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MCS Sheldonian Orchestral & Choral Concert Poster 2010

2010-03-02T15:18:00.004Z

Just finished off the poster for this year's Sheldonian orchestral concert for my old school back in Oxford. The programme contrasts itself with a mixture of pieces based around the likes of an archaic countryside, as well as astronomy and the planets, both of which inspired the artwork.

The poster is A2 with intention for A3 printouts as well, so text is a little hard to read on this significantly smaller version. Click to enlarge.

Had a lot of fun making this after doing the poster for the same event two years ago. I'd like to feel like I've improved since then...

Mystery White Boy

2010-02-15T11:50:00.002Z

Just finished work on some single cover artwork for indie/electronica artist 'Mystery White Boy' aka'd as Falmouth's very own Robin Mitchell.

The project is a cool sort of collaboration, as he's using the artwork as a source of influence for the final product. I'll post links when the tracks are done and uploaded at his website. I haven't heard them yet either so looking forward to it!

John Mayer UK Tour: 15th - 19th Jan 2010

2010-01-14T23:50:00.006Z

For the next few days I'm travelling parts of the UK to catch the John Mayer shows happening in Manchester/London/and Wolverhampton. I'm seeing some friends I haven't seen in a while so put together an A3 poster for them to mark the event, with the aim of making something quite wintery, that didn't have John Mayer's face on it.

If I get some good photos I'll no doubt post them up.

Photography Day - 'You're Cosy, I'm Cold'

2009-12-23T16:49:00.005Z

Went out yesterday afternoon to take some photos of the snow. I found it interesting how deserted the countryside was in comparison to how it is in the Summer whilst the crops are being collected. Here are some highlights that try and convey this, cropped and graded so I can pretend I have a Hasselblad camera.

01: Door

02: Avenue

03: Silhouette

04: Dominoes

05: 'It Was The Best Of Times...'

06: Logs

07: Daylesford

08: Horses

09: Kingham Hill

10: Roadside

11: Phonebox

12: Spire

13: Dusk

Christmas Card '09 - Songs To Keep You Warm

2009-12-18T10:19:00.005Z

Cover

Not usually one to make Christmas cards, I decided to try and make a card that wouldn't be thrown away come January and everyone's lack of shelf space. The card doubles up as a CD sleeve case for a music compilation titled 'Songs To Keep You Warm'. Sixteen were made. Track list was as follows:

01 - The Miles Davis Quintet - My Funny Valentine
02 - Jessie Baylin - Contradicting Words
03 - Hall & Oates - Las Vegas Turnaround
04 - Eels - Fresh Feeling
05 - Counting Crows - Chelsea
06 - The Incredible Moses Leroy - The Color Of Sky
07 - Fleetwood Mac - I Don't Want To Know
08 - Wallis Bird - Fat Chick
09 - Ella Fitzgerald - Bewitched, Bothered, And Bewildered
10 - Curtis Mayfield - So In Love

I would have love to have sent out a ton more, it was really hard to choose who to give them to. Apologies if you didn't get one. If you're interested in a digital copy of the mix, drop me an email I'd love to send you one.

Merry Christmas ^_^

Tinsel Tat - Embrace the Nafness of Christmas

2009-12-02T11:08:00.007Z

In celebration of the official start of the Christmas season and the ever nearing end of term, I've been involved with organising the 'Tinsel Tat' Christmas Party in Falmouth. The theme encourages everyone to embrace the 'nafness of Christmas' including tinsel, baubles, and Christmas jumpers you'd rather not own or have to wear.

My contribution has been through creation of posters and tickets, and the general sending of emails.

The party's tomorrow night 8-12 at Mango Tangos in Falmouth. If you're in the area it would be great to see you there...

Anne's 50th: Mamma Mia/Grub/Barn Dance/Awesome

2009-11-12T16:47:00.002Z

This was a small commission I did over the summer. I figured probably wait until after the event until posting all the details about it. Had a lot of fun with the Bodoni typeface trying to best replicate it to the Mamma Mia posters. Apologies for the black box over the rsvp information.

The Final Flare Ball

2009-11-05T17:18:00.003Z

This is the final output of the last month of project work. Also somewhat apt for fireworks night. Jamie claimed earlier that there were a total of 4500 keyframes in his After Effects file. Don't ask me what that means or how he did it. It looks rather nice in motion.

