HUGS Christmas Book

So my pitch went well, and I'm going to be illustrating a children's Christmas book for the charity Helping Uganda Schools. The book should be going to print at the end of October, in time to sell for Christmas. So for now I'm working on the imagery and design of the book, and we are also trying to generate interest and find people or places who might want to buy or get involved in selling the book. All proceeds from the book will be going to the charity, so spread the word! If you know any people, or have any contacts at shops, schools or local businesses that might want to buy or sell the book, get in touch! I've posted some promo information below, give it a click....

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....

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Erik Nitsche

I recently came across some awesome graphic work by Swiss graphic designer Erik Nitsche. In the 1950's and 60's Nitsche was art director for General Dynamics, a U.S. based defense contractor, and created lots of work for them including their branding, advertising, books and posters.

His work is very Bauhaus inspired, and makes use of bold geometric forms and strong colour. During the cold war his designs often included aircraft, rockets, satellite's and submarines, and many often depicted space and space exploration, so these have all been interesting to look at for me as part of my research for my Lunar space project. Check out some of his work below, and some book photos courtesy of grain edit. Enjoy.

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LUNAR : Astronaut #2

Because of all the reasons conspiracy theorists have come up with to disprove the moon landings, they therefore came to the conclusion that the actual moon landing (many claim that they did take off into space but never reached the moon) was filmed on a set at a secret location. Possibly by Stanley Kubrick....
Anyway, I took advantage of the reflective visor and added in a film camera, light and boom mic, and tried out a film still-like crop as if taken through the camera, with slight adjustments for composition. I think I'll will probably change the framing or expand on the background, as well as sorting out some of the details, even if I don't use this for anything further down the line. So, for now.....

 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

So, at the moment I'm working on both my personal project around the moon landings, and also my dissertation which is focused on the film 'Blade Runner' (not very original I know) amongst other things, and because of the space/sci-fi nature of both projects, there has been some crossover in my research. For example, not long ago when I was researching into sci-fi posters for my space project, I came across this stunning book cover design by Justin Mezzell, submitted as part of the Re-Covered Books project, run by Bobby over at The Fox Is Black design blog. 

The design is a new cover for the book 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. Dick, which is the book that the film 'Blade Runner ' is based on. I absolutely love everything about this design. I love the sans-serif type used which has that retro sci-fi poster look about it; streamlined and futuristic. The limited palette of colours used are also great, slightly sombre and also creating nice contrast between the elements. I also love the central alignment and symmetry (for the most part) of the design, something I'm quite drawn to; it's incredibly balanced. 

The circles used look as if they could represent eyes, a key feature in the book as the eyes are used via the Voight-Kampff machine to find replicants; and also have a slightly celestial, planet-like look about them which links nicely to the on-world/off-world themes of the book. The dreamy clouds also help establish this as they could also represent atmosphere around the planets. The red lines also work well, creating a nice reference to wires and connections, perhaps in the brain of a replicant. They also have an almost neon-sign look about them by being bright red, a feature perhaps more commonly associated with the film rather than the book. Nice.

Check it out below, along with some other cool submissions to the project. Enjoy.

 

Tristan McNatt

Hannes Beer

Mitch McArtor

Artflakes Interview

Click here or on the image below for a link to an interview I did for the Artflakes blog a few weeks back. Thanks Julia!

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LUNAR: Astronaut

So for the past couple of days I've been doing some astronaut sketches for my Lunar project, and yesterday I put together this one as a kind of simplified version of the Apollo 11 Space Suit. It's not really a finished piece as I still need to do a bit of work on it conspiracy-wise, possibly something with the visor reflections, so I'll do that at a later date. This is it for now...

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. 

Gavin Potenza

I came across the website of illustrator and designer Gavin Potenza a while back and really loved his work. He's based in New York and works freelance, creating illustrations, infographics and maps; as well as co-running design studio Script and Seal.
I really love his bold illustrations, with confident use of colour and some nice geometric qualities with the use of circles and lines etc. He also uses some subtle texture throughout which I really like and try to use in my own work; it gives it a slight hand-made, printed quality rather than a digital one. I'm not sure exactly how he makes his images but they seem like maybe a mix of digital and hand-made in some instances.
Anyway, I've posted some if his work below, a variety of illustrations and some really cool and imaginative infographics, and don't forget to check out his website here. Enjoy.

 

 

 

www.astronautsuicides.com

Just found out about this website via OK Great and thought I'd share it also, just as it kind of links with my Lunar project. An interesting little project with some really nice photography, if obviously slightly macabre, based around the fact that the NASA space program has significantly slowed down in recent years. 
The photographs are really well done, and I don't know where they got the astronaut suit from but it looks really good, especially the helmet as it gives a nice flash of gold to the more monotone environments. I've posted a couple of the images below, and check out the website here for the whole set. Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

Art Direction // Sara Phillips    Photography // Neil Dacosta    Retouching // Saskia Thomson