DISTANCE IS JUST NUMBER ON THE DASHBOARD

Does anyone else think...

2009-09-20T15:40:00.002+01:00

...think that the type design in these two images is a little TOO similar?

Hedging my (alpha)bet - worst pun ever

2009-07-14T19:53:00.003+01:00

I got very excited when i saw these and proceeded to clamber all over private property to get a decent photo. I was impressed with how regular the typeface looked! You cant really tell in these photos like, but still.

I want to see what it'd look like after a few weeks of growing but i dont think the council (or whoever) would let the bushes get too carried away.

PPD Evaluation

2009-06-09T16:08:00.002+01:00

This year has been an interesting one of jumping between styles until i settled somewhere in the middle.

typography is definitely the biggest things from this year. i learned so much, but its all so technical, which is something that tends to mean that it doesnt stick with me. This is why i've managed to decide that i dont like fonts.

everything has been a little hit and miss. i found it weird jumped from digital typographic layouts to animation. from such simple colour use to such extreme. i also hate being stuck behind a computer all the time.

I think this is why the lyrics brief was such a moment of realisation for me.

screen printing is totally my thing.

completely and totally. i cant believe its take n me this long to pull my finger out and get on it though. i'm very happy with my printed work - tshirts and poster alike - but want to take it to the next level, incorporating imagery and multiple screens and colours.

funky dory.

at the same time however, i really enjoyed being able to do some illustration for a change. fred used to have a go at my crappy beano style drawings, but as soon as i plugged them into illustrator he was loving it.

i like the idea of branching out into illustration a little bit. i want to be able to draw perspectives and shadows and highlights for use in printing.

my animations came out pretty well, perhaps a little forced at times. really basic style and bright colours but they're effective.

ctrl alt shift was a but of a mistake in that i left it too late to get going and could only really take it in one direction. for such a great brief, i dont htink i did it justice at all, but i do like my idea of a leaflet of stickers/mailshot arrangement.

Module Evaluation!

2009-06-01T00:25:00.002+01:00

This is the most i've ever enjoyed a module. i genuinely have not been stressed out and just enjoyed everything i've done. i do feel that i'm lacking quite heavily in the development and research on all of my project though.

Postcards, as my one day brief, was just a series of smart arsed sketches that immediately sprang to mind from the brief title. the line drawing style was definitely an instinctive thing from reading stuff by larson and shrigley for quite and long time. I went for the two fonts, comic book, and times new roman. comic book for the speech bubbles, almost a marvel homage. times new roman for quotes a la larson and think that this is very effective.

My ideas for the back of each postcard was not researched, just an instinctive idea that related to the situation on the front. i feel that they work quite well but i should have come up with a few more ideas rather than just diving straight in and drawing them on. they probably should have been vectorised like the images as well.

still, i'm very happy with them, particularly effective with the stock. a book of blank postcards bought for me by a friend came in very useful! I've definitely noticed an improvement in my boards since doing the typography module as well. the yellow was chosen simply because the postcards were too white to be on a white back ground and a little bit of synaethesia kicked in.

next time, i would come up with as many ideas as possible and variation of each one.

ctrl+alt+shift is probably my weakest project. limited research and, yet again, me plowing away into my first idea. i feel like that is definitely not enough work there for the one week brief i meant it to be and since i managed to leave it to last minute, it was actually only about 5 days anyway. time management is definitely something that i need to address.

I have, for the last few days of the brief, been carrying and "things to do today" list which i think its definitely a step forward and i managed to get all my organisation right in check. i plan for this to continue into next year but with a notebook in pocket or something. i feel that it works very well for me.

Back to ctrl+alt+del, i think that my sticker campaign was a great idea but i found myself very limited by time and lack of print room slots. because of this, the prints are pretty terrible and the format of the stickers was limited but the label stickers i bought. getting the computer to align with the stickers was a nightmare as well. ah well.

I do like my board tho! once again, i think my layouts are getting a little bit more professional and mature. shame about the backup work letting it down a bit. im just too disorganised! i need to get myself that notebook...

if i was to do the brief again or develop it furhter, i'd have to get myself down into the print room, do some questionnaires, gather more reliable stats and be more inventive with my designs.

