I've Moved!

Sorry everyone I somehow let this blog die a slow and painful death, but you'll be happy to hear that I have a shiny new one, along with a new website too!


Website

Blog

Fire & Rain

Tonight has been the first time in my life that i've felt properly homesick. I don't so much miss the place, just my family. James Taylor is one of my favourite musicians on the planet and reminds me of my family more than anything. Me and my dad would sit and watch this dvd again and again and never get bored of it. It's probably the only music we both enjoy. In my opinion this is one of the best songs ever written.

P-Funk

Man i love p-funk. I got this dvd from poundland! POUNDLAND! And its the best thing i've ever heard for a pound. I just love how many people there are on stage at one time. It's just pure funk. Go get into P-Funk right now you will not regret it.

Nuthin' but a "dre" thang

A classic hiphop album arrived in the post this morning, just in time for christmas! It's a great album, dre's first solo record and pretty much snoop doggs debut. I think the reason this album is so good is the fact dre sampled most of the beats from George Clinton P-Funk tracks. I managed to pick it up for £3, absolute bargin!

Project 3 - Event Promotion

The brief for our last project was to design a poster and promotional material for an event which is seen as "uncool" and market it in such a way as to make it "cool" again. There were a few events to pick from, I decided to go for the International Bognor Birdman contest, which is a human powered flight competition, held in Bognor Regis. It's a very similar event to the Red Bull Flugtug, but with much less publicity. Competitors, jump off a pier, some aiming to win the 25 grand prize for flying 100 metres, others just leap off in fancy dress to raise money for charity. I decided to focus on the fancy dress side of the event, aiming my poster at kids and families. To me the event is a family day out, it's held during the summer, at the seaside and looks great fun to watch. I designed my poster with that in mind, making it bright, colourful and full of characters. The poster would be displayed in the local primary schools and similar places. For the promotional materials I designed an activity booklet, again for schools, and a set of flipbooks which featured the same characters as on the poster, in motion as they jumped off the pier. I was quite pleased with my work, especially the flipbooks and thought it would appeal well to a young audience. My vector cartoons weren't the best things in the world but they were alright. The tutors didn't really seem to agree with me though and I got a grade of 45/100. I seem have been on a big downward spiral this term, starting with 68/100, then on to 52/100 and now down to 45/100. Hopefully after a bit of a break at christmas I can pull myself back up again.

Poster



Activity Book













Flip-books

808's and Autotune

I've been listening to the new Kanye West stuff a bit recently and its starting to grow on me. I have to admit when I first heard "love lockdown" and the autotune I thought it was a career killer but after getting more into the rest of the tracks and understanding the ideas of the album a bit more I totally get it. I've loved Kanye since way back and was always a fan of his beats and production, so the drastic change in sound was a real shock and it's taken me up until now to actually give the tracks a chance. To me, the whole album is Kanye experimenting with new ideas and technology, whilst dealing with issues in his life. The autotune takes a while to get used to, but Kanye was never a singer, he's just used the technology available to enable himself to put his emotions on the album, there's no way he could convey the same feeling with sampled beats and rapping. I'm certainly a lot more open to the album and wish I could have seen him live on his recent tour, I'm sure it was amazing. When I heard the tracks I didn't think he would ever be able to pull them off live, but after watching this video of him on Saturday Night Live I'm convinced; with live instruments, visuals and the energy Kanye puts into the performance it's just awesome. The album is definately on my christmas list anyway. For all you hater's check out this performance of "heartless".

Skytops

Chromeo

This band are awesome. I got their first album "She's in control" in the post this morning and it's pretty much made my day. Its got a sort of daftpunk vibe but with more percussion and guitars. Awesome. Check them out at www.myspace.com/chromeo

Fancy Dress

This Cow

I love this cow. This cow is the fruits of my labour. This cow is my hope for the future. This cow shall be a part of one of the greatest posters of the decade. Viva this cow.

Invaders Must Die!

I just agreed to buy prodigy tickets with my good friend kate, they were 30 quid but it'll be worth it, I love the prodigy. The new stuff is ok, it sounds a bit like the new pendulum stuff to me but every time I listen to it, it does seem to get slightly better. The video is pretty sweet as well. Can't wait to see them live though, it'll be unreal. Just hope they play the old stuff. Check out kate and her awesome blog at Occasional Miniature Violence.

