Quote Journal

09/02/2010





















'Cigs cheaper than Morrisons' - not the most creative advertising

Quote Journal

08/02/2010






















'The equivalent to being sat on by one and a half cows' - not sure where I heard it but with the amount of sleep I have had recently, this is a more than accurate way of describing my headache.

Quote Journal

07/02/2010






















'Do you realise there is a difference between seduction and envy' - one of the drunken moments which causes ridiculous amounts of laughter

I think I'm Turning Japanese...

Tomorrow I plan to bind a 100 page book using a Japanese binding method, but I fancied doing something a little different. So after a bit of experimentation and internet browsing I have narrowed it down to two possibilities; well four as they like this and 180 degree of themselves. Now to decide...

Quote Journal

06/02/2010






















'Flapjack Boxes' - not the sort you get from Ikea

Quote Journal

05/02/2010






















'Can we have a watercolour off?' - arranging a painting with a friend

Quote Journal

04/02/2010





















'Making life richer, for the pourer' - part of an advertising campaign for Bargain Booze

Shopping/To-do List

With deadlines nearing, I have a lot on my mind at the moment, so simple things like shopping lists seem to slip my mind. I usually my phone, as I always lose bits if paper. Today I had to leave my phone at home, so I went back to the trusty secondary school method of writing on my hand. I just had to blog it after I realised I had created an almost perfect left alignment, without even thinking about it. Graphic Design clearly takes over your life!

Quote Journal

03/02/2010






















'I'm only going to Heaven, if it tastes like caramel' - Hot Chip lyrics

Quote Journal

02/02/10






















'Avatar seems to be based on the Smurfs' - a comedians point of view on the worlds most successful film

Collection 100

An update on my Collection 100 brief. So far I have created 42 images from just five original photographs. Below is an image sequence showing the development and the direction I aim to take. There are a few alignment and frame rate issues, but I will adjust these once I have the entire collection of 100. I will also print these files and bind them into a flip book.

Quote Journal

01/02/2010






















'Carrion' - lyrics from a Parkway Drive song

Quote Journal

31/012/10






















'Old Crows, Young Cardinals' - Alexisonfire's album title

More Printmaking

Now getting closer to the final resolutions. There are eight posters with type and image screen printed on the front and a duplicate image monoprinted on the reverse. I'm pretty happy with the quality of the outcomes do far, just a few more stages to go. Below are a few examples of the posters:

Quote Journal

30/01/2010






















'Sweet Lady Liberty' - Lyrics from Alexisonfire

Beautiful Old Books

Today I bought a handful of books from a Vintage shop and here is a fine example. The book is titled 'Half-Hours with the best Authors: Vol III'. I am not entirely sure of the publish date, but it a really beautiful book, so I thought I would share it. There will also be more to come with the other books soon.

Quote Journal

29/01/10






















'Tell them to double the money' - a friends response to the unreliability of Student Finance

Book Binding Workshop

Today we had a book binding introduction; something which I have spent a fair amount of time on before, but it was still quite exciting to get geeky with book binding again. We looked at pamphlet stitching, Japanese binding and concertina folding with a hardback cover.

Quote Journal

28/01/2010






















'I think they are a bit shell shocked...' - a pun from a 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' film

120 Medium Format Photography

So I was lucky enough to get a 120 film camera for Christmas and here our the results from the first film.

One hour pinhole exposure at night outside - bonfire:


























Fifteen minute pinhole exposure indoor lighting - one of my best friends tattooing my feet in the tattoo studio


























One hour pinhole exposure at night outside - window frame, and garden with birdcage reflection


























Fifteen minute pinhole exposure indoor lighting - family at Christmas, with two people playing the Wii


























Fifteen minute pinhole exposure indoor lighting - family at Christmas, with two people playing the Wii


























1/60 second normal setting - taken inside a moving vehicle in the snow


























Eight minute pinhole exposure daylight - snowing in my garden


























Fifteen minute pinhole exposure indoor lighting - me drawing on a lightbox

























One second normal exposure cloudy daylight - shooting in the snow



















I am pleasantly surprised at how well my first film came out, particularly the tattooing and lightbox photos. Hopefully I will gain more experience with this camera and be able to have more control over the outcomes.

Quote Journal

27/01/2010






















'We are not enemies, but friends' - quoted from American History X

Quote Journal

26/01/10






















'Keep This Alive' - Lyrics from the Deaf Havana Song 'Friends Like These'

Quote Journal

25/01/10 'Vomit free since '93' - from the television program 'How I met your Mother' just made me chuckle a little

Quote Journal

24/01/2010






















'success does not happen by accident, it happens by design' - not entirely sure where this quote originally derives from, but I found it on a internet forum and thought it was brilliant.

Collection 100

Here's an update on the Collection 100 brief; I have decided to design and produce a flip book and image sequence animation showing the aging and development of street signs. Below are two images showing the original photo with the ages sign and my edit which intends to communicate its condition when it was new. There more photos to be edited, manipulated and created; well 98 more to be precise, so I plan to blog my progress throughout.

