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Championing creativity

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Maddisongraphic-lead — Maddison Graphic: Norwich

Work / Graphic Design

Moving studio? Let Maddison Graphic show you how to let everyone know

Words by James Cartwright, Tuesday 29 January 2013

Sibling design duo Maddison Graphic are a Norwich-based agency who pride themselves on working with local clients, embracing all sorts of commercial projects for the likes of ale festivals, architectural practices and, rather unusually for a design studio, churches – they’ve type-set an altar and created a glazed screen for a Cambridge chapel. Such a diverse range of clients means they’re capable of turning their hand to any number of visual styles, from crisp, clean type treatments to bold linear illustrations, but their output is consistently strong, answering briefs with clear, effective solutions.

This charming mailer, used to advertise the relocation of the studio, perfectly exemplifies their visual nous, communicating clearly and concisely with a beautifully reductive selection of graphic images. Clever boys!

Maddisongraphic-2 — Maddison Graphic: Norwich

Maddisongraphic-6 — Maddison Graphic: Norwich

Maddisongraphic-5 — Maddison Graphic: Norwich

Maddisongraphic-4 — Maddison Graphic: Norwich

Maddisongraphic-3 — Maddison Graphic: Norwich

Maddisongraphic-1 — Maddison Graphic: Norwich

www.maddisongraphic.com

Most Recent

Photographer Timothy Schaumburg takes us behind the scenes of plastic surgery prep 21 June 2018
The Line King: A profile of Al Hirschfeld, on the prolific characterist’s 115th birthday 21 June 2018
Ditto publish 100 Club Stories in celebration of the iconic London venue 21 June 2018
Adobe Stock identifies 'multilocalism' as the next trend to shape visual culture 21 June 2018
“I want my work to function like a good book": illustrator Charlotte Ager 21 June 2018
"Even if you cover a shit in glitter it’s still a shit": top creatives show us their CVs 21 June 2018

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Work / Graphic Design Sam Jayne's abstract and psychedelic design portfolio is inspired by nature

“My biggest reference is probably nature,” Washington DC-based designer and art director, Sam Jayne tells It’s Nice That. “Aside from its natural beauty and obvious visual impressiveness, I think there’s a certain weird magic that happens in my work when I manipulate natural elements using software and end up with this strange digital imagery that feels totally disconnected from anything remotely organic.”

Ruby Boddington — 20 June 2018
Work / Graphic Design Graphic designer Jaap Smit physicalises the web in his data-driven practice

“Structuring facts and data,” responds graphic designer Jaap Smit when asked about the focus of his creative practice. Based in The Hague, Jaap utilises freely available information and creates graphic parameters to structure it, resulting in methodically-made and often humorous work.

Ruby Boddington — 19 June 2018
Work / Graphic Design Tsto returns to design Flow Festival's identity, pushing and playing with its typography

Back in 2011, Helsinki-based studio Tsto designed an identity for Flow Festival featuring a bold typographic treatment that has become synonymous with the festival’s name. Over the next five years the studio continued to roll out the festival’s identity under this visual language, before taking a three year break. 2018 marks Tsto back in the graphic design driving seat, and pushing the identity further seven years later from when it first sat down to do it.

Lucy Bourton — 18 June 2018
Work / Graphic Design Graphic designer Cécile Legnaghi questions the role of display and caption fonts in her practice

“The project was born from questioning the use of a typeface today, and its trends, especially concerning its body size,” explains Paris-based graphic and type designer Cécile Legnaghi of her diploma project. While studying at École Estienne, she became fascinated by designers’ choices to utilise display typefaces at caption size – and vice versa. In response, Cécile set out to design three of her own, with the intention of them being used in both contexts.

Ruby Boddington — 12 June 2018
Work / Graphic Design Yale graduate and communications designer Polina Vasilyeva is a conductor of content

The portfolio of Russian-born Yale graduate Polina Vasilyeva is an amalgamation of communication design bits and bobs. The mix of styles and applications Polina dips and dives in and out of is easily seen on the designer’s website, which places them all together, on top of one another and side by side. “My website came from the initial desire to see the collection of my work as if it were laid on the table in front of the viewer,” Polina tells us. “A lot of my work as a designer deals with the performance, I believe that graphic design is a form of theatre, in which the designer is a conductor of the content that is being presented to the world.”

