creative science collective have joined the OPEN family – see what they’re up to at www.super-collider.com

www.lydiawong.co.uk

Artist Ryan Todd has released a set of 12 greetings cards all printed in single colour on 100% post-consumer recycled stock.

Available in a very small edition of 40, these new prints from Ryan are screeprinted onto Candy Pink 270gsm Colorplan.

Available to buy here & here

Young Colossus is a picture book with 6 song soundtrack. Written by Orlando Weeks, music production by Nic Nell and Illustrated by Robert Hunter at OPEN. The book is available to purchase from www.youngcolossus.com

The last few months have seen a lot of change on the OPEN ship! With not only the departure of some of the long-term studio crew and a some new arrivals, we’ve also made some changes to how OPEN is run & managed.

OPEN co-founders Holly Wales and Robert Evans have stepped down from running and working in the space, and write here about their involvement in the project since they initiated it in 2010 with co-founders Landfill Editions, Loren Filis and David Callow.

First though, we’ll let you know that from March 2012, there will be less of a focus on illustration at OPEN, and studio members will no longer necessarily be involved with illustration as an exclusive discipline – we are opening our doors to designers, writers, animators, photographers, publishers and more. There is also no longer have any specific educational involvement or internship programme and interns should contact the practitioner they would like to work with directly. OPEN will now operate as a more traditional desk-space studio – spaces will be advertised here when they become available.

*****

Bobby and I have been truly blown away by the support, enthusiasm and general interest from both the illustration world and also further afield over the past 2 years, to what we have been working on and setting up. And hope that it has inspired both our members and those that have visited and followed us.

In the short space of time since we set up our experimental studio and education space project, we have seen members past and present develop their practices and shown that shared studio space can offer much more than just tea bags and new music. We put an emphasis on helping illustrators who so often end up working solo, to have the opportunity to work together, crit work, offer advice, materials, resources and production, and we hope much of this will continue to flourish. During our time at OPEN, we also invited a number of students who showed great potential in to work with us and on their own projects, building on an understanding that illustration graduates are often cast adrift from advice and support while they build a client list. We hope that this new attitude to how shared studios can work will continue as OPEN evolves and hopefully inspire other studios to do the same.

The biggest thing we’ve learnt is that collaboration doesn’t have to mean working on the same project!

We will admit, It has been hard to run such an ambitious project without financial backing or outside funding, especially right now in the middle of recession-apocalypse. Running OPEN was always going to be a full-time-job; and in hindsight, so much became about creating the right environment, that little was left for making new artwork. In addition, most of our studio members are so busy working on commercial projects with short deadlines, that little time is left for building on the education ethos we were so keen to develop, and in turn those commercial projects fund their presence in the first place.

While running OPEN we got a lot of emails from other illustrators around the world asking if we knew of anything similar in their city, or were thinking of opening another ‘branch’ – while this seemed crazy to us (it was really all born out of own love of making work and helping others, never about making money or world domination), it did make us think a lot about how relevant location is. A lot of people asked whether we thought London was the only city something like OPEN could work in, which the answer to now seems more obvious. Having worked in Berlin and visited artists in cities like Brussels, San Francisco, Vienna and Krakow, it always becomes apparent that people have more time – a project like OPEN needs time, and it needs not to become a financial burden. But it also feeds off some of the great things a city like London has to offer; the energy, drive, people and fantastic art colleges.

Thank you to all at OPEN past, present and future. We have had an incredible time working in an environment that it would be pretty hard to match – but we’re not about to try. Bobby is as busy as ever with his screenprinted gig posters, illustration and art direction for music projects and commercial illustration – right now he’s off to sell his wares at SXSW 2012. Holly is working night & day in her new studio on an editorial portfolio with work for clients in the US, Canada, Germany and France, alongside teaching on Illustration programmes at University of Westminster and Winchester School of Art – she is buying herself several months off to return to her artwork later in 2012.

Thankyou! Keep in touch and continue to follow what Bobby (@Telegramme) and Holly (@Hollibobs) are up to, along with the other ex-OPEN members Patternity, Adam Hayes, Melvin Galapon, Sarah King, Yeji Yun and co-founder David Callow.

Best of luck for the future OPEN!

OPEN will be sad to see ADAM HAYES leave us at the end of January, as he adventures off to New York. He has been a part of OPEN from the beginning and his work ethic an inspiration to us all!

This means we have a generous desk space available here at OPEN full time from FEBRUARY 1st 2012. The desk itself is composed of two panels measuring 213cm x 77cm giving you plenty of room to branch out.Rent is 230£ a month. Contact us if your a Illustrator and keen. info@o-p-e-n.org.uk

Ryan was commissioned by the curators at Asphalt Store to produce a window installation and exhibitions of prints to mark the launch of their newly revamped space in Warsaw. As their first collaboration, he created a series of hanging light boxes which showcased almost 40 individual illustrations. The designs were cut out of semi-translucent vinyl before being separately applied and layered to the front of the light boxes. The artwork was then suspended from the ceiling on a simple rope pulley system which ran the perimeter of the store.

See more HERE.