BOOKS & BOOKS & BOOKS...

Plenty of reading to do over the summer, not sure when I'll get time to actually sit down and plough through them, but I'll hopefully review the best ones in a couple of months...

RIGHT YOU ARE.



Inspired by the Camberwell Summer Show 2008 signage I've just completed I put this together to celebrate all the arrows used (and a couple more to fill it out!). Plans are afoot for a possible screenprint project, watch this space or email me so that I might actually get round to doing it.

Signage and Map for Camberwell College of Art Summer Show

Using Love's template (see previous Post), I came up with the idea of using a different arrow for each sign, a bit like they did for each piece of print. It started with about ten arrows that would be reused for all the different directions, but, never content with making my life easy, I decided to use different arrows for every sign (about 70 in all!). Suffice to say I've now got quite a collection. I look forward to seeing them around college and will return with photos in due course. I hope no one gets lost!!

Here is the Map (top left) and a selection of the signs.

Signage and map for Camberwell College of Art Summer Show

I've been asked to produce the signage and map for the Camberwell College of Art Summer Show 2008. Here are several examples of the print that has been done by Love in Manchester (www.lovecreative.com) for all the University of Arts London End of Year Shows that I have to follow, featuring a distinctive Red, White and Blue / Futura meets random typefaces scheme.

Cowburn Stickers

The blog!

Produced for a Credentials Brief at college to self-promote ourselves to potential employers in order to gain a summer placement and generally get work "out there".
Screen-printed on crack-back, you might see them around The Big Smoke or even be lucky enough to have received one.

Creative Camberwell Launch Programme and Flyer

In collaboration with Adam Barclay and Andy Ainger, these pieces were produced for the Launch Party for a new arts organisation in Camberwell which can be explained as follows:

Creative Camberwell is a network of artists, community organisations and businesses who want to promote Camberwell as creative hub with a distinctive and diverse character, full of creative potential. We aim to support network members to connect and form fresh relationships.

Creative Camberwell will actively promote the value of arts and culture in the local area and its potential to improve and shape the place in which we work and live. Whether you are an independent artist, trader, community project or larger organisation, we welcome your contributions.

We were required to put forward a pitch for an identity prior to the print work and this incorporated a "3D double C" next to Avant Garde typeface. The original colour-scheme was a lot more muted than but during discussions with the client it was felt that something much bolder and eye-catching was required, hence the CMYK scheme! The event was very successful and friend Asha picked up a flyer, not releasing I'd done it and said "her eyes were drawn to it" (hopefully in a good way!)

For more on Creative Camberwell's work, go to: www.creativecamberwell.net

Great British Humour Posters

Beginning life as a College Brief to create a series of "Typography only" posters for a campaign to advertise a new UKTV channel featuring the only the best in classic British comedies called "UKTV Gags". The focus was on the sarcastic, dark, daring, surreal and ridiculous sense of humour that gave us the likes on Spike Milligan, Tony Hancock, Chris Morris and The League of Gentlemen.
Inspired by British WWII and Transport Posters, I used a suitable weight of Gill Sans together with pastel shades reminiscent of seasides and cake shops (I sound like an Innocent Smoothie voice over!) The final posters were a play on old proverbs and also the shows they advertised:

Pleased with how they came out I have decided to produce some limited edition screen-prints of them under the Title: "A Beginner's Guide to Great British Humour Nos 1-4". I hope to get these done soon, watch this space.

AIRE - MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, LEEDS

College brief set by Moving Brands, we were asked to create an identity for a fictional new modern art gallery in Leeds. Working in teams , we based our identity on geographical paths and contours (hence the name Aire, after the River Aire running through Leeds City Centre).


Brand guidelines were developed using the various contour shapes of the logo together with a series of colours indicating Depth.


These guidelines also allowed for the creation of posters and leaflets:


With hindsight, there is far too much going on and it has taught me to distill my ideas to the most successful rather than try and crowbar ever single idea in to one!

Repositioning Pie N Mash

This a project from the back end of last year...



The brief was to create a route for the repositioning of so-called “un-cool” products. These ranged from Full English Breakfast and Tea to Port, Real Ale and Liebfraumilch. We were not given a choice as to which we would deal with. We were required to produce a series of integrated campaigns incorporating Print, 3D, Sequence and Interactive.
What followed was an intense period of knees-ups, rhyming slang and an expanded waistline. This led to my Cockney Party route, resulting out of the fact that Pie ‘n’ Mash is primarily a very traditional, working class, East End only meal.
A conversation with fellow students led me to utter, “Pie ‘n’ Mash is Cockney only food. It’s theirs, not yours. You can’t have it!”
This defence of Pie ‘n’ Mash from the non-Cockney hoards provided me with the perfect angle for the product’s repositioning and led to the development of The Cockney Party, standing proud and alone in championing Pie ‘n’ Mash as strictly Cockney only nosh.
The campaigns have been developed to make consumers wonder whether the party could actually be genuine using a strong political-style visual identity. The poster/print campaigns should be subtle enough for the viewer to question this and search out more information on the party themselves. Subsequently, interactive aspects such as the party website would continue the prettence, just like this document did when you first glanced (hopefully).
I wanted people to be emotionally involved with the campaigns and viciously opposed to the values the part stand for, without them being too aggressive or fascist. The use of red, white and black together with Gill Sans (in various guises) is a nod to the Nazis, Barbara Kruger and The Sun, while Rockwell provides a strong serif alternative. However, it is important that the good name of the Cockney is not sullied or tainted with the Nazi brush. The best way to avoid this is through the subtle use of humour, whether it be the cab livery or Party Political Broadcast TV spot.
As roll-out occurs, a guerilla opposition, “Pie ‘n’ Mash 4 All Coalition” would begin with a much more gritty, homemade visual identity - on bill posters, stickers, viral calls to ‘Join the Resistance’ and real-life demonstrations.

End of Year 1

I've been pretty slack in keeping this updated having had to deal with stresses and strains of the final few weeks of the year, including an Industry Report on Durability, a 'Typography only' Poster campaign for a TV channel and my own screen-printed sticker campaign. I'll be uploading all this stuff over the next few days as I'm in the process of getting my portfolio sorted for work placement interviews.

Also, I'm going to be sharing various other things I've found on the web as well as some freelance/self-initiated bits and bobs I've been working on.

Stay Tuned.