78rom - mp3 is the most fun i've had on the course so far. it was my perfect brief and i plan to investigate it further and further and futher in my own time. different series of song topics or doing it by band... lots of ideas!

my actual poster design were lots of fun to draw. i've decided that i dont like fonts. i'll draw them myself, thank you. i missed drawing. and illustration! and i think that my use of point size (or at least caps height) is very effective. not so much with the weight of the text tho, which i definitely attempted to do.

The digitisation of my posters game them a kind of cartoony quality because of the very sharp edges and irregular letters. i do think this was effective though, especially in the context of screen printing.

i will probably screen print absolutely everything ever now. i still need a air amount of practice but i just think that it is exactly what i want to be doing. particularly working with hand drawn text and layout.

My experimentation with stock was a lot of fun and i would like to take this even further. mainly in the form of posters tho. the tshirts are great as they are. i'm very happy.

My boards are, once again, some of the most professional layouts i think i've done. particularly with my photography skillzzzzz shining through.

As i said, i plan to develop this brief on and on. 2 screens to a design with be experiemtned with, as will the use of different colours and possibly more conceptual designs - images?

Overall, i have really enjoyed this module. i feel like i may not have worked as hard as i should and could, yet not felt stressed about it because i feel like i've found my niche.

i really want to experiment with screen printing my own stuff at home. by getting kit, or making a screen or something. just as an experiment.

typographic posters

2009-05-25T01:20:00.008+01:00

JAPANESE GRAPHIC DESIGN

2009-01-14T19:36:00.004Z

My auntie went to Tokyo recently and brought me back a load of examples of Japanese graphics : )

Anarchy illustrations!

2008-12-03T18:23:00.003Z

two very different cartoons about anarchy! one i painfully left wing, and one is very honest and true.
just interesting to see 2 different people's takes on how the world can be.

Module evaluation

2008-11-25T13:56:00.007Z

Overall, this module went a bit to shit.
I thought i was doing pretty good, specifically with delving further into mac monkeyism for 4 weeks.
I'm quite happy with my final boards for "Good is...", i think that they explain the step by step process i went through during the project very successfully. No printing costs though! i need to sort that stuff out still.

Similarly, my "design for print" double page spreads are quite visually appealing, especially after how interesting i've found the typography and layout workshops, however, my back-up work is absolutely dire.

My main reason for a bit of a dip in quality of work is that i, rather stupidly, chose to live with my girlfriend when choosing my first student house and this one year relationship recently ended in a big fuck up of a mess with her still living in the house, which i'm sure you'll agree, is a tad awkward. combining this with working with Bill Hicks quotes and, over the last couple of weeks i've become a cynical, bitter and sarcastic arsehole which has led to my concentration and motivation toward work suffering dramatically, along with any organisation that i had before hand (however little that may have been).

i do plan in tying up all the loose ends that i have left in the module at some point over the rest of the year, but if i tried to do that now i think that the stress would lead me to putting my head through a window or something equally idiotic.

Hopefully these few days off will sort me out a little bit.

I'm reasonably happy with my Bill Hicks stuff, i like my idea but the monotony of actually carrying out what i wanted to do drove me up the wall. Im annoyed that i didnt sort out print prices and stuff, although i did print a few pages of a PDF but there wasn't much thought about which pages i chose. the printing company who emailed me the PDF were meant to send me a sample book but nothing came through and they didnt get in touch. this led to me not thinking about it and when it all kicked off with my recently-ex girlfriend i just dropped everything and couldnt concentrate. it was hard not to with Hicks being a miserable cunt out of my speakers for a month.

before the end of the year i will have tied all the loose ends up and hopefully retained my "dont panic" work from wherever it disappeared to. i guess im just stressed to the max at the moment.

on the plus side, im going to try to get totally involved with my work now that my free time has altered so drastically to what it has been on the course so far.

colour for print

2008-11-25T13:45:00.005Z

Good is... LIFE ACCORDING TO HICKS

2008-11-25T08:33:00.005Z

Arkham Asylum

2008-10-19T18:36:00.005+01:00

I've included these images on my blog because they're very "arty" (for want of better words) for a comic book. The combination of photography illustration and painting really emphasises the intended darkness of the imagery. the layouts are also very interesting, especially because they can create a great sense of movement.

i think the most successful aspect is the way that each character's speech bubbles contain different typography and colours that match each personality. the joker is a particularly interesting case as his original campness is completely lost, and the psychotic and evil mentality that is played upon in The Dark Knight is almost overpowering, both in what he says, the type that is used, and even the way that he is presented.

