A visual celebration of the St Bride Library

14 May 2019

6.00–9.00pm

Tickets: £3–5

In November 2018, we approached fourteen artists, designers, writers, illustrators and musicians to ask if they would collaborate in pairs to create a poster designed to celebrate and highlight the rich and varied collections held within the St Bride Library and the building itself.

This evening is being held to celebrate the culmination of their work and the items from the collections that inspired them. The event includes a drinks reception, private view and series of short lectures from some of the collaborators about the process behind their work.

The collaborators are:

Catherine Dixon & Mick Clayton

Pam Smy & Ness Wood

Bob Richardson & Alistair Hall

Tom Gauld & John L. Walters

David Pearson & Paul Barnes

Anil Aykan & Jonathan Barnbrook (Fragile Self)

Tom Etherington & Keith Houston

Each poster has been produced in a limited edition of 60 and all will be on sale throughout the evening for £15 each, three for £40 or an entire set for £100 – all profits will be donated to the St Bride Library.About the collaborators:

Paul Barnes is a typographer and type designer. With his partner, Christian Schwartz, he runs the type foundry Commercial Type, known for both their range of retail and custom faces. Together they have produced acclaimed work for a wide variety of clients, from the faces on the redesigns of the Guardian, football numbers for Puma and Umbro through to their work for the National Trust. Commercial Type’s retail library includes many modern classics; Publico, Graphik, Druk, Canela, Austin and Dala Floda. www.commercialtype.com

Catherine Dixon is an award-winning designer, writer and teacher. As a writer, she has a particular interest in letterforms, her doctoral thesis focussing on the problems of describing typefaces and she has recently published a review of research into classification and her work on the Typeform dialogues project with Hyphen Press. She also writes regularly on letterforms in environmental contexts, having co-authored with Phil Baines the book Signs: lettering in the environment (2003). She contributes to a range of design journals and websites including Eye and FontStand, and she is a regular speaker at international conferences. She teaches typography on the Graphic Communication Design programme at Central Saint Martins. From 2011 to 2012, she was a Visiting Professor at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

Tom Etherington is is a designer at Penguin Press. He designs book covers, books and magazines. www.tometherington.com

Fragile Self are designers and musicians Jonathan Barnbrook and Anil Aykan. As designers they have worked for David Bowie, Damien Hirst, Thames & Hudson and the Wellcome Collection. As musicians they have just released their first self titled Album ‘Fragile Self’. They aim to create seamless projects where experimental electronic music and visuals work together to make a greater whole. www.barnbrook.net | www.fragileself.com

Tom Gauld is a cartoonist and illustrator. He makes weekly cartoons for the Guardian and New Scientist and his work regularly appears in the New Yorker. He has created a number of comic books including Goliath and Mooncop. He is currently working on a picture book for children. www.tomgauld.com

Alistair Hall is a graphic designer based in London. He set up his design studio, We Made This, in 2004, and specialises in thoughtful, simple, beautiful print design. Alistair is also a co-founder and art director of the children’s literacy charity Ministry of Stories, and its fantastical shop, Hoxton Street Monster Supplies. He is currently researching a book about London’s street nameplates. www.wemadethis.co.uk

Keith Houston is a software engineer and writer who documents unusual marks of punctuation at his blog, Shady Characters. His 2016 book on book history, The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time, was called “possibly the best of our time”. (Stephen Heller, Eye Magazine). www.shadycharacters.co.uk

Mick Clayton is a freelance compositor who manages the St Bride Print Workshop. He teaches short courses in Letterpress and organises talks and tours of the Foundation as well as their annual wayzgoose. He worked on Fleet Street during its heyday as a hot metal compositor and then page makeup on early computer systems for Mirror Group Newspapers.

David Pearson specialises in print design where typography is the principle form of expression. He has been listed as one of Britain’s Top 50 Designers by the Guardian, is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and was appointed Royal Designer for Industry in 2015.

Pam Smy has illustrated folktales, chapter books, picture books and novels. Her work has been published by many leading UK publishers, including David Fickling Books, Walker Books, The Folio Society and Penguin Random House. She has had 18 years of art school teaching and lecturing experience at Cambridge School of Art. Recently she set up Orange Beak Studio with fellow book-creators, Maisie Paradise Shearring and Ness Wood. She has a passion for observational drawing and sketchbooks. You can follow Pam on Instagram or Twitter. orangebeakstudio.com

Bob Richardson trained as an art teacher but decided to abandon the profession and join BBC Graphics in the 1970s where he spent over 30 years working as an assistant on some of the Corporation’s most popular programmes, including over 2,000 editions of Grandstand and Match of the Day. He was also the scorer on Mastermind for over 15 years during Magnus Magnusson’s tenure. The purchase of a small Adana printing press in 1970 inspired a lifelong interest in letterpress, typography and letterforms. He currently manages St Bride Library.

Ness Wood is a book designer, art director and lecturer, having taught at Goldsmiths, Cambridge School of Art and currently at UCLAN. She is the designer of many award-winning books and has worked for major publishers including David Fickling Books, Faber & Faber and Penguin Random House. She is known for her encouraging and collaborative approach with illustrators and students. Ness is also a co-founder of Orange Beak Studio along with Maisie Paradise Shearrin and Pam Smy. www.nesswood.co.uk

John L. Walters is editor and co-owner (with Simon Esterson) of Eye, the independent, international review of graphic design. He is the author of Alan Kitching: A Life in Letterpress (Laurence King). Walters, originally a musician and record producer, has helped programme many design events, including Eye’s quarterly ‘Type Tuesday’ at St Bride Library.

We couldn’t have done this without the kind and generous spirit of our sponsors and would like to thank:

Fenner Paper

Boss Print

Colophon Foundry

And Becky Chilcott for curating the event.

Book Online HERE