News, awards, writing and ideas

‘We All Have Our Little Things…’ (Liz) […] paper

We should not be scared to tackle and discuss the more delicate and tricky issues of society and of human living… But it is not always easy… Yes difficult issues come with a certain amount of not knowing, fear, and wasted energy (but that is what the problem is in the 1st place).

Read our paper ‘We All Have Our Little Things…’ (Liz) and Our Art of Health Global Competition Entry for STI & HIV 2023 on our Medium. About us trying to do more edgy, difficult and challenging design projects, as well as still offering our range of other services. Zbohom (goodbye in Slovakian). April 2024.

Art of Health global competition entry for STI & HIV 2023

We have decided to showcase our submission for the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association Art of Health (for the STI & HIV 2023 World Congress), to answer the question ‘what does sexual health mean to you?’.

We have decided to allow copyright-free reuse of this graphic communication design submission, but you must always credit: Graphic communication design by User Design, Illustration and Typesetting www.userdesignillustrationandtypesetting.com.

We would also like to class it, as a specific piece of health information design www.healthdesignnetwork.net and government campaign design work. April 2024

Effectiveness request of the awarded redesigned disability pictogram winning entry…

In December 2023, we got an email from The International Union of Architects (UIA) and Rehabilitation International (RI) who jointly invited submissions in 2022, for a 21st-century symbol of accessibility, to represent their core values of rights and inclusion, independence, physical and virtual accessibility for all, including people with disabilities. The intent was for the new symbol from the competition, to replace the person in a wheelchair pictogram.

So in May 2022, we submitted a design along with user testing results. After a delay of 3 weeks after the original winners’ announcement date, we were not successful, our submission did not get an award. We said the following about the top-3 pictogram designs awarded ‘not good’. We were not keen on the awarded design and did not know what it was…

So in December 2023, we got an email from them once again saying ‘It is important to note that whilst this new symbol has been proposed to the Public Information Symbols, Signs and Guidance System (ISO/TC 145/SC1) documentation, it has not yet been accepted and the views of key stakeholders, are being invited on this important issue. To that extent the Guild of Architectural Ironmongers (GAI) and Graphical Symbols – Public Information Symbols (PH/8/2) documentation, would like to ascertain the thoughts of industry, by requesting responses to the following questions’. We will save you the work of reading the 13 electronic form questions about the new amazing pictogram design. But they are very unsure about the design itself, and are not sure if it even works or is good… So I think I have said enough, I replied to the form, and at the end I wrote ‘why not use our design that we submitted and read the user testing results?’. Anyway, I think you get the idea. If you employ people who do not really know what they are doing, it never goes very well and is more open to problems (people have known this for 100s of years).

Competition board

The competition board cannot be told either (they think they know best and know better than designers or users). In fact, this is not even the point, the point is if a large range of people, like, can use, and can understand the new symbol. The competition board show a lack of intelligence, and they will not have their information and beliefs contested, maybe they enjoyed judging the competition so much, that they want to do it all over again? But there is no need, as they have our entry and many other good ones… When someone cannot be told, they might not like what they hear, or they might disagree, this may be the case, but if you cannot be told, you do not learn anything, or possibly know about something you might be doing wrong, or could be done better. The competition board chose a design based on their subjective preferences, it gives them a sense of input and value, but the mistake is they usually have no expertise in the area and they only choose to reinforce and value their singular narrow vision, but the new pictogram will be used by millions of people. Maybe they simply disagree from their comfortable and luxurious position, maybe their disagreeing, is the incontestable de facto that should never be looked at and simply is… but it would seem not now. Maybe they are scared of an alternative to their grand subjective personal incontestable utopian ideologies. If only they were given a disability or put in the position of a person with disabilities, stripped of their goods, wealth, position and supplies, only when it becomes a reality, are they denied their indestructible castle with a moat. They expect change, insist on change, they demand change, they think they have a right to change, they want a say and to direct constitutional reform, but unfortunately and there is an almighty unfortunately… they will not have their own constitution reformed (oh no, and most certainly not, how could it possibly be wrong and have faults…). They promote, but they do not do what they promote. There are even some that do all that is asked and required, but that have their value robbed and misdirected… and this is 1 of the worst ones out there, but it happens more than you might think, but they will not always tell you. It all becomes very silly, until in the end, you find out what really matters, power and value. The person who has the power and value, survives, at least in a Western society anyway. The people with power and value are also stronger, by default than people with less power and value… The underdog has already started difficultly with an increased amount of failure from the start, on their utopian quest, of an unknown size (but maybe that is what the people with power and value really wanted in the 1st place, but did not reveal).

