Happy New Year everyone!

Lastminute.com ideas

hmmmm slowly developing ideas for my personal project at uni..... trying to incorporate a stamp, and use it in different situations..... 'do more good stuff'.  My idea is to show circumstances that are boring or less fun and imply that maybe you should go to lastminute.com to 'do more good stuff'.

playing around in a name of designing

Do More Good Stuff!

instead of playing in the snow, I took advantage of the mass snow fall to see if it could be used in my project for Lastminute.com, so I delved into my back garden and this is what I produced with a wine bottle in hand....

ora- not - so - gami

Haha! oh dear I can NOT make Origami for the life of me, trying out an idea for my new project..... looks like its not gonna happen!!!

even was looking at how to for kids!

shameful ........

Holden Gallery Exhibition

Tuesday 15^th December

Holden Gallery: Student Showcase.

Last week my friend Sandra became a curator at the Holden Gallery at MMU. And her job is to present an exhibition each month showing students work that they submit to be chosen. It is held in a gorgeous little area in the Gallery, with amazingly tall walls and has a very Victorian-esq style to the room.

I submitted my work for my Don’t Panic Project; this was a collage representing Resistance to Religion.  I was proud to see my work up on the wall, as I was unsure of how my design would work, presented.

The Dean showed up at the exhibition as well as our tutors and students from all of the art courses. The opening exhibition was a success and I was very pleased to show my work in the first ever showing.

The images I have showed are of my work, and other students work up at the showcase:

Anna’s book for ‘Silence’. Exploring the silencing of women in surrealism.

My work for Don’t Panic ‘Resistance’ competition.

Betsy’s Silence book, and developing work.

Jon’s book cover screen prints, and Arran’s Don’t Panic ‘Resistance’ poster.

ho ho ho the seasons here

I came across this on the creative review webpage, it’s a few good examples of Christmas adverts, well the ones that creative review enjoy anywho. Just wanted to share these with my fellow bloggers as they envelop the Christmas spirit in a witty way.

 

(“Ding Dong Merrily On High”

Creative review blog)

 

Yep, in case you hadn't noticed, 'tis the season for tawdry advertising once more. Here, though, is a selection of christmassy ads that made us smile rather than wince, plus some other amusing xmas ad-related paraphernalia...

First up are some poster ads for Lynx from BBH London, which wittily reapply the usual Lynx message (the unlikely notion that the deodorant will make users irresistible to women) for the Christmas season.

Sell! Sell! has created this poster campaign for soft drinks company Fentimans, which aims to poke fun at Coca-Cola's dominance of Christmas. The ad, which is not shown at its best here admittedly (try and imagine it as a 96-sheet poster), features a Fentimans Santa standing victorious over a Coke Santa. The ad is illustrated by Steven Noble.

Neasden Control Centre

Neasden Control Centre

Stephen Smith came to our University last year to give a lecture, I had not discovered Neasden Control Centre before this lecture and was pleasantly surprised.

I am writing about this again as I feel this company is a encouraging group and can provoke people to step over the boundaries of design. He has definitely made me challenge my way of designing and making sure I develop my creative skills.

 

Steve Smith has been working for many years, his company is in London in a place called Neasden and therefore his company is called the Neasden control centre. It was an exceptionally very interesting lecture and inspired me to start drawing again. I was disappointed that I wasn’t picked to do a workshop with him but it was for people who didn’t really do illustrations or draw so am sure it was so much more encouraging for them.

 

 

Neasden Control Centre is Stephen Smith - working broadly across disciplines in creative direction, graphic, installation, film and motion. Since its establishment it continues to develop by hand a raw, layered, collaged, and primal approach while expanding in scope and vision. The mission is always to remain experimental and diverse working closely with clients, curators, galleries and institutions on a broad range of specific print executions, billboards and other one-off projects. NCC has released three monographs/books: Neasden Control Centre (Die Gestalten Verlag, 2003); Smithfield Building (Rojo, 2006); and Lost Control (Die Gestalten Verlag, 2007). Both the 2003 and 2006 books have sold out. Other work includes editioned screenprints, zines and working with universitites / publishing houses on a broad range of exhibitions, public programme's, installations, talks and workshops. NCC has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions across Europe and in Group Shows that include the Spank The Monkey exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art where NCC together with Banksy and David Shrigley were the three invited British artists. As well as regular commissions, NCC has attracted Arts Council of England and British Council support for its projects.

 

christmas spirit

A ha, I love this image. Found it while googling the words 'had enough'. And this came up, made me chuckle and its christmasy in a abnormal kinda way!

the 00's

http://nymag.com/arts/all/aughts/62525/

The 00's Issue Covers 

By New York Magazine

For the cover of the ’00s Issue, several graphic designers were invited to illustrate “’00s” however they wanted. Two were selected for the cover (one for subscribers, the other for newsstand).