Another Flare Ball Concept

2009-10-31T15:32:00.002Z

This is another one of the concepts made a week or so ago. Haven't seen Jamie (my software man) this weekend so excited to see what he has on Monday morning...

Interface Concept: Flare Ball v0.5

2009-10-27T14:31:00.003Z

Sometimes when brainstorming/designing out an idea I like to gather some mildly relevant images from the internet and throw them together to try and make something that looks a little bit like what's in my head.

Currently working on a system design project as part of a uni project. This is sort of what it might look like at the end. Did this about two weeks ago and already it looks quite different. I'll post the conclusion when we get there.

Christ Church Oxford Rowing Stash

2009-10-12T12:38:00.002+01:00

A friend from Oxford asked me to design a 'Jack Wills esque' hoodie graphic for his rowing team. After quite a few drafts this was the final design. I may post some of the other attempts.

Looking forward to seeing the final hoodies when they're done...

The St. Ives Photohunt

2009-10-05T12:23:00.003+01:00

Now back at university, spending a lot of Freshers week helping out organise events with the Christian Union. Led a trip to St. Ives on Sunday for a photo hunt. This was the poster...
Click to enlarge

10 Days in Romania: Pt. VI - Village II

2009-09-03T12:34:00.006+01:00

40: Tarmac & Weeds

41: Liz Vs. The Dream Team

42: Leti

43: Marius

44: Hot Gossip

45: Shades

46: Waiting To Play

47: Racing

48: Grass Fistful

49: Yana

50: Dusk At Village II

http://www.caminulfelix.org
http://www.saintmichaelsparis.com/

10 Days in Romania: Pt. V - Oradea

2009-09-01T17:06:00.003+01:00

30: American Splendour

31: Oradea Centre

32: Fortress Chapel

33: Scaffold

34: Rock Solid

35: Fortress

36: Pigeons

37: Coca-Cola Cocktail Bar

38: Down at the Alley

39: Poolside

http://www.caminulfelix.org
http://www.saintmichaelsparis.com/

10 Days in Romania: Pt. IV - The Mountains

2009-08-25T15:15:00.005+01:00

19: Entangled

20: Source

21: Bridge

22: Soup

23: Lookout

24: Wheelbarrow

25: Casualty

26: Diggers

27: Gabriella

28: Landscaping

29: Ou est la Toilette?

http://www.caminulfelix.org
http://www.saintmichaelsparis.com/

10 Days in Romania: Pt. III - The Work

2009-08-23T10:21:00.004+01:00

14: Artists

15: Bleachers

16: Painting with Anna

17: Rollin'

18: The Chase

http://www.caminulfelix.org
http://www.saintmichaelsparis.com/

10 Days in Romania: Pt. II - Village I

2009-08-14T10:55:00.003+01:00

06: It

07: Shoes Off

08: Gheorghe

09: Untitled

10: Shootin' Hoop

11: Funky Drummer

12: Twins

13: Dusk At Village I

http://www.caminulfelix.org
http://www.saintmichaelsparis.com/

10 Days in Romania: Pt. I - Welcome to Romania

2009-08-10T13:33:00.004+01:00

01: Flight

02: Huncargo

03: Oradea

04: The Getaway

05: Toyland

http://www.caminulfelix.org
http://www.saintmichaelsparis.com/

'Free Thinking' Concepts...

2009-08-04T18:26:00.002+01:00

It's been far too long since I've updated this. Partly due to being away, partly due to laziness. I'm planning a quite long post about my trip to Romania, however to get the ball rolling I thought i'd post this.

A friend of mine is making some animations to show teenagers in church youth groups. I was talking about my hopes of ending up in concept art and design and he asked me to make some background artwork for his animations.

Above is the first concept for one of five scripts that have been written, in which two girls discuss whether or not Christian living consists of simply following a set of rules. The conclusion is...no, no it doesn't. I'll post more when I hear this is on the right track and he wants more of the same.

Nighttiming...

2009-06-24T12:19:00.001+01:00

Have been experimenting in low light level conditions. No doubt any photographers I know will despair and claim I went about everything completely wrong...