We ourselves do enjoy the view from ground level, free to go wherever but not without a certain amount of automatic problems. But a castle with a moat, would be a nice objective reality. Then we could fire-off a few cannonballs and delete some of our problems, without being burnt or hit, hopefully destroying some of the bozo corporations. Anyway, it is all fairly typical stuff, and we are certainly not surprised. But it does become a little degressive year-after-year.

This scenario reminds us of our old, and he would not mind, Australian colleague David Sless, director of the Communication Research Institute. We wonder what he would say, although he probably has many copies from years and decades gone by, but probably enjoys fig rolls and cigars more these days in the hot sunshine.

So we have done our bit (and free of financial charge, for goodwill and public good) and that is it. We were not surprised at the concerned request for information about the effectiveness of the newly awarded pictogram, but it does insult and devalue our work. Charlotte Armstrong in 2023, in her article Replacing the Accessibility Symbol – What Is Happening and How to Get Involved has also arrived at the same grand discovery.

Few knowns in communication, but it does not mean we should not try to find out, and there are many ways of doing so, massively developed in the last 10–20 years. We must never assume communication or more specifically graphic communication will go well, as is expected or intended, it is a very faulty belief. And when you add political difficulty to the equation, you might as well put your sprinting shoes on.

The surprising thing is, that we still cannot work out, is how they arrived at a very bad awarded pictogram. That they then need more information on, because it is so highly unusable and unsuccessful. They have had 100s of entries including ours, all with the required user testing data (naturally), and they still do not have something that works and can be used… We do not understand it and is highly frustrating, stupid and insulting to human intelligence. Should we have even bothered.

And there is another issue that has been genuinely overlooked but that should not. The final awarded winning new pictogram design, has to be submitted to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO)… so they do not even know for sure, if the winning pictogram design will be accepted… This is a difficult area and we are not blaming them about this issue, but maybe they could have submitted some designs, like 3 designs to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), then at least there should be something half usable for them to do something with?

The newly awarded pictogram design in 2022 by Ukrainian architect Maksym Holovkoas, to replace the person in a wheelchair pictogram.

Find out more about our competition entry, on our Information Design webpage. February 2023.

Photographing books… with Justina Nekrašaitė (The Book Photographer) from Amsterdam

So many problems today, maybe even more than in previous years. But never has there been so many opportunities and solutions… But they rarely get to where they need to. To speak to someone or people, who listen, consider, value and ask about what you are saying and doing, is a very rare thing these days.

Here at User Design, Illustration and Typesetting we are focused on delivering solutions every day of the working week, we have to listen to the client, read the brief, solve problems, decide upon ultimate solutions, speak to people involved, deliver and implement solutions, find out if users are okay and if things work well, if they have had a good user experience. And we also have to check if there is enough money in our pockets, so we can do the things we need to. We try not to reject what people say, we try not to assume, we try not to implement mandatory forced solutions, and here is the big 1, we try to always run things by our clients, to ask, to show, to tell, to explain, to discuss, to debate (and we are not going to tell you why we do this). David Sless, director of the Communication Research Institute says:

‘Out of this work, we are creating the tools and methods for a new design profession, which is displacing traditional graphic design and its concern for physical presence. The new profession of information designers transcends the physical and goes to the heart of the functional information needs of an organisation, creating powerful systems that simultaneously shape whole classes of information for workers, consumers and citizens. As a profession, information designers are driven by a desire to make information accessible and usable to ordinary people, and their work lends a quiet dignity to the objects of ordinary life.

It is my firm conviction that we need to stimulate the growth of this profession of information designers if we are to ensure that information becomes something of value in our society, and not a burden’ (Sless, 1995).

Quote 1st published in Communication News, 8(5/6), 1995, and also on the Communication Research Institute website, in a paper called Information Design for the Information Age.

