In Baskerville’s memory

Visit the 2008 Plus International Design Festival and you will be able to watch history in the making.

For more than 230 years John Baskerville has been at rest in an unmarked grave in the city, but this is about to change as Gabriel Hummerstone, sculptor of bespoke memorials will carve a commemorative plaque in memory of Birmingham’s typographic genius.

Baskerville had composed his own memorial:

Stranger –Beneath this Cone in unconsecrated ground
A friend to the liberties of mankind directed his body to be inhum’d
May the example contribute to emancipate thy mind
From the idle fears of superstition
And the wicked arts of Priesthood.

and it is this text that Hummerstone will use as he carves the plaque using Baskerville’s letters on Welsh slate.

Come and watch as history is made.

For more information visit http://www.youplusus.net/.

Bookings for the Festival are open and can be made online at http://www.youplusus.net/.

One-day ticket £15.00 (£10.00 concessions)
Full-Festival ticket £40.00 (£25.00 concessions)

Plus+ Touring the city with the Walking Tours

Visit the 2008 Plus International Design Festival and join one of our walking tours exploring the typographic complexity of Birmingham’s urban environment – they are a great way to see this familiar city from a new perspective. Tours run throughout the Festival and are aimed at both practitioners and students of design, local historians and visitors. The walks look at a variety of typographic forms that can be found in the street and are conducted by an experienced and informative guide with both local knowledge and typographic understanding.

Our guide is Ben Waddington, a Birmingham-based historian with an especial interest in architecture, industrial history and typography. His guided tours for this year’s Plus festival will include the evergreen John Baskerville tour, which follows the story of the innovative C18th Birmingham printer. He will also conduct a Type Tour of the City Centre and beyond, which will explore the use of lettering on buildings, public art, mosaics, signs, plaques and ephemeral vestiges of the past.

Digbeth Type Tour: Exploring use of typography and handwritten letterforms in industrial Digbeth side streets. The area's history revealed through its use of type.

Baskerville's Birmingham: the history of Birmingham's most famous typographer, John Baskerville (1706 - 1775). Artifacts, locations and type specimens associated with Baskerville will be visited, around Birmingham City Centre.

Blue Plaques tour: The history of Birmingham and of the Blue Plaque itself: changing and improving designs, layouts, type use &c. The tour also covers plaques other than Blue; many forms of wall mounted commemorative texts around the City Centre.

City Type Tour: Birmingham history as shown through its typography. Civil, monumental and commercial use of typeforms will be explored in Birmingham City Centre.

For Walking Tours bookings please email Magda at info@youplusus.net.

Timetable

5/11/2008 WEDNESDAY
12:00 - 13:30 1. Digbeth Type Tour

Meeting Point: Festival Reception

6/11/2008 THURSDAY
12:00 - 13:30 2. Digbeth Type Tour

Meeting Point: Festival Reception
14:30 - 16:00 3. Baskerville's Type Tour

Meeting Point: Baskerville House, Broad Street, B1

7/11/2008 FRIDAY
12:00 - 13:30 4. Digbeth Type Tour

Meeting Point: Festival Reception
14:30 - 16:00 5. Blue Plaques Tour

Meeting Point: Baskerville House, Broad Street, B1

8/11/2008 SATURDAY
12:00 - 13:30 6. City Type Tour

Meeting Point: Baskerville House, Broad Street, B1

One-day ticket £15.00 (£10.00 concessions) Full-Festival ticket £40.00 (£25.00 concessions) Discounts available on groups of 10 or more.

For more information visit http://www.youplusus.net/.

Bookings for the Festival are now open and can be made online.

FREE Marketing Surgeries from Business Link at Plus+

FREE MARKETING SURGERIES FROM BUSINESS LINK

Friday 7 November 10:00-12:00

How does marketing and exploiting digital technology enhance your business? Would you benefit from the latest guidance on marketing and the key components of a marketing plan and the benefits that if can deliver to a business?

If your business would benefit from free advice and support on marketing strategies and business growth, sign up for a half hour one-to-one surgery with Business Link’s specialist advisers at Plus+.