Souvenirs Mini-Project Pt 2 - The Pixel Persistence/Failings

2009-06-11T14:20:00.002+01:00

After finishing my test image I produced this photo montage from a bunch of photos taken in the good weather over the last week or so. Was planning to do a similar process as the previous image but time constraints and the lack of much concept above all else have led me to decide to restart and focus on something a little less technical and time consuming.

Souvenirs Mini-Project Pt 1 - The Pixel Process

2009-06-08T12:11:00.007+01:00

All major project work for the year has now been accessed and returned to us. Term however doesn't end for another two weeks so we've been given a bin-work project to occupy ourselves until then. The project asks that we create a souvenir of the seaside.

After making a revisit to some old school work in the last project I thought it would be interesting to re-explore hand rendered pixel art. Instead of looking in grayscale though I've made the jump to colour. I'm working on 1:1 pixel mapping at the moment, so not trying out any of the shading types I did in the self-portrait.

My souvenirs are going to be a series of pixel hand-renderings of photos i've taken in and around the beach over the last week or so. I'm going to scour a few charity shops for a mix of frames as well. If anyone asks I went for pixels because of the juxtaposition made of looking at an image depicting such a selection outdoor activities in a form so often aquainted with digital things...and the pixels are somewhat representative of sand...right?

>_>

<_<

Cambridge Amateur Dramatics: Sense & Sensibility

2009-05-31T23:45:00.002+01:00

Shameless plug for a production of Sense & Sensibility my sister is putting on at her University in about three weeks. She asked me to help out on poster/programme/tickets, and to make something in a similar style to the book project I worked on.

If you're in Cambride on 17th/18th June go check it out.

'10 Things' the set...

2009-05-25T11:07:00.002+01:00

Finished the '10 Things You Should Know About Surviving A-Level Art' project. Took some shots of the finished set.

This is the case that the disk containing the pdfs comes with. Back side is thickened out with greyboard, also making it safer to hold the disc.

Upon inserting the disc, teachers are presented with a piece of software that allows them to navigate through the diagram and all 10 pdfs, and choose which one to print.

Cover Competition: The Lily

2009-05-19T18:32:00.004+01:00

Front

Back

This was made for a cover competition during my time in 6th form. The competition was to design the cover for the school magazine (which is titled The Lily after the school motto 'Sicut Lilium'). The school colours are red and black and I ran with the theme of Lilies.

I won the competition though don't have a physical copy at my disposal to photograph and show.

10 Things You Should Know About Surviving A-Level Art

2009-05-13T14:12:00.005+01:00

Finally some more up to date work to show. Working on a 10 segment guide to help 6th form art students understand what their Art & Design course asks of them, and how they can tailor the criteria to do things they're more interested in. I've developed a diagram of the course to help navigate around the 10 segments. The bottom image is a sample page for the first assessment objective. Click to enlarge. Watermarked so I don't accidentally submit the wrong draft.

An Orchestral and Choral Concert...

2009-05-09T21:17:00.004+01:00

Made this piece in my final year, advertising the school concert at the Sheldonian, Oxford. Had the pleasure of playing in the concert as well.

The 'headlining' piece of the evening was the 'Masquerade Suite' by Katchaturian (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNSDJoSNH-g) which is why the theme of the poster revolved around the masks on the faces of the famous busts surrounding the building. The African mask was chosen to suit the piece 'African Jigsaw', performed by the Junior Choir later in the programme.

Click to enlarge.

Schooled....

2009-05-03T21:26:00.003+01:00

This was the final piece of my AS-level course. A pixelated self-portrait. It was made by pixelating the image, limiting that down to only five colours, and allocating a different shading style for each of the colours depending on how dark it was.

It's not perfect, and in fact the 'test' I did before this exam piece was better. Wouldn't mind revisiting this method to make something else though.

Until I produce anything worthy of showing for this project i'll continue to delve through the back catalogue of previous work I produced before starting uni.

Back to school...

2009-04-27T19:36:00.004+01:00

Got our new project brief earlier and I get to go back to school and make an idiot-proof guide to success in A2 Art & Design. Spent the afternoon going through all the 'Art' folders across various hard drives and found this photo of the final piece I made for my exam project last year.