And the important part that I would like to requote, is a designer’s ‘work lends a quiet dignity to the objects of ordinary life’. Sounds boring and bland, does it not?, however very desirable for everyday efficient functioning, and when a designer’s work does not lend to a ‘quiet dignity to the objects of ordinary life’, you will sure as hell notice it and know about it (it has another name dysfunction).

Customer service at physical banks in the United Kingdom

We went to a physical bank last week, and we went to the 1st account machine, put our card in, typed in the number, went to print a statement, pressed print, only to be told by the machine, that it was out of paper… A few minutes earlier, I had to cycle all the way across Leicester city, because the original bank I wanted to go to (same banking branch), had shut down in the last month (even though it said it was open, on the Google search side panel opening times information). Luckily and thankfully, the 2nd account machine (there are 3 side‑by‑side in the physical bank), had paper in… Standing behind me, were 3 of the bank’s staff with iPads in their hands. They cannot even check if a machine has paper in it. There could have been a long queue on the other machines. So maybe there is a divine being out there. Maybe the mass media and large corporations have got it right, maybe we should do away with physical shops, as customer service, is not what it used to be. In countries like Switzerland and Germany, if bad customer service happens, the offender gets a really bad look and frown, with possible loss of life (in a manner of speaking, of course). Yes I am not kidding, these countries do not tolerate it. In the hotel and sommelier industry, customer service is serious business. Anyway, onto the point of our news post.

Photographing books

We have photographed most of the printed books on our website, although it is quite a difficult and tricky task. If you are an amateur or even intermediate, or do not have the right equipment, it can be a difficult and time‑consuming task, as we have found out over the years. In fact, it is more work than you might think. Light, getting the book flat, focus sharpness, shadows, and getting the correct colour and exposure, are massively time-consuming and difficult tasks. To do it well, you need your own known setup that works. And on more than 1 of our photographing book projects, we have had to completely reshoot, because we have got photographs (that we think are good and correct) back into the computer, then started to go through them, to realise they are not quite right, and need reshooting, all over again. That is right, on more than 1 occasion, we have had to reshoot projects. When you photograph books, the colour contrast is quite narrow (thin), because of this, you need to get it even more correct and how it should be, and done inside the camera (top tip!).

© Justina Nekrašaitė (The Book Photographer), view her portfolio website, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Photograph from photoshoot © Justina Nekrašaitė (The Book Photographer), view her portfolio website, Instagram and LinkedIn.

We worked on the book design, illustration, typesetting and amending editorial corrections of Alan Lucas’s Realise Your Power book, published in 2023 by Whitefox, that went really really well (in fact better than well, we are delighted with the end results). The book is essentially a standard paperback book, as seen in bookshops, and helps you ‘sort your self out’, get motivated, find possibilities and make progress. Some people say they do not like self help books. Well… the bottom line is that they help people, people get something from it. I would say that is that. The cover paper is nice and supports the book, the paper grain of the inside paper actually goes in the right direction (vertically up and down the book’s spine), our design is very unusual in the sense that it was accepted and approved (it has a very nice fun feel and is easy-to-use). The book was printed by Clays, Suffolk, United Kingdom, Elograf, S.p.A.

The problems around photographing books

We thought about photographing the book ourselves, it is more tricky than usual, because of the book’s smallish pocket-size. The issue is getting the outer edge of the spreads to lie flat, and not fold back in and shut the open book. It does this mainly because of the hot‑melt glue (perfect) binding, that glues the pages (left side of the book block) onto the spin, to near concrete strength. So, 1 of the things that you have to do, is slightly flatten the open spread, then get some special sellotape that peels off easily, so it does not stick harshly to the paper (that would then rip when you pull it off), to make the outer edge pages stick to the table. So you can photography the pages flat (well as near flat as you can get, and yes it does sound complex and difficult, and that is because it is). I am even tired now describing this, and we have not even started to photograph the pages… Larger art, architecture and design books, are easier to photograph, because the page size is larger, that allow double page spreads to open flatter. These types of books, typically use less ridged binding than holt-melt glue, or they are hardback sewn bound, or they use a binding method such as otabinding.

