PETER LANYON
TATE: exhibition, publication

This book was published to accompany a major retrospective exhibition of work by one of the most important artists to emerge in post-war Britain. In addition SecMoCo produced a chronology of the major points in the life and work of the artist, displayed in the spectacular curved sea-facing galleries at Tate St Ives. (Here is a link for a digital re-interpretation of the timeline produced for the exhibition: http://www.tate.org.uk/download/file/fid/8209)

Publication: First published by Tate, London, UK, 2010; edited, and with a text by, Chris Stephens; additional texts: Margaret Garlake, Tacita Dean, WS Graham; 250 x 190 mm; 144 pp; 85 4-color and 62 b&w images; flapped softcover

Exhibition context (from TATE website): ‘Despite his early death at the age of forty-six Lanyon achieved a body of work that is amongst the most original and important reappraisals of modernism in painting to be found anywhere. Combining abstract values with radical ideas about landscape and the figure, Lanyon navigated a course from Constructivism through Abstract Expressionism to a style close to Pop. Accompanying the first major survey show of Lanyon’s work for 30 years, this book will introduce him to a new generation.

LIFE IS TO BLAME …
Jeremy Deller

Through the the foresight of Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, SecMoCo were pleased to be approached to design the first monograph on the early work of Jeremy Dellar, who has since become a Turner Prize-winning, internationally acclaimed artist. An absorbing feature of the design was a diagramatic key of the images, with corresponding numerical listing, incorporated on the inner front and back cover pages. It was a small publication, designed to be a pocket-sized reference tool, easily carried about the person.

First published, in an edition of 1,000 copies, by Salon 3 London, UK, 1993. Edited by Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt. Texts by John O’Reilly and Dave Beech, with additional artist annotations of featured works.
170mm x 118mm; 96pp; 136 colour and 36 b&w images; 4-colour softback cover with flaps; printed by Jim Pennington, Lithosphere, UK.

Context from the Cornerhouse website:
‘In many cases, this book provides the only permanent record of Deller’s ephemeral output, documenting the stickers, flyers and posters that have been lost forever […] This pocket-sized book, containing over 130 colour images, is a delightful illumination into Deller’s work.

Context from Amazon:
‘This is a great collection of work from the turner prize winner Jeremy Deller. This charts all of his early work from when he held an exhibition in his mum and dad’s house to when he sold t-shirts emblazoned with slogans such as ‘my booze hell’. There are also some great quotes and his style and work make you feel like you know him personally. Equally captvating for artists and non-artists, this collection of work will inspire you to create your own interventions and will help you to see society in a more positive way.’

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BELIEVE MEDIA
Identity: print

SecMoCo were asked to design the identity, stationery and showreel packaging for a leading UK film production company Believe Media, London, representing the work of
young, innovative directors in the advertising and promotional video sector. Unfortunately the design suggestions were not implemented.

FAMILY HISTORY
Gillian Wearing

Through the investigative and informed eye of it’s director Stephen Bode, SecMoCo is privileged to have worked on many projects for Film and Video Umbrella, London, UK. FVU commission, curate and produces artists’ moving-image works and presents them in collaboration with galleries and other cultural partners.

Originally intended to be a record of the artist’s video installation ‘Family History’; through close and detailed work with the artist, this turned into a varied and visually rich document of the piece, the material surrounding its conception, and that leading up to its production.

Perhaps because of her Midland’s background, Gillian proved to be the most enjoyable and generous of artists to work with, to the point that she presented a painting used on the set for the video installation to SecMoCo as a gift. It’s a rather fine seascape and will be uploaded here at some point in the future.

Published by Film and Video Umbrella, London, and Maureen Paley, London, 2007 in association with at Ikon Birmingham, UK, and Artists in the City, Reading, UK. Edited, and with a text by, Steven Bode; additional texts: Paul Morley, Stuart Comer; 280 x 216 mm; 80pp thread sewn; 4-colour and black and white illustrations; 4-colour printed paper case cover (no dust jacket);

From the Ikon website: ‘This immaculately designed publication traces the development of this project in a visual style whose distinctive aesthetic draws out parallels between the 1970s and the present that are such a feature of the work itself. Continuing the biographical theme of the exhibition, the book brings together film stills and location photographs with other personal and archive material, and features essays by critic Paul Morley and project curator Steven Bode, and an interview between Gillian Wearing and Stuart Comer’.

SMASH THIS PUNY EXISTENCE
Inventory, Book Works

SecMoCo were invited by the magnanimous Mattew Higgs, via the excellent publishers Book Works, to help design and produce Smash This Puny Existence with the artfully subversive collective known as Inventory. This resulted in the publication taking the form of broadsheet posters– large format, double-sided sheets housed within long cardboard tubes.

