Magpie

Whilst in London the tutors arranged visits with various agencies such as; Elmwood, Futurebrand, Dew Gibbons and Hat Trick. Myself, Kat, Grace, John and Chris were lucky enough to head down to Perseverance works to meet with Ben Christie from Magpie studio.

Magpie have been going now for almost 2 years, their approach is simple - they listen to clients, understand their audience and solve their problems. They believe that design is more than just a job it's a responsibility. Their client list includes the Tate Britain, Royal Mail, The print room and The women's institute.

Upon arrival we were met with one of Ben's partners who he had previously worked at Hat Trick with and were shown into their small yet very modern agency. Sat around a table with cups of tea Ben showed us some work that Magpie had been working on in the past 2 years. I had previously looked on their website at some of their projects but actually being able to physically hold and look at brochures and business cards was much better.

I personally liked the christmas stamp miniature book designed for the Royal Mail. The aim of the brief was for the stamps to be shown in the best light and the best way they could. So, Magpie created perforated illustrations of church windows using a stained glass theme and placed their stained glass stamps onto these windows to show the stamps in context. By doing this it complimented the stamps as works of art without overpowering them. The actual booklet itself also contained nice typography and could also be folded out to allow all the seven stamp designs to be viewed together.

Ben also seemed interested in where we were up to in our final stages of university and asked what we had all taken on as our final project. I found the experience really positive and it was nice to be able to sit down in a relaxed environment and have a designer show us their work. Most of the time we are showing designers our work or having lecturers show us their own work via a big screen it was nice to be able to touch and see the end product in all it's glory. We also all came away with Magpies christmas poster which was a nice thought and a nice end to the meeting.

 Outside Magpie's studio

You can check out Magpie studio here.