Monday, July 14, 2008

RIP T-shirts





It is a sad time in a mans life when the nagging of his girlfriend finally overcomes his tolerance and he gives in to the whims of a mad woman, and thus rids himself of his old friends the T-shirts. She has a point though, they are worn, stained and a bit crummy looking, but having printed them myself I can't help but feel a pang of sorrow as I usher them into the afterlife. Alas there are more to follow also.

Results Day!

The results are in and I am a First Class BA graphic Communications student!

Design and Art Direction 2008 New Blood exhibition





Every year Universities from a round the country gather together in Earls court. Its an opportunity to show case up and coming talent, but mainly an excuse to check out the competition and pick up free postcards.
Two pieces of my work were selected to contribute to the Bath Spa University stand; a poster from a collection of four entitled 'A collection of words' bright proverb based hand drawn text posters, and a design research book that dealt with symbols within graphic design.
During the three day exhibition a panel of professionals view the work on show and discuss the work. They also go so far as offering awards for 'Best new Blood'. My poster was fortunate enough to be chosen (along with Wayne Smith from Bath Spa- great typographer) fro one of these awards. About 30 students were chosen out of thousands of examples of work, so I feel quite privileged to be amongst the few. As a winner we are awarded free membership to the DandAd for a year, entrance into the talent pool show case of work, and the benefit of their graduate placement scheme. Thank you DandAd!
Check here for the other winners:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/degree-shows-08-dad-new-blood-2/

Friday, June 27, 2008

Au revoir



Well University is over now. My three years have been swifter than swift, and already it is time to pack up and go. I like to think I have spent my time wisely and used the opportunities that were available. I took one last walk around today, taking in the grounds, studios and buildings. The lecturers here have been supportive and invaluable throughout my education, I have been pushed, pulled and directed in many new and interesting directions, and for that I am grateful. Good bye University and Good Luck everyone.

Act/ Refract/ Degree show










As the final part of my Graphic Communication BA we were are asked to produce a piece of work for our end of year show. This year it was loosely themed around the word 'act', we could chose any word provided act was within it i.e. impact, action, distract etc. I chose the word 'refract'. Refraction is the bending of energy waves when they pass through objects of different mass, an example is a straw in a glass of water looks distorted below the water line- this is refraction. I chose refraction as I believe it can be used as a metaphor for graphic communication. Each designer and illustrator is a medium for ideas, concepts, images and text, and each person will have an individual way of composing, arranging and producing a piece of work. refraction is a filtering process, it changes the appearance of things and gives us a new perspective, so is graphic communication.
I produced a large (110cm/ 70cm) wooden 3D poster, onto this I painted a collection of water droplet shapes in primary and secondary colours. the nature of the wooden surface means that each droplet is broken and misshapen when viewed face on. However if you find the right position you can view each one as a perfect shape. This reinforces the concept of perspective and interpretation. For the degree show I also produce an A1 7 colour silk screen poster of my Refract design.

JETBALLZ





In the wind up to our degree show there was naturally an overriding sense of tension and anxiety in the air. In fact the air was often blue and peoples faces dark. It was a time of deep thought and professional and future directed contemplation. People were pissed off. During my weekly shop at Morrisons I came across an unlikely antidote in the form of 12 for 99p Jetballs. They're cheap, they break after a while, they leave an odd oily residue in your hand, but they bounce in an unearthly fashion. After dribbling mine around Uni I noticed the appreciative longing looks and decided to share the wealth. I drew a poster and made a little nest for the Jetballs, they disappeared pretty sharpish. All the kids were bouncing in the halls, jealously guarding their balls, and trying out eXtreme bouncing outside. You could almost forget about the impending deadlines and mortality of our degree. Sadly Morrisons are out of stock and now I am left with none.

KarlssonWilker






As part of my professional context module we were asked to produce a piece of work in relation to a professional practitioner(s). For a while now I have been a big fan of KarlssonWilker based in NY. Jan Wilker and Hjalti Karlsson are former students of Sagmeister, they set out together to form their own studio in 2000. There book 'Tellmewhy' chronicles their first 24 months as a design studio, its is a frank, humorous and compelling read and a departure from your usual design text, it marks the highest highs and the embarrassing lows. Their work is clean, innovative and sometimes a funny too.
I designed a poster that features individual mini biographies of Jan and Hjalti as well as KarlssonWilker, it documents a wide selection of their work with descriptions and annotations, it also states my reasons for choosing their design practice and my impression of their work. The poster folds from over 1m tall into a neat little rectangle, I've tried to adopt a light KarlssonWilker sense of humor with captions and instruction.
Check their work out here.