Yoshitomo Nara

2008-10-19T18:12:00.010+01:00

Yoshitomo Nara is an artist and illustrator from Hirosaki, Japan. He recently had an exhibition on in the Baltic Flour Mill (in Newcastle/Gateshead) which is where these leaflets came from. His illustrations have a very distinctive style that, to be honest, i find a little dull even though they are dead cute.

The reason i've included him on the blog is mainly because most of the info you get at the baltic comes in "baltic branded" leaflet form, which as Yoshitomo Nara must have insisted on designing everything himself. Each A5 card came in a brown envelope with an acetate window (see top image) and i was genuinely excited about opening it to see what goodies were inside!the exhibition was set up in a little home-made town (as shown in the pencil drawn map, which i thought was the best piece of work i have seen by him). there was all sorts of stuff hidden away in each room and i was wandering around his designated space for a good couple of hours trying to take absolutely everything in. good, clean, family fun.

we did it all for the don

2008-06-23T03:02:00.005+01:00

this is lyrics taken from an Against Me! song called "We Did It All For The Don".
its not finished cos i messed up a bit with kerning and the weight of the letters but i guess that makes it a bit unusual. im quite happy with my grid idea though. making the baselines wavey and tops of letters touching bottoms creates a normal reading style which could need a lot of concentration haha.
unfortunately i messed a bit of the "friends". it should be similar weight to the "why" on the left hand side.

Abraxas Promotions

2008-06-21T23:59:00.002+01:00

the next gig was my first attempt. i tried to use brash colours for the type of music - new wave indie sort of stuff - and figured i should go mad. i found it hard to be very creative with it to start with but it does what it needs to do.

For the 2nd gig i went at it with a pencil and berol black felt tip because it was a "rock and fucking roll" gig. I got the travisty idea from their myspace page, just went with it. im sure you can tell i like typewriter fonts so i quite like it, but the pen didnt really give a good finish. the no signal input just sort of works with what i heard, i quite like how . Im well chuffed with my microphone as well. its based on the abraxas logo. the original was produced on photoshop and is much more "graphics". The promotion name typewriter font went a bit tits up tho. looks like one of them shit fonts you get and never ever use.

For the last poster i wanted to build on the amount of illustration after reading an article in last hours (blog to follow at some point!) and went for a toaster cos i can make them look pretty nifty in my opinion. then i set it on fire for the same reason that i chose to put it there in the first place. The bands were much more pop punky than the others so i went off on a graffiti style bubble writing thing. the grid is made up of 5 horizontal strips of the same size and i think its pretty obvious in the final outcome.

Texas is the reason poster

2008-06-14T16:11:00.003+01:00

this is cool. it has tape on it. and illustration. and it is cool.

what is graphic design?

2008-06-06T12:40:00.009+01:00

before starting my course in leeds, i thought that graphic designwas more of a specific field of expertise - but at the same time just generally being almost unenecessarily decorative. i was awre of typography, packaging, advertising, book binding and so on, but the actual term "graphic design" brought up very specific visuals when i thought of it.

these visuals were generally photoshopped or produced on illustrator (for example, like the second image down in this post), and so needed knowledge of such programs in order to be successful pieces of graphic design. i always found such images quite appealling but never saw myself as a designer as my work was not in this style at all. i guess before starting my degree course, i thought of myself as more of an artist (for want of a better term) because i tended to hand render things or simply mess around with layering in photoshop to make "trippy" imagery.

since being at uni, i've realised that graphics are everywhere - roadsigns, logos, branding, newspaper article layouts and on and on.

