Meadow Arts: the first 20 years Book

Meadow Arts: the first 20 years

Published by Meadow Arts, 2021

Edited by Tom Jeffreys and Anne de Charmant

Designed by James Brook

ISBN 978 1 5272 8036 6

240 x 165 mm | 80 pages | Printed by Gomer, Wales on 170 gsm Galerie Art Matt with laminated printed paper over board cover with UV spot gloss varnish on the title and quarter bound spine of Fedrigoni Woodstock

This is a book that I designed for Meadow Arts, an organisation that brings unique contemporary art projects to places where art is not usually shown, supporting artists by commissioning new work and creating inspiring events and exhibitions. In 2021, the organisation celebrated twenty years of delivering ambitious and accessible projects in unexpected rural places – Meadow Arts: the first 20 years is a celebration and long-lasting record of these extraordinary – and temporary – projects, featuring contributions from Yinka Shonibare, Alex Hartley, Laura White and Harminder Judge, alongside photo stories from Mariele Neudecker, Philippa Lawrence and Faye Claridge; it includes a foreword by Jonathan Watkins, an essay by art critic Tom Jeffreys, and an in-depth interview with founder and curator Anne de Charmant.

The book is visually rich with almost 200 colour images that are placed next to their references within the various texts – working closely with Meadow Arts, there were several iterations before the final position of the images was settled. The design is based on a strict underlying grid and rigorous typography which, nevertheless, is highly adaptable to accommodate different types of information. The book is typeset in various weights and styles of Adelle Sans alongside Caslon Pro creating a rich palette that could be adapted to create multiple hierarchies and emphases on the page. The book is divided into several sections each requiring a different typographic treatment; the sections were made even more distinct by the subtle use of colour – I created a palette of colours, sampled from some of the imagery in the book, that were used throughout the publication.

For the cover, I was keen to use a photograph of a work by Pablo Bronstein, Chinese Bridges in Landscape, a Meadow Arts commission from 2017, because I felt that, in a single image, it encapsulated all that Meadow Arts is about. The cover is laminated printed paper over board with a printed quarter spine of Fedrigoni Woodstock – after much deliberation, we selected the colour ‘Malva’ as it picks up on the colour of the wildflowers in the foreground of the photograph. The spine is printed with the title of the book in black, and there are head and tail bands that also pick up on these colours. The endpapers of the book are also in Fedrigoni Woodstock Malva giving a tactile feel and a contrast to the matt laminate on the cover. As a final flourish, to amplify the celebratory feel, the reversed out white letters of the title on the cover are picked out with a gloss UV spot varnish. 

www.meadowarts.org

Anne de Charmant, Artistic Director & Curator, Meadow Arts: Working with James on our first publication was an incredibly stress-free and rewarding experience. He immediately understood what type of publication we wanted and he gently steered us towards the finish line with a very special blend of calm and purpose. His careful planning of the work-load and attention to detail bought out the best in all involved. At all time we felt we were in the safest of hands. 

Archie Brennan: Tapestry Goes Pop! Poster

This is a poster that forms part of the identity that I designed for Dovecot Studio’s Archie Brennan: Tapestry Goes Pop! exhibition. Archie Brennan (1931-2019) was a pop artist, weaver, and bodybuilder – a former Mr Scotland – who changed the course of modern weaving and is considered one of the greatest unrecognised pop artists of the twentieth century. In the exhibition, the curators argue that a reason he was unrecognised is most likely because his medium of choice was tapestry. Dovecot’s exhibition, co-curated with National Museums Scotland, tells the story of this much-loved Edinburgh native in the first major exhibition of his work, bringing together over 80 tapestries as well as archive material. 

I had great fun designing this identity and it was wonderful to get a sneak preview of some of the works from the exhibition. For the lead image – which appears in a circle so it can easily be adapted for use in lots of different formats – I decided to go with a detail from Brennan’s 1973 tapestry, Muhammad Ali, one of many tapestries that he made featuring the famous boxer. The colours that form the identity are sampled directly from the photograph of the tapestry and, after presenting the curators with several colour options, we settled on this dark blue as the main colour, with a lighter blue used elsewhere for emphasis.

The exhibition title is set in Stencil, a typeface often associated with pop art – Tom Phillips, an artist who has collaborated with Dovecot Studios and whose work appears in the exhibition, uses a stencil typeface extensively in his work and Brennan has also used the typeface in his wonderfully witty and inventive 1978 tapestry, Burn. For the title, the colours are once again sampled from the photograph of the Muhammad Ali tapestry. 

The rest of the text is set in Clarendon, a typeface that sits well with Stencil and also captures the nostalgic mood that appears in some of Brennan’s tapestries such as My Victorian Aunt from 1967. I had originally planned to use a contrasting sans-serif typeface for the text, particularly for the body text that appears on the exhibition labels, interpretation panels, and the book that accompanies the exhibition but, in the end, after some experiments with other typefaces, I found Clarendon, particularly in its light version, to be surprisingly readable for extended bodies of text. 

The poster has been designed to be printed at A4, A3, A2 and A1; it sits alongside a cohesive suite of marketing and publicity materials that I have designed including graphic images for use on social media, roll-up banners, and outdoor banners. The team at Dovecot have also adapted my design for use on other items. I will post separately about the exhibition graphics that I have designed as well as about the forthcoming book that accompanies the exhibition which I am currently designing, edited by Kate Grenyer and Lisa Mason.

Archie Brennan: Tapestry Goes Pop! continues at Dovecot until 30 August 2021 – you can find out more about the exhibition here.