A roundup of events.

Hello people of the internet, it’s been a while since I last posted as I’ve been busy working on various projects and getting our cellar print studio more organised and giving it a lick of paint. Here’s a round up of the things that I’ve been getting on with since I last posted. First on the agenda, I made a T-shirt design for Mondo Cane for a competition. We didn’t win, but I like the idea enough to show you here.

I had a little chat about my inspirations and my work to Katie from a blog called The Young Creatives which you can read right here.

I also did a few personal illustrations that I’m hoping to be putting into a little mailout in the future. I’m trying to explore keeping my colours limited at the moment, and keeping the texture to just add character to a piece rather than become too much of an obvious focal point.

Buy Nothing Day 2011

On the 25th of November in the US and the 26th in the rest of the world, there is an event that everyone can take part in called Buy Nothing Day, the basic idea being to spend a day not spending money. I designed a couple of posters for the event last year and decided to have another go this year. It’s interesting from my point of view to compare my work from a year ago and my work now and seeing how different my work has become.

I decided to focus on what I believe is an important aspect of Buy Nothing Day, which is to support local and independent businesses so they don’t sink and go under, especially during the tough economic times we’re going through at the moment. So if you have to buy stuff on the 26th November, try and make sure it’s local & independent!

Belleville, Biscuithead and the Biscuit Badgers & Leeds City Stompers at The Packhorse

I was recently asked by Ben from Belleville to design a poster for an upcoming gig he was putting on at The Packhorse. The turnaround was quite quick, and the brief quite open, my only real limitation was that it should reflect the “old music played well” line that Ben used to describe the style of the evening. I wanted to avoid creating a pastiche or an imitation of a 1930′s poster, but still wanted to get through a touch of the class that seems to be associated with times gone by. I put forward a few concepts to Ben, and we agreed on the above design. I had quite alot of fun on this project and hope to be doing some more gig posters in the future.

Recent Illustrations

It’s been a while since my last blog post as I’ve been sorting out getting work (both freelance and part time), but I’ve tried to keep busy and try out a few experiments in drawing to brush up and improve on my illustration skills. Below you can find a few of my recent self initiated illustrations.

I’ll be updating soon with a few details on upcoming projects I’ll be involved in which I’m excited about taking on, and of course there will hopefully be some updates regarding the DIY printing room mentioned in the last post.

It’s been literally months since i’ve updated this blog, and i feel like i should take some time to bring anyone reading up to speed with some Things on Fire goings on.
My time has been taken up with working hard at completing and organising my work for the Bradford School of Arts and Media degree show, which had it’s opening night last Friday, and continues this week. The opening night was great fun, and i had a few nice conversations with people about my work, and design in general. I might get some photos organised to show here at a later date.

One of my final projects before the show was to design a book jacket for Jack Kerouac’s classic “On the Road”, which is due to be released in glorious cinema-vision next year.
This outcome came to me after i began trying to avoid any obvious solutions by taking my inspiration from the jazz album covers of the American 50′s, the period and country the book is set in. After creating a few dozen ideas using simple geometric shapes and colour, i was inspired to tackle a more illustrative cover, and this was the outcome, which i am quite happy with . I also created some typographic posters using quotes from the book and a typeface i created. You’ll be able to see more by clicking the image above.

Another large project for me was of course the screen printing of the 250 envelopes for the degree show. We (by which i mean I) christened them “Grab Bags” and set to work on getting them printed. They were printed with two custom mixed colours on both sides, which works out at around 1000 pulls on the screen bed, which isnt bad going for my first major large run of prints. I had lots of help from my fellow students, and without them i would never have done it in time, so it was truly a group effort that i was glad to be a part of.

And so there we are. This is my last blog post as a graphic design student, and i hope to see you for my next one as a professional. I’ve got a head full of ideas for projects i’d like to get going, so i’ll hopefully be able to share some of that in my next post.