You must indicate which session you would like to attend. Places are limited, so make sure you book one of these sessions through info@youplusus.net

10:00-10:30
10:30-11:00
11:00-11:30
11:30-12:00

Exhibitors in Plus+

Visit the 2008 Plus International Design Festival and view the work of some of the most inspirational and innovative work from both established an up-and-coming agencies, designers and illustrators which this year include:

4Talent
Jane Anderson
Baskerville Project
Birmingham City University
Matt Cannon
Clusta
Coventry University
Designers Republic
Timothy Donaldson
Feed
Fluid
Fused
Girls Who Draw
Illuminate Lighting Ltd
Periscope
Karoline Rerrie
Joe Rogers
Smile
Stereographic
Andrew Spackman
Type
We Make Art
WOK Media
Wolverhampton University

For more information visit http://www.youplusus.net/.

Bookings for the Festival are now open and can be made online at http://www.youplusus.net/.

One-day ticket £15.00 (£10.00 concessions)
Full-Festival ticket £40.00 (£25.00 concessions)

Discounts available on groups of 10 or more.

eOffice Workshops List for Plus+

Visit the 2008 Plus International Design Festival and you will have more to do than simply look at the exhibits and listen to the lectures – you’ll be able to get you hands dirty with a range of workshops and feast your eyes as you watch other people work on a range of crafts and technologies that include, sponsor it by eOffice.

4Talent Writing sugeries

Coventry Univeristy Letterpress printing

Tim Donaldson Big letters

Alex Hughes Cartoons

Gabriel Hummerstone Stone carving

Barry McKay Bookbinding

Periscope On-line studio management system

Screen Media Lab Creative Suite

Linda Winnett Calligraphy

For more information visit http://www.youplusus.net/.

Have you book your ticket already if not you can do it online at http://www.youplusus.net/.

One-day ticket £15.00 (£10.00 concessions)
Full-Festival ticket £40.00 (£25.00 concessions)

Discounts available on groups of 10 or more.


See us also at the Field of Light part of the Hello Digital Festival 23-26 October 2008.

BCU Lecture Programme

The Plus International Design Festival is pleased to announce a full and engaging lecture programme including talks from:

Jonathan Barnbrook Barnbrook Design UK
Barnbrook is arguably most recognised for his work on the cover artwork of David Bowie's 2002 album Heathen which featured the debut for his 'Priori' typeface. Barnbrook collaborated with Damien Hirst, most notably on the design, layout and typography of his book I Want To Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now.

Steve Bell Cartoonist, The Guardian UK
Steve Bell is a political cartoonist, whose work appears in The Guardian and other publications. He is probably best known for the daily strip called If..., which has appeared in The Guardian newspaper since 1981, and since the mid-1990s he has also been that newspaper's principal editorial cartoonist.

Jason Conrad Red Bee Media UK
Red Bee Media are specilists in creating, enhancing, delivering, promoting and navigating content. Primarily for TV, but with screens popping up all over the place these days, they’ve quickly become experts in multi–platform technology - TV, video on–demand, broadband, IPTV, and mobile.

Jamie Wieck Airside UK
Airside is a cross-platform design agency that works in moving image, graphic design, illustration, digital and real world interaction. Founded ten years ago by Alex Maclean, Fred Deakin and Nat Hunter, Airside's unique approach has won many awards.

Jeff Willis Perks Willis Design UK
A Fellow of the Royal College of Art, London Jeff remains active as a graphic designer having formed Perks Willis Design in 1990. He is a member of Design and Art Direction, the International Society of Typographic Designers, a member of the Sign Design Society and a member of the Higher Education Academy.

The lecture programme is sponsored by Birmingham City University.

For more information visit http://www.youplusus.net/

Bookings for the Festival are now open and can be made online at http://www.youplusus.net/.

One-day ticket £15.00 (£10.00 concessions)
Full-Festival ticket £40.00 (£25.00 concessions)

Discounts available on groups of 10 or more.