So to cut a long story (and job) short! … … … we found out about Justina Nekrašaitė (The Book Photographer) based in Amsterdam a few years ago, from the Best Dutch Book Design competition yearly annual, and we really liked what she was doing. We had a meeting with her on the 5 February 2024, then commissioned her to photograph Alan Lucas’s Realise Your Power book, published in 2023 by Whitefox, that we worked on. Interested of course to see the results, and to make our life easier and to free-up time. We booked the project in, paid, arranged a meeting to go through the project brief, chatted a bit, explored issues in our professions and with the project. There is no doubt, this book photography project is a dirty job project, and we were more than happy for Justina Nekrašaitė to sort it out.

Thanks also to Alan Lucas and Whitefox for permission to allow us, to shoot photographs of the book. We will write-up the project and add the other photos soon, and put on them on the Book Design webpage.

Tot ziens (goodbye in Dutch). February 2024.

What Cats Want: An Illustrated Guide for Truly Understanding Your Cat project and book review. A 100% (10 out of 10) perfect book

So much dysfunction and bad people in the world, who like to fight and create chaos, who cannot be enlightened and who choose not to value what they hear… What did the musician Bob Marley say ‘let’s get together and feel alright’ (Marley, 1978) and ‘politics is a heavy game man/woman (BBC, 1980), rasclaat!’.

However, and there is a precisely snappy however. Below is an example of effective human collaboration (is it possible, could it possibly be true?). Not an obviously common occurrence these days, but it did occur.

‘The most beautiful and best book we have ever seen designed, in the last 24 years’.

We have had some time to write-up projects recently and do some other interesting things. To find out more, read our project and book review of What Cats Want: An Illustrated Guide for Truly Understanding Your Cat project and book review. A 100% (10 out of 10) perfect book, that we worked on for Bloomsbury publishers in 2020. February 2024.

User Joke Times, headlines for 26 September 2023–2 October 2023

The headline story in the media last week, of the theft of 2000 priceless items from the British Museum, made us create and design 7 kitsch campaign ideas, using copywriting, typography, branding and graphic communication, for some of the main issues going on. They show a bit of an edge on political issues, covering crime, public services, music sale revenue, social media user experience, Covid-19, regulation, morals, ethics, truth and message. Posters can be freely reused (copyright free). If you have any ideas, or would like any issues tackled, contact us, and we could return for another week.

Our 2nd edition book called The Journey of Larks (2011), also has some of our funnier-edged work. October 2023.

GOV.UK Communications Marketplace

We were accepted as a supplier on the GOV.UK Communications Marketplace after months of paperwork, where the U.K government and public sector organisations, can access a wide-range of specialist marketing and communications services. We are working more actively with them from September this year, until 2025, working on campaigns, publications, forms, text content and other graphic communication items.

It is has been a hard time for the government and everyone else in the last few years, we look forward to close collaboration with them, on projects, meetings and workshops (like user testing and feedback/review sessions). September 2023.

New Universal Works clothing store in Nottingham, U.K.

This week, we were at the new Universal Works clothing store in Nottingham, that opened in January 2023. To open a new physical store after the Covid-19 lockdowns is a great risk, but shows great courage. When you order online, you cannot try on clothes, feel what it is like, feel how thin or thick it is, you do not meet anyone or experience as much. Founded by a Midlands man in Nottingham in 2009, they are doing interesting things and have grown in success, and now have 3 stores in the U.K. They have a made in England knitwear range, see also their Made In England ‘Knitwear’ article.

We have written about the joys (or not…), of ordering clothes online in our article Useful Accessibility and Usability Examples To Help Improve Your Designs in December 2022.

No hazardous gangs or organised crime in Nottingham either, unlike in London, trying to ruin our life! August 2023.

Our website’s editorial style guide

You can now view our website’s editorial style guide, all for free, that contains loads of good stuff aimed at wide-spread usability and text comprehension. We know that people have very personal, subjective and funny views about editorial style, punctuation and grammar, so it could be of interest for those with a penchant for syntax (forgive the gobbledygook). We hope you find it useful. Any issues or errors, please do contact us. June 2023.

UX London 2023 Conference

We attended the excellent UX London 2023 Conference at the Tobacco Dock in East London, on the 22nd–23rd June 2023, hosted and organised by the design company Clearleft. June 2023.

