothing about. She said (I'm paraphrasing here) 'As you progress in your career, you find yourself learning less and less. The steps in your development become longer and shallower. To keep myself learning and growing I throw myself into areas I know nothing about'. 

Afterwards, Shaugnessy began the interview with a set of unconventional questions. For example, "cats or dogs?" (dogs)  and "what do your parents do?". These offered a rare insight into her as a person and made a refreshing change from the run-of-the-mill designer questions. There was talk of Paula's 'band' of designers at Pentagram, the structure of the company, her fear of 'cape wearers', and the story of how she married her design idol. 

In one of my favourite questions, Shaugnessy asked 'What do you do when somebody criticises your work, or when something isn't working?' to which she replied 'I cry!'. 

Coming from Paula Scher, those words really effected me, as I find myself crying and worrying about design all the time. I worry about being the best that I can be, doing as well as my peers and a host of other things. Doing a placement year adds another dimension to this - whether I'm working at the most exciting studios that I can be. With that in mind, knowing that even your design idols can feel the same sense inadequacy really put me at ease. 

After the interview was over, I gingerly made my way to the front and waited in line to meet Paula and ask a question. For the record, it's really surreal meeting somebody you've read about in text books and on the internet. I remember fumbling with my words a lot and asking what unknown area she would throw herself into next. Out of sheer shock I've blanked out her answer, but I luckily still have her signature.

Words By Rebecca Duncan

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Phoneography #7

Working in Old Street definitely has its perks - there's always something to photograph!

•  Calooh Callay is a lovely bar just round the corner from Hoxton Square. The cocktails are delicious (and strong) and the bar itself has the best decorations - cassettes for wallpaper and wardrobes for doors!

• Witty Breakfast Club Chalkboards by theaboarddude.

• Art by Whitcross Market, where I treat myself to lunch on fridays. 

• Piccadilly Circus underground station, on the way to see Great Britain at The Royal Haymarket Theatre.

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Ryder Analysis Logo Development

When I'm not at my placement, you can usually find me doing freelance work. I like to think of it as a  'designing by day, designing by night'  kind of scenario. 

One of my current projects is creating a brand identity for a friend who is going freelance in the business analysis industry. Being a relatively normal design student, I know nothing about business analysis, which tends to make designing a lot more challenging. Thankfully with the guidance of my client, we arrived at a logo! Here are some pictures of my sketching progress, and digital logos. 

One of the areas that my friend specialises in are BPM diagrams. During my research, these stood out to me as quite a strong graphical device that could lead to a dynamic logo. 

My alternate ideas dealt with wire framing, but these were deemed to be a bit too literal a representation.

Ironically, the opposite was deemed for this concept- though it would have been fun to develop some of my own lettering!

After getting the go-ahead from the client, I started digitising the first concept and coming up with variations. 

And here's the final logo! In the coming weeks I'll start working on its application across the website, and a possible use of it dynamically to represent the services my client offers. 

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London Design Festival

London is a fantastic city. I've lived here all my life, and I'm still discovering new places and things to do. One of those things to-do is The London Design Festival, which is held every year. Today I went for the first time. Here are some photos.

Detour - Convent Garden

As part of the festival, Moleskine are displaying the sketchbooks of famous designers in their stores. I love looking through other people's sketchbooks and seeing their processes - two of my favourite books are Graphic and Typography Sketchbooks by Steven Heller & Lisa Talaracio. 

With those books as a benchmark, it felt like a shame to see some notebooks only partially completed, and out of reach in cases. I think some kind of digital display would have come in pretty handy here. 

Going into the Moleskine shop was also a good opportunity to look at their products. I'm intrigued by the Evernote Range, and it's always nice to see a Star Wars reference!

Present & Correct

Present & Correct is an independent stationery shop in Islington, which has some absolutely beautiful products. It took a lot of self-restraint not to buy anything here. A lot. 

For the festival P&C set up a stamp station in the shop, where (mostly adults) could bend over a child-size table and apply ink to a range of cute swiss-looking stamps.

There's some of my stamp-handiwork! I also had a very good look around the shop, here are some of my favourite products. 

Coloured Leather Pencil Cases £17

Office Stationery Capsules - what a nice idea!

Great Looking Desktop Calendar (not actual product name, but totally should be)

Typographic Present Tags (might have to go back for these in time for christmas)

Smug Cafe

Also in Islington is the lovely Smug Cafe/Shop. This place is laid out wonderfully (shop upstairs, cafe downstairs) and feels really cosy. I bet it would be a wonderful for a cup of hot chocolate and a cake...

The woollen fruit display in the front window was really cute too - I wouldn't mind cuddling up to a wooly pineapple!