See us also at the Field of Light part of the Hello Digital Festival 23-26 October 2008.

Stereographic exhibiting at Plus+

Stereographic is a design duo that puts ideas at the core of all it does. It was formed to provide an antidote to design without substance. Once Stereographic has arrived at a killer concept, it turns top pencil, camera, computer or a mixture of techniques to deliver striking visuals. Stereographic loves what it does and believes in having fun with design!

Stereographic is design and photography duo Sam Underwood and George Benson.

Working on both commercial and arts projects, they develop arresting visuals through a mix of their photography and design combined with made media, illustration, motion, sound and more.

Also working on consultation and branding projects, they help organisations engage with their audience more effectively through the development of distinctive ideas and visuals in design.
They create work for print and the web but also work on animation, video and exhibition projects. Clients include The New Art Gallery Walsall, Birmingham Opera Company, New Scientist, Autodesk and Dorling Kindersley.

Type tart project

Just to remind you the closing date for submissions for the type tart project is 30 October 2008.

If you’ve not yet picked up the brief we are inviting people to have some graphic fun and design a tart card either for a typeface or a letter of the alphabet – all in aid of St Bride Library.

If you are unfamiliar with these things, tart cards are the means by which London prostitutes advertise their services. Step in to any Central London call box and you can contemplate up to eighty cards inviting you to be tied, teased, spanked or massaged either in luxury apartments, fully-equipped chambers or the privacy of your own hotel room. So pervasive are these things, and so curious is their typography, images and copy writing they are now regarded as bona fide items of accidental art and have something of a cult following. Once on the periphery of design, the cards have influenced the work of many mainstream artists including Royal Academician Tom Philips and Sex Pistols designers, Ray and Nils Stevenson. Perhaps they can inspire you too? Maybe Sabon would invite you to caress its counters, or Palatino would advertise its ‘Mega Serifs’. Bodoni boasts some magnificent finials, Baskerville’s swash can really inflict some pain, and Century Schoolbook would undoubtedly keep you in after class. However you see the alphabet there is a type-tart in every letter.

For more information visit http://www.uktype.com/ or http://www.youplusus.net/.

Bookings for the Festival are now open and can be made online at http://www.youplusus.net/.

One-day ticket £15.00 (£10.00 concessions)
Full-Festival ticket £40.00 (£25.00 concessions)

Discounts available on groups of 10 or more.

See us also at the Field of Light, part of the Hello Digital Festival 23-26 October 2008.

Booking Tickets NOW OPEN

No more waiting, now you can buy your tickets online for Plus+, you just need to go here, register and choose when you want to come to the festival.

To have entry access to all Festival activities for the 4 days of the event including exhibitions, workshops, walking tours, talks and seminars and the Festival party you can pay:

-Full Festival ticket - £40.00.

-Full Festival ticket concessions: students, retired, unemployed - £25.00.

And if you only can come one day, the day ticket includes entry to all Festival activities for the day (Wednesday or Thursday or Friday) on which the ticket has been purchased including exhibitions, workshops, walking tours, talks and seminars. It does not include admission to the Festival party.

- 1-day ticket - £15.00

- 1-day ticket concessions: students, retired, unemployed - £10.00

Saturday only - £5.00

Come to Plus+ and put a smile in your face

Plus is welcoming Smile Creative Consultants a partnership consisting of Matt lees, Susan Coles and Nathan Monk. Smile loves clean, modern lines partnered with contemporary typography. They are also very passionate about the finer details of their work. Smile has been lucky to work with other creatives such as Victoria Hill and Alex Bermingham. Beside exhibitng at Plus+, Smile is working at The Baskerville Project.

Illuminate is welcoming the Plus+ visitors

Last year Illuminate welcomed the 3500 people who came to the festival with the big Plus+ symbol sculpture, this year Illuminate will welcome our visitors with a light interactive sequence named Field of Light.

