At this year’s Design Indaba, Antalis South Africa launched a ‘Win the Medal’ Olympic-themed competition. The brief was to create a typographical poster inspired by the phrase, ‘It’s not what you win but how you conquer it’. We spoke to talented winner Graeme Gauld about his background and design for the competition.
How long have you been a designer?
I’ve been working as a designer for two years now, so I still have much to learn.
Where did you study?
I Studied for three years at the Midrand Graduate Institute (MGI) where I received my Bachelor of Arts Degree in Graphic Design. I then took a year off to work (as a glorified waiter) in London in order to travel around Europe. When I returned to South Africa I was offered a Scholarship to City Varsity, which I took, and did an advanced Diploma in Multimedia.
Is typography a particular interest of yours?
Yes it is… I’ve always been fascinated by it, probably because of all the craft that goes into each letter. Typography is by far one of the hardest elements within design to execute well. I find it interesting because each typeface (and there are thousands) is able to tell a story through the way it’s been designed – it has a personality, plus, it’s just pretty.
Where did you hear about this competition?
A marketing representative from Antalis Paper came to present the competition to all the designers at our company. I was out of the office at the time and missed the presentation, but a colleague of mine showed me the competition poster and I saw that the prize was a trip the Olympic games. I was hooked.
Tell us a bit about your idea, and the process of executing it… How did you arrive at the idea of using characters to create letters?
The idea behind my poster, “Changing of the Guards” was to capture and display the spirit and variety of all sports typographically, using the phrase provided by the competition organisers, “It’s not what you win, but how you conquer it”. The objective was to represent the many different cultures and races participating in sports today; each unique sports character takes the shape of a letter wearing the iconic bearskin hat, representing the uniqueness of London and the coming together of all people and sports at the event.
How did you go about selecting the specific events to create each letter? I imagine there must have been many options…
Yes, there were plenty to choose from. I actually went straight to the London 2012 Olympic website to view all the sports participating in the games, both Olympic and Paralympic. I tried to match each sports character with the letter that would best describe and illustrate the movement and uniqueness of the sport.
What program did you use to create your final poster?
Everything was done in illustrator CS3.
What does the prize entail?
It’s a ticket for two to London to spend a day at the Olympic games where we will be watching the Women’s Tennis Finals and spending two nights in a four star hotel. My girlfriend and I have extended the flight tickets for a week so we are really going to experience the Olympic games to the full. The atmosphere is going to be incredible.
Any future projects you’d like to tell us about?
For now I am just going to relax a bit and enjoy the ride. It won’t be long before I hop onto another personal project. I’m actually meeting with someone from Antalis today to discuss another upcoming competition. So who knows…
More info: www.conqueror.com/typographicgames