Well travelled Italian Scots designer Pete Rossi has spent some time this year working at the fantastic Studio Astrid Stavro in Majorca, where he had a chance to work on some great publishing projects. The Spanish Advertising Annual 2011 ‘Club de Creativos’ is well worth a look; it features exquisite pencil drawn illustrations on uncoated paper stock in the annual’s ‘Ideas’ section, contrasted beautifully with full colour reproductions on coated paper for the ‘Execution’ section. Pete has also recently returned from a visit stateside, where he was bestowed with the honour of Young Gun 2011 by the Art Directors Club of New York. A truly impressive achievement, doing Scottish design proud — congratulations Pete.

Glasgow studio O Street have a new site with a smattering of new projects. There’s some particularly strong branding work on show, one of the more noteworthy examples being the new identity for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The identity was launched to coincide with the major refurbishment of the Edinburgh gallery’s landmark building, which re-opened to the public on 1 December. Focusing on the word ‘Portrait’, the typographic mark can change its character to reflect the wide range of the art and colourful personalities that the collection presents. Great example of a simple, well executed and flexible concept. It seems there’s plenty more where that came from too.

Central Station are currently going through some big changes, with Central Station v2 set to launch at the end of this month. The primary change to the site will be a shift in focus away from being an online community towards becoming a ‘network of networks’. Those with profiles and work on the site may want to make sure they have their projects available to view on other networks such as Béhance, Flickr and Vimeo, as the Portfolios section will be removed as part of the change. You can read more about the changes in the recent Central Station v2 blog post.

As part of the launch, Central Station will be running ‘50 Artists in 50 Days’, which will see a different member featured every day for the first 50 days of v2. A great opportunity to gain some free publicity if you get in there early enough. Check the 50 x 50 post in Central Station’s Opportunities section for details.

Photographer Theo Simpson seems to be keeping busy as ever and has provided details of his latest show. Opening Saturday 27 August (tomorrow—sorry for short notice!) at the Site Gallery in Sheffield, ‘[A] Perspective of the Future’ provides the official launch of Simpson and design collaborator Ben McLaughlin’s ‘What We Buy’ publication with exhibits of the pair’s work from the past year also on show.

Get down to the opening for a look and a few drinks if you’re local. (It’s free by the way.)

Site Gallery 1 Brown Street Sheffield S1 2BS

[A] Perspective of the Future Opening Night: Saturday 27 August, 6pm—10pm Exhibition runs until 27 August 2011

Sheffield-based photographer Theo Simpson has just released a new limited edition publication. What We Buy documents products currently available to buy in the UK for £1 or less. The study investigates the nature of those products, the illusion of value and the purposelessness and humour of the things we are seduced by.

The piece takes the form of a 310mm x 250mm die-cut folder, screen printed in white and black ink containing eight unbound 4-colour process screen prints with offset printed flysheet, packaged in a PVC wallet.The edition of 200 is available to buy online (using link above), at the Site Gallery in Sheffield and the Design Museum in London.

Photographer Theo Simpson has been in touch to tell us about his most recent project Eight, a collaboration with Craig Barker. Eight features a series of strikingly composed photographs of electricity pylons, presented within a limited edition one colour screen printed book — roughly A2 in size. Simpson and Barker provide their own synopsis of the project:

‘Eight is a meditation on the architectural vestige of Sir Reginald Blomfield who orchestrated, designed and selected the initial transmission towers for the UK. His vision remained faithful to the original Greek meaning of the word pylon as a monumental ancient Egyptian gateway to the sun.’

Eight’s limited edition of 50 is available to purchase online from Various Points, as is Dead Ends — another publication featuring Simpson’s photography.

Found this great little article; A Look Inside the Sketchbooks of 12 Top Designers. Lovely images and interesting insights into the sketching habits of design icons such as Stefan Sagmeister, Milton Glaser and Pentagram New York’s Michael Beirut — taken from a new book by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World’s Great Graphic Designers. It’s all there, from loose sketches and doodles to carefully constructed layouts. Great coffee break viewing.

(via www.fastcodesign.com)

Just a reminder for all you folks who reside north of the border— after its usual summer break, LongLunch is back with a belter of a talk from the fantastic Bibliothèque. Event 40 will be held at Edinburgh College of Art on Thursday 7 October, doors open at the usual start time of 7pm. Get yourselves some tickets here—grown ups £8 and students £6.

It’s degree show season and I recently had the pleasure of visiting my old stomping ground, Duncan of Jordanstone for a nosey at the latest batch of graduate talent. Some strong pieces in the graphics show, but a stand out for me was Liam Bonar. A nicely crafted mixture of strong typographic layouts alongside bold, atmospheric photography of whisky distilleries and urban landscapes makes for a varied and interesting graduate portfolio.

I was just having a five minute tea break—of which I probably have too many—and happened across this site for the Pantone™ Hotel in Brussels. Not sure quite what I make of it, but I do find it incredibly intriguing. Are Pantone™ actually on a mission to take over the world? Will they beat Richard Branson, Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs et al to the punch? Seems like they might be on course:

“The PANTONE HOTELTM is part of the new PANTONE UNIVERSE, an expanding line of colorful, design-driven products to touch and tempt consumers.”

If anyone’s going to Brussels any time soon, why not book into Pantone™ and let us all know what you think?

The next instalment of LongLunch’s series of FREE talks by Scottish design agencies is now upon us. Thursday night at Glasgow School of Art will see Glasgow agency Marque take the floor in what should be another thoroughly informative and entertaining session. I should add that the sessions in the pub after are always good as well.

This event is fully booked at the moment, but if you have reserved a place and can’t make it, please get in touch with LongLunch ASAP to let them know.

The word ‘legend’ is banded about all too easily these days. Having said that, a real living legend—Milton Glaser—was recently honoured with the 2009 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama. This year, Glaser was one of twelve recipients of the award for outstanding achievements and support of the arts in the US. Interestingly, this is the first time that this award has been given to a graphic designer. Heartfelt congratulations to Mr Glaser on this thoroughly deserved accolade.

via printmag.com

Scottish designer Richy Lamb has just launched his new site, featuring a strong range of identity & print work and some very nicely produced artists’ books.

I’m assuming that most of you learned design-types out there enjoy reading Mr Michael Johnson’s Thought for the Week from time to time. Even so, I thought this rather charming entry was worth sharing. It’s a series of anonymous Post-it notes from students of the Graphic Design & Photography course at Kingston University with answers to the question, ‘Why do you want to become a graphic designer?’ Wouldn’t mind seeing some more of these!

The guys at LongLunch have asked us to remind those of you within shooting distance of Edinburgh to get yourselves down to Analogue Books tonight. Anthony Burrill is still in town and his exhibition is opening at 7pm — so get down there for some visual delight and a beer or two.

Analogue Books 102 West Bow Edinburgh EH1 2HH