Illuminate is concerned with pioneering and groundbreaking design: in particular the creation and realization of cutting-edge, graphic light installations with an interactive element. It produces high-quality eco-friendly lighting-systems with both a commercial application and aesthetic appeal. In addition, Illuminate creates unique conceptual art pieces and large-scale installations as well as logos, brands and effects suitable for all types of events and settings.

Illustrator Karoline Kerrie at Plus+

Karoline Kerrie will be this year exhibitng at Plus+. Karoline is an illustrator working on commissions from advertising to educational resources. After completing an MA in Visual Communication she began working for Matthew Herbert illustrating his Doctor Rockit album covers. This work developed her style, in particular the use of quirky characters, humour and hand drawn text which have remained an important element of Karoline’s work which she uses in the comics she publishes.

BIAD at Plus+

For third time Birmingham City University and its Faculty Birmingham Institute of Art and Design will be exhibiting and being Industry Partner in Plus+. BIAD is one of the largest faculties of art, design and media education in the United Kingdom, provides education for nearly 4,000 students on five major campuses located in the centre and to the north and south of Birmingham. The faculty offers a comprehensive portfolio of courses at all levels from further education to higher research.

Baskerville Project will be projected at Plus+

Continuing the cycles of presentation after Hello Digital, The Baskerville Project will be projected at Plus+.

The Baskerville Project celebrates John Baskerville, the man, the typeface and his future legacy. The work of Baskerville is synonymous to innovation, ambition, creativity and enterprise. John Baskerville is a local figure, who lived and worked out of Birmingham, inspiring the birth of the Lunar Society and contributing through financial and intellectual investment to the Industrial revolution. Baskerville the Animated Movie acknowledges the achievements of the past and aims to inspire the generations of the future.

Baskerville is a leading transitional/neo-classical serif typeface widely used in publishing and print today.

4 Talent Magazine in Plus+

4Talent magazine is a blend of juicy inspiration, fibrous creative advice and fresh new talent. It’s the print sister of 4Talent, Channel 4’s gateway to the worlds of film, TV, radio and new media. In print, online and on the ground across the UK we’re seeking the next wave of writers, directors, producers and performers to create groundbreaking, risk-taking, entertaining content in the coming years.

Besides being an exhibitor 4 Talent will have portfolio sessions for those who are interest to know more and will like to work for the magazine, it would be a magnificent opportunity to get to know the 4 Talent people and discuss further opportunities.

Call for Volunteers

Call for Volunteers

Plus is looking enthusiastic, hardworking and motivated volunteers, with a passionate interest in graphic design and the creative industries in general, or arts festivals in particular or those who just want to share time and energy for the event.

Plus 2008 is going to be held in the creative quarter of Birmingham, in Digbeth at Fazeley Studios, 191 Fazeley Street, B5 5SE; from the 5 – 8 of November.

We will need you for:
- Festival Set up: Monday and Tuesday, 3 – 4 of November.
- Festival Open Days: Wednesday – Saturday, 5 – 8 November.
- Festival Break-down: Sunday, 9 November.

There is no limit to how many days and hours you can work, but shifts are available in 4 hour blocks and you must be free to work a full shift.

How you can help us?

There are a wide variety of jobs available, including:

Audio Visual assistance
Cloak room
Fire
Helping exhibitors to set up
Party (Servers)
Photographer
Plus Stands
Reception
Registration
Signage
Stewards
Volunteer coordinator
Workshops

In return of your help and commitment:

You will have the opportunity to meet some of the leading names is design industry and be part of one of the most important design festivals in the UK. You will also receive two complimentary tickets to the Plus Friday Party.

How I can get involve?

Please fill the application form and return it with your CV and if you don’t have a CV write about you and outline your skills and interests something on an A4 sheet and send it to: info@youplusus.net, marking field subject: Volunteer Application.

Deadline: Monday 20th October 2008.
Interviews will take place on: Friday 24th October and details will be forwarded to successful applicants.

Join the plus community in Facebook Fan Page and twitter.

We will look forward to hear from you all.

Plus Team.

Plus+ 2008 Venue: Fazeley Studios

Plus is delighted to announced it's venue for 2008.

