VADS is to lead the creation of a national community of experts in digitisation across the creative and visual arts higher education sector, after securing funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).

Knitted elephants from the Montse Stanley Collection, courtesy of the University of Southampton Library

The Look-here! project will bring together, facilitate and build upon the existing skills of the six institutional partners to enhance and embed digitisation skills across the sector. Partners include the University for the Creative Arts, University of Southampton, The Arts University College at Bournemouth, University College Falmouth, University of the Arts London, and University of Brighton.

Knitted beaded purse from the Montse Stanley Collection, courtesy of the University of Southampton Library

The project will see the creation and publication of a digitisation model developed upon the national collection of knitting patterns and related objects held by the University of Southampton. The model will then be tested and refined by the partners. This will result in the digitisation of a wide range of artefacts including books, journals, magazines, patterns and personal papers, and also a number of more unusual objects including clothing, knitting tools and ephemera. These collections will be made available freely for educational use to the arts and wider community through the national online hosting service provided by VADS (http://www.vads.ac.uk).

The knowledge, skills and experience acquired by the partners through the modelling process will be shared with the education and heritage sectors and VADS will provide information, advice and guidance to institutions interested in engaging in their own digitisation projects. The project will also see a series of workshops and seminars which will be open to the education and heritage sectors, and the creation of a series of case studies and practitioner guides.

Leigh Garrett, Director of VADS said: “This is an exciting and pioneering project which will bring a wide range of arts education providers and collection holders together to use a digital platform to make collections more widely available to students and staff across the education sector”.

Linda Newington, Faculty Librarian, Law, Arts and Social Sciences, University of Southampton said, “we welcome this exciting opportunity to promote and engage staff, students and the wider community from across the globe with the important and unique collections held here at Winchester”.

The home knitter, 1876, Richard Rutt Library (part of the Knitting Reference Library), courtesy of the University of Southampton Library

The project will run from October until February 2011. For further information please contact Amy Robinson (amy@vads.ac.uk or 01252 892723).

Established in 1996, the Visual Arts Data Service provides a national online image hosting service, which now consists of approximately 100,000 items from over 300 collections – these images can be used freely for educational use. The collections can be found at: http://www.vads.ac.uk.

This project is one of 11 projects funded under JISC’s e-Content programme which is running from September 2009 to February 2011. Projects are aligned under two strands, some looking at the skills and strategies required in universities to embed digitisation as a core part of its remit, whilst others are creating enhanced digital resources by bringing together disparate collection of related digitised material.

‘Bond Bug’ three-wheeler car made by the Reliant Motor Co. Designed by Tom Karen of Ogle
Design and launched in 1970 © The Design Council/The Manchester Metropolitan University

The Design Council was established in 1944 and is the UK’s national strategic body for design. The images relate closely to the changing scope and policies of the Council over a period of almost fifty years, providing valuable visual evidence of the ways in which design has been evaluated and promoted throughout this period.

They show a wide variety of products such as tableware, furniture, lighting, toys, domestic appliances, textiles, wallpapers, office equipment, engineering components and machinery, as well as other areas of design such as architecture, town planning, interior design, graphic design and corporate identity.

The collection also contains many unique images that record the Council’s own activities and initiatives, such as its annual award scheme and the exhibitions it organised or contributed to in the UK and abroad, including ‘Britain Can Make It’ and the ‘Festival of Britain’.

Box-office computer system for theatres and performance venues, manufactured by Space-Time Systems Ltd., and winner of a Design Council Award for computer software in 1986. © The Design Council/The Manchester Metropolitan University

An illustrated online guide to the collection has also been launched today. The guide aims to indicate the strengths of the collection, enabling users to exploit it more fully as a resource for learning and research.

‘The collection is an incredibly rich resource for anyone interested in design’ says David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council. ‘In particular, it demonstrates the Design Council’s long track record of promoting the use of design to strengthen the UK’s economy and improve society.’

The slide collection was transferred to the Manchester Metropolitan University in 1995, and since then a series of digitisation projects have resulted in over 13,000 images (nearly two-thirds of the collection) being made available online through the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS).

The expansion of the Design Council Slide Collection on VADS is one feature of the new collections and enriched website that has been funded by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) as part of its pioneering digitisation programme. JISC Digitisation Programme Officer, Ben Showers, said:

“JISC’s investment in enriching digital resources is a real commitment to preserving resources for the use of generations to come. VADS is an exciting and hugely important collection of unique and valuable images, and the enhancement of the website will makes these resources even more accessible for teachers, researchers and students across the creative arts.”

