Hello lovers,
Hope you all had a great Valentine’s day. Whether we like it or not, it’s a special day for us, as it marked our two year anniversary as a studio <3. We wanted to reach out to you, some of our nearest and dearest, to thank you for the part you’ve played in that two year period – as with most markers of time, it has made us chew over and look forward. While 2022 brought us Renaissance, it also came with personal struggles and professional battles, particularly working within UK higher education </3.
With a difficult end to 2022, we’re slowly emerging and looking to the spring (can you tell Katie went to an Imbolc meditation last week). We’re tentatively hopeful of things to come this year. We’re hopeful that we will carve out the space and the time we crave to work together, while also taking time to recuperate. We’re hopeful for sustaining a balance of teaching, editing, writing and designing, with being and living. So here’s to 2023, with a reflection on somethings that we’re grateful to have been a part of last year:
In May we designed the overall identity and website for the University of Westminster School of Arts’ degree shows. Building on the platform we worked on in 2021, the website and visual language celebrates and categorises a wide range of student work. The project was realised in collaboration with Matthew Luke Studio, project coordination by Tadej Vindiš, Westminster’s accessibility team, with typefaces kindly supplied by Johannes Breyer from Dinamo.
Alongside John Philip Sage, Carlos Romo Melgar and Vicente Reyes Montealegre, we sparkled, healed, and rested as part of our annual Summer Event. The 2022 edition centred around togetherness and cooperation, with opening and closing events in line with summer and autumn equinoxes. We re-traced and digitised characters for Héloïse d'Almeida’s Peers collaborative typeface. We questioned the role of spirituality in the age of digital consumption in Sacred Portals workshop led by Amy Henry and Victoire Colliou. Gabriela explored ways of thinking about time in relation to labour and prioritisation with Clem Rousset during the In Due Time session. Privately, inspired by writings of Rosemary and Bernadette Mayer, we exchanged letters over the summer, in our continuous questioning of our collaborative practice. The full programme for the Summer Event is here.
2022 was also the year Shape of Words was published, following two years of close conversations with Harry Bennet, Alice Sherwin (Studio Ground Floor) and Emma Judd. The book contains a variety of writing from emerging designers, illustrators and photographers, including poems, essays, tweets, interviews and fictional narratives. As the editors of the journal, our highlights include contributor’s reflections on living, working and graduating during the Covid-19 pandemic, first-hand insights on disability within the design industry, as well as questioning ‘good design’ in relation to racial discrimination. There are a couple of copies left via Brand Identity.
As part of Transnational Journeys: An archival exploration of feminist posters that transcend borders digital exhibition organised by the Feminist Library, we wrote a response to a poster designed by Peter Binns at The Poster Workshop in 1968.
Harry and Katie explored ways of fostering discursive approaches in graphic design and typography from education in issue 4 of TYPEONE Magazine. The text took the form of a woven conversation with a range of perspectives, which they continue to weave into their teaching at the University of Brighton. An example of this was I want fun! I want a fantasy! workshop with Luke and Jason from Wolfe Hall studio, where final year graphic design students created a new edition of Virginia Woolf’s novel, Orlando: A Biography.
In their role as editorial staff at Eye Magazine, Gabriela has published several reviews and articles in the past year, including ‘Unfinished narratives’, ‘Access to the futures of type’ and a review of Kenneth Fitzgerald’s Process Music, featured in the upcoming 104 issue. She will also be participating as a member of the jury for European Design Awards this year.
In other news, A Line Which Forms a Volume #6 ✨launched✨ this January, advised by Carlos Romo Melgar and John Philip Sage. The issue is a symbiotic, fungi-fuelled feast, which will be available for purchase soon or you can enquire for a copy directly here.
We will be in London and Brighton alternating weeks on Fridays, so let’s be in touch, we’re seeking reconnection. To our friends and dear ones further afield let’s book an online call soon. Wishing you all well as we continue to move through.
With love,
Katie + Gabriela
xoxo