A musical interlude

Goodbye Enemy Airship by Do Make Say Think

I'm really into DIY fan videos at the moment, and this one for Do Make Say Think is a bit of a gem. For me usually simple ideas are the best, and the video and music come together perfectly in this piece. I'll post some more DIY videos soon, there are some real doozies out there, including a a great one for Deerhunter, and a personal fave put to a live Akron/Family track.

Corporate Identity

So we got our marks back from the corporate identity project today. The crit on friday went very well but naturally a little angst set in having to wait over the weekend to find out how i did. Well, i did very well - i got 78/a 1st again which is nice. This was a fun project to do, and it really feels like i have learnt a hell of a lot. Never really having tried my hand at corporate identity before it was interesting to get to grips with all the different facets of how an identity system works. The company i designed the identity for was a fictional relocatable buildings company of my own creation named Rebuild. The idea was that they would be a company specializing in quickly erecting temporary and relocatable buildings in warzones and disaster area, ranging from refugee camps to lo-tech hospitals etc. I was going for a bold, simple and authoritative feel, whilst retaining a sense of cool and style. A feeling of structure was also important to the feel of the identity. Above are images of the logo, stationary set (which includes a letterhead, business cards, DL windowed envelope and compliments slip) and selected spreads from the styleguide we also had to produce. The photos don't really show it very well, but the paper used for the letterhead and compliments slip is not white, it is very light grey (k10 to be precise).

Click the images to get a closer look, i apologise for any pixelation/poor photography that may have occured.

Work Diversion

I SHOULD be doing work right now, but i'm just going to leave it until i get in the studio tomorrow. Instead, i'm looking at this amazing thing that my good friend Emmie (of s e p e r a t e w a y s fame) linked me earlier. TBH i always loved her but this has confirmed her as one of my favourites. It has nothing to do with graphic design but is so good i thought i'd post it anyway, heres the link: WTF?

My buddy Karis had this to say about it:

"Don't you think those kids have pain in their eyes like don't you think they're being abused and it's being masked by a colorful balaclava "

I think that's fair.

Life Is Short

SO today i stated up my SECOND blog! yes, thats right, i've gotten blog greedy. I noticed that i was posting a LOT of photos here, so in order to not dilute the work i do in graphic design, or my photographic work, i decided to start a second blog dedicated to my photos. So here it is, i hope you enjoy, and please check it as regularly as you do this one: Life Is Short

Mmmmodernism

This is not my first post about Wim Crouwel and i don't imagine it will be the last. Anyway, i was browsing through Dafont.com looking for something to give me ideas for our current project (we're doing corporate identity) and i stumbled upon this little font called "Atmosphere". The eagle eyed and design savvy of you out there will notice that it is a copy of Wim Crouwel's famous "New Alphabet" - a must download, if you ask me. The even more sly of you out there will know why its called Atmosphere as well, if you do, tell me why in a comment on this post and the first correct answer will win a super fun extra special super prize.

on a completely unrelated note, isn't "Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness" such a class album? I only just got this...13 years after it was first released. I just got the new Fucked Up album recently too and it is fantastic, i also ordered the new Deerhunter today can't wait to hear that. Anyway, back to the graphic design...

St Catz! Pt. 2

Here is a photo of some oxford university freshers totally rocking the tshirts i designed for them - apparently they all really love them, so that turned out pretty well. Im getting sent one in the post soon so when i do ill get someone to model it for me and get good photos up.

New Work! Editorial Design project!

Well well well, here are the final pieces from the brief we've just completed for uni about Editorial Design. We had to do a splash (thats like opener) and a turn (what follows the splash, of course) spread, a front cover and a contents page. We were allowed to choose what the article was about and what kind of magazine it was. I chose to do an article about the photographer Terry Richardson (i'm a big fan) in a sort of dazed & confused-esque art/fashion/culture magazine. The tutors gave me incredibly positive feedback in the crit, so i guess it went pretty well. Oh yeah and i got a 78/100 (which is a 1st).

Mr Hellviper

my buddy Will is an illustrator of much radness, check out his blog. I knew this guy when he was a little kid, he used to be such a nice kid - what happened? Now he spends all day drawing these totally gnarly pictures of zombies and monsters and wizards and stuff like that. SWEET!

