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.