Guy explains the building process of the new Sawdust website:

It was all about bringing Sawdust’s work to the fore — creating something that could act as a framework to let their work shine.

Early on they talked about using full bleed photography, they were also keen on having one page showing all of their projects and gave me early designs featuring a grid of thumbnails in four columns.

From there, I went off and began to prototype and see what we could do with these two layout ideas as starting points.

I like to get my hands dirty with markup/code at an early stage when the details aren’t completely defined as I think there’s discoveries that can be made iteratively in the browser that cannot be found using design software.

I was hoping to avoid a fixed width grid, and instead wanted to use a flexible layout which adapts to different screen sizes and resolutions which led to the use of a flexible, responsive, column structure.

We also felt it’d be a nice addition to have the project thumbs work as small gallery previews of the detailed project pages they click through to. So what you see are essentially miniature previews of each project page. jQuery Cycle was invaluable for these little thumbnail carousels.

The way project images are displayed also follows this adaptive principle. I used a full bleed layout to give Sawdust’s excellent photography room to shine, especially on big screens.

Technically, to achieve this, I hacked on a full browser background image plugin called jQuery Supersized, going on to add bespoke navigation and keyboard controls myself.

The little touch of animating the work with filters was added to bring the site to life in a slightly playful way and I have David Desandro’s excellent jQuery Isotope to thank for that.

With these two main work layouts in place, the rest followed really. I worked on the IA and put the framework of the site together in CodeIgniter and from there it was a question of getting live data connected to templates.

It’s always a pleasure working with Sawdust — we have good communication and a tried and trusted iterative process. With this third incarnation of their site, I really wanted to try to make something that moved things forward — honouring and respecting a grid, but also breaking out of it.

Guy Moorhouse – @Futurefabric –  http://futurefabric.co.uk

Rob Gonzalez, Jonathan Quainton – @sawdust_design –  http://madebysawdust.co.uk

I Don’t Want The World [Print]

“I Don’t Want The World” is a print inspired by a statement scrawled on a wall in our home city, typeset in a specially created bespoke font.

Bell & Smokey [Branding, Print and Web]

Established in 2010, Bell & Smokey is an online boutique which specialises in selling unique high-end womens fashion. Family were approached to create a brand identity that reflected their vision, including everything from packaging and clothing tags through to lookbooks and their online presence.

Fait à la Maison [Print]

We created this print specially for a Dublin-based exhibition, based on the theme of ‘Homemade’.

http://designedbyfamily.com — @studiofamily

The harmonious and simultaneous balance of classic and contemporary characteristics of real estate agent and certified EcoBroker, Michelle Lazar led us to a very natural identity solution.

Immediately, we sought to create Michelle both a monogram and logotype to be used together as well as individually – circumstance dependent. The decision to use Ricky Banks F37 Bella was a simple one. Being designed in the French, Didot style, Bella is imbued with the very same character traits as our client.

To visually strengthen the monogram and help reinforce the notion of Michelle’s professionalism we increased the weight of Bella’s more hairline features in the “M” and “L”. To remain true to her softer side we retained Bella’s original weight when creating her logotype. Color choice seeks to convey Michelle’s inherent trusthworthiness, loyalty, and all around business savvy.

http://bergerfohr.com/

Photography credit: Bartholomäus Traubeck

A record player that plays slices of wood. Year ring data is translated into music, 2011. Modified turntable, computer, vvvv, camera, acrylic glass, veneer, approx. 90x50x50 cm.A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently.


Thanks to Land Salzburg, Schmiede, Pro-ject Audio, Karla Spiluttini, Ivo Francx, vvvv, Rohol.

Bartholomäus Traubeck

Roll & Hill is a New York City based manufacturer of high end contemporary lighting. We design all the print collateral including a bi-annual newspaper and catalog. The newspaper features new product introductions, designer information and interviews and is typically released to coincide with the Salone de Mobile and ICFF. The catalogs needed to function as individual spec sheets as well as one full catalog. By punching notches into each spec sheet, they could be used individually as well as collated and bound by a rubber band. The solution allowed the catalog to expand or be customized according to each customer’s needs. The deluxe version is enclosed in a foil stamped cloth cover.

