James Ritchie MA


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Contact

James Ritchie
Studio 8
100 Narrow Street
London
E14 8BP

Call
07890 247 887

Email
james@jamesritchie.co.uk

Download
C.V. or Portfolio


Biography

James Ritchie is a London based freelance graphic designer specialising in all elements of design, from corporate identities and exhibitions to books and brochures.

He graduated with a BA in graphic design from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth in 2004 and from an MA in communication design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2007. Since then, he has been freelancing from his studio in east London.


News

A selection of James' work is being shown at The Village Underground Gallery in Oldstreet, here, as part of YCN Live.

Commendation award won for YCN competition. See the project in the list below for details.


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Competition: YCN Awards 2007/08

Award: Commendation

Brief: To create promotional material that raises awareness of Youth Music, a UK-based music charity for children and young people, and to encourage the music-making opportunities available to 11-18 year olds in the UK.

Solution: A series of interactive beatbox posters were designed for the classroom in order to teach classmates of the fundamentals of music making. Each classmate is assigned a poster and starts by reciting the words in a rhythmic fashion using the preset templates at the bottom of each poster. The more people who join in, the fuller and more complex the beats become.



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Competition: ISTD (International Society of Typographic Designers)

Brief: To create a brochure for a series of lectures aimed at students to promote the awareness of typography. The lectures were given by eight typographers and typographic designers who toured the UK and Ireland in a coach.

Solution: A design based entirely on type helps promote the correct use of typography, while providing a group identity for the lecturers. The brochure is unbound and can fold out to be viewed as one large spread.



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Project: Stationery

Client:
Catherine Groves

Brief: To create a range of stationery for domestic use.

Solution: Woodcut type was used to create the clients initials, using a capital 'C' and capital 'S', whereby the 'S' forms a 'G' when overlayed on top of the 'C'. This theme was carried throughout the different stationery elements, adjusting the height of the 'C' accordingly. The whole range is printed on recycled stock.



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Project: Promotional poster and postcards

Client:
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design

Brief: To create a range of promotional material for the Direction’s Show 2007, an exhibition of Central Saint Martins’ graduate and undergraduate work.

Solution: The idea came from adopting the language of the placard bearer, but with a creative twist. The artwork was created entirely in-camera using long exposure photography and hundreds of large 12mm LED lights taped to batteries, which were used to create the type, arrow and to rain down on the scene.



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Project: Change of address mailer

Client:
Lady Sainsbury of Turville

Brief: To create a striking mailer to inform of a change of address.

Solution: An A6 mailer was designed to show the move from number 37 to number 39 next door. The message was kept simple by overprinting the number ‘9’ on top of the old number.



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Project: Logo design

Brief:
To create an environmental awareness logo for use on various applications.

Solution: The logo was screen printed onto different backgrounds, varying its effect and meaning.


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Project: Identity and stationery

Client: Annie Waites

Brief: To create an identity and range of stationery for Annie Waites, a freelance chef working in London.

Solution: Wine stains were used as the theme to run across the different stationery elements, with a different and slightly quirky variation used for each. The letterhead is printed double sided on an 80gsm recycled stock, which hints at a wine stain showing through on the reverse.



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Project: Identity and stationery

Client: Fr. Patrick Shanahan M. Afr.

Brief: An identity and range of stationery for Patrick Shanahan, a missionary working with street children in Africa.

Solution: Each element of stationery illustrates the positive effects of the numerous programs in which Patrick is involved by means of photographs taken by friends working with Patrick in Accra, Ghana. The recycled paper stock, black and white photography and the red-earth colour of the text are all chosen for the natural, earthy colours found in Africa.

[address changed to maintain privacy]



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Project: Identity and stationery

Client: Lady Sainsbury of Turville

Brief: To create a full range of stationery for high-profile, domestic use.

Solution: A simple but elegant design was required, so a subtle incorporation of letterpress, cotton paper stocks and an s-type glyph were used to complete the identity.

