Each year the BJ Ball calendar competition has challenged graphic design students to produce their best creative print ideas and to fully think through the practical printing implications of their designs, specifying special embellishments and choosing their paper stocks to best advantage.
National Sales Manager Craig Brown says the competition was the first of its kind to seek entries from the entire country. In recent years however, an increasing number of teaching institutions have begun producing calendars of their own as vehicles for the work of their students.
“It’s time for us to move on and we are now working on a new project to give up-and-coming designers exposure in situations relevant to today’s market,” he said.
Chris Thompson of Hook, a former successful entrant and more recently a judge, says this year’s top entries were generally more imaginative, better finished and more publishable than in recent years.
“They gave us a broader range of styles, many of them very sophisticated. There was a notably higher proportion of illustrative rather than design responses,” he said.
“The competition theme this year was ’A Figure of Speech’ and many entries developed their chosen expression with visual wit and dexterity.
“Also many of the images were highly engaging, giving calendar users the opportunity to make new discoveries as they refer to each page day by day.”
Entries such as the March-April page by Mai Tanaka (Massey University – Wellington School of Design) were “the complete package”, Chris Thompson said. On the theme of “A Stitch in Time Saves Nine”, it tells in a very original illustrative style, the story of a girl-boy relationship that is repaired by an “stitched” apology. Most unusually, the work was woven in the form of a patchwork quilt. The sewing idea is continued in the date pad that uses tape measures for the days and buttons for the months.
Guido Thum (a second time winner from Massey University – Wellington School of Design), working on the expression “Catch 22”, developed a strong concept and gave it a highly imaginative illustrative treatment. He shows a fisherman perilously caught between losing his netted catch (22 fish of course) if he goes for his harpoon gun to try to repel a giant octopus which is attacking his boat. This page certainly will repay repeated viewing.
“Butterflies in your stomach” from Tamara Robinson of Otago University is a design-based visual exploration of the concept showing good design, layout and subtle colour. Interest is piqued by the interpretation of “stomach” as a pot-belly stove, into and out of which the butterflies of anxiety and nervousness proceed.
Dayna Stiles (Otago University) came up with a quirky, fun take on “The birds and the bees”. It makes a humourous front cover piece.
Elliot O’Sullivan (Otago University) took a literal approach to “A wolf in sheep’s clothing” and illustrated in a style similar to Japanese Manga comic book work. A fiercely aggressive wolf is bursting out of a sheep costume. Colour and line are used well to distinguish between the contrasting characters of the two animals.
To interpret “Mad as a Hatter” Juita Tambunan (AUT) picks up on both Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter’s tea party and the hallucinogenic effects of historic hat-making chemicals that originated this expression. This is an intriguing piece using a nice meld of techniques from quasi-photographic illustration to subtle patterns and textures and over-lapping images. This is another page to be revisited regularly.
High illustrative skills are demonstrated by Tom Simpson (Massey University – Wellington School of Design) in his visual representation of “All tied up”. An over-worked office worker is shown to be “tied up” both figuratively and physically (by telephone and computer cables) in his work. Excellent detail technique is shown.
