Hamish Muir - Trying to murder Helvetica

I look forward to seeing the range of work from all our visiting lecturers. Hamish's was really different and the path which his career has taken him is very interesting too. Its understandable to hear that some designers have some sort of early onset OCD - I wonder if these early traits help develop our visual language for the future? Originally he planned to pursue a career in science - but this did not work for him. As a result of studying Graphic Design in Bath and then furthering his studies at the Basel School of Design, Muir came into contact with some of the best designers in the business.


ARMIN HOFFMAN











WOLFGANG WEINGART



































KURT HAUERT

and the type designer ANDRE GURTLER. (Haas Unica, Basilia, eqyptian 505...)
I think we are all familiar with the experience of seeing a piece of work that looks 'out of this world' and for Muir this was the work of Wolfgang Weingart in particularly. Some of Hamish's early work didn't really appeal to me, but I can understand that 8VO had a style. I would have preferred to see some photographs of the posters which used fluorescent or metallic inks. I think the entire feel for something like that is lost in a digital presentation. Because I thought some of the colours were quite garish - but these colours may not be the same as the ones of the printed material.


You could really sense a difference as 8VO's work began to develop. The work for the Boymans Van Beuningen Museum was much more refined and simplified. I really liked this style of work.




Out of all the work 8VO did for Factory Records, this poster was probably the one I thought worked the best. I could imagine the silver, metallic ink and imagined it would look really effective. His idea for a poster that would fade of react to water is really itneresting but facing realities "water soluble ink - not a good idea in Manchester."



Seeing examples of how 8VO worked with their collage techniques and building layers, constantly changing the images physically has inspired me to get out of my sketchbook and yes...onto the floor. Whilst developing my ideas for the Resistance poster I'm experimenting using shapes and layering these. You really do loose your focus when staring at a blank sheet in Illustrator. The fact that 8VO's collage fell off the wall because the weight of all the layered papers caused it to become too heavy, that's true development. Seeing their way of photographing through layers reminded me of multi-plane animation - which I guess it is in a way.

Click here for Hamish's website