Wear & Tear

FIN.

Above is the final edited video of mine and Hunter's anamorphic typography installations we created in the morgue corridor and our studio both in Chelsea college of art & design. Big thanks to Ed Gill who let us borrow his awesome homemade tripod tracker which is essentially a triangular piece of plywood with three skateboard trucks attached to it. RAD.

It's a point of view

Here are some shots of mine and Hunter's anamorphic typography studio installation which we were asked to complete by our tutors at the start of last week in to be ready for the private view which took place last Friday. For this piece we incorporated some geometry into our design as well as copy. Videos to follow of both our pieces soon. 

"There's so much wall on the floor"

Some slightly more professional photographs of mine and Hunter's anamorphic typography installation in the morgue corridor in Chelsea. We're still working on getting the video done of this piece which I am pretty psyched about. Last Monday we were asked by our tutors to create another installation in the vis. com. studio for our exhibition. Below is a quick snap shot of the work taking place with photos of the finished piece to follow on Wednesday when I am invidulating the exhibition.

It's more than just print

Above are the pictures from mine and Hunter's collaborative FMP final piece. We were incredibly lucky to be allowed use of a whole corridor in Chelsea College of Art & Design to carry out our anamorphic typography installation. Completed in exactly one week from start to finish our work covers the entire corridor as well as venturing into the fire escape it's without doubt the biggest work I have ever undertaken. Some of the letters cover more than one surface, with the 'M' actually hitting 4 walls overall whilst some letters are left untouched by anamorphosis and perfectly formed ('J' in the fire escape). The biggest letters without doubt are the 'A' and 'U' on opposing walls of the corridor around the 4 to 5 meter mark - "Anarchy" as Ed put it. The phrase we chose reads "it's more than just print". We chose this phrase for a number of different reasons. It's supposed to challenge what people consider to be conventional graphic design, working with flat 2D surfaces and designing business cards, posters etc. as well as being a comment on the process we used to create the piece. Below is a really rough video I took with my phone to give a bit more of an experience to the piece. Hopefully next week we will be recording it properly using a triangle frame and videocamera. It will be on show as part of the Chelsea Foundation Show from the 29th of May to the 3rd of June, which is completely free and should be great fun. For more info. go to 

http://www.chelsea.arts.ac.uk/summershows2010.htm

Anamorphic Typography

So over the past month I have not posted anything on my blog. This is because I have been busy working on my Final Major Project which started just over 6 weeks ago and still has another two weeks to run before being marked and presented at our final exhibition. I am doing a collaborative project with my friend Hunter Thomson based around anamorphic typography which happened totally by chance as we found out we were exploring exactly the same thing since returning from easter holidays. My original project title was based around the relationship between architecture and graphic design and Hunters was around typography and shape. I am confident that we can both answer our self initiated briefs within this project whilst creating some amazing and interesting work around Chelsea. The photos above are a test piece completed last week in the Fashion studio. I have a hundred more photos of this piece taking shape but I think it's more intriguing to show the finished piece and leave you to decide how we did it.

two of four (the ringing in my ears)

So here is the second instalment of my four book works as promised. This was made in response to a project titled "three extraordinary books" (nothing extraordinary about the title) and we were given a number of words to base our books around. This book came closest to 'a book of multiples' which was only the means to an end as I had wanted to make this book for a little over 2 years now.

The title of this book is called 'The ringing in my ears', essentially it is my gig-ography from around 2004 to present containing tickets from a good percentage of every gig I have ever been to along with a few other mementos. 

This book is made solely out of materials sourced from those concerts I have attended and represents hundreds of pocket money pounds, days of waiting in line, meeting the band, litre of sweat and thrown pints, ten pairs of ruined trainers, three bruised ribs, many hoarse throats, my endless love for music and the ringing in my ears at the end of every night. 

The covers are made using set-lists from different bands woven together, the covers are held as one by a strip cut from one of my first gig t-shirts. Each page is a gig ticket or memento from a gig, torn setlist, signed stuff and maps, travel tickets etc. The pages are bound using two festival wristbands (Reading 09 and Underage 08). This book is one of my favourite pieces of work I have produced this year and hopefully one that I will keep forever. 

Laugh and you know you're a graphic designer

I Met The Walrus

For anyone with a Beatles obsession or a fascination with illustration and animation. In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack. This video blows me away on so many different levels every time I watch it and I now think is possibly one of my favourite videos on youtube.

Too many typefaces

Above is a picture I found whilst trawling through files from my old hard drive last night sent to me from a relative in Ireland a good couple of years ago. I didn't read it properly at first and thought that my family may have been involved in the whisky distillery business but it turn's out they only bottled and sold it via their grocery business in County Trim. Pretty Cool.

one of four

One of four books I have made over the past 3 months in response to a number of different project briefs. This was made as an offshoot to a typography project where we had to produce two typographic works based on two overheard phrases.

