Sarah Smith

Guess what YES THATS RIGHT my favourite Sarah Smith just hooked herself up with a blog. She is a beautiful and talented photographer from Sheffield. If you don't believe me just have a look at the self portrait she did at the top of this post. Bookmark it!

Square America

Square America is an amazing collection of found retro photos documenting american life and history. Truely something else. Click on each image to view a full gallery of related images.

Scott King

Classic poster by Scott King for Joy Division show. The text along the bottom reads:

Joy Division, 2 May 1980, The High Hall, The University of Birmingham, England. 

You may notice some similarities between this poster and the poster i did for Something Else! Hopefully one day i can be as influential as Mr. King haha. His work neatly treads the line between subtle and subversive.

a bigger version of the poster can be seen here

Taken from Scott King's website:

"Scott King trained as a graphic designer. He worked as Art Director of i-D and Creative Director of Sleazenation magazines, for which he was awarded 'Best Cover' and 'Best Designed Feature of the Year' prizes. King occasionally produces work under the banner 'CRASH!' with writer and historian Matt Worley. King’s work has been exhibited widely in London, New York and European galleries including the ICA, KW Berlin, Portikus, White Columns, Kunstverein Munich and the Museum of Modern Art, New York."

Vancouver & Seattle

I've just been on a lovely little trip to Vancouver & Seattle. I got to go to a stellar record shop called Zulu Records, many different American Apparel stores, visit the actual real life location of Twin Peaks learn about native canadian art and see lots of totem poles. Pretty good trip if you ask me! Unfortunately i did not get to hang out with Obama when i was in the USA though, but you know you can't have everything. Canadians are just the best people in the world so if you get a chance to visit, DO IT! (Americans are cool too obviously)

Something Else

poster i've designed for Sarah and Mikael and the rest of photography year 2 exhibition they're holding at the end of the year for their final project. Initially wanted to use some of the photos that would be put in the exhibition, however it quickly became apparent that that would not be a possibility for various reasons, so i had to come up with...something else. There is a flyer for this i've done also but i don't really like it so i am not going to post it. Definitely get down to see this if you are about when its on because there will be some good stuff. Not wanting to plug her work too hard but i've seen some of the early/test stuff that Sarah's been doing and it's really looking good.

Something Else

A Collection of Photographs

The Bank Gallery (Upstairs at The Griffin)

Court Square

Carlisle

CA2

4-7th May

12-5pm

FREE ENTRY

In other news i am going home to London tomorrow and i am very excited. You can take the boy out of the city but you can't take the city out of the boy as they say. James is coming with me too and we're going to tear it up. As much as i hate carlisle though, there's a handful of people i will miss very much. I am only going to be away for 2 weeks, how much of a sissy do i sound right now? Anyway, none of that matters because on monday i am going to CANADA. My brother moved there last november so my mother and i are going to visit him. He lives in Vancouver which, from what various people have told me sounds like some kind of liberal, anti corporate artist record collector utopia so that sounds pretty good. We will be going to visit Seattle too which im excited about. Ill wear ripped jeans and listen to grunge the whole time. Another little treat will be on the way down to Seattle getting to visit the little town where they shot Twin Peaks! freakin' awesome. I think im going to have to have a twin peaks sesh tonight in celebration.

Explain This Image

so much amazing/hilarious stuff HERE

Art Direction sneak peek

Working with the beautiful, pink haired and highly talented Laney Gaffney has been a dream and so far this art direction thing has been a truly collaborative effort which is what i wanted from the start. Above are some roughs (you will notice that they still need to be cropped) that are the spoils of todays labour in the studio. May post some of the photos we shot on medium format too later, as they are b e a u t i f u l.

Want

Dennis Tyfus poster for Sonic Youth (one of my hands down all time favourite bands, if not the number one). Limited edition and its like $25 or something.

Get Excited

In the world of design you see the same things day in and day out and monotony is boring, and being cynical and critical is useful, however every once in a while you will see something that makes you think "DAMN, I WISH I DID THAT" For me, that was the new issue of Lodown magazine.

Lodown started as a skate magazine but is now more of a visual culture magazine with lots of skate adverts in it which is just fine by me. They change and shift their design each issue and use multiple paper stocks and experimental ideas. Last issue they printed this insane pink which is the most beautiful pink i have ever seen and it just glows off the page, i don't even know how they did it. I might make a post just about that pink alone. At the top of this post is a scan of the cover of the latest issue. I wish i designed it. Its exciting and unsual, interesting and irreverent and like nothing else you see on newstands, not even from design magazines. How many magazines are there out there that use a borderline illegible typeface for their constantly changing anyway masthead? Couple with an unusual format and exciting content and you have the best damn publication £5 can buy. There was only two copies in the shop though and me and Noo got 'em, so keep your eyes peeled for a copy on your travels.