B.I.M.F.









Nod Knowles chief executive of Bath International Music Festival approached Bath Spa University to aid in this years 60th anniversary of the festival. Together with Alastair Harlow I led a group of ten designers. the festival has an existing brand and therefore we were tied to using elements of the existing identity. Using Universe font family, a palette of white black and green and a template of our construction we each produced a typographic response to the acts featuring in the festival. We identified an area in Bath city centre with a pedestrian and vehicular audience for maximum effect. Our individual posters measured 200cm/ 360cm, the template was designed in a way which would join all ten designs together into one long ribbon, the designs together ran for 36 meters, and there were two sets of each designs resulting in a total of 74 meters of poster. This project was perhaps a little light on creative input, but co-leading the design group was an invaluable experience in terms of organization, attending meetings, discussing design solutions, dealing with printers and representing the University. The festival ran for three weeks, our work was featured in local press and was greatly received by the organizers.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Golly








In 1910 Robertson's Jam introduced the character Golly, the Golliwog. He became a prominent figure durning twentieth century British culture. As this photo shows I had a Golly doll as a baby. Robertson's produced all manner of promotional merchandise Badges, dolls, toy cars, and books, Robertson's continued to produce Golly collectables up until 1995. In 2001 and Golly was phased out. While trawling Bath charity shops I discovered three Golly enamel pin badges for the princely sum of £1.00 each, on ebay they can fetch as much as £40.00 each. There were over 300 different badges produced themed on sports, nationality, history, the police and more. I have very mixed feelings about them. On a base level I appreciate them as well crafted and designed objects, sadly there is no escaping the racist tones, the misrepresentation and objectifying of a people.
For more info check look at gollycorner.co.uk

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Recognition Day







Recognition Day is an annual event hosted by Cog Design Studio. Their objective is to break down social, personal and mental barriers between each other and within ourselves. They have nominated May the 4th to be a day of appreciation, understanding and communication. I entered their competition to explore the theme of recognition.
I decided to promote the awareness and consideration of others. I did this by producing an A1 origami poster, which can be folded into the (vague) shape of a head, along with the poster were some features to decorate the face to resemble someone you know. The concept was based upon a Japanese tradition of wish making, the Dharma doll. But instead of self directed wishing I asked the poster recipient to make a wish on someone else's behalf and to think about the needs of others. My work was shortlisted to the last 15 and used as promotional postcards that were sent out or requested in time for recognition day.
If you would like to be involved then visit Cog Design here.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Penguin deluxe edition





Those sneaky monsters at Penguin have collected together an evil array of the finest modern illustrators to breath life (and money) into some old classic. Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Tom Gould, Charles Burns have all contributed, and like the slave I am I have snapped up their work. The books are beautifully crafted paper backs, some with gorgeous rough leaves and extra comic illustrations on the inside cover and back, what more could you ask for. However they are simply rebrands of old stories. But you can't fault penguins logic, their books look beautiful and people are increasingly visually aware.

Fringe Festival






Hiromi Suzuki and I entered an annual illustration and image making competition in Bath. Each year our University is approached and asked to provide a poster and identity for the Fringe Festival. The Fringe hosts alternative music, dance and theatre, and we were invited to work with them to advertise this years event. We produced a collection of posters based around strong colours, 3D spaces and a departure from the festivals usual illustrative style. We were shortlisted to the final 6, but unfortunately were not chosen. However it was an invaluable experience to discuss and present work with a client.

Golden Half










One of my Japanese Christmas presents was a cute analogue camera called a 'Golden Half'. It takes regular 35mm film, but divides a usual 6/4 into two separate photos. It has a vulcanized rubber finish. 3 aperture settings and a hot shoe. I'm planing to use the divided areas and stage some interaction between portraits and landscapes at a later date. Here are a few of the photos so far. I

Yokohama Night







My girlfriend is Japanese, and last Christmas we decided to visit her parents in Yokohama (West of Tokyo). I was struck by the quiet and eerie night time suburbs. The streets are poorly lit, the houses still, people are hesitant. The atmosphere is unlike anything I have seen in the West.
As a miniature project I took a series of photos that later were compiled into a photo book.

Halloween Exhibition







In the cold light of our dissertations and the unforgiving October evenings, Alastair Harlow and I decided to conjure a little warmth and fun. Together we organized an exhibition of Halloween Pumpkins. We invited 24 students to carve a pumpkin along the theme of 'Monster'. We hosted the exhibition in the University's dank georgian cellar storage rooms. We even asked a resident ghost to M.C. the evening. We provided the pumpkins, promotion, plus goodies for sale. We made a little money for our department and around 100 people attended.