The Baskerville Project

A BIRMINGHAM pub famous for its live music is facing the bulldozer under plans for the next stage of the city centre’s redevelopment.

The Flapper and Firkin at Cambrian Wharf is set to be demolished to make way for a Brindleyplace-style scheme alongside the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. The Cambrian Student Hall and the Cambridge Street multi-storey car park have also been earmarked for demolition. The Flapper has hosted scores of bands making their way up the music ladder, including Editors, who regarded Birmingham as their base and inspiration.

Earlier this year, Editors frontman Tom Smith said the pub was “where it all started” for his band.

The area is set to be called Baskerville Wharf and feature hotels, shops, bars and restaurants alongside housing and student apartments. It will be built with developer Targetfellow. City regeneration bosses hailed the Baskerville Wharf agreement as another major step in the revamp of Birmingham City Centre’s Westside, with the Library of Birmingham, Arena Central and V-building already planned for sites surrounding Centenary Square.

City regeneration chief Coun Neville Summerfield (Con, Brandwood) said: “The initial proposals for Baskerville Wharf will boost Birmingham’s standing as a global city, encouraging economic prosperity with a new development in an appealing canal-side location. It will fit in with our wider aims for the city centre providing a prime site for investment, within a key area where people live and businesses thrive.”

The Baskerville Project has created an iMix entitled "C18th English Music", the iMix has been published in the iTunes Music store at:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=292409566

The iMix is a contains a selection of compositions used as inspiration for the soundtrack of Baskerville film.

The Baskerville Project is searching high and low, near and far, crossing oceans around the globe and surfing the information superhighway, for beautiful examples of John Baskerville's most elegant and sublime typeface.

From your local street sign, to your favorite body copy set in Baskerville, we are looking for exciting and captivating images of Baskerville, to include in the closing scenes of the short animated film: Baskerville.

Join the hunt for Baskerville and post your contributions to our Baskerville Project Flickr group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/847442@N25/

Alternatively you can email your high resolution photos to us here at info@baskervilleproject.com

If you are looking for some pointers in how to identify John Baskerville's timeless typeface, visit our introductory guide:

http://www.baskervilleproject.com/image/tid/42

On Monday the 22nd of September, after a tremendous response from our call for contributors to participate in the filming of a live lettering event, the Baskerville Project was host to a wonderful range of Lettering Artists and designers.

Sarah Coleman, pen and ink. "V"; Karen Lewis, clay. "A"; Amy Brown, monoprint. "I"; Evelin Kasikov, embroidery. "S"; Alex Hughes, pen and ink. "K"; Gabriel Hummerstone, slate carving. "B"; Barry Caine, etching. "R"; Caroline Archer, chalk. "L"; Alexandre Parré, CAD. "E"; Juneau Projects, Adobe Photoshop Lettering. "E"; Mark Murphy, Adobe Illustrator. "L"

The contributors were filmed, creating their characters in Fry's Baskerville, in Birmingham City University's MILO suite at BIAD. The video documentation from the day will be developed into a series of 11 animated films, which form the basis of a large scale HD multi-screen installation at Millenium Point for the Hello Digital Festival.

The artwork is devised for a multi-screen installation of 11 iMacs arranged in a circle. Each iMac will be showcasing a short animated film, drawing/carving/constructing only one Baskerville letterform, created by a range of leading typographers/illustrators/lettering artists from the uk and beyond (detailed above).

Collectively the installation will spell out BASKERVILLE simultaneously in the round.

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A new ambient soundtrack is being created to accompany the artwork, a collaboration between Stuart Tonge, (First Fold Records and Papa November) and Ronnie Chance, (Ronnie Chances Random). The individual elements of the composition will be played by each iMac to create a layered sound canvas.