Lucy Bourton — 12 June 2018
Features / Graphic Design Beauty through the eyes of Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh

Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh have been thinking about beauty. This might seem unsurprising, as both are designers who occupy the upper echelons of the design hierarchy, and aesthetics, you’d imagine, would be an ongoing concern. “One part of what we are doing is aiming to eradicate the tired notion that beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” says Stefan with a laugh. “Because it’s not.” I’m sat at the control centre of the Stefan and Jessica show, an office just off Broadway in Manhattan. Outside the meeting room where we are sat, a small team is working away diligently.

Owen Pritchard — 04 June 2018

Work / Photography Photographer Timothy Schaumburg takes us behind the scenes of plastic surgery prep

Last year, 17.5 million Americans underwent plastic surgery. The most popular procedures were breast augmentation, liposuction and nose reshaping. With lunchtime facelifts and cosmetic surgery loyalty schemes, it’s no surprise that the number of people going under the knife to “improve” their physical appearance has been steadily on the rise for some time.

Daphne Milner — 21 June 2018
Features / Illustration The Line King: A profile of Al Hirschfeld, on the prolific characterist’s 115th birthday

Sitting in an old barber’s chair, on the fourth floor studio of his townhouse on East 95th Street, New York, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld does with a quill and ink what a barber would do with scissors and a comb. Leaning over a drafting table, he first looks over his sketches; pages cluttered with frantic-looking marks. On a new piece of paper, he begins to draw. Streamlining chaos into clarity, he snips away the inessential, leaving just a few lines. The result? Marilyn Monroe. Charlie Chaplin. Ella Fitzgerald. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Orson Welles. Whoopi Goldberg. Luciano Pavarotti. Nat King Cole. Barbra Streisand. Sometimes all at once. With just a quill and some black ink, Al Hirschfeld brought to life some of entertainment’s most colourful characters. Over a career that lasted eight decades, Hirschfeld is said to have chronicled countless 20th century Broadway and Hollywood personalities for print and press. In 1956, he was the first to draw a caricature of Elvis Presley; to be “Hirschfelded” was a sign that you’d made it. His work has covered Playbill programs, film posters and advertisements, magazines like TIME and Life, newspapers (most notably The New York Times), albums for Aerosmith, and postage stamps for the US Postal Service. Almost every museum in the world has a Hirschfeld – such is the American artist’s ubiquity. He was even made the subject of his own Academy Award-nominated documentary film, ‘The Line King’. In 2003, Hirschfeld passed away, just a few months short of his 100th birthday. He worked for the likes of The New York Times right up until the day of his death. But he left an unparalleled legacy; an ineradicable mark on American theatre history, illustration and cartooning. So today, on what would have been Hirschfeld’s 115th birthday, we look back at the life and work of the affectionately dubbed, ‘Line King.’

Marianne Hanoun — 21 June 2018
Work / Publication Ditto publish 100 Club Stories in celebration of the iconic London venue

The 100 Club, tucked away in a doorway nestled between the high street shops on Oxford Street, London, is a venue in which many have had the best nights of their lives. This is something that applies to both tightly packed crowds and bands who have graced its stage. Getting tickets to a gig is an honour as it’s capacity is small, and if you’re lucky enough to be invited to play the honour is even greater. In celebration of the venue, Ditto has published a book displaying its history, character and anecdotes of its 75-year history.

Lucy Bourton — 21 June 2018
Sponsored / Photography Adobe Stock identifies 'multilocalism' as the next trend to shape visual culture

In today’s society it’s rare that someone is just from a particular city, country or even continent. The world is all the better for it too, merging cultural experiences in square miles rather than across oceans. In its third visual trend analysis this year, the Adobe Stock team believe, as a reflection of this, the concept of ‘multilocalism’ will be the next visual trend for creatives.

Sponsored Content — 21 June 2018
Work / Illustration “I want my work to function like a good book": illustrator Charlotte Ager

Charlotte Ager is no stranger to It’s Nice That; we have written about her idyllic illustrations time and time again. From Reykjavik’s beaches to Indonesian villas, it was her colourful drawings of landscapes that caught our eye this time.

Daphne Milner — 21 June 2018
Regulars / The Graduates 2018 "Even if you cover a shit in glitter it’s still a shit": top creatives show us their CVs

Making a CV is one of the most daunting tasks for anyone, and especially for graduates. Writing about yourself, your achievements and your interests always just comes across show-offy or just cringe-worthy in general. But everyone has to do it, so choke it up, open InDesign and bite the bullet.

Lucy Bourton — 21 June 2018

Work / Film Stephen Isaac-Wilson's new film for Boiler Room remembers Manchester's 90s queer clubbing scene

In the mid-90s, Canal Street was the flamboyant heart of Manchester’s gay scene. Home to the city’s queer party lovers, Canal Street existed outside Manchester’s world-famous club scene, until, that is, 1999, when the characters of Russell T Davies’ Queer as Folk swaggered onto TV screens and kicked open the doors of queer nightlife to wide-eyed viewers across the nation.

Bryony Stone — 21 June 2018
Work / Animation From Kanye West to Cartoon Network: Encyclopedia Pictura’s latest animations champion the power of DIY skills

Animation studio Encyclopedia Pictura is renowned for its work with the likes of Kanye West, Björk and Grizzly Bear, but its latest work diverges down a very different path, with a series of shorts for Cartoon Network. It comes off the back of the success of DIY.org, an online community started by one of the studio’s founders Isaiah Saxon together with Vimeo co-founder Zach Klein, where kids can learn new making skills and share their creations. Started in 2016, it now has over a million members.

Jenny Brewer — 20 June 2018
Work / Art Amad Ilyas’ Naach Girls project explores the portrayal of dancing girls in South Asia

New York artist and designer Amad Ilyas is exhibiting new work throughout the month of June on the White Pube website, an online space that breaks down the restrictions of the gallery space and creates a place to exhibit in the digital world.

Kieran Yates — 20 June 2018
Work / Illustration Haruna Kawai breaks down the boundaries between illustration and sculpture

Haruna Kawai’s illustrations are distinct in their simplicity. Her colourful portfolio of work is filled with drawings of abstract sculptural creations; whether it’s ceramic-like structures balance on three-dimensional triangles or padlock-inspired art objects, Haruna has a knack for illustrating minimalist constructions.

Daphne Milner — 20 June 2018
Work / Graphic Design Sam Jayne's abstract and psychedelic design portfolio is inspired by nature

“My biggest reference is probably nature,” Washington DC-based designer and art director, Sam Jayne tells It’s Nice That. “Aside from its natural beauty and obvious visual impressiveness, I think there’s a certain weird magic that happens in my work when I manipulate natural elements using software and end up with this strange digital imagery that feels totally disconnected from anything remotely organic.”

Ruby Boddington — 20 June 2018
Work / Illustration Catching up with Charlotte Trounce while on a residency in Japan

It will be no news to regulars readers that we have a bit of an illustration crush on Charlotte Trounce. The London-based illustrator has a knack for drawing pretty much anything — exhibition artworks, fashion collections or objects for children’s books — so we’ve regularly got an eye on what she’s illustrating. It was during one of these snooping sessions over on Charlotte’s Instagram that we noticed she currently isn’t in London, but on an envious trip to Japan.

Lucy Bourton — 20 June 2018

Work / Photography "I always seem to look for oddities": photographer Clark Franklyn on his dreamy landscapes

Imagine where you’d want to be right now. Strolling down the side of a bustling river? Walking through a field of flowers at sunset? Roaming through a forest draped in a thick layer of snow? Whichever place you’d chose, photographer Clark Franklyn has probably been there first and taken a dreamy picture to prove it. Clark has been on our radar for a while. Having worked on editorial shoots for Ukrainian Vogue and Odda magazine, and having photographed fashion “It girls” like Aweng Chuol and Emma Leth, the photographer’s pure and unadulterated aesthetic regularly strikes a chord with the It’s Nice That team.

Daphne Milner — 20 June 2018
Regulars / Bookshelf Parallel Practice's Bookshelf provides insight into its thorough understanding of graphic design

Prague-based design studio, Parallel Practice AKA Michal Landa and Jan Brož are a firm favourite of ours here at It’s Nice That. For years now, the duo has been impressing us with their eclectic designs which layer imagery and utilise type as a graphic element. From identities to posters, to album sleeves and publications, the studio can do it all with each design surpassing the previous.

Ruby Boddington — 20 June 2018
Regulars / Printed Pages Cover Stories: MacGuffin's Kirsten Algera on the magazine covers that left a lasting impression on her work

To celebrate the release of Printed Pages SS18, we’ve asked a selection of influential people in creative publishing to choose the seminal magazine covers that they loved, and made an impact on them and their work. The magazines could be from any time, place or niche of the publishing world. In this series, they’ll tell us why these particular covers left a lasting impression.

Jenny Brewer — 20 June 2018
Work / Art Miranda July’s latest work is a high-tech portrait of the Uber driver who took her to interview Rihanna

This article has been reproduced courtesy of Garage.

Erin Schwartz — 19 June 2018
Work / Art Léa Augereau's figurative paintings feature a diverse range of strong and confident women

Léa Augereau’s figurative portraiture features commanding women, “who drive their own lives,” says the artist. Her bold and vibrant paintings use block colours to depict a diverse range of females, often placed in positions of leisure, drinking and smoking. “I want to highlight the modern woman” Léa explains, “for lots of people, a ‘good girl’ can’t smoke or drink, the rules are much more flexible for men, and this makes me feel frustrated”.

Emma Latham Phillips — 19 June 2018
Work / Digital Artist Adam Ferriss' photography filters are better than any on Snapchat

From flower wreaths and love hearts to dog ears and a lolling tongue, filters that map and transform a face have become a common occurrence on social media channels. It’s a phenomenon artist Adam Ferriss draws on in his latest installation Likeness, which reimagines face-filtering and remoulds people’s appearances in real time. “The end goal was to take a person’s face, and make it appear as another – but not in a face-swappy kind of way,” Adam tells us. “This is a bit of a unconventional project in that I didn’t know what kind of output to expect until I was well into the making of the project.”

Daphne Milner — 19 June 2018

Work / Graphic Design Graphic designer Jaap Smit physicalises the web in his data-driven practice

“Structuring facts and data,” responds graphic designer Jaap Smit when asked about the focus of his creative practice. Based in The Hague, Jaap utilises freely available information and creates graphic parameters to structure it, resulting in methodically-made and often humorous work.

Ruby Boddington — 19 June 2018
Features / Photography How Alex Prager made the world stop and stare

There are numerous reasons why photographer Alex Prager has gained such success and adoration, but one standout factor is her ability to make viewers see the world for its busy but dressed-up glory. She does so by setting a scene, something similar to daily life but eerily unfamiliar. The photographer creates sets to do this, but it’s a set you’d unknowingly walk past, a bus stop or a cinema crowd cast full of friends, family and the famous. It’s this mix of the real and the staged that’s seen curators at the world’s largest galleries fall for Alex, alongside the rest of us. You can’t help but stop and stare at an image by Alex Prager.

Lucy Bourton — 19 June 2018
Work / Photography Photographer Louise Reinke's latest shoot is inspired by the legendary Dionne Warwick

Dionne Warwick’s charisma and elegance was at the forefront of photographer Louise Reinke’s mind when she shot her series Walk on By for Under Pressure magazine. The German artist first got interested in photography at the age of 13 when her father entrusted her with a camera, sparking a life-long fascination with the craft. “It was during my university studies that I understood a picture’s potential to depict a convincing version of reality in a stylised way,” Louise tells It’s Nice That. “University was also where I met various fashion designers and got hooked on the art form.”

