sam winston [designer]

Just had a really inspiring talk from Sam Winston at uni (University of Northampton) today. Everything he had to say as a designer/artist was valuable and relevant and more importantly true. The importance of working for what you love is exactly what I want to achieve. He seemed such a nice guy and invested everything into his work. This is what I want to be like as a designer, creating for more than just a job.

use intelligence and perseverance to make something beautiful

Sam's work is incredibly detailed, which makes his simplistic (in a good way) concepts into something powerful and full of depth. Below are some examples of his work, I highly recommend you have a look and more importantly a read! His concepts are what drives his work, which makes them all the more breathtaking.


a dictionary's story
"With this project I wanted to see what would happen if words took on their own meanings – both inside the narrative and also typographically on the page.
From order to chaos and back to order, Sam Winston’s Dictionary Story graphically illustrates the balance between a world that’s safe but boring and a high risk universe full 
of creative possibilities.
Like people, the alphabetically constrained words yearn to release their individual potential. They want to escape the dictionary’s regimentation and come together to tell a story. But when the words break free, so do their letters. They scatter and tumble across the page, reflecting meaning through visual representation. For a time it’s wild and exciting but when things look to be getting out of hand the Alphabet arrives to remind everyone of their responsibilities. Order returns… but the world and it’s words will never be quite the same again."

romeo & juilet

The above collages are made from cutting out every bit of letter of these separated texts. The top collage is ‘rage’ and the second ‘passion’."

The following 3 images are large columns of text that contain the whole of Shakespeare’s play. Instead of presenting the play in its chronological order however – the text has been divided into the three emotional states – Passion Rage and indifference. Every line said in ‘passion’ forms the first image, ‘rage’ the second and ‘indifference’ the third.

birth-day

By the time you’ve read this sentence three people have been born into the world.By the time you’ve read this sentence two will have passed away.By the time you’ve lived through this twelve-hour day there will be 100,000 more children on the planet. And in the same twelve hours 70,000 people will have died.

Birthday is a work which sets out to record every individual birth and death over a twelve-hour period. Initially imagined to be realised in real time, marking the beat of each life with a small circle. But I immediately realised it was impossible to keep up with events and it would take many months to graphically capture the rhythm of life and death.