Core 77 Design Awards Identity and Call for Entries

Core77 Design Awards is a newly launched competition for design. The brief called for an identity that felt established yet new. The logotype was created as a flexible system allowing various configurations of the name to function on different collateral. Once the full identity system was worked out, it was printed on the back of the very first call for entries, thereby revealing the entire process of the identity’s creation. Two versions of the call for entries were created, one was a luxurious cloth mounted piece and the other a more economical 1 color poster which was sent to everyone that registered for the competition.

The Future Perfect ICFF Poster

During ICFF, the Future Perfect store in Manhattan hosted an event featuring new works from designers including: Lindsey Adelman, Jason Miller, Matthew Hilton, Donna Wilson, and Terence Woodgate. The store needed a giveaway with information about the event and designers. In addition to this information, the Future Perfect wanted to promote their Manhattan location as many people were only aware of their store in Brooklyn.
Our solution was a poster pad featuring a neon yellow glue edge. For the back of the poster, we created an extremely detailed illustration of the physical Manhattan storefront. This could then be folded to create your own miniature TFP store.

Artecnica NYIGF Poster/Catalog

A four page catalog that unfolds into a poster. Designed for Artecnica’s new product launch at the New York International Gift Fair. The idea was to focus on the products, featuring them as large as possible in scale to each other.

Many thanks to Alex for the wonderful selection of images and for putting the captions together — Studio Lin.

United Bamboo is a New York City and Tokyo based fashion house founded in 1998. We were commissioned to create invitations for their seasonal fashion shows. Our solution is based on only one design, which we produced in a different way for every season. For Spring/Summer the invitation took the form of an embroidered iron-on patch. After the show, it could be ironed on to clothing or bags. The shiny embroidered type and blue color scheme was reminiscent of a bright day on the ocean, the inspiration for the S/S collection. For Fall/Winter the invite was produced as a flexible refrigerator magnet to reflect that season’s masculine and somber mood.

Man Made Catalog

Studio Museum in Harlem is a nexus for African American Art based in Harlem, NYC. This catalog accompanied Stephen Burks’ first show at the museum. Working closely with Stephen Burks and the Studio Museum in Harlem, we came up with a list of criteria for Stephen’s exhibition catalog. First and foremost, the catalog should feel “artisanal.” Much like Stephen’s work, the catalog should strive to be an amalgam of different influences, textures, pictures, colors, layouts and materials. There should be no right or wrong way to read it, as the entering point for each reader will vary. The biggest challenge here was to create a mass produced object (in this case, 2,000 catalogs) on a limited budget that felt like each one was artisanal; hand-made and unique. 

In approaching this challenge, we looked at all the variables we could play with to achieve maximum variation with each catalog. First, we structured the content into 5 categories: Text, Image, Essay, Collage, and Sketch. Each of these five categories were then limited in length to 16 page signatures, so that we could use a different paper stock for each category. Paper stocks were chosen based on creating maximum contrast. By binding the signatures together in 5 different sequences, we were able to introduce even more variation. In order for this difference in sequences to be apparent, the cover and back cover needed to be clear, so we chose a plastic material which allowed the different front and back pages to show through. The title was then silkscreened onto each cover. For binding, we used a vinyl coated cloth material normally used as gaffer’s tape. This material came in many different colors, but we limited our selection to 10. Each book was then bound with 1 of 10 different color tapes. By working within these constraints, we were able to produce over 25 different variations of catalogs without incurring much additional cost.

Erwan Frotin Invitation and Portfolio

This is an invitation and portfolio package created for photographer Erwan Frotin’s Wildflowers exhibition at Art + Commerce. We captured the spirit of Erwan’s photo series by air brushing the edges of each invitation with gradient colors.

A new post featuring more work by Studio Lin will be published later in the week — Studio Lin’s new site.

Spectrum approached us last summer to produce a film that would allow people to learn more about the charity and how they care for individuals with autism and its associated behavioural disorders.

Swept away by their passion and enthusiasm we embarked on this ambitious animated film, working closely with them to develop a script and visual approach that were a true representation of their ethos
and personality.

We’ve enjoyed working with Spectrum immensely – a great team of people doing some amazing work – and are really proud of what we’ve achieved.

More works by Art & Graft.