Based around the idea that everything is connected in the form of language and how this idea is typified by a book being both physically bound together and being a single entity created by the author for the specific purpose of being read as one work.

Drive well, sleep carefully

 

As part of a self reflective journal task set for the start of our Final.Major.Project we were told to use images to illustrate our feelings about a set number of words. This is my chosen image for photography. My cameraphone is without doubt the most useful thing I own as a creative person in helping me record thoughts, ideas and anything that inspires me. I just really like this image I guess.

It's all for a good cause

 

  

Here is some work I have been doing recently about using temporary tattoo's to promote organ donation. This whole idea came from a brief set by Leeds College of Art & Design to create 4 seperate works out of 4 awful word art images in an attempt by them to try and whittle down applicants for portfolio review - one of these was a heart. These two images are now the first pages of my portfolio.

I still have some of the tattoos left for anyone who wants one.

Here's the link in the poster if anyone is actually interested in becoming an organ donor:

http://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/ukt/Consent.do

I like your type

Above is a new the typeface that I have been working on lately and which will be making an appearance in my portfolio. To go with this typeface my personal tutor suggested that I find a quote and write it in my newly created font to enhance and embody the idea and inspiration behind the typeface. The quote I have decided on is this:

"Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of Marking" Ellen Lupton

Below is the link to a website which is the companion to Ellen Lupton's 2004 book titled 'Thinking with Type' - it is a truly fantastic website for anyone interested in typography, extremely helpful as well as being interesting and fun at the same time. Thinking with type is on my list of books I need to own. My favourite part of the website is the fontographic dating game, check it out.

http://www.papress.com/thinkingwithtype/index.htm

You still have that Norwich mentality don't you?

Here are a couple of things that I need to remember:

A combination of old magazine article and conversations today about birthday presents has made me post these two new Lego sets which are part of the new Frank Lloyd Wright Collection which was released in 2009. Recreating the Guggenheim and Falling water in tiny plastic bricks has me quite sadly salivating at the mouth at the prospect of building. Possibly one of the world's greatest and timeless toys combined with the works of one of the greatest architects of the 20th century? Certainly an object of desire.

Be My Valentine?

Flying Kites with MI5

Turns out spending an hour trying to fly a kite in central London had no relevance to my final work for my Stingray project at all. But it was an awful lot of fun if not quite 100% successful. Well done to Francesca Pecqueur for the photos.

My current project which is to try and graphically represent one aspect of an animal (mine is a stingray) and has been getting at me for the last 2 weeks. I had almost no solid ideas until today when after spending 2 hours on google I discovered the perfect thing. Hopefully will make some headway tomorrow and over the weekend to maybe post it up on Monday when it is due.

a day in the life of a charity street worker

I must admit that I am one of those people who never stops when approached by a charity street worker. I usually smile, keep walking, headphones in and mumble something at an inaudible volume along the lines of "I'm late for work" or "I have no time, sorry".

However after my experience today I can honestly say (hand on heart) that unless I AM late for work or some other important event then I will stop and talk to them for a second. Even if I don't give any money, it's just a nice thing to do.

Today I spent approximately 3 hours stood just outside the gates of The British Museum with Will (right) and Myles (left) trying to get people to guess the value of a nice earthenware vase which we were given for our weekend project on Friday. Our brief said we were to take our objects and use our skills as graphic designers to try and increase their value in some way. My idea was to approach people and ask them to guess the value of the vase after being told a little of its history and after letting them hold it in their hands with whichever person is closest to the real estimated value being the winner. For each guess we asked for a small donation of around 50p which we are going to donate to a Haiti related Charity. It was a day of highs and lows, we almost jacked it in after 20 minutes because no-one wanted to know but eventually we talked to some very nice people and in total we collected £30.15 and 4 US cents.

The picture above is of Will, Myles and Walter, a country hopping Australian traveller who came out with easily the quote of the day and summed up our feelings perfectly.

"It's a sunday, of course I have time"

We were also impressed (but also slightly scared) by his beard.

Tomorrow we are going to try at Chelsea and see how much we get.....presenting at 2pm

I stand on the edge of escalator steps to feel like I'm pushing them back into the floor

Here are some photos from a recent trip to the V&A and it's current Decode exhibition. Quite easily the best £4 I've spent in a while, every single exhibit was either very interesting or amazing fun. Highly recommended if you have a spare afternoon.

2010 New Years Resolutions

1. Take more photographs

2. Read many more books

3. Play my guitar more

4. GET BUFF