This year's festival will take place in Fazeley Studios; is the latest architectural development by CFNX: the newly refurbishment building with architectural merit will provide the Festival with a stylish and bright exhibition space in the centre of Birmingham's creative community.

Fazeley Studios
191 Fazeley Street
Birmingham
B5 5SE

Looking Accomodation during Plus?

If you are looking where to stay during Plus Festival, Paragon Hotel a magnifiecnt building which represent the Victorian Gothic architecture is our Hospitality Sponsor and are giving discounts to our Plus community.

There are 250 bedrooms, all with en-suite and include direct dial telephone, colour TV and tea / coffee making facilities as standard.

To book just call to +44 (0) 121 627 0627 or email: reservations.birmingham@paragonhotel.net and give them the Plus Code: PLUS 051108, for the discount.

Paragon Hotel, 145 Alcester Street, Birmingham, B12 0PJ

http://www.dhillonhotels.co.uk/paragon_hotel_birmingham/information.php

FINAL Call for Entries

Now’s you last chance to make your application to exhibit, speak or
run a workshop at the 2008 Plus International Design Festival.
All proposals must be made via the Plus website (www.youplusus.net) by midnight Friday 17 October 2008.

So come and take your place alongside the national and international
designers participating in this year’s event including:


Airside
Jonathan Barnbrook
Steve Bell
Designers Republic
Studio Output
Jeff Willis
Another Limited Rebellion
Clusta
Feed
Fluid
Hurtwood Press
IE
Inkymole
Julia Lila
Periscope
Pixel-Lab
Raidy Printing Group
Karoline Rerrie
Sterographic
Type
We Make Art
4Talent
Fused
Illuminate Lighting Ltd
Baskerville Project
Birmingham City University
Coventry School of Art & Design
Wolverhampton University


FOR MORE INFORMATION
Contact: Ayesha, Gul, Magda | info@youplusus.net | 056 0125 9160

Field of Light

From 23 to 26 October 2008, as part of the Hello Digital Festival, Plus is going to cover the atrium at Millennium Point in a Field of Light - and it’s going to look magical! This is because we’re not using any old lights we’re using 120 beautifully coloured, energy-efficient glow lights.

However, you don’t have to be in Birmingham to view the Field because we’re using a web-cam and you’ll be able to watch it 24 hours a day on the Field of Light website.

The best bit though, is the Field is fully interactive with music for added atmosphere, but it is you who can control it and it is you who can make it move in any way you want! It doesn’t matter who you are or where you live, anyone from anywhere in the world can be a part of our project and play the Field in Birmingham.

So how does it work? First of all you need to register yourself with www.fieldoflight.net and then go to our sequencer page where you can create your own light sequence. Submit your designs and if enough members like what you have done your sequence will be played by the Field live in Birmingham and watched by people all over the world.

It’s simple! So come on check out the site and play the field.

Jonathan Barnbrook

For the typographers out there we have a treat in store for you with Jonathan Barnbrook speaking at the Plus Festival. Barnbrook is arguably most-recognised for his work on the cover artwork of David Bowie's 2002 album Heathen which featured the debut for his 'Priori' typeface. This is particularly appropriate as Barnbrook cites record cover artwork as an early design influence, and possibly the interest that drew him to graphic design. Other well known fonts designed by Barnbrook (and released through 'VirusFonts') include Bastard, Exocet, False Idol, Infidel, Moron, Newspeak, Olympukes, Sarcastic, Shock & Awe, and Tourette. Many have emotive and controversial titles reflecting the style and themes of Barnbrook's work. From 1997-2003 Barnbrook collaborated with Damien Hirst, most notably on the design, layout and typography of his book 'I Want To Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now', and on artwork associated with his restaurant Pharmacy.