This was something I came across while looking for inspiration for my new project, it caught my eye immediately. It interested me because it is building up to 2010, and what we have achieved in the ‘noughties’. New York magazine asked numerous illustrators, graphic designers and artist to produce a design each and for a few months these were the featured front cover designs.

I just wanted to blog about this because I think it is a great idea and celebrates this past decade.

Si Scott

Si Scott

 

Si Scott is a graphic designer and illustrator who is the driving force behind the UK-based Si Scott Studio. His obsessively hand-drawn pen and ink illustrated typography, graphic design and illustrations pull from both modern and traditional influences. Some of his clients include BBC TV, Burton, GQ, Hugo Boss, MTV, Unicef and Volvo.

 

Last year Si Scott came to our university to give a lecture about how he and his work has progressed thought-out the years. I had heard about Si Scott in college and I love his style of work and design. The patience and drive he has to create beautiful drawings and type is incredible. He really inspires me to incorporate illustration into design, its so different to most graphic designers and you can see the passion he puts into every design.

He explained his progress and he states he works 90% hand drawn and 10% on the computer but you wouldn’t think it, his work is so precise you would think its made on illustrator, he intimidates me but at the same time is inspires me to branch out.

 

“Its what you bring to the table”

 

He works all over the world, mainly in the big apple and someday will move there. His inspiration for ideas can literally come from anywhere even brothel signs….

 

He does many designs to do with animals and they are so visually stunning, they don’t even need to advertise anything, people have even asked him to design tattoos for them.

“Talk your way through ideas and you’ll go far”

His work has meaning behind it as well as beauty, one design he did for Tank Theory was of a animals skull but it was made out of pregnant women, this was to do with voodoo and human sacrifices. It is visually astounding and is my favourite of his pieces.

He has designs a coffee table book that is now shown in MOMA in New York, which to me astounds me and really shows he is worth his salt.

“I don’t like seahorses, there perverts of the sea”

Hamish Muir

Hamish Muir

 

Hamish Muir was our visiting lecturer today, he showed us his work, his studio and told us about how he formed 8vo and Octavo. His work is very type based and clean cut. He described how most of 8vo’s designs were made by collage and then photographed and re edited. It was an amazing process that he explained. He was very open with what he thought about graphic design and wasn’t scared to say what he thinks.

He met Mark Holt and Simon Johnston at Basel school of Design, together they formed 8vo (named from a meaning for a printing process)

8vo designed a wide range of typographically-based projects in identity, print, publishing, record packaging and information design for clients in the UK, Europe and the U.S. between 1984 and 2001. Clients including factory Records and Hacienda.

http://www.swisslegacy.com/index.php/2007/12/17/interview-with-hamish-muir/

Swiss Legacy:Interview with Hamish Muir

“I am a graphic designer who uses type. I am not a typographer. I happen to use type a lot. But to me ‘communication’ is more important. Typography is only a means to aid communication, not and end in itself”

 

“in the UK things generally followed a kind of traditional approach and it seemed type was always there to support the idea or image, it never seemed to be the idea or image itself.


So what we set out to do was to make design where type and typography were central to the idea. Where type would be the image. Our influences were from outside the UK; Europe (Switzerland in particular) and the USA (Holt had spent time working freelance in San Francisco). But we didn’t want to copy what we knew – we wanted to develop our own approach which was relevant to the context in which we were working in terms of clients, jobs, purpose and audience.”

 

Hamish Muir isn’t really my sort of designer, but it was interesting to see his process and how he has made such an impact on designing. He is very much ‘the design process’ and I am more the ideas person so I think we are like opposite magnets in that sense.

 

From what I learned from Craig Oldham in the last lecture i consider Hamish Muir to be in Bunch A (logical designers)

While I am in Bunch B (emotional designers)

Sarah Hanson

this is by Sarah Hanson, i found this brilliant collage designer on www.debutart.com

She is brilliant and you can see how much thought and effort she puts into each and every detail. Her work is very diverse and is similar to Matin O'Neill. Her work is messy and hands on but still coherent and readable, I have chosen this particular design because it is what I am feeling right now, I think it speaks volumes even though it is simple to look at. One word = Pressure.

the Holidays are coming

ooooo I don't half love the Holidays, and the iconic coca-cola advert is the icing on the cake for me. Who knew that some red lorries with lights on could be connected to christmas, and become The Christmas advert (as well as the M&S ads)

I feel all festive now..... Im going to put my decorations up.....