Collins and Loulou João: Tickets are now available for August’s Nicer Tuesdays Online!

Whether you’re a graphic designer or motion designer, finding a unique tone of voice in any given brief or practice can be the key to success. At August’s Nicer Tuesdays, we’ll hear from two creatives who master the exercise of expressing personality. Taking place on Tuesday 31 August, the event will kick off slightly earlier than usual, starting at 5 pm BST. Our latest edition of monthly talks features two innovative creatives we know you’ll want to hear from. First up, we have the Belgium-based Loulou João who creates boundless bundles of energy in her animations and illustrations. Known for her original and technically brilliant use of 3D toys to playfully find a way of commenting on difficult subjects, we’ll dive head first into the colourful world which fills Loulou’s imagination.

Headlining the event in an extended Q&A with our deputy editor Lucy Bourton is three designers from design agency Collins, the US-based agency recently named Design Company of the Year in 2021 by D&AD. Founded by Brian Collins, the independent studio works across strategy, design and communications to combine creativity, craft and technology into ideas and experiences that improve peoples’ lives. With offices in New York and San Francisco, we’ll hear from creative directors George Lavender and Nick Ace, as well as senior designer Sanuk Kim, on a deep investigation behind the scenes of some of its best-known recent projects.

Pay what you can with our tiered payment system and grab yourself a ticket below. Also, did you know that if you join Extra Nice, It’s Nice That’s new membership programme, you’ll automatically receive a ticket every month for Nicer Tuesdays Online, for the entire year? That’s just one of the many perks that make Extra Nice so special. To find out more about this and all the other benefits of joining Extra Nice, head over to the dedicated part of our site.

Collins: George Lavender, Nick Ace and Sanuk Kim

You’ve probably seen the award-winning Collins pop up a fair few times over the past 12 months. In October last year, the studio garnered mass attention of its rebrand for Medium which uses typography as a building block for illustrations. We then heard from the agency again in December, when historic paper company Crane tasked Collins with revamping its identity. Looking to art nouveau and its elegant graphics for the beautiful redesign, we saw how Collins shaped a totally different brand in a spectacularly contrasting way to the previous project. Working again with Crane this year, the agency continued to honour its heritage while firming up its place in the present and for the future. Then, just last month, we covered another rebrand which saw Collins elevate the branding of fast food chain Sweetgreen in a humorous and versatile twist. With such a range of brilliantly executed branding projects under its belt in such little time, we’re thrilled to be hearing from the designers behind these projects – creative directors George Lavender and Nick Ace as well as senior designer Sanuk Kim – who will provide insight into the meticulous details that go into creating a visual personality with flair to aptly match the brand at hand.

Loulou João

Scroll through Louolou’s vivid Instagram feed and you’ll find new and immersive worlds filled with pondering on society, identity and representation. An illustrator and animator, the highly original Loulou pours her imagination into reality with her wonderful works. With a wholly recognisable aesthetic that you could spot from a mile away, Loulou has made a name for herself with her humorous 3D characters created using the 3D software Blender. Utilising this distinct medium, Loulou communicates her interdimensional worldview, where she shines a light on the narration and representation of Black and mixed women. Interestingly, she sees Blackness as a technology, one that is “constantly evolving to survive and go up against objectification and oppressing.” Visualising her own reality through candy-coated characters with a strong resemblance to plastic objects, we’ll hear from the artist herself on her fascinating practice which is both daring to the eye and thoughtful in concept.