So as the outside word resembles Hoth (snow beasts and everything) I've been taking the time to look back on some of my past work. Mainly that Cabe stuff. One of the posters I never really liked got left out in my posting of lots of work. Really there where a lot of things that where visually wrong to me, probably any person could walk past it and see that it
looks fine but my own sense of male tinkering came into play and made it better.
It was origonally the token landscape poster you sort of have to come up with to express how your design works in another format. Well something I like to try and do anyway. To cut a long story short, it didn't feel right. So after some careful editing I was able to put this together and the result feels a lot more confident. Though that said I am tempted to totally rebuild the posters from the ground up, they are still lacking that something. Still, we'll find out what it is and if it will get changed after Christmas.
Second, on the list of updates is a fun T-shirt design. I love t-shirt designs, with places like Snorg Tees and Truffle shuffle (places I spend faaar too much time on) you get to see such nerdy and cleaver humor. It's great expressive stuff to look at, and they get the wheels turning on coming up with my own ideas.
For the Student review nights we always have to wear T-shirts with a quote about something we have learnt. Actually I did learn more things about myself this year than I suppose I have done about graphic design. Apparently;
- I will try any idea once no matter how crazy it is. ( it's only related to graphics, don't go there...)
- Have enthusiasm for the most mad ideas. (Still in graphics.)
- I am the go-to guy for the nerdy/photoshop stuff in the class. (This I can't deny really.)
Anyway, t-shirt. The rules are simple, what we learnt and it mainly has to be typographic. Easy as Pi. I borrowed a page from Carson's book, only because I like the extreme silliness of the idea of writing an entire article in a magazine in dingbats. The quote, "Have fun once in a while" (lovingly typed in Helvetica) is really exactly what is says on the tin/t-shirt. Sometimes graphic designers can get a little stale and repetitive, sort of like what happened at Long Lunch with David Finch (more on that story later). But my supposed above mentioned qualities just give me that little edge that I think will hopefully stop me from becoming one of those tired designers of the now that loose their creative play.
3. (Golly gee-whatever this is a long post) Tattoo design.
A few weeks ago before the ground became cold icy and hard we got a brief for a tattoo design. The specifics?
- Must be typographic
- Must be discreet
- Must use the whole quote
Aside from that we got to have some fun with the idea. The quote was "We are the music makes and we are the dreamers of dreams." Most of you know if from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory. However others know it comes from the poem Ode Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy. I'll save you all the copy paste of the poem since it's only that one line we are looking at.
But here is the near final design of the tattoo.
In theory that should work. A small contest will be held on the night of the review, and the winner? Well we have a guest attending the review that night, a bit of a tattoo buff, apparently he selects the winner and gets it as a tattoo himself. Fun times.
Personally I am not of the people that enjoy tattoos, (needles urk) I don't mind getting them, but I draw the line at getting sharp pointing things jabbed in me for the sake of art.
And the final word of the night since this post has been going on so long, I try to keep them short but so much has been happening I'm finding it hard to keep it short!
A little while ago I went to see one David Fitch at a Long Lunch, the so called Godfather of design was there, the creator of the iconic Top Shop, the man who's teams worked on branding Innocent Smoothies aaaand....it wasn't about that.
To be honest, the lecture was dry....very dry. It was all mildly interesting things, but when you start delving into the phycology of shopping dating back to medieval Germany you've lost me. It was a little like going to the Louve and instead of looking at the Mona Lisa instead you go look at the tacky brochures for the local history tour. There was also a lot of talk about the stock market...and I mean a lot.
So I will admit a little bit of a let down, the highlight was admittedly finding out who designed Top Shop, which was a mildly interesting story about it being the first of it's kind in design/fashion/construction. But it was one of fewer highlights. If you where there and can argue differently, fire away but really it wasn't for me.
So I think that wraps up this post, it's a long one but I think we all survived. Hopefully I can now get on with our new brief. Boost Energy Drinks. I'll let you know how that one turns out. Until folks, laters!
