10.3.09

Hamish Muir Lecture

Today we had an extremely interesting and inspiring talk/lecture from co founder (along with Mark Holt and Simon Johnston) of 8VO (a now defunct design collective) Hamish Muir. I had looked at his work when informed that he would be coming to speak and was unsure of what to make of the heavily layered and abstract typographic usage and layout used within his earlier work.

I found his career story particularly interesting, due to the number of places he had studied, the clients he had done work for and his overall work ethos and ethic (in particular his opinion that you don't need huge ideas, just small ones which you can work with to develop a good piece of design or communication). Also he discussed how important having a firm understanding of type in being a good designer. He also stated that he only uses a small number of fonts as there is no need for the huge number of fonts used by a lot of practitioners today. He named Akzidenz Grotesk, Univers and Futura as some of the few fonts he uses.

His earlier work with 8VO is very experimental and ranges from event publicity (Flux Edinburg music festival) and his on going work for Wim Crouwel (founder of total design in Holland) for the publicity and stationery of exhibitions held at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

The lecture covered so much design work and time that it is difficult to note it all here, however I will say that it was without a doubt the best guest lecture I have attended since starting the Arts Institute two years ago.

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