Photography - Drunken Night In

Really proud of these pictures especially as I was quite tipsy while taking them.

Film - Orson Welles - F For Fake

This short monolouge from the one of Orson Welles last films 'F For Fake' is one of the most moving sequences I've ever seen. The whole film is an essay of sorts on the subject of authorship and fakery. I know it sound extremely boring but it's actually an extremely fun film, the whole thing is bursting with imagination and I would consider a must watch for any film fan.

Maybe a mans name doesn't matter that much...

Poster - ART HOLE

A couple of my friends have got an exhibition on next week and I did a really simple poster for them. They just wanted some text at the bottom with a basic logo really small, the mass of negative space was quite effective and also left space for them to do their thing with it.

They went and personalised them and added some brilliant proposals to them, been seeing them all around uni today and they're all really funny.

Image & Sequence - Idea Development 3

Just some sketchbook work developing my Feline Bike into a 9 frame presentation. After speaking to tutors it seems that I'm going in the wrong direction. It's kind of frustrating because I just want to go out and make a cool video with this thing but it seems like they want me to be less imaginative with my premise and plan loads of really cool shots to make the a boring story interesting. Which I suppose makes sense but when I've got something I really like that I really want to run with it's kind of a kick in the balls.

Image & Sequence - Research - Cat Behaviour

Finally a legitimate reason to spend all night watching cat videos! I'm thinking I might take one of Maru's video's and try and recreate it using my 'feline bike' then every movement can be based on a real cat's movement and the whole thing will feel a lot more realistic. This video is especially useful as the movements of the cat seem a bit bike like.

Image & Sequence - Idea Development 2

while talking to Kieren about my idea he suggested that instead of giving the bikes human characteristics why not just give them cat characteristics? I bloody love that idea! Also instead of doing it illustratively I'm going to try and build a 'feline bike' and photograph it. So it look like it's a day in the workshop for me tomorrow!

Image & Sequence - Idea Development

Some quick sketches and idea generating. My first idea was to do a quite Chris Ware like comic strip where for the first 3 panels the can falls then he interacts with the bike by grabbing hold of the wheel that would be represented as a frame then someone rides it and he falls off and dies. Then I moved on to possibly humanising the bikes and having a family of them that would have lost their cat.
I did a quick storyboard of where i could possibly go with with my bike family idea.

Photography - Kathryn

The other night I was sitting with my girlfriend as she learnt some songs on the guitar and the light from the laptop on her face was really beautiful so I thought I'd get my camera out and take some photos and I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.

Image & Sequence - Exercise

Today we got set a new brief to create a sequence with two unrelated objects. My objects were a cat and a bike. As a little task to get us started we had to do 5 quick storyboards using 9 frames in each. In the order they are in the picture about they were:

• Zoom away from the object and reveal it's surroundings
• Transform one of your objects into the other
• Show one of your objects in use
• Show that use from the objects perspective
• Make a short narrative where your two objects meet

It was great fun doing and my two objects ended up working quite well together in these stories, I especially enjoyed the transformation one. I found it liberating not worrying too much about how good the drawings actually were and focusing more on what was actually meant to be happening.

(click image to view in full screen)

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Exclamation Point

An exclamation point is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume, and often marks the end of a sentence. As I'm prety sure everyone know's what an exclamation point is i feel this one can be pretty simple.

!

My main idea for this one is to create a little comic strip where the frames would form the shape of the exclamation point on one page and in the each frame would be a couple arguing about the proper use of exclamation points.

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Parentheses

Parentheses sometimes called round brackets, curved brackets, oval brackets, or just brackets contain material that could be omitted without destroying or altering the meaning of a sentence. They may be used in formal writing to add supplementary information.

( )

As far as ideas go for parenthesis the first thing that popped into my head was the cover for the Parenthetical Girls record (((GRRRLS)))

I really like the imagery used and thought that a nice play on the term with that simple illustrative style would be to have the couple then to the side in parentheses another women so she's like the after thought, the supplementary piece of information.

