The Boat

For the past week I have been working on a series of posters for the upcoming production of 'The Boat' by Laura Young. I decided to focus on the hidden emotions of the characters as this is essentially the key theme to the play. Every character has a secret which they are trying to mask (but is inevitably revealed throughout the performance) so I wanted the images to show the characters in one light, only for the viewer to understand their true emotions after going to see the play. Go ahead and see if you can guess what emotions I've asked the actors to give us a hint of, but ultimately disguise. 

I worked alongside Graphic Designer and Photographer Hugh Leoidsson on this project and he was a great help. Hugh not only took these fantastic photos but was also able to work to the quick deadline I set him and even take charge of the shoot. Unfortunately due to geographical inconvenience I wasn't able to be at the photo-shoot to Art Direct, but Hugh was very good and taking lead from my instructions and sketches depicting what I was after. I'm choosing to say I did Art Direct this but Hugh was the man to put it all together for me. Thank you Hugh for your fantastic work and help.

This project was difficult for me (I wont lie) as I tend to struggle with poster designs. I am however happy with the final results. I have noticed a couple of areas in my skills that I need to work thanks to this project, so in the future I think I will try to produce more posters. They may not be great at first but practice makes perfect.  

The Actors did a fantastic job capturing the emotions of their characters. 

This poster in particular freaked me out as the eyes followed me across the room lol.

Flatland Final

Flatland was a project I completed a while ago to help me obtain my MISTD (International Society for Typographic Designers) membership, however it's only been recently that I've decided to create a mock-up for my website. Let me tell you though, it has been no easy feet. Mocking up a project is usually fairly simple but the sheer size of the files for this project have caused Photoshop to give up on me many a time.

Anyway for those that don't know my Flatland project is a concertina folded book, hence its peculiar appearance in these layouts. Eventually a full description and layout of the project will be up on my site but in the meantime here is what I've managed to do. I still have a few small details to fix but hopefully it will be up this weekend.

Skint Music Festival

Another late entry from my portfolio. I'm honestly surprised I haven't put up anything about this project in the past but I'm assuming it was just down to it being a busy time in my life.

For this project I worked alongside an Advertising Student and good friend Sarah Knight. Together we were to produce a cost effective way to advertise an upcoming festival that would rival big name music festivals like T In The Park, Download, Leeds,  etc. The reason the promotional material had to be cost affective was because the festival itself is aimed at a low budget audience who haven't been able to afford going to festivals in the past.

One of the promos we decided to go with was this flier folded into a paper airplane. The idea being that  the fliers can be passed around to friends or in public cheaply and in an entertaining way (you know you'd pick up a paper airplane if you saw it on the ground. It's like, the law). 

  

Here's the flier flat for you to see. There isn't much information in the design as it's just meant to be attractive and lead the reader to the website where all the festivals information can be found.

Watermark Publication

It has only just dawned on me that I never uploaded the final layouts from the Watermark Newspaper for you all to see. So here you are, sorry for the delay.

Carlisle Allotment Society Identity

Dissertation Design

So I've finally been allowed back into my blogger account (don't ask because I don't know why... stupid google accounts) and thought I would show you the final article for my dissertation.  These are only a few quick shots, I'll be doing better ones at a later date.

The concept was to have a booklet that anyone could print from their home printers.  It's A5 in size, meaning each spread was printed on A4 paper.  To save printing hassle I chose to make it a rule that printing will only be done on one side of the sheet.  This creates an interesting flow throughout the layout.  Eventually I'll have the entire thing read for you all to download and print off your own copies.

I'll keep you posted.

Flatland

It's been a while since I've posted anything so I decided to finally upload photos of a brief I tackled several months back.  The project was to create a design for Edwin A. Abbott's book "Flatland".  The brief stated that the designer could choose to recreate parts of the story anyway they saw fit; I chose to redesign the format of the book.


You know what?  I was going to give you a massive run through of what the story is about and why I chose to design it they way I have but instead I suggest you go read the book and let me know if my design works.  The book isn't a big seller and can be found on the internet for free (I bought my own copy because I'm sad and like books).


My design only covers three chapters of the whole book, so you can imagine just how big the project would be if I was to do the whole thing lol.


I would just like to take this opportunity to thank all my models and photographer for their help during a dark time in my life (the completion of this project).


Gary Nicholson (http://munchypotato.blogspot.com/) 
Abi Dowler (http://www.madebyabi.co.uk/) 
Hannah Guthrie (http://www.hannah-guthrie.com/) 
Hugh Leoidsson (http://leoidsson.com/) 
Leanne Swift (http://www.leanneswift.co.uk/) 
Alex McIntosh (http://www.alexmcintosh.co.uk/) 
James Lodge (http://www.jameslodge.co.uk/) 
and Finally Jim Millington (photography).  

Unraveled

p.s.  Just a quick mention on the quality of the print.  Unfortunately due to my lack of connections in the world this print was with university facilities and is therefore not amazing.  The design of my book would require a professional printing company (and apparently even they would find this a struggle... I'm a little proud of that lol).

Waterside... Done and dusted

The Final design of Waterside (the insert to accompany the Watermark publication).  Unfortunately due to the printing procedure the final piece had to be all in black and white, looks tasteful though, doesn't it?

Me and Leanne will most likely reprint the layouts in colour and on better quality paper.  If so I'll post the photos up for you all to see.

Sorry for the lame post... I'm ridiculously tired today.

Back and font pages

Inside spread

Hot off the press

Ok, so as some of you may remember myself and the wonderful Leanne Swift (http://www.leanneswift.co.uk/) were chosen by the University of Cumbria's journalist department to design their annual piece to accompany the 'Words by The Water' literature festival in Keswick.  We worked long and hard of the project and finally sent it off to print.  Little did we know there would be a stack of them waiting for us this morning.

This is the first piece either of us have ever put to print and we're extremely happy with the final result.  All day we have been getting compliments from staff, students and even the printing company themselves who claimed they don't normally get the luxury of printing a pieces in this style (I know I sound up myself right now but they really did say that lol).  Hopefully the paper will be a big success at the festival and encourage departments in the uni to work together on future projects.

Unfortunately I don't have photos of all the spreads yet but when I do they will be going up on my website.  None the less I hope you all enjoy it.  Let me know what you think please.

The beautiful stack that awaited us in reception.  We most likely looked like right fools drooling over a stack of paper and snapping photos like it was a celebrity on the red carpet lol.

An article spread (above) and the poetry page (below).

What Next Exhibition

 My most recently completed project was a quick brief set by my course leaders.  They presented our studio with the task of designing a poster for our end of year exhibition.  The brief was very open and with no restrictions.  The exhibition itself includes more than just the Graphic Design course and this was something we all had to bare in mind.

Unfortunatly I have to admit that the incredibly cool type face I'm using for the title of the exhibition is not one I designed myself.  I actually found it on Buro Destruct's type store http://www.typedifferent.com I recommend you all drop by their shop as some of their fonts (like the one I've used here) are completely free.

As well as designing the poster we had to create a mail-out/postcard to send of to specially selected invitees.  Underneath I have shown both the front and back to my design; the idea being that the lines from the type extend to create the background on the reverse side.

Our lecturers have yet to choose a finally design for the exhibition so fingers crossed my gets selected.  Either way these are only the screen mock ups.  When I get the chance I intend to print them off only some nicely selected paper and perhaps with a little spot varnishing and other fancy touches.  As soon as I do I'll post pics of them up for you all to see.

Please feel free to let me know what you think and if there are any weaknesses you feel I have missed and should amend before printing of some ace quality versions.