First published by Book Works 1999 in an edition of 1,500 copies; edited by Matthew Higgs as part of the series Publish And Be Damned; 6 x b&w double-sided sheets, 678 x 478 mm, rolled and housed in a cardboard tube

Context from the Book Works website:
Smash This Puny Existence emerged from street actions staged by Inventory in streets in London and Glasgow. Overnight, the collective fly-posted a series of newly-commissioned texts and images along with ‘found’ material, transforming two busy thoroughfares into public ‘newspapers’. The street became a discursive, polemical space, a place for the exchange of ideas and information. […] It is a significant contribution to Inventory’s ongoing determination of a ‘fierce sociology’.

Links:
www.bookworks.org.uk/node/1560
https://www.bookworks.org.uk/node/1131
https://www.bookworks.org.uk/node/1126

BOX SPACE
Magazine

The main working principle behind the innovative Paul Elliman’s Box Space fax magazine, was to utilize the potential of new technology to swiftly combine and distribute material from distant sources.

As such, SecMoCo were delighted to be invited to contribute, (by fax only– a newly emergenent method at the time) the ‘words’ to accompany the similarly faxed-in ‘image’ component (from a different contributor) for a piece on Lisbon. These ‘text pages’ were generated as a result of political graffiti and other typographical findings during sessions of itinerant roaming around that intriguing capital city in the previous year.

The magazine went on the win a prestigious D&AD award in the 1991 Design & Art Direction awards.

First published, in an unlimited fax edition, by Paul Elliman, UK, 1991; edited by Paul Elliman and Peter Miles; texts: various contributors; dimensions: 840mm width, variable length; variable number of pages & images; printed by fax machine on fax rolls.

For press reference: http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/classic-collectionsback-to-the-90s

PERFORMANCE FOUNDATION
Identity: print and digital

SecMoCo were appointed by the estimable and inspiring Alan Read (Professor of Theatre in the Department of English, School of Arts & Humanities, Kings College, London, UK) to develop the digital and print identity for the Performance Foundation, based in the Anatomy Theatre & Museum at Kings, on the Strand and the East Wing of Somerset House. As an organisation it seeks to to broker, via a process of creative arts, cultural interventions and practice-led processes, collaborative associations between academics, artists, artisans, architects and the interested public in the areas of performance techniques and technologies, and their operation.

performancefoundation.org.uk

GAVIN TURK COLLECTED WORKS
White Cube

‘Gavin Turk Collected Works 1989-1993’ was the first monograph on this celebrated British artist’s work, designed to accompany his first solo exhibition at Jay Jopling/White Cube, London.

Published in an edition of 1500 copies by Jay Jopling/White Cube, UK, 1993. Edited by Gavin Turk; texts by Andrew Wilson and Simon Bill; 280 x 200mm; 64pp; 4-colour images throughout; casebound, with cloth quarter-binding, embossed (no dustjacket).

BANNER
Fiona Banner

This book, entitled ‘Banner’ was the first monograph on the artist, and was designed to accompany the exhibition, ‘Your Plinth is My Lap’, at Dundee Contemporary Arts, UK and the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany.

First published in an edition of 1500 by Dundee Contemporary Arts, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, and Revolver, Frankfurt, 2002. Edited by Katrina M. Brown; dual edition texts (English and German) by Patricia Ellis, Michael Archer, Katrina M. Brown and Susanne Titz; 285 x 215 mm; 128 pp; 4-color images throughout; printed paper case (no dust jacket), endpapers, head and tail bands.

BISCUIT / OK
Identity: print and digital

Innovative product designers Michael Marriot and Simon Maidment approached SecMoCo to devise brand, digital and product identity, stationery, brochure and promotional clothing for Oreka Kids and ‘Biscuit’, the first furniture collection designed specifically for children.

Produced in 2000 by Oreka Kids, London, UK; Biscuit directed by Simon Maidment & Michael Marriot, London, UK, 2000. www.orekakids.com

It was pleasing to be able to employ ‘Sassoon Primary’ for Biscuit, a typeface for children’s books and teaching materials which is the result of a UK research project into which typefaces children find easiest to read. Designed by Rosemary Sassoon and Adrian Williams, it featuring sans-serif letters with a slight slant, and exit strokes on the baseline. Rosemary Sassoon discovered that no one had previously consulted and tested children for their preferences. The University of Reading awarded her a Ph.D. for her work on the Effects of Models and Teaching Methods on Joining Strokes in Children’s Handwriting.

Information about the typeface designer Rosemary Sassoon and her fonts: http://www.identifont.com/show?3XF

Links for some of the designer’s pieces for Biscuit: