Ice cream, you scream etc., etc.,

Illustration print made as a present for someone who loves ice cream. all year round. 

King Kong

New piece for a Foursight group project on the theme of Monsters. 

Will be 1 of a set of 3 prints along with work from the other Foursight guys; Kris and Jordan.

this and that...

Glimpses of work from various projects/personal pieces...

Poster: Magic Show

I've just finished working on a poster for a short filmed created by graduates from The Northern Film School at Leeds Met University, one of whom was my brother Stuart who was director of photography.

The film is entitled 'Magic Show' and is a dark comedy about a magic show in the woods, set in the early 20th century. The film was made for a competition about promoting multilingualism, for more info check out the site of writer/director Richard Wheatley here.

The idea behind the poster was to make it look like an old fashioned magician's poster from around the time the film is set in the early 20th century. I liked the idea of having the poster black and white like a photograph and just keeping the red of the bow tie to hint at the sinister nature of the film, but I did a colour version also. I also included the smokey red lines to link to the idea of illusions and theatrics etc., and was also a good way to link the type with the image with a bit of an art nouveau flow.

Check out both colour and bw versions below along with my initial drawing...

In the Shade

I've just been going through some old files on my computer, and found this alphabet I made back on my foundation course. 

We were set a brief to create our own alphabets, and this is one I did that I actually still quite like. This was in my pre-digital days when I actually did everything by hand so I think I painted this with either ink or gouache. Sitting down with a pair of sunglasses and trying to find a whole alphabet in them was a lot of fun...

Draw North West Poster

I recently had the chance to design a poster for the next Draw North West meeting in May, and its now up on the site, so I though I'd do a quick post about it.

Mr Alan Dalby was my AD for the week, and we had a quick chat about the sort of stuff that could go on it, and I settled on doing an biplane design as it's loosley related to navigation and direction and links with it being in the North West. Also I thought it would be fun to do aeroplanes as its not something I've tried before! Anywho, I've poster the poster below, and also my rough.

Cheers to DNW and Alan for asking me to do it!

Album Designs

These are a couple of unused album cover design ideas that I did over the summer, and even though the project didn't go forward, I quite liked working on these and I might try and incorporate some of the ideas into another project in the future. Playing cards and radio towers....a title for an interesting new projects perhaps?....not...

><><><><><><

Childrens Book Project

So over the past week I've been working on designing some characters and example pages for a children's book as part of a uni project. 
The story revolves around some animal characters in Uganda who learn about Christmas and what it celebrates. The book is being made and sold in aid of a charity called Helping Uganda Schools, which raise money to support and help people build schools in Uganda, among other things.
The project was open to everyone in our class, and a good few people designed characters and pages, and we all presented our work to the charity on Monday. Unsurprisingly there was some really great work produced by everyone and it was cool to see all the different ways people had interpreted the characters. 
Anyway, we don't know just yet who'll be given the job, but in the meantime I've posted some of the stuff I made for it below. Given some more time there would definitely be some things I would have changed about these, and some things that needed adding, but you kind of get the gist....

><><><><><><><><><

Marius Roosendaal - MSCED

I recently saw some work by designer Marius Roosendaal, for a project he's been working on called 'Make Something Cool Everyday' (MSCAD). This is how he describes the project:

"Throughout 2011 I will do something creative each day. 

In most cases this will be some piece of graphic design on a 

subject that stirs my interests, 

or simply based on a photograph I've made or found."

I've heard of designers doing similar projects before, but what I really loved about his project is the type of stuff he was creating. Although primarily graphic design, I really love his use of colour, shape and pattern in some instances. His pieces are very graphic with strong line and shape, and make me think a bit of old fashioned sci-fi book covers, especially as some have a nice old paper quality to them, as well as strong typography. I've posted a few of his pieces below for you to get your peepers on. I think these kind of link in with my Lunar project, in the sense that they do have a sci-fi, futuristic/science look about them, and some actually feature astronauts, planets etc.

Remember to check out his site here, and his MSCAD site here. Enjoy. 

LUNAR: Deploy

So here's a little piece of work I did a couple of weeks ago, showing the LEM deployment for my moon landing and hoax claims project. I was just playing around with trying to simplify elements down to basic shapes and create a kind of diagram of what happened....or didn't happen.....I'll leave that upto you...

Let's Be Lions

So a while back I put together a digital version of a logo for the band Let's Be Lions, to feature on their website, twitter etc. The original logo design was already done by one of the band members, and a rough sent over to me, so it just involved putting together a cleaner digital version and sorting it out so it all lined up properly. Turns out trying to fit type into a circle can be a bit tricky! Anyway I've posted the rough below along with the finished logo and a couple of slightly different versions I was messing about with. Check out the bands website here!

Justin Van Genderen

I came across some cool posters recently, not realising they were by Justin Van Genderen whom I've posted about before (he created some excellent minimalist star wars posters). I found an image he did of Superman's Fortress of Solitude inspired by the film Superman II, and taking another look at his website I found even more great work. I particularly liked his vintage car ads which include cars from various films. I've posted both the Superman images and the car images below for you to take a look at. I absolutely love them.

Like the Star Wars posters I mentioned before, his Superman images (a set of three) are again confidently minimalist, created in just black and white. For the fortress one, the use of cross-hatched straight lines in varying shades of white and grey really capture the reflective nature of the ice fortress, and the use of just a small superman logo at the bottom of each image, resembling a seal or branding, completes the images and confirms that they are from Superman.
As for the car ads, I again love their simplicity, the use of texture, the colours chosen, and the nice typography and use of quotes added in at the bottom. Check 'em out below.

Connected

Whilst doing a bit of research and looking around for ideas for my personal project, I came across this really cool poster for a short film called 'Connected', made by Anders Baden Nielsen and Joaquim Marquès Nielsen from Barq studio in Denmark. I really love the old 60's/70's sci-fi poster feel of it; the strong illustration and use of limited colours, and the really nice use of customised type. Making the image of the people in just one colour (with various bits of shading) is something I don't think I would have thought of doing, but it works really well, especially as it helps emphasise the bright white tubes connecting the two figures. I really love these types of posters, and Joaquim Marquès Nielsen has posted a really excellent explanation of their working process from start to finish, over on his blog here. Definitely worth a read. I've posted said image below for you guys to get your peepers on, enjoy.

><><><><><><><><><><><><

Stockport College Illustration Newsletter

So the Illustration department newsletters came through from the printer's recently with my image printed on one side. It's really cool to see the image in print, and I've posted a few snaps of it below. The newsletter has been printed up really nicely, and works as an A2 sheet folded up into an A4. When folded out, one side becomes an A2 poster, and the other side has all the illustration information and news from the spring and summer. I took a few photos of the inside too, and particularly the type at the top which I think looks great, so all credit to whoever put it together. Thanks!

3D Book Covers

I just found a link to cool article on Digital Arts online, about some 3D book covers that have been made by Vintage Books, for some classic horror and science-fiction novels such as 'Planet of the Apes', 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and 'The Lost World'. They work by the viewer wearing some of the classic red/blue 3D glasses, and the covers then jump out at the viewer, adding a more interactive experience to buying or reading a book. It's interesting to see how 3D, an effect obviously popular in films, has been translated over to still imagery to try and draw in a wider audience in the midst of the 3D revolution. I think this is a really good idea, especially for children, and as it says in the article, the illustrations work well even without 3D glasses. It would be cool to try and do a project using this method in the future. Anyway, I've posted some of the books covers below along with their illustrators...if you've got some 3D glasses maybe try 'em out..do't know if it would work though......enjoy!

Mick Brownfield

 

Jim Tierney

Vladimir Zimakov

Sara Ogilvie

Jim Tierney

Illustration Newsletter

Earlier this year I submitted a load of rough ideas for the college illustration newsletter, based around the theme of 'Transformation'. The image had to be in one colour, so most of my ideas were bold central images, some with typography. I think I emailed in about 13 different ideas to do with transformation, from butterflies, origami, evolution, and superheroes to scientific changes, werewolves and Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde. Jo liked the idea of using origami to represent transformation, and it became a bit of a collaboration between me and Jo as she helped me develop it from the initial rough through to the final image. 
The image went through a lot of changes, and went from a more simple image of some origami, through to a more conceptual image that involved showing all the stages of the folds of an origami crane. I also originally had some typography at the bottom, and it also went through a colour change from a dark blue, referencing blue print type drawings, to a leaf green colour to represent changes in nature, as blue had been used before. 
I've posted some images below showing the changes it went through from rough to final. The newsletter has been sent off to print so it'll be interesting to see this printed up to size!

 

 

><><><><><><><><><

Stolen Peace Album Launch

So on Thursday evening we went down to the Stolen Peace album launch gig at the Hard Rock Cafe in Manchester, where they were launching their album 'Bones', that I did an album cover design for last year. We had a good time and the band sounded fantastic! They had a few limited edition hard copies of the album for sale, and the lads did a signing after they played.

I've posted some images below of the album, and you can download it with the cover via amazon, itunes, etc, etc. Enjoy!