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I was perusing the latest issue of Creative Review on the train to work this morning, as I'm sure many of you are prone to do, when I came across a spread of posters that had been commissioned for the London Design Festival. I had been singing the praises of the festivals presence in East London on this here blog just a couple of weeks ago, so I took particular notice of the article.

Twenty of the country's big name designers were asked to take part. The brief was very open, with the idea to make a personal statement about London, the only real stipulation being the colour palette; the designs could on include red and black.

I really like these kind of limitations. On one hand it could be seen as a hugely wide open brief; London in black and red, but that gives the brief an important focus with huge scope, something I'm sure many designers would love all of their projects to have. The result is a really diverse set of posters, that work together on an individual basis, but when viewed together work as a set because of the use of colour, which really emphasises its level of importance when it comes to graphic design. Another good example of colour bonding a series together this is Penguin's great ideas.

The posters I'm showing above were my favourite from the twenty commissioned. Starting with the 'Taxi!' poster the designers responsible are Alan Kitching, Mike Dempsey, Morag Myerscough, Bibliotheque, Tony Brook, Tom Hingston Studio, Studio Frith, Damon Murray & Stephen Sorrell of Fuel, Angus Hyland, Henrik Kubel and Quentin Newark.

Maybe it's the fumes from the ink, it could be that the big C.C. has something to do with it, or perhaps it's just that all concerned are wonderfully generous people, but whatever the reason, news has reached me that Print Club London, based over in hip and happening E8, have reduced the price of becoming a member of their club.

The cost has dropped from ninety quid to a very reasonable £65 a month, with the only (slight) catch being that this price applies to those booking for more than just one month (or frequent members as they put it). This seems like a good deal to me though, especially if you have already been considering giving screen printing a crack.

I completed one of the Print Club's workshops a few months back and thought the place was great. Good facilities, friendly people working and printing there and a feeling that you are in the company of some genuine artistic talent, which feels quite inspiring. So my advice would be, if you've got a bit of cash on the hip and you've fancied giving screen printing a go, sign-up now before they put the prices back up.

Minimum input for maximum output: this is a maxim that I believe, if embraced by the human race as a whole, would make the world a quieter, more relaxed place to reside. In the spirit of this, today's post is a two birds, one stone affair. After all, why write two posts, when you can say all you need to in one.

So, bird one; I just had to mention these amazing poster designs. They are by Neel Williams, a New York designer and an admirer of 'gentlemanly things' = 'beer, scotch and things like that' apparently!

I really love the playful nature of these posters. They were put together for this years World Beard and Moustache Championships (a competition I had the pleasure of attending back in 2007 when held in Brighton). The chosen style really evokes the slightly old fashioned, vaudeville-esque feel that surrounds the event. I do believe that the beard-arm wrestling poster would look jolly fine on the wall above my mantlepiece. (See early iterations of the designs here).

Bird number two is a heads up to the blog that I discovered these wonderful posters on. It is called 'Beard Revue' and is put together by a chap called Michael Buchino who describes it as a "web logbook committed to the review, commentary & discussion for the beard enthusiast". So basically, if you are a beard fancier this blog is for you, with beard head wear, the 'Facial Hair Handbook', acrylic beard paintings and an appraisal of Sylvester Stallone's beard all covered in the last week or so.