Everybody uses graphics, whether they are aware of it or not. some people just use it more successfully and more appropriately. when you're writing a letter, where you choose to write the address on the envelope is graphics. when you write an angry note to flatmates and choose a red pen, thats graphics too.

roadsigns are one of the most interesting examples for me. this is because of the semiotics involved - there must not any frills because people are driving past at speed. this means that the imagery must be as basic as possible, but still obvious to what it is. generally, this means a restricted colour palette so as not to confuse the eye. however, colour is a very important part of graphics. i know that james laurie for example, isnt confident enough to use colour at all! the best exampleo colour in semiotic roadsigns are the examples where you arent allowed to do things. every single time this inludes a big red cross through a black symbol on white background. red is the first colour the eye sees and related is to warning and danger. this makes it a very appropriate colour choice.

layout and composition is another great interest of mine in the field of graphic design. its something most people (previously including myself) take for granted and do without thinking. all posters, articles, reference books, packaging designs, photography and so on, contain layout grids and are designed with composition in mind.

i think that i have found my calling with these grids. its a good way of combining my writing skills with my newly developed designing skills, and this brings both my fortes together, making them even stronger.

its really interesting to see how typography and image can work together to make really successful graphic design from a compositional point of view. it also means that different layouts can be developed, compared and analysed in order to decide which is the most successful layout.

its also interesting to see when the layout hasnt been considered but the piece is still out there in the wide world. this just makes me want to slap people until they let me rearrange things for them.

i think it'd be really succssful for me to draw up a bunch of layouts for a typographer and illustrator to mess around with. maybe more group work will come of this morbid facination.

in essence. graphic design is everything, because EVERYTHING has to be designed (but unfortunately, not always successfully).

birthday cards

2008-05-30T16:21:00.007+01:00

i'm glad my family have got used to the fact that i'm a designer and therefore know a good birthday card when i see one. The top is from my parents. i think my constant photographing of bizarre reflections must have embedded itself in their minds. how awesome is it though??

The second ones from my auntie and uncle. i actually laughed at it. genius little illustration!

The next, from my sister, is a Kurt Vonnegut quote. im not great with fonts, but im going to assume its based on helvetica. i like weathered look, and the quote itself.

The fourth card is from my ates from durham anna, myke and stu. im guessing anna made the card (shes a fan of stick people). interestingly, she wasnt aware of my love of masking tape. and i love the illustration of me haha.

PHLEGM COMICS

2008-05-30T15:42:00.000+01:00

Absolute genius. I dont think i need to say anything else.

Designign gig posters

2008-05-29T11:43:00.003+01:00

Funny story...

I got offered a gig in Durham, accepted it and offered to design the posters/flyers. The promotion company said yes. I produced the top one thinking "happy, summery weather, image for all the acts". Then Stuart (fm Abraxas Promotions) pointed out that James Addison would get laughed off stage in The Angel for my description. I suggested that should make the whole poster 'grittier' and he said that was exactly the word he was looking for. So what did i do? I smashed the guitar and branded his company name across the top to keep him happy.

All's well that ends well.

Its a very typical DIY poster, but thats to appeal to the audience, who wouldnt be expecting vectorised spaceships blowing up skyscrapers. For some reason i really like how "THE ANGEL" stands out on my final design. I think its cos its my handwriting but elongated.

Book of 100 - TRIALS

2008-05-26T22:06:00.005+01:00

These are just some over-ambitious trial books that i couldnt apply my concept of hiding the least public of my models' actions to. They are much more 'my style' of work - scrappy collage - so it is interesting comparing them to my final piece, whih has much more refined and "graphicsy" style that i am branching out into (despite the fact that i dont really feel that you can have that much of a personalised approach).

Book of 100 (a bit late)

2008-05-16T01:33:00.004+01:00

I'm really pleased with how my book turned out. I had some moments during the development when i realised i was aiming very high with what i wanted to do. My trial books (see next post) show this, but because of complications, the way i was working didnt really work.

My finalhas come out as probably one the most precise pieces of graphics i have created. It was a turning point in the course for me as i started making my work conform to the world of graphic design. Even tho i was very dubious at first, it definitely paid off.