Inside the shop, I think my favourite things were these wooden owls. I like how stylistically they are crafted with the sharp angles and curves. Reminds me slightly of the illustration style used in Pixar's UP.

It was also here that I picked up a map for Islington's Design District. Will definitely keep it for reference, plus it looks so nice. Must make a mental note to find out the font used...

The last day of the festival is tomorrow, but go if you have the chance! Feels nice to be slightly better acquainted with the design districts of London.

Words and Photographs by Rebecca Duncan

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Studio Research: AllDayEveryDay

AllDayEveryDay is a multidisciplinary graphic design studio with offices in New York and Los Angeles. 

What do they get up to? One of the main reasons I was drawn to AllDayEveryDay is that being a design studio isn't their only pursuit. They also run an online magazine, Digest, which in their words '...reflects the day to day inspiration (they) find in the creative people around' as well as creating short films.

Tell me more about Digest!  Digest is written for the design community, covering a range of topics including style, arts, culture and film. By looking outside conventional graphic design and finding and promoting new creatives they can keep themselves up-to-date with the design world and bring new influences into their work. In a sense, it takes the average graphic designer's activity of flicking through tumblr to another level entirely. 

I also really like the way the articles are presented, with large typography and photographs. It makes everything very readable as well as ridiculously good-looking. 

Who is in charge? The person I'll be addressing my cover letter to is Creative Director and Partner Jake Sumner. He has quite a rich background in film, directing shorts with Spike Lee, and others specifically for AllDayEveryDay. For instance, Fantastic Man - a documentary about Nigerian Synth artist William Onyeabor. Like Digest, this project comes across as self-driven.

What sort of Graphic Design work do they do? AllDayEveryday work within a lot of areas - events design, print, branding and most interestingly content production. As a studio, it comes across that they believe in more than simply good looking design.

Favourite Project? Hard to choose. A general theme in ADED's work that I admire is the use of social media to accomplish new things within branding. Although it's been around for a while now, there have been so many ham-fisted attempts at social media campaigns from designers and ad execs who don't really understand how it works. 

An exception to the rule is ADED's 'C.Frost' campaign, bringing to life the stock name used on sample American Express credit cards. ADED brought a little humour to the American Express Brand with an Instagram campaign documenting C.Frost's adventures in the big city (a little like the postcards from the gnome in Amelie!). 

Outside of social media, I'd say my favourite work from ADED has been for Gap. The photography used completely captures the spirit of the brand, and the campaign concepts are very clever. You can check out the tumblr over here and drool over it a bit. 

In Summary, AllDayEveryDay has a great aesthetic and way of creating and curating design. Their many outputs really set them apart from other studios, and make them a really well-informed, cool place to work for. 

Words By Rebecca Duncan

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Paper Cutting. Bookshelf #3

Paper Cutting: Contemporary Artists, Timeless Craft.

Compiled by Laura Hyengena

How did you come by this book? It was a (really good) Christmas present from my sister.

First impressions? Good! It's a book that I've seen around bookshops for a while now and I'm familiar with Rob Ryan (we're obviously best friends). Having said that, when I started reading at first I wasn't sure how much I would get out of the book. Lots of paper cutters tend to focus on quite twee (in my opinion) things that I don't always 'get' as a more practical designer. I don't always understand illustration, so this book was a good starting point for me. 

How good does it look on the shelf? Though under my definition it's probably quite twee, I love this book cover. It was illustrated by Elsa Mora who does some really beautiful work. Definitely one I'm proud to have on the shelf. 

What’s the author like? There are quite a few authors of this book, though it's mainly pictures. I enjoyed Rob Ryan's preface a lot - he talked about the weird things he (and other paper cutters) did as children. I'm glad he wrote the preface, as he's the only household name for paper cutting, but perhaps the most important function of the book is that it opened my eyes to other artists and their approaches. 

The introduction nicely references all the artists in the book before their individual pages, however I had to flip back to the introduction at some points, so that I could correlate that text with the specific work. It was written in quite an academic tone, which was not expected! In retrospect, this was probably necessary - most of what I knew of paper cutting prior to this was cute greetings cards (unfortunately, no thanks to Ryan!) and memorabilia - the tone took me off guard, but let me view the artists' work with much more respect. 

Did you learn anything? Just a few tidbits on the history of paper cutting. These really put the artists' work in context. For example, my favourite fact is that in some places it used to be standard fare for legal documents and bills to feature some paper cutting design. If you ask me, this should still be case! Would definitely make me more inclined to read my bills!

The more interesting thing that I learnt was the number of different approaches taken by the artists. Everyone had a different methodology, or approached paper cutting with various levels of seriousness. The room for experimentation made it all the more inviting to me. 