The piece is a Joshua Davies inspired/tweaked/stolen motion study of my friend playing Ping Pong. I constructed the image in photoshop and then split it into a variety of layers and transferred and painted that onto glass.The piece has since been lost in the abyss of art supplies when my school moved the whole art department to another building this summer. Literally the only photo I have of it though i'm sure it'll turn up some day.

The Paris Extravaganza - Heights & Highlights

2009-04-23T22:48:00.012+01:00

A tiring but satisfying week, with highlights including not falling off of Le Tour Eiffel and being searched by the French Police for narcotics whilst having a picnic with friends.

Highlights below. Click to enlarge...

The Paris Extravaganza - Day 4 - Limiting 610 to 5

2009-04-21T23:15:00.005+01:00

Knowing that the SD card could take it I got incredibly trigger happy today with the camera. Part of what I was taking were a lot of stock photos consisting of rooftops/archways/signs/textures, so a lot was covered I feel. Out of the 610 photos taken here are 5 of the highlights. Places visited today included Notre Dame/Printemps/Madelene/Bastille/ and Opera.

More tomorrow...

The Paris Extravaganza - Day 3 - Sacre Coeur Panorama

2009-04-20T22:29:00.004+01:00

Didn't have time to do a full photo montage of the 280 photos taken today unfortunately. Put this together instead, which was the first stop of today's walking tour of Paris. I say walking tour, it was essentially a group of 9 of us walking around with a map trying to get to places, only to stumble on other things we're probably supposed to do later in the week.

It's a little rushed but the awesome view of Paris is still conveyed successfully I think.

Tomorrow...Notre Dame and some other stuff!

The Paris Extravaganza - Day 1 - Travel

2009-04-19T15:40:00.003+01:00

I'm on a course trip to Paris for the week indulging in the enjoyments of all the tourist industry has to offer in the capital. I came a weekend before the others on my course as i'm staying with a friend to make the trip a bit more cost effective. He's away right now and i'm feeding his rabbit ^_^ . Above is a montage documentation of my day travelling yesterday on the train. Click to enlarge.

Hopefully i'll make more during the week as more and more stuff gets seen...

Testing the early birthday camera...

2009-04-08T11:04:00.003+01:00

Went out to test the early birthday present to myself yesterday afternoon.

I plan to build up a large set of stock photos over the next few years so went for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 (a slightly older model than the current just to keep costs down a little). I thought about getting a DSLR but figured I'd then always have to go on photography trips all the time with my massive camera. I have yet to test it in a massive amount of different locations but so far I'm happy.

Click to enlarge the photos...

Disney Classics Custom Cover Collection - Series 2

2009-03-26T14:55:00.010Z

Series 2 now complete. Really pleased with these, especially on some of the more obscure movies like The Three Caballeros. Oliver & Company I think looks alot more interesting than the final outcome of the movie. Disney + late 80s = :(

When the whole series is done I hope to print them as postcards and use them to write to friends/send them artwork. I need to tweak a few things like slightly increase the size of the bleed margins though.

On Easter break from uni at the moment so my next update probably won't be for the next two weeks or so.

Q1 Promotions: Valentine's Bash

2009-03-20T13:43:00.004Z

Front

Back

Made this in early Feb at the end of the dying languages project. It was an afternoon's turnaround due to time constraints so feels a little rushed though I think my determination to not include the colour red or any hearts paid off and adds something extra to it. I swear this is the last beige looking piece using earthy tones on paper textures i'm going to put up in a while ^_^

Since doing the book project I've also come to fully appreciate the importance of bleed margins...really not present in this.

Fountains Abbey: A Tale of the First of Many Embarrassments in Life

2009-03-13T15:37:00.011Z

Finally finished this and handed it in successfully yesterday. Really happy with the final outcome, despite hitting problems such as the wet PVA making the tracing paper wrinkle up a bit. All of the pages and their accompanying text can be seen below. As always, click images to enlarge.

--------------------------------------------------

Page 1:
It was a Thursday, and the trip was almost at its end. Despite visiting the National Trust site every day that week, the timeless feeling of a frozen moment emitted by so many of the root and ivy ridden structures, held my eleven year old self captivated. A captivation of which was only spoiled by the presence of others around me. This included my family.