Quote Journal

This year I decided I wanted to keep myself thinking all the time, so taking inspiration from various sources I have decided to keep a journal; almost like dairy entry each day. Instead of it being my point of view though, it will be other things I have heard or read within the day. Anything which I can respond to, whether it makes me smile, laugh or angry, something which prevokes a reaction. I did plan to start this on the 1st day of the month, but I didn't get around to it! Each day I plan to record through hand rendered type, and a source statement ... as if I don't have enough work to be doing!

Anyway here is the first entry:

23/01/2010






















'Leeds go marching on' - a commentator's choice of words after Jermaine Beckford's penalty earned them a replay.

Another Painting

This one is the first one of 2010, and I really need to keep up with painting this year. I'm pretty pleased with the drawing and the composition of this one, my painting has clearly slipped since the last couple. Brown background is digitally added.

Printmaking

Final Print Resolutions...

1st stage

So my print elective at Leeds College of Art is coming to an end and we now have to produce a set of final resolutions, having learned various processes over the past couple of months. Here are two examples of the type that will play a part in my final poster resolutions. I am pretty happy so far, but this is just the first of four stages, so I am pretty excited to carry on.
















And here is a few little snippets of what is to come in the early parts of next week:

Printmaking

Woodblock

Below are four examples of some woodblock printing I recently did; they all have some lovely qualities to them, so please click on them to view at greater detail.

Printmaking

Collograph

With this being the first opportunity I've had to Collograph print, I was unsure what to d0, but I eventually decided to look at printing a tattoo style image. Below are images to show the process:

The plate:
The outlines within the image are cut into the board, the lighter areas are determined by the height and materials place upon them. Using sellotape to create the very white areas and scrim in the corners purely as decoration.




















This is just the tissue used to wipe away the excess ink, but I thought it was quite effective standing alone.



















The first attempt worked well, with the tonal areas being accurate, except for the flowers around the watch, which I was hoping/expecting to be lighter.




















For the second attempt I then reprinted the same plate and only added a small amount more ink to the areas which now show up darker. Not as effective as before, but does have some nice qualities.


















The third attempt lead me to adding a second colour, purely in a random manner to achieve the following abstract results.

Another Little Painting

Another painting, this time with a digital addition of a background.

First thing I've painted in a while

Just something simple to get me back into painting as I haven't done any in a while. Also an excuse to use my new letter stamps for my initials.

Collection 100

Below is a collection of 100 primary sourced Road Signage Images. We have just been giving the brief on what we have to do with these next, so more will follow...

No News is Good News Mail Shot Postage

Posting this after the module deadline, but just wanted to share the condition of the actual posted mail shot. I think the fact that it was tampered with during the postal process, shows that it clearly provoked a reaction from those associated with the Royal Mail and it was opened in such a way that it was impossible to reassemble, before it reached its destination.

No News is Good News Mail Shot

So we've reached the last brief in out first module, and I'm pretty happy with what I came up with; we had to produce a mailshot that would be posted to ten people that the issue affected. We started by taking the same issue raised in our high impact posters and had to portray them in a different format, but communicating the same or similar message, still using two colours, plus stock. I decided to produce a fold out poster, that is designed for single use delivery, so that the band and sticker would hold the poster together through delivery, but not be necessary for the poster to function once opened. Again I worked with the Royal Mail Pantone colours, but this time I worked purely typographically, as I feel the 'Royal Fail' and the supporting text communicates the message effectively in order to guilt trip the intended audience, hoping prevent further strikes. Below are some images to show the functions of the mail shot:

(click to enlarge)

The flat design sheet, with crop marks:



























One of the folded posters, held together by a band and sticker, ready to post for deadline submission:






















To show the single use functionality:






















A combination of folded, ready to post mail shots, and some of the individual components used to construct the piece:




























As above but with the inclusion of one folded out poster and its band and sticker removed:

Colour Part 2

This week we had to arrange our colour in a similar way to last week, but taking into consideration the other colours in the colour wheel in order to join up with the rest of the class' colours. This is what we came up with:

Colour Part 1

In this weeks Visual Language lesson we were in groups of four, where we all brought in at least ten coloured objects; the groups were devised by the particular colour. Ours was orange. We were asked to catalogue the items in any way we liked, we decided to show the transformation from light to dark tones within the colour. It started to look like this:

Before we decided to condense the arrangement to show the gradation through a more dense area of colour (and just to be a bit different from the rest of the class), resulting in something like this:

We then had to select ten items, that almost offered extremities of the colour and record their pantone number from the colour swatches:

The ten items and their pantone colours/numbers are:

(unfortunately the photographs affected the colour of the objects when on screen, but the Pantone colours are nearest possible to the naked eye)