Action Man plus spare clothing. 1979 Design Index item. Manufactured by Pailitoy © The Design Council/The Manchester Metropolitan University

See the Design Council Slide Collection and the online guide at:
www.vads.ac.uk/collections/DCSC.html

See all of the VADS collections at: http://www.vads.ac.uk and visit the Design Council’s website at www.designcouncil.org.uk

The Design Council Slide Collection digitisation project was also supported with funding from the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council).

Photographs of chalk lettering on blackboard by Edward Johnston © Central Saint Martins Museum & Study Collection

In 1899 Edward Johnston was invited by William Lethaby, the first principal of the Central School of Arts and Crafts, to start a class on Writing and Illumination. He was described by those he taught as an influential and inspirational teacher – high praise from such noteworthy students as Eric Gill, Noel Rooke and Graily Hewitt (and it would be Hewitt who took over the class when Johnston moved to the RCA in 1912). Johnston is probably best remembered for the work he did for the London Underground. His typeface Railway remains in use and his bar and circle symbol, an early experiment in corporate identity, is still a familiar sight in London today. However, his book Writing and Illumination & Lettering was recognised as a seminal work when it was published in 1906 and his classes were almost singlehandedly responsible for the revival of calligraphy in this country.

These photographs were taken by Violet Hawkins, one of Johnston’s students, and show some of the blackboards created by him for his classes at the Royal College of Art and Central School of Arts and Crafts. A close look at the photographs reveals no trace of ruled guidelines, suggesting that Johnston created these amazing letters entirely freehand. Sets of these photographs can be seen at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the National Art Library and the Crafts Study Centre.

Text by Judy Lindsay, Head of Museum & Contemporary Collections, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design

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It will explore approaches to the business of cataloguing images, looking at different metadata schemas, data standards and controlled vocabularies and how these have been applied to real life resources including digital image collections, the moving image, art websites, material in digital repositories, and even primary art objects. Speakers include representatives from the museums world, Higher Education, JISC Digital Media, and VADS.

Venue: The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 16 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA
Date: Wednesday 9 September 2009
Booking and programme: http://www.arlis.org.uk
or contact Clare Hemmings at: C.Hemmings@soton.ac.uk

Photographic Postcard Of Women With Edinburgh Banner from Mary Lowndes Album, 1908 © Public domain. Right of reproduction held by London Metropolitan University

The Gude Cause Project has used images of suffrage banners on VADS in an exhibition at the launch of the project, which was held at the Scottish Parliament in October 2008.  The images have also been used at various events in different parts of Edinburgh and Glasgow where members of the Gude Cause committee have spoken to local community groups about the project.

North Berwick Banner Design, 1907-1922 © Public domain. Right of reproduction held by London Metropolitan University

The suffrage banner collection available on VADS is from the Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University. The Library houses an important collection of early twentieth century suffrage banners, many designed and created by the artist based suffrage organisations the Artist’s Suffrage League and the Suffrage Atelier. The Library’s entire collection of suffrage banners, along with associated artwork, has been digitised and is available for research on VADS’ searchable database.

The Gude Cause project is being organised by the Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre. For more information, see: http://www.gudecause.org.uk

The new publicity material showcases the richness and breadth of the VADS image collections - from a brightly coloured quilt created by the Cuna tribe of the San Blas Islands in Panama, to the famous ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster of the Second World War, which was intended for display only in times of crisis or invasion.

The publicity material is available freely to universities, colleges, schools and libraries across the UK. Contact us on info@vads.ac.uk or 01252 892723 to request copies.

You can also download the poster directly from the VADS website, at: vads.ac.uk/publicity

The conference held at Southampton Solent University on 9 July, covered a broad spectrum of issues and concerns across the art, design and media sector with innovation and creativity as the overarching theme.

Two suits by Hector Powe, 1964 © London College of Fashion/The Woolmark Company

The International Wool Secretariat, now The Woolmark Company, was established in 1937 to undertake research and the global promotion of wool. To that end, they built up a large library of promotional photographs and accompanying press releases which they generously donated to the London College of Fashion. The two thousand or so black and white photographs date from the 1940’s through to the early 1980’s and capture both the fashion of the time and the style of photography.

Cricketeer creates for the man about town a single breasted suit of blue merino wool, 1970 © London College of Fashion/The Woolmark Company

Man-on -the-move wears crisp credentials, suit by Hart Schaffner & Marx, 1964 © London College of Fashion/The Woolmark Company

Images from the Woolmark Company Archive and the London College of Fashion College Archive will be used this year in a number of publications, including Developing a Collection written by Elinor and Colin Renfrew, and a publication by James Sherwood on bespoke tailoring, to be published by Thames and Hudson.