One of a series designed by James Brook for Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh.
From the Archive: Dovecot What's On Guide | January-June 2018
Manipulate Festival Posters
The posters are part of a wider identity that I have designed for MANIPULATE that has been adapted for a suite of deliverables including a programme guide, posters of various sizes, online and printed advertisements, social media assets, digital posters, lanyards, and a ‘takeover’ of The Skinny website. As well as a general poster, there are a further five posters promoting individual shows and events at venues in Edinburgh including Fruitmarket, National Library of Scotland, Traverse Theatre, Summerhall and the Festival Theatre.
The starting point for the identity was an animation of the MANIPULATE logo created by Jamie Macdonald that was used as an ident to announce the festival. Taking inspiration from Jamie’s animation, I created a background image of a galaxy of stars featuring green clouds – green being one of the colours in the animation and selected by the MANIPULATE team to be a key colour. Along with the MANIPULATE logo, this background appears in all of the assets that I have designed, creating a cohesive and distinct set of visuals.
The posters have been designed in sizes ranging from A3 to A0 but these ones were printed by the arts agency Jack Arts and measure 1016 mm w x 1524 mm. As a designer, it’s always exciting to see things as full size objects in the real world having designed them on a computer screen, but especially so when they are on this scale! More posters will appear as the festival gets in full swing.
From the Archive: Dovecot What's On Guide | August-December 2015
One of a series designed by James Brook for Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh.
From the Archive: Scraps From The Bottom Of My Pocket
Vincent Dachy
Published by Artwords Press, London, 2013
Designed by James Brook
ISBN 978 1 906441 29 6
Printed on Olin paper by Aldgate Press, London
96 pages with soft cover
153 x 228 mm | Edition of 500
Happy New Year
Season's Greetings
Perspectives Issue 2
Published by Haileybury, 2022
Editor-in-chief: Toby Parker
Editor: Kathryn Koon
Photography: Anya Campbell
Designed by James Brook
210mm x 245mm | 40 pages | Printed on 150 gsm Edixion Offset with 300 gsm machine-sealed soft cover by Gomer, Wales
This is the second issue of Perspectives, a magazine that I designed, published by Haileybury School. The publication was developed from a desire to showcase the school’s heritage, current academic and cultural issues and new research about the school’s collections. It has been established in order to examine its role in a variety of cultural practices and issues, and to think critically about the way in which it interacts with other cultural institutions locally, nationally and globally.
For the design of the magazine, I worked closely with Toby Parker, the Director of Learning and Research at Haileybury. Through a series of conversations and exchanges of visual material, I developed a design that makes some nods to Haileybury’s visual identity but which is distinct enough to stand alone.
The design is based around a flexible layout that can accommodate different types of information, giving each section of the magazine its own distinct identity. The basic layout is a three column grid with type arranged on one or two columns giving a variety that helps differentiate each article. Titles, body text and images are often hung from a guideline that runs through the magazine giving a sense of order which is occasionally broken to create emphasis or visual energy. I have used type at different sizes, weights and combinations to create interesting titles and headers, arranged in sometimes playful ways with the text and images.
My initial thoughts for the choice of typeface was to use a serif and sans-serif that have been designed to work together – I initially considered Meta Pro and Meta Serif Pro or Freight Sans Pro and Freight Text Pro. The school’s branding is based around the typefaces Calluna and Calluna Sans, so, although not a requirement to do so, it made sense to use these typefaces in the magazine. Calluna has some interesting characteristics that are revealed when the typeface is used at a larger scale, as on the masthead.
Images are prioritised in the magazine: some were specifically chosen to be placed within particular articles but I was also given another set of images, of members of staff photographed by Anya Campbell, to be placed throughout the magazine to act as punctuation and to create an alternative dialogue that runs alongside the main articles.
The magazine is published quarterly with issues in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Each issue will be themed, with this one titled ‘Legacy’.
Tracey Emin: I Lay Here For You Book
Edited by Eleanor Edmondson
Texts by Katy Hessel, Nicky Wilson and Claire Feeley
Photography by Keith Hunter and Allan Pollok-Morris
Published by Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, 2022
Designed by James Brook
ISBN 978 1 9164 8691 1
Hardback | 165 x 220 mm | 96 pages | Printed and bound by Gomer Press Ltd, Llandysul, Wales, on Munken Lynx Smooth Natural White 170 gsm with endpapers of Colorplan Candy Pink 135 gsm; matt laminate printed cover with black head and tail bands
Produced as part of Jupiter Artland’s Artist Commission series, I Lay Here For You documents Tracey Emin’s exhibition – including her monumental bronze permanent sculpture – at Jupiter Artland in Summer 2022. Alongside photography by Keith Hunter and Allan Pollok-Morris, the book includes texts by Nicky Wilson and Claire Feeley as well as an essay by Katy Hessel, author of The Story of Art without Men.
The size, format, layout and typography of the book adapts the design that I created for Phyllida Barlow: quarry, published by Jupiter Artland in 2018. Like quarry, the book is typeset throughout in Meta Serif Pro but, in this case, the body text is set in the light version of the typeface giving it a less heavy feel than the regular weight used in quarry; all other typefaces are one step lighter than their counterparts in quarry.
The paper is Munken Lynx Smooth Natural White, a very slightly creamy off-white that gives a slight warmth chosen to complement the images of Emin’s drawings, paintings and prints. The cover drops the cloth quarter binding of quarry for a wraparound printed cover that has a scuff-free matt laminate. For the front cover image, I had to extend the image in Photoshop so that there was enough of the image to wrap around the cover boards – the original image was only as wide as the front cover – I am pleased and relieved that this has worked out! Candy Pink Colorplan endpapers make an unexpected contrast to the lush greens on the cover and echo some of the colours found in Emin’s work.
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