25/BattlescarsEP.
I’ve just designed some covers for a guy called Chris Read’s new EP, Battlescars, it’s a bit different to the beats and bass driven stuff that you’d expect from me but cool nonetheless. It was a really good brief actually, wanting to distance himself from existing male singer-songwriters as much as possible, so I instantly wanted to move away from using photography of him (examples > 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 etc.). The other thing that I picked up on was he said he liked the way 70s album covers looked so using those colour palettes, their heavy use of geometric shapes and grainyness I’ve created this series of patterns. The grainyness is very false at the moment, this can be developed later, these are early designs…
Photos after the jump or bigger on Flickr.
24/BadType/ChooseNow.
This was a joint project with Joe Mania, Helen Chesner and Jessica Waters. The brief was to “explore bad type. Seek it out. Categorize it and then devise a strategy or campaign”. Other key elements were recognition, participation and the giving of awards.
Our response began with fun and games before we made t-shirts, dressed up in classic party gear (Joe Mania had bubbles) and gave awards to several shops guilty of bad typography. We asked some questions and filmed the results. The footage was turned into an interactive online game, that, as the minisite says, “brings the fun back into bad typography” whilst hoping to “reveal the people behind the type”. The original idea was to have an amalgamation of different shops but one character in a kebab shop stood out so the focus is solely on him. Depending on the score you get, you get a different shop keeper giving you a message on the end. Hopefully I can get some pictures of the party gear, bubbles and real life t-shirts.
As you may guess the game was constructed in Flash, the code wasn’t actually as hard as I anticipated but I haven’t really optimized it for web so apologies on loading times…
23/Pollution/ptI.
Currently middle of a project called Wordplay. As the title suggests, looking and and playing with words. Everyone has their own word, mine is Pollution.
This was a one day project to realise a prototype for a 3D installation of our given word. This one is pretty self explanatory; geometric shapes appear abstract but reveal the letter P when a movie (hinting at pollution) is projected through.
It’s clearest on the video on Vimeo.
22/CuringComicSans.
We’ve just been set a brief to create a campaign celebrating bad typography. What with this and previous Comic Sans Destruction, it seems to be a recurring theme this year.
Both fit with a project I did last year with @Bhav_Mistry. We had to save one of the problems of the world in a day, whilst most were solving issues like racism, global warming and war, we opted for something a little bit more serious. The problem of Comic Sans MS.
Yes that parasitic mother fucker of a typeface. The solution, then, was to make Comic Sans compulsory – if it is the only font available to use, would we be forced to appreciate and find good uses for it? Would the archives be rewritten? Would Max Miedinger be hated whilst Vincent Connare celebrated? Would the corporate face of America be one of fun?
See classic pieces of typography from Jan Tschichold and Marinetti modified, cult brands reimagined and a brand new clothing line all on Flickr or after the jump.
(There are more but these are my favourites…)
21/MoscaNS001Cover.
So the first Night Slugs release is in a few weeks. It’s actually one of the best pieces of music I’ve heard in a while so I’m really glad to be the labels intern, they definately going good places. Ages ago I came up with some type designs and concepts for the cover that Alex could then work from. He used one of my ideas that I came up with, cannot wait for it to be printed…
See the whole 12″ after the jump.
20/Pipedown#01.
One of the things I’m doing with Pipedown is putting on a monthly club night. Putting on a club night is something I’ve pretty much always wanted to do. Although there’s an abundance of nights in London, there’s alot that are over hyped, alot that are soulless and alot that book people to DJ for reasons other than their craftsmanship behind two turntables (or whatever their tool). I haven’t been to a club night in a long time either that has successfully put on something aswell as the music without it being a gimmick. VJing has so much potential, yet rarely executed well if at all. Those are my reasons for starting the night now anyway, I’m really pleased it’s a monthly night, hopefully we can get a sense of community going…
Anyway on to the design, of course any club night needs flyers. I wanted the first one not to do anything more than announce both us as a club night and a visual style. Club flyers are usually packed, kind of like stylish chicken shop menus, with little concept behind them. This one is simple and a layout that has a lot of flexibility that we can get creative with at future nights.
See them on Flickr or after the jump.
+
The night is on the Wednesday 27th of January at The Rhythm Factory. We have James Blake, Greena, Om Unit and Elijah & Skilliam playing. More info.
19/PipedownRedesign.
The last post on here was about Christmas and that’s kinda depressing, so time to get on this thing…
Pipedown is a collective that I’m part of, for the most part of last year it was just a music blog, but this year I’ve got plans to take it elsewhere. To allow us to do that I completely redesigned the site over the break. I spent an unhealthy amount of time on it, teaching myself how to code php in the process. The site isn’t finished yet and it still looks like a blog but that’s going to be perverted over the following weeks. It’s powered by Wordpress (like this blog) which seems to be an insanely flexible platform.
Anyway head to see http://pipedownson.com to see it in action.
18/HappyChristmas.
Jesus being born is no excuse for tack. My* tree is only covered by objects so perfect in formation they could said to be holy; the A-Z of Helvetica.
Happy Christmas, have a good one.
*and @Bhav’s, who I must confess did all the cutting).
17/ComicSansDestroyed.
Following the creation and gathering of our Comic Sans character it then had to be destroyed. Destroying Comic Sans should be both a right of passage and initiation for any graphic designer. Whilst others burnt, melted, ate, swung at and clobbered theirs, I thought I’d take mine for a box. Location is so key to this series of before, during and after, definately wanted to capture the fight amidst some epic scenes. Photography by Bhav Mistry.
Photos after the jump or on Flickr.
16/Rules/Play.
Response to a brief to produce a series of postcards about Rules. My series took three traditional games and looked at one creative possibility and opportunity when rules are bent or broken; play.
See all three after the jump.