Check out their website right HERE

Also i have added a little Mixtape widget because i love making mixtapes. Each one will have a thematic title and then the idea is maybe you can listen to it all on spotify or something? I dont have spotify but i know that thats what all the kids are doing these days.

Tara McPherson & ATP

Ok so me, james, andy and gemma go ourselves tickets to go to ATP this summer! For those of you who don't know ATP (All Tomorrow Parties) is a festival that is held in cornwall - and more specifically in the Butlins there. The whole Butlins is taken over by the festival so i guess its pretty much the opposite of what Butlins is like the rest of the year round? We are pretty much kids are christmas right now as we are going to get to see The Breeders, The Bronx, Wire, Deerhunter, Melt Banana, Bon Iver and a whole bunch of others, as well as getting to go like horse riding or and do archery and eat fish and chips, which is pretty good, although i am terrified of horses and i've stopped eating fish. I would like to shoot stuff with a bow and arrow though. Ok whatever i'm rambling now so ill get to the point:

The festival is also going to be hosting an art exhibition of the delightful Tara McPherson. I Don't know if its common knowledge or not but i really love Lowbrow art and Juxtapoz magazine and people like Robert Williams, Frank Kozik, Tim Biskup, Coop, David Choe and Art Chantry are artists and designers who i have tremendous respect for, so getting to see a show of Tara McPherson's is a real treat.

On McPherson's work:

"Tara McPherson is an artist based out of New York City. Creating art about people and their odd ways, her characters seem to exude an idealized innocence with a glimpse of hard earned wisdom in their eyes. Recalling many issues from childhood and good old life experience, she creates images that are thought provoking and seductive. People and their relationships are a central theme throughout her work."

The images at the top of this overly long and excitable post are taken from McPherson's website which can be viewed right HERE

Let's go Over The Wall

Poster i've been lucky enough to do for the upcoming Over The Wall gig in leeds. Over The Wall are a magical band and if any of you are around the Leeds area on the night of the gig make sure you get yourself down to the show! Click to enlarge and get a better look/chance to scrutinise.

Over The Wall

Just Handshakes (We're British)

Sal's Paradise

Sam Airey

Tuesday 14th April

Royal Park Cellars

39 Queen’s Road

Leeds, LS6

Doors 7.30pm

Tickets: £3 adv.

available from

hideandseekrecords

.bigcartel.com

it should probably also be noted that a couple of the images i used for this were taken from Flickr. I tried to use creative commons images wherever possible, but either way, thank you very much to the uploaders of the original photos!

Inspired by Kittens

ok so a non design related post but this is actually the most joyous thing i've ever seen

NCC & TVOTR

Neasden Control Centre directed video for 'dancing choose' by Tv On The Radio. Good stuff.

Terror at Talkin Tarn

Went out to talkin tarn the other night to have a go at some ideas for the art direction project. This game is way harder than it looks! Basically we just messed about in the dark and i didn't achieve as much as i had hoped, but there you go. Got some cool photos one way or another!

Grow Your Own

It might be a bit of a faux pas to rant but this brief has been really horrible and possibly caused me the most stress in my entire life (haha thats probably a bit dramatic maybe). The brief itself was awkward and ambiguous and there has been way to much emphasis on coming up with 'wacky', 'creative' ideas, that are fundamentally meaningless. This is not first year anymore. I would post more images buuut blogger keeps inverting the colours for no reason. Cheers blogger!

On a better note, the art direction project is going well. Working with laney is a dream, did some test shots i will post later, everything is coming together and hopefully ill be able to do some good work to be proud of!

Terry Richardson on Communicating with people

 so its no secret that i really love Terry Richardson. I understand why you wouldn't be into his stuff, but whatever, he gets two thumbs up from me and my copy of 'Terryworld' is probably one of my most prized books. Anyway, this post is aimed largely at all the boys and girls in class who are doing the art direction project. Since this project is, i'd say, about 50% to do with working with other people, communication is key, but its not always so easy is it? Building a rapport and being spontaneous and really getting that creative connection is how you're going to get the best results. Terry says it a little better than i do, so have a little watch and see what you think :)

SO MUCH SPACE SUCH LITTLE IMAGINATION

i took this photo a couple months back when i was in Newcastle. Dude is so right.

The Gutenberg Press

So obviously you know that Johannes Gutenberg invented printing and obviously you know that Stephen Fry is awesome, so obviously you want to watch this class film on bbc iplayer that goes through the history of the first printing press' creation, and they even make their own replica of it, hand cast the type and print up pages of Gutenberg Bible.

