Jim Northover

This week marks the opening of an exhibition at Kemistry Gallery in Shoreditch, which I have been organising in collaboration with the Gallery and the British Film Institute.

This text I wrote for the press release and invitation gives some of the background:

No graphic designer has made a greater impact on the world of film than Saul Bass. This exhibition brings together a collection of his film posters, film titles and film festival posters from the Lloyd Northover donation to the British Film Institute. The BFI’s Poster Archive has kindly loaned the exhibits to make this show possible.

Saul Bass’s work is instantly recognisable for its directness, its simplicity and the way it makes its meaning felt. Breaking all conventions in the 1950s and 60s, Bass virtually invented film titles as we know them today, and he was the first to synthesize movies into compelling trademark images.

In a period when graphic imagery can be so easily manipulated electronically, Bass reminds us that a strong idea is always at the heart of a great design. His work, as reflected in this exhibition, is as refreshing today as ever.

www.kemistrygallery.co.uk

Part of a presentation given at a Brunel University Business School seminar in London on 10 December 2010

Apocalyptic scenarios are being hastily sketched out right across the higher education sector. The burning issues of funding and student fees cut right at the heart of current systems of provision. But, whatever results from the debate, the entire sector is sure to emerge as something different, not least in the way that future generations will regard the whole institution of higher education and the fundamental purpose and worth of universities.

For a very long time now there has been a consensus that universities are ‘a good thing’ and that, in line with everything else in a modern democratic state, they should be available to all, in principle. All, that is, who have the intellect and potential to profit from higher-level scholarship and the experience of academic life. More than that, for recent generations ‘going to uni’ has become a rite of passage for many, as students make the transition from teenage to adulthood.

Widening access has been a key strategy of government, based on the perceived importance of the ‘knowledge economy’ to the UK’s success in the world. Now things have changed, as we know. The whole idea of a university education is being re-examined, with a focus on who pays for what, when and how.

The questions I am asking, when the dust has settled and reforms implemented, are: what do universities now stand for, and how do they differentiate themselves in a market-oriented world?

To find an answer, as with every brand, it is always worth looking back, even before we look forward to the future. Brands are the embodiment of multiple interactions and experiences with something, be it a tangible product, a service, a company or an institution. In this sense universities are no different. Time can be a great brand builder. For a thousand years our older universities have been developing and evolving to become what they are today. Tradition and heritage (the words we use to reflect the meaning embedded in these institutions) are an irrefutable part of how they are perceived. Such brands have a patina – ‘the soft glow…produced by age and polishing’ as the Oxford Dictionary informs us.

It is equally true that the old universities still carry forward behaviours, cultures and patterns of operating that in many ways remain unchanged. So powerful was their influence in the 19th century that the great metropolitan universities copied them, and the ‘redbricks’ of the mid 20th century followed them, who, in turn were the aspiration, if not the inspiration, for the polytechnics that ‘traded up’ to university status. The curious thing is this: would any university look and operate the way it does, if it had been designed to meet the needs of the up-coming generations of school leavers? I doubt it.

So, in looking forward we see, in the very near future, some challenges that lie deeper than the immediate debates around funding and fees. What should a truly modern university look like? Excellence in scholarship and research perhaps, but for what purpose, for whom and for what end?

In a very real sense these questions are not ‘academic’. They are simply the questions being asked by 16 and 17 year olds as they contemplate their futures. Without ready and credible answers to these questions, universities may cease in time to command the respect and investment they have received in the past, nor will they attract the students that make their existence possible.

In the next few years as universities struggle to survive and thrive, how many, if not those at the venerable end of the spectrum who will continue to enjoy a level of patronage, will be looking radically at the ways in which they deliver teaching and conduct research?

Much as it may go against the grain and the natural instincts of academics and university managers, it is instructive to look at the successes and failures of corporate institutions. Many great names, and brands, have gone to the wall simply because, like prehistoric creatures, they either did not anticipate change or could not adapt when change was forced upon them. Most successful businesses have dramatically transformed their products, services and operating models. While universities may seek to demonstrate the many ways in which they have embraced technology, for example, they operate in a fundamentally unreformed environment.

It is time for some universities to break cover, to offer high quality, relevant education that makes sense for tomorrow’s students. Realistically, this may not happen overnight, but a radical move on the part of the braver in the sector could signal the need for repositioning their brands to communicate their difference in intent and action. No longer would there be, as now, a succession of ‘me toos’, all competing with each other to provide qualifications of equal (and sometimes dubious) value and commodity style delivery, a pattern replicated in how they describe themselves and articulate their brands. The opportunity for innovation is clear. Step forward the first university to challenge the status quo and show the way ahead.

Keynote talk to introduce SIGN 09, a conference organised by the International Institute of Information Design and the Sign Design Society: Vienna 3-11 December 2009.

My context-setting talk, for the city identity/public spaces session challenges the way we look at information design interventions in the urban environment, both in an international and a local context.

Identities of cities and towns are built up over time, layered continually, such that there are, typically, a multiplicity of languages (both literal and metaphorical) and systems that shape places through identification, orientation and direction processes.

As business travel and tourism increase (albeit at a slower pace recently) the more the requirement for ‘international standards’ and ‘best practice’ strengthens. As we strive to achieve a lingua franca in pedestrian wayfinding, transport information and street signing the more people will benefit, or so current wisdom suggests. On the other hand, cities and towns are looking to promote their individuality, distinctiveness and attractiveness to encourage social and economic growth.

Over the last year or so, there is evidence of a rethinking of the need for ‘local’ demands to supersede the orthodoxy of globalisation. The challenge is an important one: the richness of city life derives in part from accretions of information over time. Cities tell their own stories in different ways and information planning and design needs to be conscious of this reality. Can we adapt standards and systems in order to better reflect uniqueness and local culture, or is this just pandering to stereotypes? Are we importing Western methods inappropriately in some cases?

My argument is not for or against, merely to propose that we, as designers, make few assumptions at the outset, ask the right questions and seek to understand the nature of locality and community to find ways to ‘square the circle’. In developing the discourse I will reference current thinking and practice, as well as historic precedence from cities around the world.

Abstract for paper delivered at Beyond the Margins symposium on experimental typography Clare College Cambridge 12 September 2009

As we walk or travel, we either notice or ignore messages and markings lying at our feet, or alongside our motorways, streets, paths, tracks and lanes.

Some have immediacy, while others live on beyond their relevance as totems of place and memory. In collecting essentially random messages and markings I plan to piece together a series of narratives that give new meanings to these totems. Language plays a part in signifying meaning, as do image, type, pictograms and codes. The often abbreviated or truncated messages and cryptic marks hold information to be unbundled, deciphered and acted upon.

My observational methodology will seek to identify the different categories of messages (eg identifying, informing, instructing, directing, promoting, subverting) and the different forms of markings. To help unbundle and decipher these elements, I will identify the authors or mark makers (eg transport, utility, civic, commercial, community, individual).

My investigation will reveal hidden stories, sub-texts and interpretations that for the most part we barely notice, but are nevertheless part of our layered lives and histories. The surface is only one dimension: tracing roots and juxtapositions of text and image we can study the dimension of time (when created), of space (where they are situated relative to people and their movements) and the question of authorship (from legally binding notices to anonymous graffiti).

My aim is not, necessarily, to reach any conclusions – but even this is possible – but to draw attention to the unsung poetry of our environments and what might be the implications for our cultural history and for future planning and design policy.