The half term holiday in Yorkshire was only for the week, and we had crammed ourselves into a cottage next to the heritage site of Fountains Abbey. The Abbey, founded in 1132, remains one of the largest and best preserved Cistercian houses in England. Despite operating for just over 400 years, upon Henry VIII’s order of the dissolution of the monasteries, all land where the Abbey stands was sold by the crown. (Rain had kept me restricted to the confines of the visitors’ center a few too many times before reaching the dizzy heights of Thursday).

Page 2:
Escaping with permission from the ‘look at this’ nature of the family walking party, exploration of the grounds began.

Page 3:
Running right from one end of the site to the other, was a river. Beginning as a trickle and widening out into a calm, ripple less blanket of reflections, it led me down in an eel like fashion from the Abbey to the water gardens of Studley Royal.

Page 4:
Here, statues and temples hide themselves from the prying public, conveying a real sense of secrecy to those who stumble upon them. Windows (if present at all) are clouded and dirty, giving only glimpses of whatever lives inside. Trees and foliage are creeping over the light, coarse stone. An easily noticeable structural contrast can be seen over the site, as muddy, disheveled grays exposed to the elements clash against the straight and finely crafted yellows. As the Sun got higher in the sky, a cool dampness was left in the air from the previous night’s rain, and my shadow on the path got noticeably smaller. The greatest challenge of the day so far presented itself to me; once I reached the far end of the site.

Page 5:
The stones were placed a half a metre a part from one another across the river. With the great feeling of independence attained from my morning of exploration, I began to dart over the steps. At every jump I held my breath, and then exhaled heavily at each thud of Wellington boot on stone. Reaching the other side successfully, I looked around at the tourists crossing on the parallel footbridge. No heads were turned by what was frankly, a far greater feat than any of them would achieve that day. I was on the wrong side of the lake anyway, so began to leap back across. Step after step, breath after breath, I sped across.

Page 6:
The realisation that perhaps I was going too fast had come to me upon the previous jump, and then also as I saw my foot travel past the intended stone of landing. People did at least look this time...

Page 7:
Eight years later, whilst examining a series of photos from Fountains Abbey in the hopes of rekindling some more of my memory there, I found a picture of the stepping stones where I fell. They’re massive, and really close together. I’m an idiot.

--------------------------------------------------

We (my Graphic Design course) are putting on an exhibition on Monday of all the books made in the last 4 weeks for this project. I'm intending to take photos of some of my favourites and upload them here which will hopefully go up Monday night or some time Tuesday.

Now I'm in review week and the end of the term i'm hoping to do another series of the Disney pieces as well.

Page 1 Digi-mockup...

2009-03-08T16:07:00.001Z

Here's a mockup/render of the first page of the book. I've made a paper version as well that's a lot less detailed. Hopefully the combination of both will be enough. There are 7 pages in total. I'll put up the final designs for them when I finish the project hopefully in a few days. I have yet to master 3D rendering in photoshop so apologies for the minor failings of the above.

Book Binding Workshop

2009-03-06T19:36:00.004Z

Front

Back

These are the fruits of the book binding workshop we had about a week ago. This is an example of 'Perfect Binding' and essentially consists of you layering PVA glue on a spine for multiple layers... putting some cloth on that which includes tabs...allowing you to attach this to the cardboard covers...

Cover

Endpaper

The artwork came from some scans from the Ward-O-Matic blog where he found a nice vintage housing magazine from the mid-50s. Really going through a phase of vintage artwork at the moment I find it's simplicities really appealing.

I'll be uploading a lot more stuff about this current project later in the week. It's taking up a lot of time but it's really paying off I think ^_^

The vintage print effect...

2009-03-03T15:34:00.004Z

I've finally worked out the exact style I wanted for the book. The addition of vintage graphs/diagrams I think really rounds it off nicely. Now in the process of planning each double spread out now in storyboard form, working out my technique of 3D layering on paper as well.

More book project art style tests...

2009-03-01T22:02:00.004Z

Picture this 2D image, in separate layers, each layer of which pops out, and with a different font, and the transparent grey will be tracing paper. That's kind of what i'm going for eventually...

Put this together fairly quickly to show some work to my tutors tomorrow at uni. I'm planning to stylize it a lot more so that it looks more like a 'design' rather than an amalgamation of pictures I've quickly gathered/made.

More to come...

Photo-shoplifitng...

