First of all, thanks a lot for the support and orders of the ebooks. I will start to work on the 3td issue of THREE soon as it should cover july to september posts.

 

After been in contact with Piers Faccini via twitter, I found El Calotipo via instagram. When I saw the pictures of their work, I feel their passion for printing, paper and, more important, details ! I was looking for a new partener for the 2014 letterpress calendar, so I contact them. They are in Zaragoza, Spain, and as I am in the south of France, it is not so far and organize a trip there. I have Spanish blood in my veins, my great-grandparents are Spanish and I often went as a kid. And just for the Iberico ham, it's worth the trip! The most impressive is their lead in terms of "gluten-free" : pizza, sandwiches, special dishes in restaurants, big "gluten free" sign on products... a dream !

El Calotipo are Carla and Nelson, and their studio is located in San Pablo neighborhood of the city :  the place that has witnessed the evolution of the craftsmen in their workshops since the fifteenth century, we aim to give impetus to this area of the city and recover some old crafts and new technologies works taking as a starting point the following: manual printing generates some qualities which are very interesting in graphic design.

 

 

For all those who don't know Piers Faccini (shame on you), he's a singer, composer, songwriter, photographer, painter... mixing Englsih and Italian origins! I've followed him since his first album, "Leave no trace" in 2004 and for all the subsequent albums, I've seen him live twice, including an impressive showcase in a French record shop, where with only his voice, guitar and harmonica he can give you have chills !
 
But apart from the music, I like how he is involved in all the creative process of his albums, making the artwork and doing the photos and designing the sleeves with designer Uncle O... He is for me a full creative, passionate artist doing things just for the pleasure and beauty of it all…
 
With the magic of social media you now can be in contact with everyone, even if it is most of the time "virtual"... But this time it became much more concrete... After his tweet about a demo of one of his songs on soundcloud, I just retweeted it and we started a tweet exchange... He likes this blog and as I know he lives near  me (now I am back in the south of France), I asked him if we can meet to share about design and inspiration... I came to graphic design through a passion for music, not the kind you play but the stuff you listen to... I've collected records over the years and spent more time looking for rare LPs or 7" vinyl when I was young instead of losing time in bars like most of my friends. So meeting a global creative artist like this, someone I admire and inspires so much through his music was really exciting…
 
Our meeting was set up in his house, on May 9th... Piers lives a nice home in "Les Cevennes" with his wife and their 2 kids, and has a small house at the back of the garden where he can create, paint, and record his albums... We spent some hours talking about the process of the design of his album sleeves, about how today you can do your own promotion and be in contact directly with people who like what you do... I asked him to write me about all that we had talked about via email so as to have his own words (in italic black).

 

 

I have always been fascinated by these portraits used on his 4th album, even more now that I know how they were made... I always thought it was done with photoshop but actually Piers told me "I don't even have it !". He did these self portraits by cutting up maps ! Impressive...

 

 

And it's part of the whole concept of the album  :

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, this side portrait was use on the American version of the album, while a front on portrait was used on the French sleeve. When I asked, Piers told me that when he presented the idea to the record company, the boss didn't like it ! But if he had to choose, he preferred the front on one... Luckily, the American label preferred the side one so in the end both portraits were used ! The US album also contains 2 more songs, which was how Piers conceived the album, but the French record company thought it was too long...

 

 

 

 

 

Between dogs and wolves new album sleeve

Just after we met and have a great coffee at CSHH with T Y Zheng and Jason Song, the man behind ACRE, we jump into a car to visit their studio. It is a great square white space full of geek tools and toys ! I heard about ACRE after seeing the Units of measure calendar on insagram, if I well remember... This is unique and amazing poster with thousand of details... My first idea was to sell some in the shop here, but it was out of stock before this could happen !!! They just launch a second edition if you want it.

 

Here comes some picture of I took, and some of the project of this young and promising Singapore studio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ACRE / Units of measure calendar

 

Already 3 weeks since I came back from Singapore and haven't found time to post about new meeting with designers there... Here comes the first one, the great Bravo company... You must have seen one of their project on a blog or an other (including this one !), they do such inspiring typographic work. Even if they are not specialized in restaurant identities, they have done several for varied places around Singapore...

 

The wood coasters was the ideal gift...