Are there lots of pictures? Indeed. Whilst the writing is academic, Paper Cutting remains a coffee table book, but a good one! Here are my four favourite paper cutters: 

• Su Blackwell, who makes three dimensional paper cuts from scenes in her favourite classic novels.

• Nikki McClure, who cuts images of idyllic british countryside life - picking apples and swimming in the sea. 

• Peter Callesen, who makes clever three dimensional images from one sheet of A4.

• Thomas Allen, who makes really witty scenes from pulp fiction novels, re-casting characters for a bit of a giggle

Did it take long to read? No, it was my shortest read so far. I think I read the whole book over two days of train journeys. 

Would you thumb through it again? Possibly. The book has inspired me to give paper cutting a go, but I'm not sure if that will be in the near future! 

What’s next on the bookshelf? I'm currently re-reading 'What Is Graphic Design' by Quentin Newark. This one should take a while, it's pretty theoretical. It was part of my first year reading - I finished it a few days before starting my course. Hopefully I'll understand much more this time round! Fingers crossed!

Words by Rebecca Duncan

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Phoneography #6

Photos from in and around London Town, specifically Old Street.

• The little chalkboard outside Lantana Cafe on City Road always has something nice on it. 

• This poster for The Guest on The Underground which had Dan Stevens' face ripped off it (I think/hope by an angry Downton Abbey fan)

• I had the privilege of getting my own hotel room at The Hoxton a couple of weekends ago. It was wonderful and completely softened the blow of having to work over the weekend. 

• Last but not least some work doodles on a Sunday. I've now finished this notebook - I may do a quick post on my favourite pages. 

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Here's some more progress from my most recent web design project for Keighley Volunteer Centre. You can see my last WIP over here. 

I'm actually really enjoying wireframes. There is something really satisfying about finishing one off and being able to visualise the digital product. 

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Phoneography #5

This is a very delayed phoneography post! Colourful bike sighted in Soho, a couple of weeks ago when I got my hair cut. The sign is from the lovely Love Walk Cafe in Camberwell. Underneath that is my current work note book, which I've nearly finished (and plan to show in a new blog post) and lastly a picture from the Wahaca food stand on the Southbank. Know its only a bin, but I loved the lettering!

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Design Research : Bookshelf #2

Design Research by Neil Leonard and Gavin Ambrose

How did you come by this book? This book is one of the few freebies I was given at the start of my course in 2012.

First impressions? At the time, I didn't really want to go near to any books ( my younger self  thinking:  this is an arts course, how much reading can there be?! ). It looks more on the academic side for a design publication, so it's safe to say that I was scared of it!

How good does it look on the shelf? The spine of Design Research is fairly unspectacular compared to the rest of my books, but I'm quite fond of the cover image (it captures my expression at the mention of design research). You can see the full image inside the book - it's been cleverly cropped to look less terrifying!

How good does it look inside? Having just read How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, the layout of the book was a bit disappointing. There was something about how clean the layout was that made this one - with all its full-colour elements - a bit chaotic. Having said that, compared to other design research books (which are dense as hell) this is laid out very well. Now that I've looked inside, I'm not afraid to read it again.

What’s the author like? I can't say that I felt either Leonard or Ambrose's voices whilst reading Design Research. Whilst the layout is definitely an improvement on the average textbook, the content remains much the same, with a few references to social media thrown in. How current of them. 

Did you learn anything? Yes, though I didn't expect to. The first time I read through Design Research, I skim-read a lot of the sections that my course had covered, and in doing so missed a lot of stuff. Now that I've read it properly, I'm still amazed that someone could write 170 pages on the subject (especially given how little time is allocated for it on my course) but I've picked up a few research techniques I think I'll use on my university briefs. 

Are there lots of pictures? There are pictures throughout Design Research of a variety of projects from students and studios. Some of my favourite contributors were Simon Alander , Emily Hale and Underware. These were usually placed alongside an explanation of a method, though the connection between method and picture was often vague. Some relevant anecdotes could have really brought the methods to life.

There were also interviews with designers in all of the chapters. All of them invariably said something similar about research being the first EVER thing that they do and how they couldn't live without it etc. etc. I would have been more interested to know how they approached researching their most recent project - some more specific advice would have gone a long way. 

Did it take long to read? Though it looks quite dense, this book is mainly pictures. This meant that on my tube/train ride I got through around 30 pages per day, and finished it off in just over a week. 

Would you thumb through it again? I will need to thumb through Design Research again in about a year's time, when I imagine it will be really really useful. Research is one of my weaker points academically so having a good research book on hand should really help.

What’s next on the bookshelf? I'm taking a break from wordy books and looking at Paper Cutting by Laura Heyenga and Natalie Avella. After that, my books start to getting harder to fit in my work bag...

Words by Rebecca Duncan