Many years ago I bought Anthony Burrill's print that asked 'Is it ok for me to get everything that I want?'. It got lost in the post. I took that as a resounding 'no'.
I may not have got the print I wanted, but I did get to spend today at Graphic Design Festival Scotland with the design legend himself. His type workshop was based on his own rudimentary creative process, combining the freedom of experimenting with type layouts by hand with the constraints of a 20 x 30 inch paper format and just 3 wood letter typefaces.
Working with a limited number of typefaces helped me to focus on my choice of words and how to express them using their layout, rather than the typeface itself. I'm looking forward to developing some of my poster designs from the workshop and applying Anthony's use of design restrictions to future projects.
He very kindly offered to send me a print to make up for the one I never received. He really is living his motto 'work hard and be nice to people'.
