A charming short film by Danny Cooke about letterpress and one of the few remaining movable-type printing workshops in the UK, situated at Plymouth University. The film features Paul Collier and his passion for keeping the old crafts alive.

Advertise here with BSA

FUEL are possibly best known for their self-published books and magazines which cover a range of topics, from Russian criminals’ tattoos to the design of Sainsbury’s own brand products in the 60′s and 70′s.

They recently launched a new website, which celebrates the work they have created during the last 20 years.

Advertise here with BSA

Conor & David AKA Conor Nolan and David Wall are designers working on print, interactive and identity projects in Dublin, Ireland. Since we featured them last, in 2008, they have worked on a wide range of interesting projects for clients both large and small. They have also redesigned their website, which I think is rather good!

Advertise here with BSA

Filthy Media is a Brighton based studio that specialise in graphic design for music and fashion.

They have recently refreshed their branding and relaunched their website. As part of this process Filthy created a self promotional poster shoot further with your flamethrower of love which uses a bespoke font Filthy Black Italic and references their name and the generic Viagra spam emails that may have found their way into your inbox at some point.

Advertise here with BSA

We’ve featured Alex Trochut‘s work several times here on FormFiftyFive. Alex was even kind enough to grant us an exclusive interview back in 2009 – you can see that here.

Alex recently launched a redesigned website featuring a body of new projects together with his established work. Alex’s compositions, which mix design, illustration and typography are linked together by the “more is more” style he is well known for. Although his work is obviously maximalist, Alex is able to bring a delicacy and level of detail to his work that sets his creations apart.

The image above is from a new collaborative project with ceramicist Apparatu. Between them they have created a range of “skate fails” that re-interpret the classic skateboard as deconstructed ceramics. For the serious fans there’s a shop too – where prints can be purchased (€120–€200).

Advertise here with BSA

Ten years ago two students posted a thread on a forum asking for people to submit t-shirt designs, the best of which would be printed and sold. This was the beginning of Threadless, and a decade of online community based t-shirt design.

Today, Threadless is an international business that has a following of over a million members who design, critique, vote for and buy their products. The Threadless business model – now known as crowd-sourcing – is taught in business schools and the community has often acted as a springboard, launching the careers of several designers.

Threadless: ten years of t-shirts from the world’s most inspiring online design community celebrates the past decade of the company’s life. It relives the steps taken from the early days when the two founders invested $500 each to get their hobby off the ground, through to the Threadless of today, which has recently penned deals with the likes of Dell Inc., Havaianas and Disney – for whom they will be sourcing designs to be applied to laptop cases, flip-flops and t-shirts to promote the release of the film Tron.

The Threadless business model is based on being able to engage and involve the design community. This approach is reflected in the cover design of the book, which brings together the story of Threadless in a “colossal collaboration” of weird and wonderful characters submitted by previous Threadless t-shirt designers.

The book has been designed by A-Side Studio and takes the reader through a chronological journey of the company’s history, showcasing 300 t-shirt designs. Founder Jake Nickell’s account of Threadless’ growth sits alongside interviews with contributors successful in getting their designs onto fabric. There are image montages showing some of the most successful t-shirts being worn, and short insights into the story behind each design. This is interspersed with mini essays, both on Threadless and other topics, from guest authors including Seth Godin and John Maeda.

Working through the 224 pages, it is interesting to see the successful styles and trends  evolve as the book progresses. Early Threadless designs use largely one or two colour vector graphics applied to a standard area on the chest of the shirt. Later we see more complex designs that lean towards a hand crafted aesthetic. To a degree, this reflects the past decade of design in general, but it also shows how Threadless has refined its printing and production techniques over the years. As Threadless has grown, so the company’s core market has changed; once strictly a designers’ playground, it now appeals to a wider creative audience.

All in all this is an enjoyable book. It might not be one of the design classics that you return to time and time again, but it is much more than just a catalogue of t-shirt design (although if you’re interested in trends of t-shirt design over the last decade it provides a useful reference). It’s a story of the conceptual development of a creative business, an insight into designers’ personalities, and a demonstration of the success of interactive techniques to involve customers in decision making, creating a community of users and designers. It contains a good mix of image and text and is accessible and visually appealing. The tone at times is rather self congratulating, but perhaps this can be excused given the success of Threadless over the last ten years. As the sleeve text says, Threadless “is a t-shirt store, but that isn’t really the point”. This celebration of a “global t-shirt phenomenon” will appeal to anyone interested in what happens when you combine popular design, a community approach and a constantly evolving repertoire of products.

You can buy the book here for only £8.00.

Words by: Mark Ferguson. Photographs by: Malcolm Menzies. Location: Fabrics Galore – London.

UPDATE: Like always, because Malcolm has done such a good job of shooting this lovely book we’ve put up the hi-quality original shots of the Threadless book online on our FFF Flickr Pool.

Advertise here with BSA

The Deutsche Bank logo was originally designed by Anton Stankowski in the early 1970’s and is still in use today. As part of their work with the bank, 2br has created an identity manual to ensure that those standards, set almost 40 years ago, remain intact today. It would seem that with 2br the iconic brand is in safe hands.

Advertise here with BSA

Sheffield based designer David Bailey of design studio Kiosk has launched a new website.

Advertise here with BSA

Without need for a lengthy introduction. Build have launched their new website.

Advertise here with BSA

Luke Lucas is a designer from Melbourne, Australia with a 3D typographic slant to his work. He works for Lifelounge and and you can see his Behance folio here.

Advertise here with BSA