Stephen Fry & The Gutenberg Press

I really need to get myself down to shaddonmill soon and have a go on their letterpress stuff...

Magazine geeks, fall in LOVE

So next week sees issue one of LOVE magazine which is the new title from Condé Nast (aka the dudes who publish Vogue). Im pretty excited about this and theres a lot of hype around it. Hopefully it'll be great and not shit and maybe we will talk about it in years to come with the same kind of affection that we talk now about Dazed, i-D and POP. Maybe.

For everyone at uni i am pretty certain they are gonna be getting it in the shop so keep your eyes peeled and don't take them all before i can get a copy.

p.s how awesome is the cover??

KesselsKramer Studio

ok so everyone knows that KesselsKramer are pure class, but did you also know that their studio is super awesome mega amazing class? Check out the image above if you dont believe me. Flickr has lots of great images of design studios so get searching and tagging and whatever it is the kids do these days. Man i would love to work there.

Motive Sounds: THE BLOG

Guess what? yes! thats right, Motive Sounds have a blog. It's a good little read, check it out.

Motive Sounds Blog

RIP LUX

The Cramps. Man i love The Cramps so much. I really wish i'd got to see them back in the day. Wearing sunglasses after dark and drinking a tequila sunrise. Anyway their singer Lux Interior just died and it totally, totally sucks. RIP, Lux. Above is an amazing video of them live at Napa State Mental Hospital.

You dig?

Here is pretty much just a bunch of links and other stuff i'm feeling right now:

The illustrator Matthew Green

The Cap'n Jazz song "precious"

The William S. Burrough's book "Junky"

The artwork of Stanley Donwood

The design of Human Empire

Blood's Good

Time for one of my occasional non-design related posts. My buddy Callum has started up a class new blog called Blood's Good. It's a very simple idea, basically he gives you amazing records that he loves, for free. The one on there at the moment is 'pink flag' by Wire, which i can testify is a fantastic punk record. Bookmark this, its gonna get real good.

totally average

71. NO COMPLAINTS HERE :D

Book Jackets a-go-go

neither by best or favourite pieces of work but thats ok, good fun project either way. The top piece (dust jacket for The Atmospheric Railway by Shena Mackay) with a few choice improvements and details could be a portfolio piece but the series is nothing special. At least mine don't look like anyone elses. I dont know what i got for these but i am not predicting good things really, but im honestly not that bothered. Looking forward to the new brief, packaging for seeds, trying to grab a new market for gardening. Sounds like fun right?

In other news i am working on the new posters and flyers for Revolver, hopefully ill be doing a new one each month. I am very excited about this project and the first one is already pretty much done. Thanks a lot to Lucy for the hook up on that. Thumbs up Lucy!

Websites are also the thing at the moment and i've seen some pretty cool ones by my darling fellow students, when i have a bigger bookmark collection i think ill post them all up on here. Mine will be up SOON i promise. Speaking of websites, it looks like i might be doing the site for a lovely little vintage boutique in Carlisle in the coming weeks.... :D

The Vignelli Canon

would you like a free in depth design book written and designed by a master of modernist design that covers almost every facet of being a designer? of course you would.

Massimo Vignelli's The Vignelli Canon

The Birds Are Singing

Just remembered i did this a couple weeks ago. Might make it into a screen print or something? That would be fun.

Design. Build. Maintain.

So i know this guy, his name is Matt Slaymaker (seriously) and he is pretty much the most spot on dude you'll ever meet. He has a kid called Lily too, and she's is actually the best kid in the world, i'm not even kidding. Anyway, by day Matt puts food on his kids table by being a web designer and by night fights crime on the internet via his blog Design. Build. Maintain. Ok, so theres no actual justice or crime fighting or whatever, but its pretty cool and you should definitely check it out. Oh yeah and i designed the masthead too.

Electric Six

I was invited to design the poster for the upcoming Electric Six (yes thats, right) gig at The Brickyard in Carlisle. Obviously Electrix Six are a high energy, sexed up rock and roll band so i wanted to do a poster that would reflect that, referencing the trahsy punk fun of NYC punk flyers from the late 70s and early 80s. Many many thanks to my darlin' pals Mark, Hanna and Maria for being the hook up and the pretty chicks in the photo.

Electric Six at The Brickyard, Carlisle!

support from Tragedy

FRIDAY 6TH OF MARCH!

Tickets: £10 adv from ticketweb or Ruby Blue

8pm-2am

Over 18s only.

In other news, my online portfolio is ready to roll, so once i've hooked up a domain and stuff it'll be up. Watch this space.