Airside

Airside have just confirmed they will be speaking at Plus 08. Airside is a cross-platform design agency that works in moving image, graphic design, illustration, digital and real world interaction. Founded ten years ago by Alex Maclean, Fred Deakin and Nat Hunter, Airside's unique approach has won many awards. Despite their small size Airside is currently third in Design Week's Top 50 UK Creative Agencies, behind Apple at number one. "Airside tend to throw away the rule book and replace it with something much darker - or lighter - depending on who you are or what they think you need!' D&AD [www.airside.co.uk]

Designer's Republic

Sheffield-based Designers Republic is to both exhibit and speak at Plus 2008. Initially, Ian Anderson founded tDR to design flyers for the band Person to Person, which he managed at the time. His first ideas were inspired by Russian constructivism. From their beginning, the works were in contrast to the current understanding of design (Quote: tDR is a declaration of independence from what we perceive to be the existing design community[citation needed]). An early client was Leeds band Age of Chance, for whom they developed a series of striking record covers between 1986 and 1987. The sleeve of Don't Get Mad ... Get Even was one of Q Magazine's "100 Best Record Covers of All Time" in 2001.

Design a type-tart card

You are invited to have some graphic fun and at the same time help support the St Bride Library, London – one of the world’s most important resources for the graphics industry.

ST BRIDE LIBRARY
St Bride is the world’s foremost graphic arts library and a rendezvous for all those involved in contemporary graphic communication—designers, printers, publishers, journalists, academics and students. Located in Fleet Street, the traditional heart of the UK’s printing and publishing industry, it is a place where anyone from Britain or abroad with either a professional or passing interest in design can meet and where all aspects of the practical,cultural and technical achievements of the industry can be studied. It is also a place of inspiration that has encouraged many designers, motivated generations of students and stimulated numerous authors. (www.stbride.org)

Please help to maintain this vital and invaluable resource by participating in the
type-tart project.

THE BRIEF
We would like you to design a tart card either for a typeface or a letter of the alphabet. If you are unfamiliar with these things, tart cards are the means by which London prostitutes advertise their services. Step in to any Central London call box and you can contemplate up to eighty cards inviting you to be tied, teased, spanked or massaged either in luxury apartments, fully-equipped chambers or the privacy of your own hotel room. So pervasive are these things, and so curious is their typography, images and copy writing they are now regarded as bona fide items of accidental art and have something of a cult following. Once on the periphery of design, the cards have influenced the work of many mainstream artists including Royal Academician Tom Philips and Sex Pistols designers, Ray and Nils Stevenson.
Perhaps they can inspire you too? Maybe Sabon would invite you to caress its counters, or Palatino would advertise its ‘Mega Serifs’. Bodoni boasts some magnificent finials, Baskerville’s swash can really inflict some pain, and Century Schoolbook would undoubtedly keep you in after class. Perhaps you see something seductive in the curves of the ‘S’ or the ‘A’ exhibits dominatrix tendancies. However you see the alphabet there is a type-tart in every letter.

SPECIFICATION
A6 (105 x 148 mm) landscape or portrait
Typographic, illustrative, photographic: or a combination of techniques of your choosing
Hand or machine made
Single- or full-colour
Side 1 – image and text
Side 2 – sign and date
Supply hard copy only, electronic versions will not be accepted

THE RESULTS
All entries will be exhibited at the Plus International Design Festival, (www.youplusus.net) Birmingham 5-8 November 2008 and the St Bride Institute, London in early 2009; after which the collection will be auctioned and proceeds donated to the St Bride Library. Prizes will be awarded for the top 3 entries, which will be assessed by a panel of judges from St Bride Library and Plus Expo Ltd.

CLOSING DATE
30 October 2008 (individuals) 15 December 2008 (universities)
All entries to be sent to Type LLP, 1st Floor The Toll House, The Bond
180-82 Fazeley Street, Birmingham B5 5SE

ABOUT US
Type LLP promotes typography - its history, development and application - through
researching, writing, lecturing, teaching and consultancy as well as organising events both professional typographers and enthusiasts of the subject. Type also works to raise public awareness of the role of typography in society and aims to develop an appreciation of the link between art and cultural typography. (www.uktype.com)

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Caroline Archer | 0121 766 7948 | caroline@uktype.com | www.uktype.com