Monday 20 January 2014

Unit : Studio Visit

My visit to Unit
























During the Christmas break I contacted various local Leeds studios for a studio visit. I was lucky enough to visit Si Billiam at his studio called Unit. He was a really friendly guy who spoke openly about his experience as a designer.

I went with the intention ask him about staying up North after my degree and who were the best people to talk to. He expressed his love for Manchester and said if he had his time again, thats where he would have liked to have started out.

Manchester has always been in the back of my mind too, as I know that I could never afford London straight out of university. Due to Unit just being him, he could not offer me a placement however he said to keep in touch and return for a possible portfolio surgery. 

At the time Nathan and myself were handing out / sending the Dialogue invitations. I thought it would be nice to give Si his in person and it went down really well. That same week he sent in his submission.


About

His work ranges from public art installations and global branding to local government, regeneration projects and music industry art direction. We have built a reputation for producing creative solutions that go beyond the traditional boundaries that graphic design is contained within.

Although still in our infancy, his work has already reached across the globe as far as the US and been featured in exhibitions in Europe — most recently at a fringe event to the famous SONAR festival in Barcelona.

Prior to establishing UNIT, Si was a former Senior designer with the world renowned ‘The Designers Republic’ based in Sheffield. His work ranged from rebranding MTV Italy (QOOB), creating global campaigns for Coca-Cola to projects with independent artists, record labels and architects. After his time at tDR he spent 3 years working as Senior Designer & Art Director at Leeds based Vast servicing clients within the arts, fashion, property and regeneration markets. Si’s work on the independent fashion magazine ‘Shufti®’ led to the publication winning both Gold & Silver prizes at the Graphis and SPD awards in New York 2009.


Selected work

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SCI+TEC: MINICOOLBOYZ

SCI+TEC Digital Audio is the creation of the world renowned DJ & Producer Ali 'DUBFIRE' Shirazinia. Dubfire was one-half of the four-time nominated and Grammy Award-winning duo Deep Dish. Since the labels inception in 2007 we have been working with Humanstudio on the overriding look of all the releases to date on across digital download, promo CD's and Vinyl.

This SCI+TEC's latest release for MINICOOLBOYZ. Bright neon tubes collide with blocks to create this sombre yet inviting piece.The work also included inner circles for vinyl release (pics coming soon).





SCI+TEC: ALBERTO PASCUAL

SCI+TEC Digital Audio is the creation of the world renowned DJ & Producer Ali 'DUBFIRE' Shirazinia. Dubfire was one-half of the four-time nominated and Grammy Award-winning duo Deep Dish. Since the labels inception in 2007 we have been working with Humanstudio on the overriding look of all the releases to date on across digital download, promo CD's and Vinyl.

This SCI+TEC's latest release for Alberto Pascual. The work also included inner circles for vinyl release (not shown).

























ATTIK: ZERO EXPLORATION

A series of explorations using graphical and geometric patterns to visualise purposeful movement. Developed as part of the graphic language of Coke Zero with ATTIK.
























LEEDS CITY COUNCIL: MUSEUMS & GALLERIES

As arts funding becomes more and more limited the Leeds City Council Museums & Galleries service were seeking to engage with the private and commercial sectors to raise funds for forthcoming exhibitions and shows. We created a 'Hirst meets Riley' subrand for the coming together of the arts and commercial sectors and applied them across some minimal and modern items including preview invites and sponsorship packs.







ATTIK/COCA-COLA: LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC VIS

Working alongside ATTIK UK we helped deliver the Visual Identity System for Coca-Cola's London Olympic 2012 sponsorship campaign.

ATTIK commissioned illustrator Matt Moore to create an illustration that we then translated in to a modular system that could be applied to anything and everything. The campaign was built around 'MOVE TO THE BEAT' using dynamic shapes and lines and the level of complexity was relative to the time leading up to the games. The project was two years in the making and was rolled out over hundreds of applications - A few of which are shown here and everything else can be seen on google images using the link below.







COLOURS MAY VARY: BRAND IDENTITY