Mr Hellviper

No internet

i dont have the internet at home so no posts for a bit, but when i do WOAH, there's gonna be some good stuff. Maybe.

Norway reprise

re worked this poster that i posted up here aaages ago for a fictional exhibition about contemporary norwegian design, using my exprmntl typeface. I called the exhibition 'in the pines'.

Exprmntl Type.

You may remember this from long ago, well, i finally finished. More accurately, i finally bothered to finish. Think it turned out alright!

1234

Flash

Hold tight!

New posts of work coming real soon, in the meantime, why not take a minute to check out some people and things i really love right now:

Mario Hugo

Round

3 Deep Design

Mike Perry

Elisabeth Moch

Terry Richardson

Ryan McGinley

Marian Bantjes

Also in the spirit of posting a bunch of links, i've decided from now on ill only post images of my work/i have taken and only links to ones i didn't.

Hey James!

My good buddy James McCarthy has just started up a blog to show his work too, he's pretty nifty, check it out!

En-Route Graphic Design

St Catz Freshers 2008

I was invited to design the tshirts for the St Catherine's (aka St Catz) College Oxford Freshers students this autumn. Probably one of the more fun projects i've done for a long time and it'll be great to see them printed on the backs of beautiful and super clever young oxford students. When they're done and dusted i'll put up pictures of the finished project.

Diana+ 2

Some new photos ive taken with my diana camera. I love it a little too much i think.

TV Eye

Fifty Designers Current Favourite Typefaces

I just received this nifty little book in the post. It is by Create/Reject aka James West and its a compilation of fifty designers current favourite typefaces (as the name would suggest)। I always find it interesting to learn about little things about the people i admire like this, ther'es only 2000 copies, they cost £3 each all of which goes to Unicef and I think its all sold out now. There appears to be two printing errors though which is a bit odd, and nowhere does it actually say the names of the typefaces which would be a pretty cool thing to know, but oh well. Its a fun little thing and im glad I managed to nab a copy and i've scanned a few spreads so you can have a little look yourself.
What are your current favourite typefaces?

Welcome to APS booklet

I was asked to redesign the welcome booklet given to the new year 7's at Alexandra Park School in Bounds Green which is just up the road from where I live. The original was a classic mess of microsoft word clipart and comic sans. I think I did a pretty good job of the redesign myself. I used DIN throughout (one of my favourite typefaces for sure) and got my brother to do some Illustrations. However all is not good news though, as the woman I did it for really loved it, but two philistines she is going to be working with in September decided that it was no good for reasons i am yet to fully understand, so what they did was take a lot of my ideas and chop them up and stick them back together, of course using comic sans as well. Too add insult to injury they took one of my spreads blew it up to A4 (i designed the booklet as A5) then for literally no reason, changed the type into comic sans. The two women who did this are both english teachers, and i am of the opinion that this is akin to me taking their class instead of them, standing at the front reading the dictionary aloud for ten minutes then walking out, or if they were art teachers, me going round to every pupil in their class and painting a moustache and glasses on all of the work. That would be a ridiculous thing for me to do, so where did they come up with the justification to do it to me? Some people really are just idiots, arnt they?
Anyway have a quick look at the selection of spreads ive scanned in here and tell me what you think! Hope you like it.

Diana+

I love you my darling Diana.

BRIEF ME BITCHES!

So summer is nearly upon us and obviously this means no uni work! woohoo right? WRONG! i love work! I would really like anyone and anybody to set me a little brief or give me and idea or a thread of something i should try out over the summer! It can be just something you made up it doesnt have to be for anything real you need doing or even serious. ANYTHING! COME ON PEOPLE! :)

For Leanne

im just posting this up so i can show Leanne the magical page layout forumla for her book.

The opposite sides show what is on the reverse of each page. It works by putting the numbers zig-zagging down the outside of both sides then going back UP in the inside. Sorry if that doesnt make any sense :S Also  you should note that page 1 is the front cover, page 2 is the inside cover, and obviously the last and second last pages are the back cover and back inside cover. This is super useful information for anyone who wants to make a book of any kind (illustrators, photographers, im looking at you! DIY is awesome!)