The double-sided idea works unbelieveably well and i have had people questioning their lives when they try to work out how its put together.

Chemtrailers!

2008-05-05T23:31:00.002+01:00

For our Chemtrailers project, Andy, Nate and myself all worked on different aspects of the brief - Nate did the website design and myself and andy workwd on the branding of the company.

My initial idea was the black and red design, then Nate introduced a yellow/grey colour scheme that can be seen on initial poster designs.

The posters then developed into a series of three warning of three consequences of chemtrails - poisoning, mind control and weather control. My final responses to poisoning and weather control are included in this post.

what does marsellus wallace look like?

2008-04-28T23:54:00.002+01:00

eadman quality/param>
I love the change in typeface when the guy gets shot.
The blood trails give it a ralph steadman quality which is always a good thing.

Writing writing writing...

2008-04-15T12:50:00.004+01:00

I just realised i havent really been writing much to put up on here so here we are.

Visual language is in, critical studies is in, my book of 100 is complete.

Its a strange point in the course i think. things seem to have slacked off slightly but in a way that they tighten up again. i know that doesnt make sense but it kinda does at the same time.

Im very happy with my final book - even tho i had to change my idea a number of times. I managed to make it quite precise and well refined which is something i'm not usually very good at and so i am quite content to draw a line under it.

Im also happy with my critical studies studies essay. i managed to associate one of the questions to something im very interested in - anarchism and punk music. All is well with the world (or not, as both of these topics would claim). Anyway, im pretty happy with how it came out, even tho i couldnt fit in as much information as i'd hoped. after sending it to a mate, he said he thought it was too informal, but i think informality was important in my particular essay as its a very niche topic and i wanted to aim it at people who wouldnt know about it.

Finally, visual language. Slight hiccup here. after missing several studio sessions, i had to try to draw up some design sheets from memory (memories from before christmas). Im quite happy with own investigation wiork tho. i think it covers the brief set, and then the brief i had to draw up myself. further investigation could always be done and i will definitely continue with my experimentation. i know for a fact that my studio session work will bring down my module grade tho, possibly to the point of resubmission, but hopefully not.

mindless optimism is the only way to look at the world.

'Zine Illustrations

2008-04-06T18:57:00.006+01:00

The illustrations of band scenes inspired me to try them myself. These were done on acetate over photos of band situations.

I quite like the sketchy style, but am glad i managed to use line drawing instead of turning it into a sketch like i have done for years. The energy of the photographs has transferred perfectly to the illustrations. maybe i will use this style of drawing for gig flyers etc.

Punk Rock 'Zines

2008-04-06T18:07:00.006+01:00

I have recently fallen in love with 'zines. These are DIY publications with no copyright and so can be used to express pretty much anything and everything the people who created them would like. Mostly, these magazines are about music or politics but often include plenty of illustrations, some of which, taken from my collection, are shown above.

Adbusters

2008-03-09T18:44:00.004Z

As a very left wing individual, i am very supportive of adbusters and their ideas.
i havent got a new issue for a while, but just found a selection of old ones and have been flickign through them. here's some designs that stood out for me.

Anuvver Flyaaa

2008-03-08T15:34:00.001Z

This design is right up my street. totally hand done, very basic idea.
It does have a "done in school" sort of feel which is quite immature, but if it was for a night that was more my taste, i'd pop along in a second haha.

Scanned Darkly

2008-03-08T15:32:00.001Z

This is a scan of my face and personality for Cheng's project.
such a cool idea and the overall image is dead cool too :)

Bright Eyes Videos

2008-03-05T16:33:00.001Z

Both of these have some very interesting aspects. particularly the animation in 'at the bottom of everything' and the basic idea in easy/lucky/free.

Layering with Photoshop

2008-03-04T15:59:00.002Z

During the photoshop brief, i strayed slightly from the style of my series in my investigations.
I was just playing with the layering effects and merging the photos i took..

The Best Iron Known To Humanity

2008-03-04T15:44:00.003Z

I drew this for visual language but its probably the best line drawing ive ever done - im always just sketching and doodling!

