Rangers booklet now available

May 28, 2010Rangers – our illustrated booklet for Japanese mobile phone company, KDDI – is now available in Japan.

Purchasers of a Rangers plug adapter receive a free gift of the storybook, written and illustrated by Airside.

It’s the first time we’ve actually seen these toy firemen (known as rangers in Japan) who come to the rescue of some baby birds that are threatened by a fiery cat in our story.

They are proper all-action firemen. We should have given them a tougher assignment.

Airside talk at the Typographic Circle

May 24, 2010Next month, Airside’s Fred Deakin and Jamie Wieck will feature at the monthly talk hosted by the Typographic Circle.

The Typographic Circle is a not-for-profit organization, formed in 1976 to bring together anyone with an interest in type and typography.

Their regular series of monthly lectures have featured talks by well-known type types, including Trevor Beattie, Anthony Burrill and Richard Morrison.

Airside’s appearance will take place at London ad agency JWT's Knightsbridge office on Thursday 24th June 2010.

For more details and ticket information, visit the Typographic Circle website.

Airplot architecture exhibition

May 20, 2010Airplot may have won the battle but the campaign continues. Before the new government’s recent announcement that plans to build a third runway at Heathrow airport had been cancelled, Airplot had launched two competitions to design a building that would fortify and enhance their land.

With one competition open to architects and architecture students and the other to everyone, the idea was to build a physical block to police and bulldozers, who may have tried to take the land by force. Despite the recent victory, the plan remains in place as a safeguard against future attempts to build a runway.

The competition has now closed and you can see overall winner, Groundswell, as well as the rest of the shortlisted entries at a forthcoming public exhibition at the Bargehouse on London’s Southbank.

The exhibition – as promoted by the Airside-designed flyer shown on the right – runs from Wednesday 2nd to Sunday 6th June. Admission is free.

Airside invites students to visit our studio

May 17, 2010Airside is opening its doors on a regular basis to visits from student groups looking to get an insight into the world of professional design. We’re allocating the first Friday of the month for visits, each of which will last one hour from 11am-12pm.

To get an idea of what to expect on an Airside tour, check out our Blog entry about a recent visit pf students from Aberdeen College. For reasons of space we want to limit future visits to groups of 15, but we may approve a higher number at our discretion.

If you would like to bring your class to visit Airside, please get in touch with us at studio@airside.co.uk.

We welcome students at GCSE level and above, but to ensure design enthusiasts get priority, please answer the following questions:
Why design?
Why Airside?
What is your favourite Airside project?
What is the aim of your visit?

Oh and we’d love to see your work, so please bring some examples along when you visit.

Heathrow's third runway cancelled

May 13, 2010We recently got in touch with our mates at Greenpeace to tell them about Airplot's Honorable Mention in the 2010 I.D. Awards. But they totally trumped us with their amazing news that the new ConLib government has scrapped the plans for the third runway at Heathrow airport.

Greenpeace campaigners visited 10 Downing Street today to present the new prime minister with the legal Deed of Trust for the land, which contains the names of the 91,000 joint beneficial owners. One of these owners is Nick Clegg, the new deputy prime minister.

Congratulations to Greenpeace and everyone involved in the Airplot campaign. It is great news for the fight against climate change, as well as the Heathrow area residents. We at Airside are proud to have played a small part in such a big deal.

More information and video of the deeds being handed over can be found at the Greenpeace website.

I.D.'s Honorable Mention for Airplot

May 10, 2010Airside's identity for Greenpeace’s Airplot campaign has been honoured in I.D. Magazine's 2010 Annual Design Review.

Our Airplot branding has received an Honorable Mention in the Graphics category. (And, yes, we're deliberately spelling Honorable without a U because it is an American award and that's how they do it Stateside.)

We don't get a trophy or anything – I guess that not actually getting a prize is the point of an honourable mention – but we will be featured in the winner's gallery on their website. We'll let you know when that happens.

In the meantime we're off to get drunk on champagne and be obnoxious to bouncers, who don't appear to know who we are.

Fred to feature at PechaKucha

May 07, 2010London’s Design Museum hosts its first PechaKucha night on Friday 14th May 2010.

PechaKucha was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as a way to bring designers together to talk and show their work in public. Taking its name from the Japanese term for "chit chat", the concept is quick and concise: the speaker shows 20 images and talks about each one for 20 seconds.

The forthcoming night at the Design Museum in Shad Thames, will feature 400 seconds from Airside director, musician and DJ, Fred Deakin.

Other guests preparing pacy presentations, include the guys at It’s Nice That and Troika’s Sebastian Noel.

For more information and to get your tickets, visit the Design Museum website.

Goodbye Steph. Hello filthy studio.

May 05, 2010Last week we bid farewell to Stephanie Tayler – Airside’s cleaner extraordinaire. For many years, going back to our days at Cross Street, Steph has cleaned the studio and tidied up after the various Airsiders who passed through the doors.

Steph is leaving to pursue a new opportunity as housekeeper for a Japanese investment bank, where she will be overseeing 20 staff in a huge building.

Best of luck in your new role Steph, and thanks so much for all your hard work over the years. We will miss you.