2009-02-26T01:15:00.003Z

...To take another man's images and use them in your own Photoshop work.

I'm in the research/experimentation stages for the next uni project we've been given. We have to write and present a short story based on a childhood memory. The memory I've chosen is when I fell in a lake at the Fountains Abbey National Trust when I was eleven. Intensive but no doubt rewarding in two more weeks when the project is done.

I'm experimenting with montage techniques for my approach to the illustration and had to do some tests to see if there's chance of it working. I'm expecting the final designs to look quite a bit different to these but I thought these were worthy of show anyway.

None of the photos/drawing used to make up these images were my own and have been lifted from a variety of places online. I'd give them all credit but the internet tabs are long since closed and lost in the abyss of my web history.

Click to enlarge any of the above images.

Disney Classics Custom Collection - Series 1

2009-02-20T21:52:00.015Z

>

Just put the finishing touches to Wave 1 of my Disney Classics cover/poster collection. Click the thumbnail to enlarge. More to come when I get the next set done. Really enjoying doing them so do expect more and hopefully at a more consistent rate ^_^

Disney Classics Custom Collection

2009-02-12T21:20:00.006Z

After posting scans from the Bambi book I picked up yesterday, and the stream of contemporary vintage work being produced at the moment by designers such as Ward Jenkins, Andy Tan, and others. I'm taking lead from a personal project by Olly Moss, but spinning his concept of videogames to custom Disney Classics artworks using the Penguins Classics grid.

Originally I was hoping to do each of the images from scratch, but decided time wasn't on my side due to the large number of Disney Classics (46). Instead, the approach I took was to find and take screens from the films and then vectorize them in Illustrator, before moving into Photoshop for some final tweaks.

The colour scheme has been taken from the Disney Animation Studios website which was recently updated.

Walt Disney's Bambi - A Great Golden Book

2009-02-11T18:02:00.006Z

Found this in one of the second hand book shops in town today. Thinking of following in the footsteps of Olly Moss and redesigning some artwork to make a set for the Disney classics.

Orange Project

2009-02-08T03:48:00.002Z

This was a short single day project I did just before Christmas. The brief was fictional, and tasked us to make an 'inspiring' image/graphic that embodied the Orange ethos (also specified on the brief). After reading and seeing a lot of material linking to optimism, connecting, friends, and fun this is what I came up with...

Paper Pomos!

2009-02-04T23:11:00.006Z

Finally just finished the nets and their presentation.

Front:

Back:

Our brief was to create something which advertised a dying language and culture, and what i've produced is a paper model worksheet. The work is aimed at Primary/Elementary school children in years 5 and 6 (ages 9-11).

The front shows the net and some illustrations I made from a group of photos I found, observing the Pomoan people. I've made some artistic judgements mainly with colour but I like the accessibility they provide to the piece. At first I was really stuck on how to work cultural and lingual information onto the page but found a solution in the tabs that hold the model together. I found some basic language vocabulary online, and have placed the English on one tab, and the Pomo on the other corresponding tab, with the intention that as the kids put the model together they match up the words and take in the information.

More subliminal education is on the other side, where the back of the net contains lots of cultural facts that can be associated with the pictures on the front.

Artwork was initially drawn and then brought into Photoshop and Illustrator for cleaning and colouring.

Sorry the pictures are a bit illegible unless seen in the higher resolution.

Now I just have to put together the presentation to show the rest of my course on Monday morning...

It's A Pomo Party!

2009-02-03T00:14:00.004Z

I'm working on the illustrations that are going to accompany the paper net when all laid out in its final form, promoting the dying language of the Pomoan people of California.

Did this up today, really pleased with the outcome and how they fit with the soon to be posted net.

I have my work cut out a little to make sure I have this all done by Thursday but i'm quietly confident...

Pomoan Cubeecraft

2009-01-28T13:17:00.008Z

The project I'm currently working on as part of my course, is essentially to use graphic design as a means to promote a dying language. It's a four week project we've just hit the halfway mark on and I thought I'd post some info on the stage I've gotten to.

