From our studio at Spike Island we offer design tutorials and publishing workshops for artists, cultural workers and activists.
Our expertises are;
Design for print
Art direction
DIY production and print methods
Achieving refined high quality outcomes with small budgets
Sustainable approaches to design
Reaching a defined audience
Distribution
Communication design
Type and layout
Producing custom made type
We have both been lecturing at Universities and running design based workshops since 2006.
OFFERS:
Short design tutorials:
One-to-one project support for artists, cultural workers and activists on specific projects. Bring a print based project and information on your budget (and maybe a problem) and we’ll help you think about it in terms of the design, production and distribution.
Depending on the focus you come to us with we’d cover things such as; choice of typefaces and paper, format, scale, binding, segments, printing methods and places you can print, production stages, how to reach an audience, image treatment etc.
1 or 2 hour sessions at £60 per hr
3-day publishing workshop:
A 3-day workshop for artists, cultural workers and activists who want to learn how to self-publish a print based project in a DIY way. We will help you develop an idea into a printed dummy and then produce a limited edition of 20 publications.
Each day would consist of 5 hours + a one hour lunch break.
Over three days we’ll cover; the tone of the publication; audience and how to reach them; draw out key themes and relate these to aesthetic choices; how to choose and source a typeface; how to choose and source paper; different formats for publications; scale; editing; design and layout (we’ll cover the basic of indesign if needed); binding; printing methods and places you can print or ways of printing DIY; production planning and management. And depending on your aims/focus we might also cover how to make custom header type and image treatment. The workshops will culminate in making an edition of 20 publications – it’s hands on and we’ll be making the publications together. You’ll need time to do design and layout between the workshop sessions.
£800 for one-on-one
£1300 for a group of two
You need to come to this workshop with content you’d like to work with. We can discuss this in more detail at the enquiry stage. We’d do our best to fit this offer to your schedule eg; 3 days in a row, or three days over three months, or three days over a year etc. Please note that material and printing costs will be additional – we’d plan this with you based on your budget. You’d need access to the Adobe design suite – mostly Indesign and Photoshop (maybe illustrator). You can access these programmes and computers by becoming Spike Associates for £12 p/m (this is based in the building we have a studio in).
This is the sort of thing you can put in an Art Council England Developing Your Creative Practice funding application, or if you work for a university you could apply for scholarly activity funding, for example. You can also pay as you go (per day, split into three instalments) to make it more affordable.
Please email us if you have any questions or want to book in for either offer conwayandyoung@hotmail.co.uk
Testimonials:
Kamina Walton: In one hour Jen and Jessie managed to immerse me in the world of type and fonts and open my eyes to new approaches I could take to type within my work. I came away inspired, motivated and a whole lot more knowledgeable. I now know how to build a directory of typefaces, take a more confident approach to design, and that restriction of choice might help me make decisions about creative use of type in my practice going forward. Nothing short of brilliant!
Natasha MacVoy: I worked with Conway & Young over three sessions to develop skills required for creating small DIY publications so that my work has many ways to travel. We used a text I’d been working on, building layers that physically complimented the written concepts and imagery. By working together to produce an edition of 20 in Conway & Young’s studio I have a clearer understanding of the time tasks take and also the elements that need specialist equipment or planning. This is a brilliant way of learning and working to develop small editions which I’d recommend to anyone.