Badge Club

Thanks to the Badge Club for sticking my work up.

http://www.badgeclub.co.uk/

Nests

Some new work.

Meat Magazine - Birds and Beasts

I have some work featured in issue 8 of Meat Magazine this month. The fantastic team over there were kind enough to feature my illustrations not only in a double spread but also on the front cover as well. 

Here are some photos of the issue and launch party.

Brick

Just heard from the lovely people over at brick that they've featured me on their blog this morning.

Thanks guys!

http://www.thisisbrick.co.uk/

Fabric Poster

Fabric Saturday July

So, finally got hold of the poster. Considering there's so many of these things about it's amazing how hard they are to find.

Managed to stop by Fabric and grab a few. Only got the flyers though. I'll try and get the poster at some point or maybe even the digital file for reference.

Anyway, here they are. 

Unfortunately I didnt have much input into the design but it was a lot of fun getting involved in the process. Even if I did have to endure so much paint! 

It's great to think that this is part of the Fabric history and will be featured alongside all the other hundreds of posters from the last 10 years in an exhibition I have been helping with at the design museum next year.

Look out for them around London.

Sorry for the poor quality images.

Life as an intern...

Back at Village Green again. 

On and off with the fabric work. 

Its fun.

Dear Mr!

Promotional work for a comedy show playing up at the Edinburgh fringe festival. 

Central Saint Martins Degree Show

This was the first Graphic Design show that I had visited out of the UAL bunch and was very impressed. CSM have certainly set the bar very high. 

There was a lot of conceptual work on show and very well crafted pieces of work that you could really take your time over. It was, however clear that the show was a student show and although there were a few cases when the finish of work could have been just a tiny bit better, in general the design work was extremely well accomplished.

The illustration work really impressed me the most though. Whereas the design work was, in areas, not quite finished to a professional level, the illustration work was anything but. I had no problem picturing their work in a professional environment. Top notch.

Really interesting and thoughtful work by Steve Hickery. Bellow.

Other Great Work.....

Wimbledon Fine Art Degree Show

Took a trip to the deep south last night to check out the wimbledon fine art show.

There was some great work and it was refreshing to see something other than graphic design. I definitely noticed some cross overs with illustration though and I did spot a few things that wouldn't have looked out of place at an LCC show. 

It would be great to collaborate with a fine artist in some future projects as the line dividing the disciplines seems to be bluring more and more. 

Stand out work for me was Ben Webb's performance work - continuous drum roll. 

The piece centered around a single drummer dressed in black, entering a room and playing a snare drum for fifteen minutes before leaving.  The work aims to explore sound, space and environment and how we are made to feel in different situations/spaces.

http://benjohnwebb.com

 

Other nice stuff...

Village Green

Just finished interning with Village Green Studio. 

Sad to leave to be honest, I've really enjoyed my time there and they've let me work on some great stuff. 

Photos bellow are part of the Fabric Poster archive I was working on and the Photo shoot for July's Fabric Poster that involved covering my head with an awful lot of paint. Cant show you the final result yet but when it's out I'll try and stick it up here.

Mailouts

Over the last few weeks I've been sending out tailored posters and CVs to design studios who's work I really admire and I'm pleased to say that I've had some great feedback with several studios being kind enough to offer me placements over the summer months.

I now have a much firmer idea of what I want to be involved with and I cant wait to get stuck back in working in a Graphic Design Studio.

New site

New website is now up and running which is a big relief. It's been hard work but Im really happy with it. There's more work on there and I feel that it's much easier to navigate. A definite leap forward from the previous site which was far too fussy. 

Massive thanks to Tom Flavelle for all his genius programming skills.

Dixon Baxi

Dixon Baxi invited me over this morning for an interview which was cool. It was great to show my portfolio again and get back into the swing of self promotion. The last interview I had was at Mother which seems a very long time ago. 

Anyway, the interview was super low key which was nice and seemed to go really well. I chatted to Gareth who was very down to earth and friendly (is there any other type of designer?!). 

What they offered sounded really interesting and Im positive I could learn a huge amount working with them. 

An opportunity that I'm sure I will take up in the coming months.

Power in Numbers pt.2

I think the image was too big in the previous post so here it is again slightly lower res.

Power in Numbers

Exhibition entry for Cure Studios edition show on brick lane.

Quite literal really.

London days...

Ive been MIA for a little while now. After CPB I took a trip to cornwall to get some fresh air, get my thoughts straight and sort out future plans. It was great spending time there. I managed to get 3 projects done which will hopefully put me in a strong position to get some great new internships. Fingers crossed.

Back in London now. Spent my first free day up here visiting all the exhibitions that I previously didn't have time for. I went down to the Tate Modern to check out the Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism then headed east for a look at the MWM show at Concrete Hermit, Japser Goodall at Electric Blue Gallery and a sneaky peak at the new London Police show over at Stolen Space. I also managed to swing by the newly finished WhiteChapel Gallery which is looking fantastic.

