Marwan Kaabour is Lebanese graphic designer and the latest intern to join the studio. Originally from Beirut but now living in London, Marwaan has recently completed the MA course at LCC and will be helping us on a selection of projects. You can see more of Marwaan’s work on his site.

Jonathan has been invited to contribute a book list to the Designers and Books website. Given the task of providing a list of ten books, in typical form, he decided to ignore design but instead focus on literature and philosophy. The D&B blog also features a list of books associated with Jonathan, picking up that the Barnbrook Bible is included in Rick Poynor’s ‘Books Every Graphic Designer Should Read’ list.

It’s that time of year again. Time to review the tunes gracing the studio jukebox over the last twelve months. Hastily cobbled together… rejoice! It’s the Barnbrook team’s top albums of 2011.

In Alphabetical order by surname:

Abbott:
1. Radiohead – The King Of Limbs
2. Kode9 & The Spaceape – Black Sun
3. Gil Scott-Heron And Jamie XX – We’re New Here
4. Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
5. Little Dragon – Ritual Union
6. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
7. Modeselektor – Monkeytown
8. SBTRKT – SBTRKT
9. Martyn – Ghost People
10. Machinedrum – Room(s)

Barnbrook:
1. Silvio Berlusconi – True Love
2. John Foxx & The Maths – Interplay
3. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
4. Massive Attack – Occupy London Mix
5. Various – The Minimal Wave Tapes Vol. 1
6. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
7. Deliah Derbyshire – A Retrospective
8. RJDJ – Music Generation app.
9. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
10. Wolfgang Riechmann – Wunderbar

Streat:
1. Nicolas Jaar – Space is Only Noise
2. Radiohead – King of Limbs
3. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
4. James Blake – James Blake
5. tUnE-YarDs – W H O K I L L
6. Little Dragon – Ritual Union
7. Zomby – Dedication
8. Grouper – A I A
9. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
10. Dark Dark Dark – Wild Go

The latest intern to join the studio – and the first of 2012 – is James Lunn. Following stints at karlssonwilker in New York and Universal in London, James will be working with us on a variety of projects, some of which were announced on this post. If you are interested in applying for an internship, please read our edu site first.

He’s been with us for over a month now but we have yet to mention our latest intern, Joonho Kwon. He’s an RCA graduate who’s work includes installation, motion graphics and film making. Joonho also exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4′s New Sensations exhibition. He is working with us on a range of projects from book design to experimental typography.

Greek designer Tzortzis Rallis is the latest intern to join the studio. He’s working on some new pieces for Roppongi Hills, David Motion and some design development for VirusFonts. See some more of his work on his website.

This week we welcomed James Cotton to the studio on placement. James follows Graham Moulding, Lama Ajeenah and Ryuhei Nakadai, all of whom were talented, enthusiaistic and hard working individuals, and we would like to thank them for their contributions to the studio.

For those of you who ware thinking of applying for a placement, we have recently revised our internship FAQs on the Barnbrook Education Site. Please read it before sending in your application.

It's that time of year again – all the polls have been released except this very one; with bated breath you await the result. Yes! It's the Barnbrook team's top albums of 2010.

In Alphabetical order by surname:

Abbott
1. Scuba – Triangulation
2. Mount Kimbie – Crooks & Lovers
3. Breakage – Foundation
4. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening
5. Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
6. Sufjan Stevens – Age of Adz
7. Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here
8. Caribou – Swim
9. Das Racist – Sit Down, Man
10. Four Tet – There Is Love In You

Barnbrook
1. The Tone Generation podcast
2. John Foxx – Metatronic
3. Rare Frequency podcast
4. Max Romeo – War Ina Babylon
5. Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here
6. Iggy Pop – The Idiot
7. Bill Hicks – Dark Poet
8. Suicide – Suicide
9. An Electric Storm – White Noise (featuring Delia Derbyshire)
10. Bvdub – The Art of Dying Alone

Streat
1. Joanna Newsom – Have One on Me
2. Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt
3. Gonjasufi – A Sufi and a Killer
4. James Blake – Klavierwerke EP
5. Sam Amidon – I See The Sign
6. Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
7. Mount Kimbie – Crooks and Lovers
8. Gil Scott Heron – I’m New Here
9. Das Rascist – Sit Down
10. Serfina Steer – Change is Good, Change is Good

If you want to know what our top albums of 2009 were, check out this blog post.

If you are of a certain age you will remember ‘the mixtape’ – a cassette tape you made with a personal selection of music. These amateur DJ efforts were for many purposes, sometimes to get a party going were you arrived at a very sober occasion and proclaimed you could liven up the place with the magic ingredient of ‘the best party mixtape ever (usually starting with James Brown's ‘Sex machine’ and following with a selection that wouldn't have been out of place at a bad wedding reception). Some mixtapes were to woo girls clearly showing ‘what a sensitive caring guy you were’; and you hoped that subliminally recording ‘please sleep with me’ in a whisper in the quiet bits of the tracks would guarantee you some kind of success with them. The final category were much more dark in intent; part of a wider evangelical mission you had to convert the whole world to the music and sub-culture you were almost religiously part of. 

So, recently Richard Squires, an old college friend contacted Jonathan with some rather professional images of an example in the third category (thankfully), that Jonathan did for him when they were both at St.Martins in 1988. We don't think it is the most amazing piece of design he has done but they do serve to show the intensity of Jonathan as a student – that he was prepared to go to such design lengths to simply give a friend some music he liked, especially since he has has cited record covers as one of his biggest influenced on him becoming a graphic designer. Also on seeing this we are lamenting something human that has been lost in the iTunes playlist or Spotify link.

And what was on the tape? A selection of Tuxedomoon so… A very special box with a little bit of burnt theme. Strange how life repeats itself – he did exactly the same thing as a real project a while ago.

Track listing:

SIDE A
1. Tuxedomoon – Ninotchka
2. Tuxedomoon – Watching the Blood Flow
3. Tuxedomoon – Break the Rules
4. Tuxedomoon – Litebulb Overkill
5. Tuxedomoon – Tritone
6. Steven Brown – Scene1: The Street
7. Steven Brown – Scene2: The Bar
8. Steven Brown – Scene3: The Ship
9. Blaine L. Reininger – Der Hamburger Veermaster
10. Tuxedomoon – Hugging the Earth

SIDE B
Tuxedomoon – You (Album)
1. Roman P.
2. The Train
3. 2000
4. Never Ending Story
5. Stockholm
6. Boxman (Mr. Niles)
7. Spirits and Ghosts
8. Boxman (The City)
9. You
10. Boxman (Home)

Catalan designer Xavier Puig is the latest intern to have worked at Barnbrook design. Xavier made some valuable contributions to various projects and pitches including books, posters and VirusFonts promotions. We are grateful for all his hard work.
You can see more of Xavier’s work here.