LECTURE : SEA : Bryan Edmondson

As we coming to the end of the year I think this will be / was our last lecture, and it was a very good - inspiring - interesting lecture.

Bryan Edmondson is the co-founder of the design company 'SEA' created in 1997, they are a small agency never employing more than 10 people! They work on creating pure and simple design for large / small agencies and over the thirteen years their clients have just got bigger.

They base projects on simple ideas - executed well, and it was clear than he was a 'no fuss' designer who knows what he likes and why. His work he was showing us was the history of the last eighteen years and there was some really nice work. I in particular loved all of the GFS Smith work - really nice layout and colours, very bold and experimental.

They have also worked on Grafik magazine, which I was most impressed about as they worked on the issues from 08/09 which in my opinion had the most creative covers and stock used (not mentioning the redesign of the crappy paper of 09/10). He did say that it was the most difficult thing to do - after 10 cover issues he couldn't be bothered any more!!

The work for K2 Printers including the redesign identity for the company was beautiful - the use of the screen printing technique to create the identity transformed each batch and made it more fun. He has also worked for Matthew Williamson, Bruce Norman, Sansaw and OQO all highly creative and visual identities that are individual and relate-able to that company. He also talked about his own inspiration as a designer, which was nice to hear as not many lecturers include it in their presentations.

The lecture was an inspiration to do simple and well executed design work. I do sometimes over look the most simplistic ideas/concepts as I am always trying to push and create more, but this lecture made me realise that steeping back and getting inspiration does work for me and I should continue to work like this. His use of colour and layout also is evident in everything he does - it makes it more fun and exciting! But I also realise that he has the budget from the clients to create amazing work, but in University I do feel restricted to what you can produce, so when I do get a job / work experience I want to be more involved with this process.