2nd Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing (CBCP) Postgraduate Symposium

We attended the excellent symposium at the University of Reading, U.K., near to the world-renowned Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, on the 25th May 2023, 9am–5pm. May 2023.

Editing to our website and previous publications

Over the last few years, we have been editing and sorting text content on this website and our previously published publications. We had feedback saying our writing was a bit clunky and needs more editing. We have also done a 2nd edition of our Small Print in Graphic Communication Design and Information Design: A Discussion of Issues and Interactions (2nd Edition) paper. (Note: this paper was originally published on the Usability Geek website in January 2017. In April 2023, we moved it to our Medium so we can update it more easily.)

Let us know if you spot any errors. We have also trialled and used an interesting editorial style throughout this website, and aim to make our editorial style guide publicly available sometime in the future, and add new projects. Hope you enjoy! April 2023.

Quintetto Boccherini, Düsseldorf, 1961 poster by Atelier Müller‑Brockmann

Special occasion in the office today, because of the arrival of an original Quintetto Boccherini, Düsseldorf, 1961 poster from Josef Müller-Brockmann’s studio Atelier Müller-Brockmann, released from archives and made available to buy through Flat & Bound.

He has been 1 of our inspirations for starting in 2002 more than 20 years ago, and a huge underlying influence on our work and what we try to do for our clients. We have been reading his book Josef Müller‑Brockmann Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design for more than 20 years.

He served in the Swiss army from 1939–1945, maybe this time and activity, had an impact on his philosophy. He was an originator and pioneer of using grid systems in graphic communication design and objective graphic communication. He sought to rid his communication with people from personal mindless subjectivity and self‑expression (art), but instead to offer clear, precise, objective, high-performance and effective design for people, to help people of society understand what is going on, and to function in it, aspects that are in over‑demand today.

In his early works he used illustration, although concluded some years after, that illustration was subjective and faulty because it represented the visions and ideas of the illustrator (the artist). Josef had a major problem with this ideology and then decided to use purely photography and clear uncluttered typography, using basically 1 typeface family Akzidenz-Grotesk for the rest of his career, saying that this was more objective, functional and effective. Although we know now that graphic communication is not that easy‑to‑define or know, and is not 100% valid. The ideas are certainly very interesting, especially in communication with the public, and represent a very early commercial history of consciously making graphic communication design accessible and usable for people, or even information design.

Quintetto Boccherini, Düsseldorf, 1961 poster by Atelier Müller‑Brockmann.

He died in 1996 (9th May 1914–30th August 1996) aged 82, but is very much not gone. The Information Design Journal was founded in 1979 and we often think, what would he have thought about his field objective graphic communication design and the Information Design Journal, and especially the 20 years, between 2000–2020, that was basically a revolution in what is sometimes called user-centred design or officially information design, or even user experience. It would have been a fascinating conversation, maybe he did know about the journal, although I have not found any records or evidence.

It must have been amazing, eye-catching (whatever that meant or means today?), and maybe shocking to see this poster in 1961, in the town centre of Düsseldorf, I am quite sure the public would have never seen anything like it, and may have even seen it as futuristic… or really thought, what is this? Maybe the public felt it was distasteful and we should call-in the authorities to have it removed, whatever the reaction was, they would have noticed it. Today’s graphic communication environment has become so wide and varied, that everything seems to mean not that much. David Sless (2004) mentions:

‘It is a matter of common experience in our time that we are all routinely confronted by more information than we can absorb. As a consequence, many of us have developed information avoidance strategies’.

We got it framed by Gadsby’s in Leicester, established around 1918, who are available to do framing throughout the U.K.

More posters are available from the archive until stocks run out. April 2023.

Josef Müller-Brockmann. Photograph dated 23rd April 1953 from Lars Müller Publishers (CC BY-SA 4.0, changes made).

New article Local Independent Bookshop Fox Books in Leicester, United Kingdom, and the Future of Physical Bookshops…

We have researched and written the article Local Independent Bookshop Fox Books in Leicester, United Kingdom, and the Future of Physical Bookshops… that highlights the current environment in 2023 and changing times in the retail sector after Covid‑19, and what they might need to do to butter the bread. We hope it is of some use. March 2023.