Overall some really great stuff. 

Kept me inspired.

Diesel ect

Doing some logo designs for Diesel's new charity "Only the Brave Foundation" which has been fun. I'll see how that goes shortly and I expect the ideas will be part of a spring cleaning session on my website.

Im coming to the end of my time with CPB and Im planning on taking some time out for a couple of weeks to focus on my own work and push for internships with some of my favorite design studios. The plan is definitely to try and end the year on the high that I initially started out on.

New work will be up in a couple of weeks.

Cosmic Goo prt 2

More or less finished illustrations for The Old Sweet Shop Gallery.

I expect I'll put them up properly on my site soon along with photos of their application.

The "Clean City

I am coming to the end of my first week with branding giant Coley Porter Bell and it seems all the doubts I started having have been eased due to an incredible presentation by employee Michael Canturi on the 2007 advertising ban in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Each year CPB runs an annual event called Blue Sky in which employees are asked to anonymously submit an idea for a destination they would love to travel to and what they would do there. The most inventive and interesting suggestion wins and the winner receives £2500 to help  send them on their way.

Michael was interested in the effects of the ban and what that had meant for the city and its occupants. The ban came into effect to due a massive influx of corrupt advertising that was littering virtually every available space in the city. Strict laws were put into place banning all billboards and public advertising. Signage on shop fronts was also effected as they were asked to reduce the size of their logos. While this often produced hilarious results with many shop owners simply cutting their sign in half, rendering it illegible, it also acted as a catalyst for incredible creativity with several larger brands in more wealthier areas not afraid to take on the challenge. Street art also flourished as it filled the empty space billboards had left behind.

There where a couple of downsides. The rundown areas of the city started to look even worse as there were no longer any huge billboards to cover up the mess. Residents of large tower blocks were no longer subsidized for having advertisements placed on the side of their flats thus increasing the city's poverty and no cleaning measures where taken once adverts were taken down, which in many cases made the space in question look worse.

On the whole though the new Law seemed to have a really positive effect on the city. Clean, well considered design now decorates the high streets as supposed to a multitude of in your face branding. The newly considered space seemed to created a more 'breathable' environment which resulted in a more relaxed atmosphere. Due to the popularity of the Law other cities such as Milan and Rio are considering a similar approach.

works and ideas...

I havnt updated my blog in ages so I thought I ought to get back into the swing of things. Im coming to the end of my 6 week internship at The Old Sweet Shop. Its been a great experience and Joe has been great in letting me push my own ideas and work. Ive done lots of drawing, some of which will be up on my website soon and there's some definite scope for pushing things further with my illustrations which is exciting. 

On the design side of things both myself and Joe have been getting really excited about about a process book we are collaborating on. Its been a real long haul but the end result should look fantastic. Its been a perfect opportunity for me to get stuck into photography, sculpture and illustration and then design a small publication around it. Fingers crossed it will be finished soon and I'll get images up on the site asap.

On Monday, I start a months internship with branding agency Coley Porter Bell. It'll be an interesting one as they're a massive agency who focus big time on the corporate side of design, so not necessarily my cup of tea but it should be a worth while experience and one which could well lead on to other things. 

Im also planning on kicking off some small projects. One for LA based band Hands, designing their album artwork and another for house producer Pheps, designing artwork for digital releases. Stay on the look out for all of this and fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

x

Secret Heart Exhibition

Secret Heart at The Old Sweet Shop premiered last night. Thanks too everyone that braved the cold for the Private View, it was lots of fun. I loved putting the show together so it was great to see so many of you enjoying it.

For more photos and information visit the old sweet shop blog

http://igaboo.blogs.com/theoldsweetshopblog/

 

Illustration for The Old Sweet Shop

The gallery being engulfed by some cosmic goo.

I'll add colour soon.

I Made You Nervous (in 1995)

Lucky Dragons
A weird and wonderful experimental, electronica duo from LA who I saw play at the Luminaire in Kilburn last night. They played sitting on the floor with the crowd gathered around them. Lovely images were projected on to the walls and home made instruments were very much a factor as they handed round these bizzare tubes to the audience which omitted a small electrical current that could be passed from person to person. As more people touched each other the music was changed. 

Really inspirational. 

Myspace.com/luckydragons

National Forest LA

From September through to December 2008 I lived in LA and interned with National Forest. A great little design studio started by Steven Harrington and Justin Krietemeyer. I had a fantastic time and learned a ton of great stuff. Check out their work here -www.Nationalforest.com. 

Also, take a look at steve and justin's personal sites - www.stevenharrington.com and www.justinkrietemeyer.com.

Meanwhile, heres a few photos of the studio and a couple of examples of the work I did - one of 3 illustrations for esquire and a catalogue for made goods.

.