My research led me to the Pomoan settlement tribes of California, some of which are now extinct. I wanted to find a prodominantly english speaking area and aim my promotion at children in primary/elementary school around the ages of 9-11. Stumbled upon the art of papercraft (it is what it sounds), and a bunch of cool design toys created by other designers/illustrators. I've posted a few below:

Speakerdogs

http://www.bentheillustrator.com/speakerdog_index.html

Nintendo Diorama

http://www.nintendopapercraft.com/labels/Diorama.html

Cubeecraft

I'm currently developing some models based on the cubeecraft template, allowing the kids to build small Pomoan figures. My plan at the moment is to have cultural and language related facts on the back of the nets (preferably to do with the characters they're putting together), and therefore take in the information as they build. Then the model can act as a constant reminder to be aware of what is lost when a language becomes extinct etc.

Here's a shot of a test net I'm fiddling about with. I'll post some final models once the project ends. I'm planning on making them a little less cubelike.

...I've just noticed how lame my actual work looks in comparisson to the fun and exciting colour fest I just posted above it.

Bajulate

2009-01-24T12:09:00.003Z

Just finished this short two day project in the studio yesterday. We were given a list of forgotten words in the English language and had to find a means of presenting them. The novelty sized, burdensome badge would have looked better had I had more time to design it/decide a style etc. Really like the concept though.

Next post I intend to be all about the project i'm currently working on, all about dying languages.

The GDArch John Mayer Epic

2009-01-20T20:45:00.019Z

Those who know me are aware of my musical allegiance to John Mayer. In a non-indulgent way I won't go too much into why I like John Mayer's music, and instead focus on the graphic design orientated things I've produced in the past that holds a John Mayer theme. In chronological order...

Winter 2005:
The Blues Mix

'Try!' by the John Mayer Trio is a great album, I appreciate a lot more now for some reason (probably maturity and a greater enjoyment out of blues music), but I felt that a lot of the tracks on it didn't do some of the 2005 winter tour the disc was made from the justice it needed (the subjective thoughts of a 15 year old). The previous live release 'As/Is' compiling the best performances of the 2004 summer tour was (and probably still is) my favourite official Mayer release. The Trio tour was when I first discovered etree.org and audience taped shows. I managed to collect all of them and was inspired by the slight disappointment of not having all the performances I wanted in the one place (on 'Try!') to make my own.

The artwork was made from one really high-res promotional shot I found online. Embarrassed to look at the front cover now and my awful choice of font. The back cover remains not as embarrassing...

Download The Blues Mix here.

Summer 2006:
2006-04-06 Hotel Café - West Hollywood, CA (Secret Show!)

Not really a story behind this one except for someone asked for some cover art on the MSM (mystupdmouth) forum. This was a "secret" intimate show in a 140 person-capacity venue previewing "Continuum" material. John Mayer was publicly billed as "Bill Buchanan." The show has a brilliant atmosphere and credit to the taper who not only managed to get to the venue with equipment at such short notice, also made a really clear recording. I'd definitely change things on the cover if I were to make it again today, but it does the job well enough.

Download the show here.

Winter 2006
Webster Hall DVD

Cover

Menus

This was a really great piece to do. Byran Opfer (again from MSM) takes charge of capping a lot of TV performances and shows, and made a request for some DVD cover and menu artwork for the DVD of this show. I was excited about this piece because as I made it I knew anyone who downloaded the DVD would see my artwork. At the time my photoshop skills were limited and my obvious use of some filters can be seen in the menus still. I pushed myself to do something I wasn't familiar with though, and despite some visible errors I think the composition of the cover still holds today.

This is harder to find these days. The score1more4me.com bittorrent tracker occassionally has it but it's rarely seeded (got uploaders).

AOL Music Session 2006

This was a web performance done for AOL Music Sessions, promoting Continuum. I capped the audio from the online stream and put some artwork on it. At the time JM had tonsilitis he got from Jessica Simpson...apparrant in some places...classic.

You can download the AOL Session here. NOTE: The acoustic first half is in fact the 2003 AOL music session that Mayer did when 'Heavier Things' came out.

Stripped: Raw & Real

Another internet promotional performance (considerably better than the AOL Session above). The artwork was rushed and I personally don't like it anymore apart from the colour scheme. This recently got uploaded onto a Bittorrent tracker which I thought was cool due to it still being traded around places. What was great was that the filesizes didn't match my originals, meaning it had been burnt and rerippd from CDs who knows how many times...

You can download Stripped here.