[address changed to maintain privacy]

A later commission required a quote from The Great Gatsby to be sandblasted into a glass table top. The design from the stationery was carried through into the text for the quote as well as for the house number.



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Project: Identity and stationery

Brief: A design proposal for a new corporate identity for Studio Daniel Libeskind's 'Memory Foundations'.

Solution: A subtle use of the footprint of the original site, by means of perforations and embossing, link the enduring memories of the old site with a sense of looking forward to the new.


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Project: Logo

Client: Connexity

Brief: Create a versatile logo for a new Scottish housing corporation.

Solution: A simple but striking typogram. It was designed to be flexible for small scale use, to work in black and white, and have a photocopying capability.


 

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Client: Central Saint Martins Innovation Centre

Project: Produce a series of A1 posters for the ‘Reinventing the Bike Shed’ exhibition at London Bridge as part of the London Architecture Biennial, 2006.

Solution: Norwegian photographer, Chris Johnsen, was commissioned to take a series of 12 photographs for each poster.

Each poster was based on a quote that was taken from a blog on the ‘Design Against Crime’ website. The bloggers then posed for a photograph, and their quote superimposed along side them.

www.reinventingthebikeshed.com



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Project: 10,000 word dissertation written as part of the first year MA at Central Saint Martins.

About: The subject, Wayfinding in Architecture, explores the navigational attitudes of designers and architects, and the function and future trends of navigation in architecture.

The book is hand bound with a coarse yellow book cloth and a letterpressed cover. The pages are printed on a textured paper with a faint grid running throughout.

This dissertation is now archived in the Central Saint Martins’ Library.



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Project: A two week, MA project with the aim of representing invisible information in a physical form.

Solution: The Google Book is a representation of the temporary, virtual information stored on the internet. It shows 1000 hits from the word ‘chaos’; this is compared to our solar system with a diagram that is screenprinted onto the side of the book. As the pages of hits increase through the book, so the diagram shows the distance travelled through the solar system, with each page being a measure of the distance covered in millions of miles.


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Client: Amey Infrastructure Services

Award: To take a series of photographs that represent key headings in a major bid document for Transport for London.

Solution: The photographs were taken, not necessarily to spell out an obvious meaning, but to evoke thought.



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Project: An MA project exploring alternative printing methods.

Solution: A typeface printed over time. Each character was printed using two printers simultaneously, a dot-matrix printer is attached to a PC, which runs a program that feeds paper at a given speed, while an inkjet printer is attached to a Mac controlling the printing of the characters. The setup allows infinite control of time and was used to produce characters of any size, from compressed to expanded type, both vertically and horizontally.

The book showcases the complete character set printed out over 2 seconds.



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Project: Explore the concept of CMYK. (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black)

Solution: A poster created by projecting pure cyan, magenta, yellow and black colours onto the same image. By overlaying the colours, new colours are created. The more colours that are overlaid, the further from the original black and white, and the more distorted the image becomes.


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Graphic Design

Ash May
www.quo-animo.co.uk

Behrad Taherparvar
www.behrad.co.uk

Christian Nolle
www.cnolle.com

Glen Impey
www.glenimpey.com

Hans Oren
www.arctichans.com

Jake Hobart
www.thankseverybody.com


Illustration

Athier Mousawi
www.athier.am-i.co.uk

Georgina Potier
www.georginapotier.com

Janine Shroff
www.janineshroff.co.uk

Mike Chan
www.chanmike.com

Simeon Spencer
www.simeonspencer.co.uk

Urh Sobocan
www.tricikel.net

Photography

Chris Johnsen
www.chrisjohnsen.com

Chris Ullens
www.snabyrow.com/christopherullens

Eoghan Hanrahan
www.snabyrow.com/eoghanhanrahan

Ignacio Santa Maria
www.snabyrow.com/ignaciosantamaria

Peter Rauch
www.snabyrow.com/peterrauch

Vinita Agarwal
www.vinitaagarwal.com