#uncon09

Gareth Main

Bearded Magazine

Gareth Main started Bearded magazine in 2007 in an attempt to increase media coverage for independent record labels and artists. By 2009, Bearded was on sale in over 1,000 newsagents, record stores and supermarkets across the UK, and was stocked in both WH Smith and Borders. With Bearded currently online only, Gareth is working with the majority of the music media industry to create a very special print annual chronicling independent music and single-handedly trying (un)successfully to bring on and offline music journalism together into the modern day. Outside of Bearded, Gareth writes for a number of publications in print and online on the culture of music journalism, as well as writing a monthly 'rubbish recommendations' column for award winning music site The Line of Best Fit. Most rants, nonsense and stuff that can't be published are written on his own blog - myownworstNME.tumblr.com.

Malcolm Garrett

Garrett's first important professional work was design for the punk rock group Buzzcocks. From 1978 through 1994, Garrett was the design director of Assorted iMaGes. His work there included "graphic identity, exhibition design, television graphics, and literature design." His work for musical artists included Magazine, Duran Duran, Boy George, Simple Minds and Peter Gabriel. The sleeves that Garrett designed for Duran Duran (from 1981 until 1986) include their first four albums (Duran Duran, Rio, Seven and the Ragged Tiger (together with Keith Breeden) and Arena) and their associated singles such as Planet Earth, Is There Something I Should Know? and The Reflex.

In the early 1990s Garrett was increasingly attracted to digital technology and in 1994 Garrett teamed with Alasdair Scott to form AMX digital (later called AMX studios), an interactive media production company. Garrett left AMX when that company merged with Zinc to form Arnold Interactive in 2001. He then worked at I-mmersion in Toronto, Canada art directing interactive cinema, but returned to London in 2005 where he is now Creative Director at Applied Information Group.

Garrett is a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI), a Fellow of the ISTD (International Society of Typographic Designers), and a Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts in London. He is Creative Director of Dynamo, the online showcase and forum for the interactive media industry, and of the i-Design interactive media conference.