There's Something About Sheryl

Another best of compilation accompanying the co-headlining tour with Sheryl Crow when 'Continuum' first came out. I had trouble on the Blues Mix getting permission to use recordings from certain tapers (which I still haven't got despite its obvious release online) so stuck with one taper who had been to most of the first leg of the tour (Debbie Ocoboc...though I later discovered that Vultures was taped by 'Geneva).

The mixes were edited in Acoustica mixcraft. All the shows were traded in lossless flac which I encoded into 192kbps mp3 to listen to. When I re-edited the tracks with fades in and out I essentially transcoded the track and it lost more quality. Not the finest hour of audio encoding. As all the tapes were from the same taper, and my experience with the software was basic I didn't change any of the sound levels on the tracks. It's a varied listening experience.

The back cover is basic and quite poor, but the front cover I still really like. I spent a while making sure I was using all the right fonts that matched the 'There's Something About Mary' poster.

You can download There's Something about Sheryl here.

Summer 2008
Channel Hopper

What I thought would be another two disc compilation mix became a much greater undertaking though a really good way to pass the Summer by. Out of about 35 shows, 32 were taped and the number of different songs played totaled at 45. I always insist on having one of every song in my mixes so I dug my own grave deciding to keep the same on this release. The final product came to five discs and every track was mastered from the original lossless into the highest quality mp3 (no transcoding this time!). It's easily the best JM release I've made and the time that went into it really paid off. The people who download them are always really appreciative which is a nice drive.

I was lucky to get a really nice high res photo online taken by a fan at one of the shows (got permission to use it never fear) which I used accross all of the artwork I made. The set is simply and is nice and consistent.

You can download Channel Hopper here.

Winter 2008
2008-12-06, John Mayer On His Own - 2nd Annual Holiday Revue, Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles, CA

This was a really last minute release to go with the 2nd Annual Holiday Revue show JM did this year. There was talk on the MSM boards about making a recording from the live stream and I thought I would make my own as a backup in case others had errors or encoded it at low bitrates. Live streams i've found always need the exact same birate as broadcast otherwise you're losing quality from an already low bitrate source (it varies). Mayer came on stage at 5am (UK Time) and then played a 2 hour show. I made the artwork whilst the support act was playing and I was poised over the 'record' button. There's a few different copies of this floating around but I hope people eventually find their way to mine...though I'm biased in saying mine's the best.

The cover art was inspired by one of the t-shirt designs that had been put up on the John Mayer blog. I found the same logo and a t-shirt label and things went from there.

The show can be downloaded here. (my copy ^_^)

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That's everything to date, apologies for length. If you want high resolution cover art (as the versions in this post have been lowered in size/quality for web upload purposes) just leave a request in the comments and i'll get it to you when I get a chance.

Q1 Promotions: Blizzard

2009-01-18T18:20:00.005Z

A friend of mine organises under 18 nights in Oxford, and this is a flyer I made just before Christmas for his latest event.

Time was short on this hence there being less continuity on both sides than I would have liked. Was pleased with the outcome though...

Front:

Back:The highlight of making posters for Q1 Promotions is being able to see the photos of the parties afterwards. I was never as cool as some of these kids...

http://www.q1promotions.co.uk/photos/Foam%20Rave/images/53.jpg

Text-A-Pancake

2009-01-14T00:43:00.002Z

Made this last term to advertise for one of the Christian Union events. The main title font was made of thick chocolate sauce, photographed and then brought into Photoshop...good times ^_^

Planet Pont des Art

2009-01-13T00:51:00.009Z

Some friends of mine from Paris recently got married and this is the wedding gift I gave to them. The image shows a 360 panorama of the Pont des Arts, (Paris) made up of four different photos from varying times of the day. I can't claim credit for the original photos unfortunately.

The piece was made in photoshop in two stages. The first was the creation of the 'planet', which was done using my four images and use of the 'Polar coordinates' distortion tool in Photoshop. The second stage was the creation of the background, and was done using Photoshop's displacement mapping tool.

I have yet to hear whether they liked their present or not...

Welcome...

2009-01-13T00:44:00.003Z

GDArch is a design blog i've started to run/maintain, displaying a lot of the work I get up to when spending far too much time in front of a computer screen.

Work to come soon...