Contribution and donation to the book Posters Can Help

Global problems can lead us to question our own credibility and the significance of our own lives. We often ask ourselves what our work is really good for. This book is an effort to bring the global creative community together to take a small but valuable step, towards solving the big problems of our time, like the war in Ukraine. 1 of our freehand cartoon illustrations done in 2006, has been published in the publicly funded Posters Can Help book by Slanted on page 180. The project has raised a total of €6,687.41.

• €2,990.21 for the ARTHELPS charity.
• €3,697.20 for the MSF-Médecins Sans Frontières charity.

February 2023.

New article Useful Accessibility and Usability Examples To Help Improve Your Designs

We were asked by the Smashing Magazine team to write another article and produced Useful Accessibility and Usability Examples To Help Improve Your Designs to help designers make their designs more accessible and usable, and to envisage and come-up with new ideas in the areas of accessibility and usability. The easily over-looked area of access structures is discussed, that seems to have been most notably mentioned wayback in 1979 by the information designer Rob Waller, although they rarely get mentioned in current times. The article is for designers on their lunch break and we worked on the tone of the writing more than usual to make it upbeat, lively and increase readers motivation. We have previously explored and discussed tone in writing, in our interview An Interview With Anne-Marie Chisnall From Write on Plain English and Information Design, and as people say tone is a funny thing. Thanks again to Iris Lješnjanin and Yana Kirilenko. December 2022.

Out Of Joint vinyl record store

We are not always at our desks 24 hours a day and 365 days a year for our clients… and this week we visited the vinyl record store called Out Of Joint just a few miles away in Leicester, that we noticed about a month ago. We said to man behind the counter ‘how long have you been here for?, we noticed you about a month ago and have been meaning to stop by’ he replied ‘4 years…’. There is a 2 minute interview with them on YouTube. Not totally intentionally we bought:

• Atmospherica Vol. 2 LP by Deepchord. (New release. Genre: dub techno.)
• Untitled LP by Konrad Wehrmeister. (New release. Genre: leftfield techno.)
• Picnic Attack LP by I:Cube. (2nd-hand. Genre: house, future jazz.)

They use a custom labelling system on all vinyls, put on the top left of a vinyl that we have not seen used anywhere else, it is a nice feature and gives users a 2nd option for being able to scan through the information on vinlys, as apposed to having to locate information on the front or back of a vinyl’s artwork. It is a really nice touch.

We find it amazing how vinyls are still being cherished and are actually flourishing. It is still the most ideal music format in certain genres of music, and is not a fashion statement but used for maximum functionality. The sound from vinyl is super rich and warm, giving unbeaten sound quality not found digitally. There are some amazing things being done with vinyls, for instance, coloured marbled vinyl or even transparent vinyl, not to mention the highly niche and expert area around mastering digital music (usually a WAV) onto vinyl. There used to be a few other vinyl shops in Leicester around the year 2000, but with the increase of MP3 releases and the mainstream start of the internet, it affected vinyl production a lot.

Another great aspect of vinyl that needs to be continually supported, is the amount of effort that goes into making and producing them, and also who, where and what countries they are being made. Vinyl pressing plants are increasingly not surviving, and when they go, a lot is lost, much more than the value of their machinery and loss in profit. The positives and negatives of different mediums! Is the new really better than the past?

Read more about the store in a review from Inverted Audio. Photographs © Inverted Audio. October 2022.

Fred Perry polo t-shirts made in Leicester, U.K.

In these summery Covid-19 aftermath times, it is time for some new polo t-shirts and investing just a bit of time and research, we found a solution just outside Leicester city centre, just a few miles away. We have bought an M3 Black/Champagne polo t-shirt. Here are the very impressive unique features:

• Proudly made and hand-finished by people in Leicester.
• Uses recycled tipping and sewing threads.
• Uses buttons made from recycled materials.
• Responsibly-sourced laurel wreath embroidery.
• Responsibly-grown cotton through the Better Cotton Initiative.
• Much smaller carbon footprint than imported polo t‑shirts.

M3 Black/Champagne polo t-shirt and then inside the Piqué factory Leicester.

Read more about the Fred Perry Made in England range and their community initiatives. It is going to be interesting to see how it wears and possibly fades (durability) over the years. Our aim is to support the local community in these chaotic and faulty times. Photographs © Fred Perry. August 2022.

