Giraffe Print

Whilst looking on my camera I found this little man hiding on there. Some screen printing I did whilst waiting to move home after year two. 

Urban Outfitters Print

Sweetie Pie Bookmarks

I was asked to make a friends band some promotional flyers to be handed out at their gigs. Because their name is the title of a Sylvia Plath short story we thought it would be nice to produce the flyers in a bookmark format. Also they were keen to keep costs down so I used a simple black & white print on coloured stock. 

Urban Outfitters Music Poster Design

Amber organised a poster design brief for us over summer in which the winners would have their A0 posters exhibited at Urban Outfitters and the Faversham night-club in Leeds. 

The Brief

To produce a piece of 2D artwork inspired by the theme of Street Style and the association between music, subcultures and the fashion of the street. You could seek inspiration from famous Yorkshire and Leeds based musicians, subcultures such as punks or mods whom have been prevalent throughout recent times, or you may seek inspiration from rock and roll designers like Alexander McQueen or street style bible Facehunter.

Here is the evolution of my design. My concept was born from a sentence uttered by a friend at a festival this summer 'I eat beats for breakfast'. I liked the idea of creating an image using photography but as you can see from the first two images I struggled to find a high res image of a suit (working at A0 it would pixelate massively when blown up) so I used a vector suit.     

Not happy with the vector suit it dawned on me to take a photo of myself wearing a suit at a high resolution! Idiot. Why didn't I think of this sooner? Anywho... the addition of this suit photo helps to tie all the elements together. Once I had made the image I chose to halftone it so that the elements blurred together more seamlessly from the halftone dots.  You may also have noticed that I decided to change the type. I didn't think my original custom type (above) sat well with the new photographic image and all typefaces I tried jarred with the photographic element. I decided that handwriting would fit because it would give the appearance that the character had written it. After writing it out hundreds of times I found a sentence I was happy with. I think the handwriting complements the photographic nature. 

Now all thats left to do is choose a colour scheme. Any thoughts?

Sweetie Pie & the Guttermen

Earlier in the year I designed a logo for a friends band Sweetie Pie & the Guttermen:

Although they liked my logo they said that in their opinion it did not really represent the band (important to bear in mind that when I designed the original I hadn't actually heard their music or seen them live - all I had to go on were the words 'Vintage' , 'Happy' and 'Folk'. 

Now I have seen and heard them I agree - the original is a little too funky in appearance - their sound being poppy folk with sometimes 'serious' musical sensibilities. Knowing this I reproached the logo with a more mature, understated eye. Sans serif type to create a timeless feel. They had also stressed that they want the word 'and' rather than an ampersand but I stressed to them that an Ampersand is much more interesting to look at. 

Some of my initial designs:

They chose the bottom one as the winner (which also happened to be my favourite). They wanted a series of flyers made the size of a bookmark to use for promotion so I designed them a simple black and white design to be printed on different coloured A4 stock (saving on ink costs). 

Due to their long name I, often unwieldy in some layout situations I decided to create a short-hand and circular design. They were happy to use the above circular designs but there would be no sense of unity between the designs, something I felt very important for them as a brand. Below are the three logo variations to be used in different contexts: full, short-hand and stamp.

Promo ideas and tests:

The below is an image I am keen for them to use as an A6 flyer. I proposed it had a white boarder to create a vintage photograph feel and have also distressed the original image in photoshop. I have also suggested that a message like 'With love from Sweetie Pie & the Guttermen. x' be handwritten and printed on the reverse - offering a personalised flyer to be handed out at gigs.

Promo:

'Debut' Photography Book Final

The end result of dealing with photographers, commercial printers and Mr. InDesign. 

Debut Layout + Grid

iamseymour Album Cover

Just a bit of fun... I saw that my friend Seymour had tried designing a cover for his self recorded/produced folk concept album about the troubles in Israel and Palestine so I decided to have a go for him. A good little bit of Photoshop practice.

Seymour's Original:

My New Design:

Debut Logo Dev.

A while back my photography student friend Sarah asked me if I would be interested in doing the identity and layout for her 'Debut' Graduation Exhibition at Proud Gallery, London and the accompanying book. I said yes please. I went down Bournemouth (they were at the Arts Institute) to a meeting with Sarah and the people exhibiting at the show to discuss what they were after? They didn't really give me much to go on so I thought it best to knock up some really rough and ready logo designs to get a reaction and gage what direction to take.  

They really seemed to like the tear drop shape with simple serif typeface. Elegant seemed to be the buzzword. 

Trying to steer clear of such a cliche geometric shape I proposed to change the logo so it looked more individual and less run of the mill: 

Their reaction to the new logo was that it was now too fancy so I decided to compromise and keep the shape finding a similar but less decorative typeface to go with it. I think the new type is pretty good because it retains the traditional aspect they liked but also has delicate flourishes to set it apart. It is this typeface that will be used as a basis for the titles in the book.