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Quotation Marks

Quotation Marks are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, a phrase, or a word.

" ' ' "

This is another term I'm struggling with. I can't really think of any interesting way to illustrate them clearly. Possibly having it so there's a selection of quotes some of them true and some of them false and the quotes that are false would be using the wrong type of quotation mark. Don't really think that's strong enough definitely need to think about this one more...

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Ellipsis

I kind of feel like I've lost track of myself a bit lately. Spent far to much time going through my book collection and just writing about all the things I like about them and less time actually thinking about these terms and the spreads. So time for some serious research. First up ellipsis.

. . .

A ellipsis is a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word or a phrase from the original text. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence.

I'm kind of stuck with this one. Can't really come up with any ideas that seem interesting. I was trying to think of things that come in threes that could be used to represent elipsis. Not relly sure though. Also quite like the idea of maybe using the elipsis to omit important parts of text to give the text that would normal be taken out with an elipsis a go. I'm not really sure though none of these seem like strong ideas...

Exhibition - Hvass&Hannibal Lossing The Plot at Kemistry

I've been a huge fan of the Nan Na Hvass and Sofie Hannibal's work since seeing their cover for Efteklang's album Parades. It was love at first site. Their use of colour is mesmerising and the amount of detail in that record cover is staggering. After researching them more they become some of my favourite designers. So when I found out they had a show on at Kemistry I had to get down there. The show titled 'Losing The Plot' is 'Inspired by the sorting of random data sources' It's a selection of wooden sculptures and silkscreen prints.

The most interesting pieces I found where the topographical studies. The one pictured about named 'Topographic Reflection' draws you in with it's pastel colours but as you look at it closer you realise those colours are actually reflections of colours panted on the other side, it's a really clever visual illusion that is mesmerizing. Overall it's just a very interesting exhibition in a lovely space.

(images from Creative Review)

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Magazines

As I have to design a double page spread I thought it was about time I broke into the huge pile of magazines that is my room. I kind of have a think about well designed magazines so had a pretty good idea where to start.

Monocle. It's easily my favourite magazine, they rely very heavily on a strong grid that is consistent throughout the whole magazine. It's a very classy publication and the design represents that perfectly, there's no unnecessary bits, it's elegant and informative but still fun and playful, kind of like the magazine equivalent of muji products.

Taking quite a diferent direction to monocle is the quite illustrative Little White Lies which is a really fun and cluttered magazine. Granted I have just realised that the one example I decided to use is one that is very monocle like and organised. But it's how they let the images completely dominate the actual body of tet that I liked about that.

Another example of exceptional magazine design is WIRED, although overall it can actually be a bit shoddy as they throw consistency in the bin for something that's really all over the place and scatterbrained, which kind of fits its content. But it's worth it when you get to their features which are designed in such imaginative ways they are guaranteed to blow your mind. Unfortunately I couldn't find the example I was looking for, which is an article about somali pirates designed by illustrator Siggi Eggertsson, but this one from a couple of months back gets across the point. What I love most about WIRED is that there is no expenses spared on the quality, they could have just used normal ink for the silver part but no it's special fluoro ink that shines and shimmers.

Drawing - Kathryn

It's quite the rare occasion when I draw something that I actually like. This drawing of my girlfriend is one of those rare occasions. I think my liking of it might have smething to do with the fact I drew this with a 0.38 muji pen instead of the 0.5 which I normally used, they make a lot nicer scratchier marks and dont blotch as easily as the 0.5's. Think I'm going to have to invest in some 0.38's and see if my drawing gets any better.

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Douglas Coupland

Here's another book that I rediscovered while sifting through my shelves for research. Douglas Couplands Microserfs, I remember seeing this in a book shop and just knowing I had to have it. I'd never heard of Douglas before but the cover was beautiful. It's part of series of 4 of Douglas' books put out by Harper Collins with the same cover designs, unfortunately i haven't been able to find out who actually designed them though. I love the simplicity of it, There's nothing that isn't necessary, big bold simple type, beautiful photograph and a pink sidebar that frames it all perfectly and make the image for me.

Inside the book is just as good. The whole novel is interspersed with these pages of random words. The words are set all over the place in a seemingly random way, as if a word document has corrupted and thrown all the type out of place. It works really well in giving you a breather from the novel, it's not very often you see such negative space in book and seems like a really brave move on Douglas' part.

If we were machines, we'd have the gift of being eternal and I want you to understand

Typographic Terminologies - Research - We Are The Friction

Came across this book again while doing my layout research. The cover of the book is a perfect example of extremely well considered design. It’s so hard to pull off a perfect blend of busyness and minimalism that they’ve managed to capture. There’s uite a few different typefaces and overall the whole thing should be a mess but some how they’ve managed to reign it in and make it something that works exquisitely well, I think it’s the colour scheme that does it (and obviously a very talented designer)

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Comic Books

Thinking about layouts I cant help but always go back to comic books. There’s just something about them that never fails to excite me.

Looking at Daniel Clowes work I’m always struck by how well he does headers. This heading to the short strip ‘Art School Confidential’ is really great. I love how it almost has the feeling of being an exposé, it’s set out like a newspaper article but with comic book panels instead of a block of text.

Another comic book artist who has a great grasp on interesting layout is author of Black Hole, Charles Burns. This page is a brilliant example of how really interesting layout can draw you even furthur into the minds of the characters being portrayed. The four panels of a connected spiral really gives you the feeling of 'Tumbling into nothingness' with its intricate cut up layout that actually seems to be moving.

Lastly I couldn’t not include Paul Hornscemeir’s The Tree Paradoxes. I adore it's title page layout. The way it’s presented as a crop from a page of a comic book is really effective and it instantly lets you know that you’re not in for your average comic book presentation, the whole book is presented in many different comic styles with unfinished pencil sketches, halftone colouring, solid colouring and a section presented like an old used comic book. This is definitely an idea that I would like to explore with my double page spreads. Drawing out a whole comic would be way to time consuming but producing something similar to this would be easier and probably just as effective.

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Chris Ware

When looking at interesting layouts and obviously the first person I thought about was Chris Ware, he is the master of meticulously thought out layouts. In his comics he refuses to let you become confortable and is constantly making you reassess the way you read his books so that you’re constantly on your toes and ready to process his beautifully sad stories. Just look at the imagine above it’s the climax of Jimmy Corrigan and he refuses to just hand it to you, you have to work for it, It’s so rewarding when you finally figure out what’s going on, It’s purposefully dense and I bloody love that.

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Workshop

To help us get a feeling for how to properly use type we had a workshop day at the beginning of the project First laying out a single word to get even spacing and then laying out a block of text in an appropriate way for an invitation (pictured above) I found the whole exercise quite fun and it did really give you a sense of how typography works in reality that you just can't get while using a computer.

Typographic Terminologies - Research - Presentation

I got set a new project earlier this week to design 4 double page spreads describing typographic terms to illustrators. It’s a really fun brief that seems like it could be really fun. As an excersise we had to pick two pieces that we thought had an interesting layout and present them and explain what we like about them. There’s a page from Jimmy Corrigan and a Creative Review cover. As a display they both work really nice; complimenting each other, they both rely heavily on a grid, they have very similar colour schemes and both have a very detailed and considered use of typography. I wish I could say it was planned to be like that, but it was just a big coincidence It just goes to show how sometimes not over-thinking thing’s really is the best way to go.

New Blog!

So I've decided to set up a new blog dedicated purely to work. This is going to my digital sketchbook, I really don't work well in actual sketchbooks so instead this is my place to store all research, development and final pieces from university projects and such like. I'm still going to be using my tumblr for personal stuff and lovely design I find that's unrelated to my work, but tumblr really isn't that good at documenting work so thought it was about time I jumped back on the blogger bandwagon. It's been a while so I'm a bit rusty but hopefully I'll get back in the groove again quickly.

Just to start off with something nice here's a spectacular video by The Most Serene Republic (my blog is named after a different song of theirs so seems a fitting way to start)