Judge a book by its cover

We are doing Book Jacket design right now, fun fun fun! Dear people in my class, look at these links for ideas 'n' analysis 'n' stuff:

Covers

The Book Design Review

The Designers Review of Books

Who is the Bognor Birdman?

So here is what i produced for the Event Poster brief. The event i chose to promote was The Interational Bognor Birdman which is an annual event held funnily enough in Bognor Regis where a lot of fools jump off the pier in their own DIY flying machines, much like the Red Bull Flugtag or whatever it's called. It looks like a lot of good fun though and is a real grass roots event and i really like that. Seeing as its a DIY festival i wanted the poster to have a DIY feel, so working with the idea of the Bognor Birdman being a character intself i go to work with my trusty scissors, glue and ink. All the typography was hand drawn by myself, which was a really good fun thing to do and it was especially good being able to get away from the routine browsing of fontexplorer trying to figure out typefaces for the design. We also had to produce direct mail promotional items, and for this i made little masks you can cut out, so you too can be the Bognor Birdman.

I scored a 65 for this which is pretty good. Frustratingly though they did not give us proper crits as per usual so its really difficult to know where i went wrong exactly, and i was also therefore not given the opportunity to talk about my work. Strange, and irritating to say the least. No matter though as several of my friends got great marks so all is right with the world. They also now want us to do some stupid little presentation thing tomorrow where we explain our work to someone who has not seen it before. Doing this after getting graded for it feels more than a little redundant considering what difference does it make, and now i know that there is several things wrong with it, how am i supposed to sell it properly? "This is my poster for the birdman event, i think it looks pretty cool but i have been told the type should be smaller and some parts of it should be changed and improved"? Yeah nice one Art School, they're definitely going to take the bait.

Listen to Motive Sounds

Motive Sounds is a small independent record label run by my buddy Mark out of his house in Carlisle. They are dedicated to bringing out new exciting and fresh music as well as supporting new design talent - great records in great sleeves, what more could you want? (check out the releases page on the website to have a look, or if you're in Carlisle get yourself to Ruby Blue and pick up copies) My favourites on the label are probably Manatees, Skoud and most recent signing Over The Wall, who i got to see open for Youthmovies recently and they were pretty damn awesome, but to be honest you're not going to go wrong with any of the Motive Sounds releases.

I was lucky enough to be invited by Mark to design the front page of the website and art direct the news page (he selects a different designer each month) and he added my name to the designers list (i feel pretty famous right about now). The idea is that the image is full bleed, but it seems there could be some problems with that on bigger monitors/browsers, so if you keep it a bit smaller you'll get the right idea haha.

LISTEN TO MOTIVE SOUNDS.

Dear Dreamweaver, i hate you deeply, yours sincerely from Robbie

Cheeky screenshot preview of my portfolio website which will probably be finished and online sometime by mid january i imagine. Down with Web 2.0!

Ok, wow

Ok so i was on everyones favourite design blog yesterday (FormFiftyFive) and had a little look at the work of danish designer Mads Jakob Poulsen. He has a strong portfolio to say the least, and i especially like the World Cinema Dk posters, but what really bowled me over (so much so i had to make a post about it) was his packaging design for Widex Hearing Aids. You often see on the more obnoxious design sites out there the horrible phrase "good design is when you are jealous you didn't have that idea" - a frankly irritating and narcissistic sentiment - but damn do i wish that that project was in my portfolio. Anyway, please take a moment to view his work, and especially the video above displaying just how fantastic that piece of work is.

Our next project is experimental packaging design. I think its either going to be the best or worst project of year 2 so far.

Ads, the 50s and the US

Whilst working on the current event poster brief we have i got a huge book about 50s American ads out of the uni library. Its a Taschen book so largely just a massive compendium of images with a little preface, but thats ok because it gives you the chance to really analyze what's going on and really think about how things worked back then. Honestly, there are so many graphic cliches (well i suppose now they are more kitsch than cliche) but what is more interesting is how many things that are included in the adverts you wouldn't dream of seeing today. For example, a baby looking out of the page with big puppy dog eyes and a little cowboy hat with cute script type above him reading "maybe you should light up a Marlboro before you scold me mommy". Selling cigerettes using a child who is trying to avoid getting a beating? Amazing. My personal favourite has to be the one with the mushroom cloud exploding over a tropical island. The copy underneath reads: "Even this cloud has a silver lining!". I love 50s stuff, and the aesthetic associated with the era is just great. Don't the french have a word for nostalgia for a time when you were not even alive? If so, id use it now.