Nobrow @ Pick Me Up

Natasha Demetriou joined Nobrow six months ago. As the imprint’s graphic designer, she works under the creative direction of founders Alex Spiro and Sam Arthur. Here she explains a little about their history and what they're showing at Pick Me Up...

"Nobrow began with Nobrow 1. Alex and Sam invited 24 artists to submit work based on the theme ‘Gods and Monsters’.

They’ve since gone on to do other, more narrative-led books, but still follow the practice of using spot colour printing methods, a method little used today that nonetheless has a very distinctive look. It gives us the opportunity to print on amazing paper with really bright inks, so that the illustration work really stands out.

Nobrow is their baby, but I like to think that I have a little bit of input into how things look as well. I work as a design assistant, sometimes talking about colours a bit, but mostly I’m concerned with the physical elements of the books and print production.

We didn't create anything specifically for Pick Me Up, as everything was already in the pipeline. We just pushed things forward so that we could have them ready for the show. Rise and Fall was launched at this event and it's done exceptionally well. It's a concertina book illustrating the rise of the dinosaurs and their inevitable downfall, by artist Micah Lidberg.

Pick Me Up is currently the only place where the whole of the Nobrow collection is on sale. There are a couple of titles missing; one is sold out and the other one wasn't ready in time.

We’re actually opening up a gallery and a shop on the 27th of May on 62 Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch. We’ve basically built a wall and split our studio in half. We work in one half, the other half is where the gallery / shop is going to be, and downstairs is the print room. This will be our flagship store..."

Visit the Nobrow website.

Image: Sylvain Deleu

Peepshow Collective @ Pick Me Up

Usually based in East London, the Peepshow Collective has created a makeshift studio and workshop in its exhibition space at Pick Me Up. Artists Chrissie MacDonald and Spencer Wilson explain how they got involved...

Chrissie: Our history with Pick Me Up's curator, Claire Caterall, is that we used to take part in the V&A Village, which she also curated.

Because she wanted Pick Me Up to be more than just a space with pictures hanging on the wall, and actually have things going on, we thought we'd create a space where on some days we could run a print workshop. People can just come along, select some blocks which we've made and create a one-off print.

We've also set up a bench, so we can do our work from here. It makes it feel more like a working space, rather than just pictures on walls.

Spencer: Around 85% of the work on display is new and there are around 7 artists from Peepshow represented in our space.

It's not all of us, as Marie O'Connor is living in Sweden and Elliot Thoburn is living in Japan, so they're not involved this time around. Also Pete Mellor does animation so he's not exhibiting.

Essentially, the work we produce tends to be under our own individual names, but also under the umbrella of Peepshow. Collectively we're a brand, but individually we work in our our style, so our style's not defined by Peepshow... we define Peepshow.

Chrissie: When we do collaborative projects, whether it's an animation, or an installation, that's when we come together and merge our work, and that's a Peepshow job. At Pick Me Up, it's each individual's work, but we've also collaborated to create the display units and the printing workshop.

The next Peepshow printing workshops will take place on...

Wedneday, April 28th
Friday, April 30th
Saturday, May 1st
Sunday, May 2nd

Visit the Peepshow website.

Image: Sylvain Deleu