Letterpress

So this week in my print elective lesson we worked with the Type Setting Proofing Press, something that I have been waiting to use for a considerable amount of time! So as you can imagine I got excited about using it. We had to produce just a few lines, which shared a reasonable link to the photos we worked with in the previous lesson. My photos represented choosing paths and finding ways to progress or move on. So when it came to choosing the text I decided to work with was 'The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: because it originates from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the poem The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, (1859). This links to my photographs because the message the poem brings across is 'Whatever one does in one's life is one's own responsibility and cannot be changed. I first heard part of this poem from my National Diploma tutor, (there's a bit about his work on on my DC blog). The following images show various stages in the process of the type arrangement and printing, as well as the short video of me using the press:

Here is a video showing the machine in operation:

And here are some of the results, I adjusted the pressure of the papers to achieve both crisp, clean letters and some under inked type, which has some really nice qualities:

(click to enlarge)

Monoprinting

In our first print lesson we were taught how to monoprint, a process which I have worked with before, but not in this manner. This way of monoprinting gives you more control over the images produced, but because of the way I have worked previously, I didn't adapt enough to produce imagery that was particuarly pleasing this time around. However, I did enjoy this process and would definitely use it again, now I have a bit more of an understanding. The following are two of the images I produced in the session:

No News is Good News Posters

Our task this week was to take our research from the last fortnight and produce three high impact posters to communicate a fact taken from the research. They were meant to be visually striking and communicate the fact in an obvious way, because of this I won't explain them, but the feedback from two anonymous people in the group can be found here. And below are the posters:

(click to enlarge)

Alphabet Soup 2

Over the past two weeks we were given the brief of producing an alphabet, plus six glyphs which visually represented a randomly selected partner within the group. We were given the chance to interview our partner, but we were restricted to only using the given questions. We had to choose a suitable existing typeface to modify and manipulate, and we we had to select up to four key words, that we felt best communicated our partner following the interview. The typeface i produced communicates the following words:

• Brandon Boyd - my partners favourite musician/artist. I worked closely with some of Boyd's artwork in order to produce a linear pattern that i could construct the letterforms with, I also used the same typeface as he uses within his work; Mesquite Standard Medium.
• Mexican - I also this typeface, because it has connotations of Mexico, which is where one of my partners favourite artists (Frida Kahlo) is from and the patterns within the letters also have a Mexican feel to them
• Sixties - I used elements of colour to represent the sixties, as perhaps not the most suitable colours of the era, but they are my partners favourite three colours
• Invisibility - I decided not to use a key line or any sold areas to create the shape, instead just building the letterforms with linear patterns

Alphabet Soup 1

For this brief we had to produce a series of ten letters, which were based on or a manipulation of existing typefaces. The series needed to visually communicate a randomly given word. I was given 'Deconstruct.' I produced mine using edits of primary sourced photographs, in order to achieve a look that closely resembles works produced during 'Deconstructivism;' a modernist architectural movement. (Please click the image to view full detail.)

How to...

Our first project was given in groups, we had to produce work in support of the given phrase; ours being 'How to feel at home in a new city.' We came up with 'Home in a Box,' an improbable product that would be available to any students, who were missing home. Upon opening the box would contain the sweet smell of your own home, bringing back happy memories and making you settle in to a new city.We decided to advertise the product using posters, which would be put up in places where students could see them, for example: bus stops, student notice boards and halls of residents. I worked mainly in the type and layout part of group, leaving product design and illustration to other members. We were lucky how the group split into specialist areas; enabling us to combine different styles in order to produce a natural homely feeling advertising campaign. The following are our resolutions:

Recycled Book Binding

Thought it was about time, I made a book as my skills were getting a little rusty. I didn't waste too much time with neatness (sizes, edges etc) because I was just experimenting with the internal pages, and making sure I remembered how to bind. Pretty happy with the outcome, the pages took for ever to cut out, with 25 pages per letter, but I really like the qualities the newspaper and black paper combination gives.

Pastry Ampersand

Following a joke between myself and my National Diploma tutor, I produced an ampersand from Shortcrust Pastry, using the typeface Rosewood.

Custom T-Shirts

Just before the end of college, I created six unique t-shirts, which I am planning to wear and sell. I created the illustration, before digitising and screen printing them in all in different colours.

BTEC National Diploma Work

The following are a few pieces of work I produced during my two years at college:


Corperate Identity

Design a logo and the supporting materials for the given fictional company
















Visualising

Produce a mixed media representation of the supplied magazine advert
























Movie Poster

Produce a movie poster in support of given title and script, based on a country song

















Kafka Books

Design and produce two books for the given titles
















Vox Box

Design a gift box to contain a message as well as the gift

















Final Major Project

Design a box set of four books showing four different tattooing styles


















Magazine Design

Design two covers and one double page spread for the redesign of ‘the architectural review’ magazine

















CD Design

Design and produce four working cd covers, using mark making inspired by the experimental music