Paul Newman Poster

While trying to get inspired for our latest brief I came across this great poster by Ralph Schraivogel. I think its fantastic.

thestudio

Whilst doing some research for my web design project I came across this pretty impressive flash website. The site can be viewed in fullscreen and is pretty awesome, check it out, the company have some very nice work too.

http://www.thestudiosite.com/

Jonathan Barnbrook

I'm slowly working my way through a great book called "The Barnbrook Bible". Jonathan Barnbrook is a designer famous for his typefaces and political design and I really like his work. Whenever I walk into the library at uni I seem to discover another world famous designer that I've never heard of before! But it's good that i'm always learning. Anyway, its a great book and a great designer, check it out!

www.barnbrook.net

Chinese Democracy

They said it would never happen but on monday the new Guns & Roses album 'Chinese Democracy" will be released, and you can listen to the entire thing now on myspace. To be fair its not Gun's & Roses any more its just Axle Rose with a load of session guys, but as much as I miss Slash the new stuff does actually sound half decent. Much better than I thought it would at any rate. It's a bit hit and miss and Axle's voice is a bit of an aquired taste but I quite like it. No doubt the hardcore fans will slate it left right and centre; the title track "Chinese Democracy" is pretty awful but further into the album, when listening to "There was a time" and "Street of Dreams" you can hardly tell that any of the original members aren't there. Yes it's cheesy but GnR have always been cheesy, and to be honest I found myself enjoying it much much more than I wanted to. Definately go and listen to the album for free while you still can, I might even buy it in a few years when its dirt cheap. You still won't get me going to see them live though, it might sound like GnR on the record but it certainly won't look or sound like them on the stage. Good album though.

www.myspace.com/gunsnroses

Project 2 - Corporate ID

This was the second project of the year, we were given a celebrity and a company each. We had to take the values of the celebrity and apply them to the company to create a new identity. I ended up with an outdoor pursuits centre based on the personality of Jeremy Clarkson, so i decided to make my company an expensive centre for corporate events with off-roading, quad bikes and similar activities associated with speed and power. We had to produce a logo for our company and then apply these to a letterhead, compliments slip, business card. My final logo was based on the idea of the feeling that you get when travelling at speed.


My compliments slip was kept very simple, which i think worked against me in the crit. I could have done much more with it.

My letterhead was also very simple, the only elements were the logo at the top and a small bar at the bottom of the page with contact details.

The front of my business card was also very simple. The text on the right would be replaced with the name of the card owner.

On the reverse of the business card was a hologram of the secondary logo which I designed with no text.

As well as this we had to design corporate guidlines which are the rules and regulations for the use and placement of the logo. I wanted to produce something special as I felt the company wouldn't spare any expense and the idea of a proper guidlines pack with a CD of master files was something I thought would be really cool. I put a lot of effort into the packaging. Each section of the guidlines was a separate booklet, a set of ten of these booklets were housed in a die-cut box along with a CD of the digital logo files. I used the idea of a hologram again on the front of the packaging, with a contents slide-in insert featuring a holographic logo which was visible through the front of the die-cut box.

1. The Brand

2. The Logo

3. Do's & Don'ts

4. Colour

5. Type

6. Letterhead

7. Compliments Slip

8. Business Card

9. Web

10. Other Uses



I was really proud of my work for this project. The tutors were quite negative in the crit which I was pretty gutted about and I ended up with a grade of 52/100. In the end I think that my letterhead and compliments slip let me down, I could have produced something much more complex. I was pleased with the logo and everything else though and for my first attempt at corporate identity I think I survived pretty well.

Max Payne

This film looks so so good. I was really impressed by the website as well, its one of the best things I have seen on the web in a long time. Its made in flash but theres just little things about it that make it special, like how the background music doesnt skip when you click on a new link, how you can make the whole thing fullscreen and how you can move the images around. The other thing that really impressed me was the graphic novel animation on the site, well worth checking out...oh and watch the trailer while you're there, if you're not impressed you have issues.

http://www.maxpaynethemovie.com/
http://www.maxpaynethemovie.com/graphicnovel/index.html

Fisheye