Revolution

I’ll start this off with a slight apology for not updating for a month, but as this is my final semester of my final year at college, and with a dissertation looming, i haven’t had much time to update this with my new projects and work.

 

Firstly, i am continuing  with my poster design for the Global Social Change film festival. Although the contest has already found a winner, i can still see alot more mileage in this brief and i am planning to keep going with ideas for a little bit longer now, perhaps creating posters based on some of the films the film festival will be showing. My favourite concept so far is the above image, creating a small play on words between the rotation – or revolution – of the earth, and  the kind of revolution we might expect to see ignited by the kind of film the festival might show.

 

I have also created another gig poster for my band for our performance this thursday, the 10th of March, where we will be unofficially launching our single, for which i designed the cover. I’m definitely going to silkscreen this poster for portfolio purposes, as i like it’s simplicity and dynamics and i think it would work very well as a limited run of screenprints. I will try my best to do a print process of this from beginning to end if i can.

I’m also getting together a few book/zine type things, and will hopefully be actively involved in designing and editing the catalogue for our course for the end of year show.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, i have some poster designs planned for some upcoming Friends of Leeds Kirkgate Market events, which i am going to be showing this week. Hopefully they will be accepted and i’ll be able to post these to show you aswell. I’m excited by them and the different possibilities that this little project might bring. More on that another time i hope.

See things differently

This week i started a new project, following a brief i found on the website of the Global Social Change Film Festival. The brief was to design a poster with the following prompt in mind: How can/does film ignite, foster, or quash a social movement?

In my initial research and idea hunting i came up with the tagline “See things differently” as this to me is one of the powers of film-making. The only way you could truly influence society is to bring people into your way of thinking and let them come round to your ideas/ideals.

I will be digging deeper into this brief in the next week or two, but here are my initial poster designs on my theme See Things Differently:

I’ve also completed my first gig poster of 2011 for my band Mondo Cane. This has a sort of retro modern feel to it, and i think it is my first poster to only include hand made typography – no fonts used at all!

Happy new work

Hello there good people. I feel i must apologise for my lack of posting since december, life has been busy as the deadline for the first half of this years college work was a week or two ago and i had lots to get ready for so i could submit everything and make i look nice.

So, first off, a belated happy new year to you, dear reader . I hope you have by now settled nicely into 2011 and are looking forward to it being warm again. I know i am.

Now, to business. My project with Steven continues, and is still as yet untitled and without a cover. We’re getting quite close to being able to put our combined efforts together and actually making this book so expect to see some physical pictures of it around the corner of time.

My band Mondo Cane are soon to be releasing an E.P and a single, both of which we’re very excited about and proud of, and both of which i have naturally designed graphically. Here is a sneak peek of the single cover, which we’ll be printing ourselves and giving away for free at our gigs:

We’ll be looking at printing this on various different colours of card for added variety. Keep your eyes peeled for a look at the cover and booklet design for the E.P, which is currently being left in the hands of the printers. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.

Expect more regular posts in the next month or so as i have lots of projects that i’m trying to get finalised.

Until another time, adieu

To be titled 2

Here are two more illustrations for the untitled collaborative project i’m working on with Mr Steven Brown:

Shown here are page 3, inspired by the nursery rhyme “Three Blind Mice”, and page 11, inspired by every bingo caller’s favourite shout “Legs 11″.

I’m also going to be making a little (and i mean little) photocopied book about buildings before the end of next week, so ill hopefully be posting about that before long.

To be Titled

Greetings,

Me and my friend from college Steven Brown are doing a little joint project which we have been too lazy to give a title to yet. Be assured it will most definitely sound like something you would enjoy.

The basic premise is that we will create a book of illustrations, where each illustration is inspired by the page that it appears on. I’m looking after the odd numbered pages and Ste will be handling the even numbered ones. Apart from that, we’ve left the brief wide open to interpretation, so no constraints on style or theme apply, which is nice.

These two are for pages 5 and 9. Expect more to come in the future…