The Piqué factory Leicester (the dark graphite rectangle building with the 3 yellow square outline windows, in the middle), the pieces then go next door to garment makers ESP (the triangular‑roofed building to the right), where traditional British machinery combines with state‑of‑the‑art cutting technology.

Shutter Hub Exhibition: Yearbook 2022 Competition

Shutter Hub is a photography organisation providing opportunities and support for creative photographers worldwide. Our photograph Tavistock Drive, Leicester (Leicester City Centre, United Kingdom From Far Away) has been published in their online Exhibition: Yearbook 2022. It was in the 300 selected photographs, from 1600 entries across the world. 100 images will then be selected and published in a printed publication.

The photograph can be bought from Alamy here and see also our main Alamy portfolio. July 2022.

Measuring the Performance of Typefaces for Users paper

Often people and designers who use and select typefaces, do so using their personal preference and do not see or forget the larger system. What objectivity can we hope to gain from testing typefaces? The difficult and complex area of testing typefaces, in our paper Measuring the Performance of Typefaces for Users (Part 1) and Measuring the Performance of Typefaces for Users (Part 2) but ‘I think we are there’.

The paper was wrote in about 3 days (quick to write) although Alma Hoffmann (Smashing Magazine editor) pushed us much more, and the paper went through 3 rewrites and 3 reedits (slow to publish) but certainly benefited. Thanks again to Alma Hoffmann and Natalia Lassance.

‘Well, whatever your thoughts are, in 2022, with a mass of typefaces available and 100s of years of designing and manufacturing typefaces, it is time to consider this topic. I think the time has come, and we are there’.

We hope you find the paper useful. Some editorial style errors remain, but we tried our best within the time available. June 2022.

Shoes designed in Leicester U.K. and made in Northamptonshire U.K. and Italy

Due to the recent worldwide events between 2020–2021 (Covid-19), it has given us time in the office to consider what we have been doing, well doing with ease and not really thinking about… We have bought 2 pairs of shoes, but these are not any-old-shoes like you find in local highstreet mass-market shops though.

The 1st pair are Leicester Tigers Icon (Espresso) smart leather shoes, designed in Leicester U.K., then crafted and manufactured by hand and people in Northamptonshire U.K. The yellow leather lining inside the shoe is really soft and feels like a luxurious leather glove. The rubber soles are made from recycled material, the carbon footprint is much smaller than shoes imported from outside the U.K., and we are supporting a local business in a very competitive industry.

The 2nd pair are Pace Bi-Colour (Off White/Black) and are not even on sale to the public yet, that are more of a trainer, and less of a formal shoe. Once again designed in Leicester U.K. and then handcrafted by people and manufactured in Italy, using Italian materials with rubber soles that use recycled material, use suede, are fully calf lined, soft, durable and breathable.

Leicester used to be well-known for its shoe manufacturing and shoe factories, a notable example was British United Shoe Machinery (BUSM) Ltd in the 1960s, it was Leicester’s biggest employer, employing more than 4500 people locally and 9500 people worldwide. All that changed because U.K. companies outsourced work and manufacturing to Asia, to take advantage of cost cutting and cheaper labour to maximise profits. ‘The raw shoe materials and machines (engineering) that made the shoes, were also cheaper in low‑wage economies’ as BU History Group was telling us. Why can we not make a much higher percentage of goods here in the U.K. supporting local people, why is that so impossible? This strategy affected, and pretty much destroyed not just the shoe industry but many other U.K. industries like book and journal typesetting, printing, textiles, electronics and footwear (and many more), over the years and decades, and is still very much utilised today… What do we have left and where are we now in 2022?

The Covid-19 lockdowns have made us think that maybe we need to try to look closer to home for the things we need, even if it requires a bit more effort and money, in order to support the local community and local businesses, because if things are not working well around you, they could get a lot worse or finish altogether… then what? Are you aware of what goes on behind the seams of the products you buy? This is the extra we are doing, to support our local community and industries in these challenging times.

For more information visit the Marcus De website, shoes are available until stocks run-out. June 2022.

British United Shoe Machinery Company (BUSM) Ltd on Belgrave Road, Leicester, U.K. Photograph dated 1984 from Nigel Tout (CC BY-SA 4.0, changes made).