Human pyramid

2008-03-04T15:18:00.002Z

Ok, I know this isnt particularly relevant to anything but its a great photo that captures all of the 2 and a half seconds we managed to hold this completely spontaneous human pyramid at a folk punk show in durham over christmas.

Oooh, gig poster

2008-03-04T14:59:00.004Z

I'm not sure who actually designed this, its hard to get in touch with my mate who would know as well, but this is a poster for a gig im playing in durham in a couple of weeks.

I like this style but its a bit miserable, obviously relating to the headline act's name. the use of clashing colours is reminiscent of Never Mind The Bollocks.

DIY NOT EMI

2008-03-04T14:41:00.008Z

This is just function over image i guess. Literally just a sheet of paper folded around the cd. lush paper though! looks like its well travelled haha.

I really like the illustrations on Mike Park's CD. It reflects his personality perfectly - especially "bye daddy". It would have been interesting to see it with different colours though. i love that someone over the pond printed the artwork by hand as well!

Silly Reflections

2008-02-29T13:33:00.002Z

I've noticed the way that glass or other reflective surfaces reflect and distort landscapes and images for quite a while now.

this was especially obvious in amsterdam for some reason.

Amsterdam

2008-02-29T13:24:00.009Z

Went to amsterdam over reading week.
it was an action packed week of museums, the zoo, photography and coffee shopping it up.
unfortunately, we couldnt take photos in museums, but the streets were awash with graffiti, so i guess the whole city's a bit of a museum.

What could be better??

2007-12-19T15:44:00.000Z

Lego
Animation
Eddie Izzard

Nuff said.

Halloween

2007-11-01T10:58:00.000Z

I was going to go as a chav (or charv - we had the word in the north east first!) but i looked in the mirror and thought:
"Ah crap, its a little TOO convincing". I thought people would be asking where my costume was.

After listening to a punk band called Latterman, I discovered one of their songs entitled "Zombies Are Pissed". I decided that the title was so good that I ended up designing a zombie tshirt with the slogan stencilled on.

I took a plain white tshirt, tea stained the shit out of it, squirted red and yellow ink all over it and then cut it up a little bit.

It started out as a costume, but i think i'll be wearing it regularly cos its well impressive.

Illustrator

2007-10-19T11:19:00.000+01:00

it IS big.
it IS clever.

does that mean we have to use it?

JUST ANOTHER WARNING

2007-10-18T23:06:00.000+01:00

check the simple DIY easily produced artwork my mother funkies!
stencils and spray paint are the way forward.
havent sorted out lyric sheet or tracklist for back yet but they will appear soon.

ITS TOO EARLY IN THE MORNING FOR YOUR FUCKING PUNK ROCK

2007-10-18T22:59:00.000+01:00

I was bored and stuck with a brief so started fucking about. This is made up of brown envelope, toilet paper, graph paper, tracing paper, red drawing ink permanent marker, 2 different highlighters, pencil and a stencil i made for my own personal CD design.

Club Flyers

2007-10-18T22:24:00.000+01:00

WHY DO PEOPLE STILL USE VECTORS?

THEY'RE CRAP!

I might actually go to every night with proper illustrations on their flyers just to raise two fingers to the places that use vectors.

HENRIK DELEHAG

2007-10-18T22:17:00.000+01:00

Imgonna upload some scanning of his work from "Graphic 10" because this doesnt really show his illustrative capabilities. The whole thing is a blank card coloured in with black felt tips. Time consuming, but awesome perservereance. I think i would go mad.

..More mad.

Leeds!

2007-10-18T22:13:00.000+01:00

Right. Well I've been living down in Leeds for just over a month now and I'm really enjoying it. Everyone on the course and in my halls are extremely cool with me and I hope I seem to be the same back.

Liberty Park (where my flat is) is absolutely lush, en suite, new building, kitchen to make a mess of simply to annoy Alex.

All is well with the world.

Its just weird how different it is to "sunny old" Durham. I've been back a couple of times now and its not the same when no ones theres. Im sure christmas will be mental.