Charlie don’t surf the web during working hours, for Charlie Hocking is out newest intern and therefore has more respect for the job than the rest of us, who idly spend our days watching Star Wars parodies, ranting on football blogs and buying shoes.

Anyways, Charlie is recent BA(Hons) graduate in Graphic Design from London College of Communications and has joined Airside for a three-month internship where we’ll presumably unlearn all them good habits picked up at LCC.

Charlie’s past work saw him shortlisted in the 2010 D&AD Student Awards’ Brand Communications category for his take on a campaign for The Body Shop, while he has also co-authored a book with fellow LCC graduate Alex Hunting about their initial experiences in the world of design, called Be Brave.

One of the first things Charlie will be working on here is the 2011 Airside Calendar. Excitingly we are moving on from the landscape format of the past few years and we are really looking forward to seeing the brand new typeface that Charlie is creating especially for it.  More on that later but for now, welcome to Airside, Charlie.

Last Friday, Airside had the pleasure of a visit from a group of budding young designers, currently undertaking a short summer course in graphic design at Central St Martins.  The month-long course at CSM looks to give its student an insight into the world of design by exploring a variety of London’s design studios, shops and exhibitions.

The 13 students (pictured below) and their course head Lisa Gellender spent an hour at Airside’s studio, meeting the design team and watching the latest version of our showreel. According to Lisa they left “feeling very impressed and inspired”, though they saw the messy side of design, as we spent much of the afternoon dealing with server problems.

Airside opens its doors to student groups every month.

Our friends over at design studio Telegramme sent us this lovely print that is part of their Calavera Summer Series. The colourful combination of flowers and bone has the effect of summoning the ghosts of summers past, whilst celebrating the last vestiges of the current fine weather.

Telegramme’s Calavera Summer Series is a set of three A3 Risograph prints that can be purchased on their own or as a complete set of three. There are available over at the Telegramme website, where you can also enter a competition to win one of five limited edition sets.

Our Studio Manager, Natalie is taking a year out to propagate the species and while she is off on maternity leave, she has left Airside in the capable hands of George Thomson. George is an old friend of Airside who enjoys organizing and is at his happiest when surrounded by ring binders and unorganized documents that require alpha-chrono arrangement.

George’s background is in music and as he says himself, he has “an unhealthy fascination for music and a deep respect for all creative arts”. His occupation with music has gone from the dying art of retail through promotion and management and, now, performance. Check out George’s music at his website or soundcloud page.

George is married to Airside’s fashion guru Laura Lees, and they have a two-year old son, Sidney. Looks like that’s another one for Maloo to add to the Airside family portraits.

So, welcome to Airside, George. Why don’t we let the man himself have the final word: “I like to run a tight ship much as the tight ship runs me. I like ice cream and seafaring analogies. Land Ho!”

Airside: The Next Generation take their first steps in the world of illustration in this gorgeous set of drawings from the prolific (Wacom) pen of Malika.

Maloo was using Airsiders as references for an illustration job (more on that, coming soon!) and decided to complete some family portraits in her spare time.

Here they are: the four Airside families. Though that does makes them seem like warring mafia gangs – we’ll have multiple murders intercut with a religious ceremony before we know it.

Let’s try, here they are: four Airsiders, their partners and young ‘uns.  That should be this year’s family Christmas card sorted for these familes. Can you draw Santa hats, Maloo?

A few weeks back Airside was visited by a group of Visual Communication students from Aberdeen College. Nearly 30 students and their lecturers Nicola Watson and Zoe Hargraves, filled our meeting room to bursting point for a presentation of the Airside showreel by Henki and Jamie, followed by a lengthy Q&A session. The group then split in two, with one half taking a tour of the studio (and accidentally walking in on a client meeting).

Whilst waiting their turn, the second group rummaged through the remnants of our Airside Shop sale, as pictured below. Later a handful stayed behind and had their portfolios critiqued by Jamie – the brave souls. A big thank you to the guys from Aberdeen College, for coming to see us and for the use of your photo. We hope you enjoyed it. If you would like your (smaller) design class to pay a visit to Airside, check out this News item for details.

As spring turns into summer, it is time for a new intern to pass through the hallowed doors of Airside’s studio. We are delighted to welcome Jeeyun Michaella Chung (or just Michaella) to the team. A 2008 Graphic Design graduate from Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Michaella has since worked with the ICA and on a bunch of other freelance projects.

She mostly specialises in print materials and moving image, but Michaella has also worked in exhibition design and installations among other things. We love her notebooks for left-handed and right-handed people, whose ruled pages slant to meet the natural body positions of the writer. You can find them, along with Michaella’s other work at www.jeeyunmichaella.com.

During his recent trip to Tokyo, Henki met up with many of our Japanese friends. But, as the above photo suggests, the one person he was most excited to meet was Stanley – his rabbit creation for Japanese TV channel NTV’s Friday Night Roadshow bumper campaign.

The usually cool and calm Henki couldn’t hide his joy when presented with the stuffed toy Stanleys. While the photo below shows him looking overwhelmed when faced with the Friday Night Roadshow stationery collection. After all that excitement it must have been a relief for him to come home and get back to work.

We’ve recently been introduced to gorgeous child-friendly art available at Happy Thought, an online shop run by Ellen Deakin, sister of Airside director Fred. Happy Thought hopes to put a smile on your walls with their selection of decals, prints and silhouettes designed to brighten up nurseries and playrooms.

Their best-selling double silhouette of children holding hands was recently listed as one of Etsy’s picks for American Mother’s Day. Happy Thought also offers a personalised service, so you can feature your child’s name, birthday or favourite colours on any of their products. Visit Happy Thought to find out more.

Whilst visiting Tokyo earlier this month, Henki caught up with our former intern, Yoshi, and saw his contribution to the 2010 Tokyo Type Directors Club (TDC) Annual Awards. The TDC was established in New York in 1946 in order to support excellence in typography. Their Tokyo wing was set up in 1987 and, according to their website, is committed to exploring the world of type that goes “far beyond conventional character designing”. Their annual international design competition showcases the year’s best explorations in type. This year’s exhibition was held in Ginza and included work by our man Yoshi.

Yoshi’s entry, entitled Maori Iwi + Maori Koru, was inspired by a year he spent in New Zealand. The country’s indigenous Maori people have their own spoken language, but it has never had a written form. Wondering what kind of system it would follow, Yoshi invented a written language, based on the organisation of spoken Maori, whose glyphs are developed from a mixture of Maori icons and some Latin script. Besides exhibiting at the 2010 TDC Awards, Yoshi’s work will also feature in the 2010 TDC Annual. For more on Yoshi and Maori Iwi + Maori Koru, visit www.kufolio.com.