Jonathan Barnbrook on Bowie, plus plenty more from Nicer Tuesdays December

The final Nicer Tuesdays of 2016 celebrated dedication to the nitty gritty details and to being true to yourself, while paying homage to one of the greatest creative forces of the past century.

Wallace Henning kicked off the evening with a whirlwind tour of his year-long passion project, republishing the original 1965 British Rail Corporate Identity Manual in its entirety. He began at the beginning – his MA project imagining an identity for a re-nationalised rail. “I became obsessed,” he said of his research. “I needed to know everything else that was out there,” which led to him creating a massive archive of British Rail paraphernalia, and in turn influenced his decision to republish the corporate identity as an all-encompassing book.

“British Rail became a year of my life. Every single day for a year I worked on this. There was so much measuring, checking, testing. I went to bed thinking of grids and layouts.” The finished book, funded via Kickstarter, is a work of absolute dedication to nitty gritty details.

Next up was photographer Jess Bonham and set designer Anna Lomax, a creative double act who work together on so many projects they finish each others sentences, but it wasn’t always that way. “We both studied at Brighton but our work was so different, we never thought we’d work together,” said Anna. “We were opposite ends of the spectrum,” Jess continued. “I was about Japanese design and monochrome, and Anna…” “…I was about Chat magazine and Pat Butcher,” Anna said.

But after a few projects together, they realised their skills and influences were complementary. They showed recent work including She Said, a photo series “based on a letter I got from a woman in my building who it turns out is a dominatrix,” explained Anna. Jess added: “The project is about material, texture, the right balance of innuendo and being suggestive with materials.”

Photographer Maisie Willoughby showed her recently exhibited project, a beautiful series named Girl on Girl. “It’s ten shots taken over ten years, of girls in various states of undress,” she explained. “Once I did a few of these shots, other women got in touch about shooting them, because I was a woman and they could tell they were shot by a woman. This both flattered me and at the same time aggravated me,” she said. “I became very interested in this idea of the female gaze and the male gaze – how women are portrayed by men as objects of desire. Some of these girls were shy when they turned up but felt empowered by the end. I felt honoured to have shot these.”

To round of the evening with perhaps one of the most fascinating Nicer Tuesdays talks ever, was Jonathan Barnbrook. The renowned graphic designer spoke about his work with David Bowie on the artist’s final album, ★. “I feel privileged to have worked with one of the major creative forces of the last 100 years,” Jonathan said. “He balanced good work with making it an enjoyable process, which is rare. It was an intense process. We listened to the album together, and we were always in contact, sending artistic references to each other.”

He explained the use of Unicode for the album’s title and artwork, as it’s both a technical choice – as an image that works across all formats – and an artistic choice. “It’s called ★, not Blackstar. Emoji shows the way language is evolving. I met William Burroughs once, and asked him the question I hate being asked, which is ‘what is the future of typography?’ He said: ‘It’s something between Egyptian hieroglyphs and airport pictograms,’ which is pretty much true. It’s not quite language, it’s something entirely different.”

On the final artwork, Jonathan described its meaning to him and Bowie fans. “This is very simple. My work is much simpler than it was 20 years ago. If you make the same work when you’re 40 as you do when you’re 20 then there’s something wrong with you. That’s the same with Bowie. People expected Ziggy Stardust, but that wouldn’t have been authentic to him now. You have to be true to yourself. It’s important to me that the people who love him feel it truly represents him.”

And with that we round off a momentous and memorable year of creativity. Thanks so much to all our speakers from last night and the rest of 2016 – see you all next year!

Supported by Park Communications

Nicer Tuesdays is supported by Park Communications one of London’s eminent, most friendly and approachable printers.

Nicer Tuesdays is a monthly event curated by It’s Nice That held at Protein Studios in London. Tickets for the event sell out quickly, to buy tickets ahead of general sale please sign up to our newsletter.