Daphne Milner — 19 June 2018
Work / Photography Photographer Eli Durst's series Pinnacle Realty challenges stereotypes of suburban America

Whether it’s two Mormons sitting on the curb of a parking lot eating McDonald’s or it’s a man taking a picture of an abstract sculpture in front of a food mart, it’s no accident that Eli Durst’s photographs resemble stills from a film. “When I applied for my undergraduate at Wesleyan University, I originally wanted to study film,” Eli admits. “But the film programme was really industry-centric and that put me off. At the same time, I was taking photography courses in the art department. I was completely seduced by the freedom of making art — just me, the camera, and the world.”

Daphne Milner — 18 June 2018
Work / Illustration Grace Miceli’s bold and playful illustrations re-interpret brands in humorous ways

Grace Miceli developed her signature bold and playful style once she’d left Goldsmiths university. Wanting to “get over the expectation of what type of art [she] should be making and instead connect to a more genuine expression of self”, Grace’s child-like illustrations embrace a candid messiness and inaccuracy, which she feels is more true to her.

Emma Latham Phillips — 18 June 2018
Work / Graphic Design Tsto returns to design Flow Festival's identity, pushing and playing with its typography

Back in 2011, Helsinki-based studio Tsto designed an identity for Flow Festival featuring a bold typographic treatment that has become synonymous with the festival’s name. Over the next five years the studio continued to roll out the festival’s identity under this visual language, before taking a three year break. 2018 marks Tsto back in the graphic design driving seat, and pushing the identity further seven years later from when it first sat down to do it.

Lucy Bourton — 18 June 2018

Work / Illustration Rosie Yasukochi's vibrant comic reflects on post-generational trauma

Rosie Yasukochi’s work is accessible, skillful and highly political. The California-based artist’s ongoing illustrative project explores her dual Japanese-American identity, the history of both nations and how her heritage impacts Rosie today.

Daphne Milner — 18 June 2018
Media Partnership / Illustration Patrick Kyle's helpful advice on how to start out at illustration fairs

Illustration, photography or design fairs, fairs of all kinds really, are some of our favourite weekends of the year. It’s a day or two where many of our beloved creatives are in town, travelling in with suitcases stacked full with prints and publications for us to pour over, and write about for you lot to see a couple of days later.

Lucy Bourton — 18 June 2018
Regulars / The Graduates 2018 "Don't drink and dance in front of your peers": ten creatives on their biggest mistakes

Art and design schools everywhere preach the importance of failure. Tutors encourage students to let go of any preconceptions of what their work should be and, instead, try everything under the sun, using their mistakes as a means to learn. James Dyson famously made his way through over 5,000 prototypes before discovering the solution for the modern-day hoover, for example. Creativity and the generation of new ideas seem to go hand-in-hand with making mistakes, with the best ideas the result of learning from one.

Ruby Boddington — 18 June 2018
Work / Art Rachel Louise Hodgson’s drawings challenge traditional ideals of beauty

Rachel Louise Hodgson’s drawings break from the ordinary. Their bright, sickly colours unsettle the viewer, challenging traditional conceptions of beauty. Rachel initially studied fashion photography at The London College of Fashion; where she tells It’s Nice That, “the teachers never understood my work, I stuck out and received a terrible grade”.

Emma Latham Phillips — 15 June 2018
Regulars / Nicer Tuesdays Sam Conniff rouses the Nicer Tuesdays audience to Be More Pirate

In past lives, Sam Conniff was the founder of creative network Livity and media platform Don’t Panic, but recently he’s gone rogue with a new mission: to encourage everyone to Be More Pirate. Born from research into the radical strategies of Golden Age pirates, his new ethos and book of the same name (with an added explanatory strapline “Or How to Take On The World And Win”) adapts these strategies for 21st Century work and life, and aligns them with modern day innovators or “rebels” like Elon Musk and Malala Yousafzai.

It's Nice That — 15 June 2018
Work / Publication Koln Studio designs artist's catalogue using improvisation and fun

The work of Spanish artist, Eloy Arribas is energetic, using a multitude of materials and lines to explore the representation of an object and the materiality of the object itself. In their production, his paintings are “almost paleontological”, revealing themselves in a sporadic fashion to him as he works. It’s only right, therefore, that the catalogue to accompany his recent exhibition Niño Fósil / Fruta de Piedra reflected his energy and spontaneity.

Ruby Boddington — 15 June 2018

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