FMP - Idea Development - Layout Sketches

Just some quick sketches trying to visualize layout and typefaces using the quotes from the apollo 11 transcript.

FMP - Research - Apolo 11 Onboard Voice Transcript

While desperately searching around yesterday for some scrap of inspiration I cam across this beauty on the NASA website. It's a transcript from the onboard recorder of apollo 11. After reading through some of it I realised that there were some brilliant quotes in there that I could draw from.The way I want to go about interpreting these little quotes is by creating a series of large posters that tell the narrative of apollo 11 through these transcribed quotes. I want to try and stay away from the obvious as much as possible and focus on the moments where the astronauts can be seen as just an average joe.

Typographic Workshop - Idea Development

Alongside FMP work this week we got set a typographic workshop in groups. We were put in groups and se the task of creating a typeface inspired by a given object. Our object was a coat hanger. We took elements of the coat hanger and considered them when creating our typeface. The coat hanger was very symmetrical but the 2 holes to screw it up where on an angle s we decided our typeface should be italicised to get across this design feature. It's not completely finnished but we're really happy with it, just need to work out some kinks in some of the letters, especially X, Y and Z, but overall it's looking really promising.

FMP - Idea Development - Why Has The Moon Become a Thing of Science Fiction Poster

I've been a bit lackluster about keeping a record of how my FMP is going, mainly because it's been going really pretty shit. I've finally managed to pick up a lead and run with it but I suppose I should get the shit idea documented and out of the way first. My plans for this poster about was to screen print it just as a statement. But I was not 100% behind it, it's really dry and boring and doesn't in anyway ignite a sense of excitement. So I just decided to scrap it.

Event - Solipsistic Pop 2 Lauch Party

Solipsistic Pop is a biannual anthology of british comic art and they had the launch of their second issue last night. It was a really fun night with some brilliant little segments of stand up from Robin Ince and some good music, the band Dogtanion who I have never heard of before were especially good. Also there was the excitement of getting my hands on the new book. It's a really lovely designed book that you can tell has been extremely well considered, the paper stock and smell is just beautiful. I haven't really got round to giving it a proper read yet but just from leafing through I saw there were strips from some of my favourite comic artsits like Marc Ellerby and Lizz Lunney.

Film - Toy Story 3 Viral

Why a film like Toy Story 3 needs viral advertising is beyond me... but when the outcome is this cool I can't complain. This is a commercial for 'Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear who is one of the new characters created for Toy Story 3, I really hope there's some more of these for the other new characters in the pipeline.

Poster - Value Your Worthlessness

I was just reading a book about Chris Ware in research for an essay I'm writing and I found this beautiful little quote from him 'Value Your Worthlessness' which I just had to turn into a little poster to put on my wall, it's a bit shoddy but I'm actually quite pleased with it. The image I used is from the flickr commons (my favourite place at the moment) and is of a car crash that happened in the 1910's in central park.

Books - Unknown Portraits

Los Angeles based illustrators Kozyndan have been on my list of favourites for quite a while and I've been after their book 'Unknown Portraits' for a while, so when I found it in Magma for a tenner I could not resist. It

Exhibition - Pick Me Up at Somerset House

Pick Me Up was easily the most exciting use of an exhibition space I've seen in a long while. The entire embankment gallery at Somerset House has been turned into a graphic art fair. Rob Ryan has moved his studio into the exhibition space, Print Club London have created a print room with dfferent artists screen printing there every day, Concrete Hermit have set up shop in another room, It's Nice That have a cinema of their favourite moving image pieces set up. I think I spent about 3 hours there in whole there is just so much to do and look at and buy...

Exhibition - Life In 2050 at Proud Central

Life in 2050 is an exhibition of work based around the theme of what the world will be like in 2050, it has been created for the London Sci-Fi festival by design studio Transmission. I know the moment sci-fi and art are brought into the same circle certain things are brought to mind that aren't necessarily good but this exhibition goes to prove that not all sci-fi art has to be horribly cliched. There was some really fun and playful work on show. My favourite piece was this silkscreen of an imagined magazine cover from 2050 by Graham Carter other highlights were the works of Ivan Jones and Tom Gallant who both had brilliant pieces on show. The exhibition is open till 4th May and is completely free.

Stuff I Like - Infographic

Like anyone exposed to a lot of blogs the explosion of infographics over the last year or so is something hard to ignore, and well it's getting really diluted and boring now and this brilliant little infographic by Phil Gyford perfectly sums that feeling up.

(Click The Image to see the whole thing)

Film - Ralph Bakshi - Fritz The Cat

Fritz The Cat is a film based on the characters of comic artist Robert Crumb. It was the first animation to ever properly deal with adult subject matter. There is a LOT of violence and sex and it kind of makes south park look tame. I can kind of see why R. Crumb disowned it and wanted his name taken out of the credits, it's quite depressing really. But it has it's moments like this bit at the beginning where Fritz is trying to bed some ladies and spouts this brilliant monologue of typical college bullshit. There's also a great scene that I couldn't find on youtube where Fritz has a rant about the education system. Overall it's not the best film but was a good way to waste an afternoon.

This Bombardment Society - Blog - Final Layout

The This Bombardment Society blog is now open. Hopefully over the next couple of day it should be updated with some zines that we'll have at the Zine Symposium so keep an eye on it.

This Bombardment Society - Blog - Header

I just quickly mocked up some ideas for headers to use for the 'This Bombardment Society' blog. I used images from the flickr commons to create them.

Event - London Zine Symposium 2010 - We Got a Table!

We applied for a table at the London Zine Symposium a couple of week back and finally heard back from them yesterday and we got it! It's really exciting to be involved in this kind of thing. As there are a few of us going we've decided to come up with an umbrella name, 'This Bombardment Society' (a happy homage to rushmore) which I'm currently in the process of setting up a blog for.

Music - Stephen Malkmus - Baby C'mon

Stephen Malkmus "Baby C'mon" from A Bruntel on Vimeo.

Event - Twent For Harper Road - Zine Making Workshop

This evening me and my girlfriend popped down to Twenty For Harper Road, it's a temporary project space in Southwark sponsored by young tate that will be opened throughout April where workshops and the like are being help. We went along to the zine making workshop, it was loads of fun and got to meet some really nice people and look at some pretty sexy zines. I'm pretty pleased with the zine I made and will write a more comprehensive post when I'm not so tired. If you're interested there's plenty more events going down in the next couple of weeks, we plan to attend the Moustache Night next Friday.

For More info click here or here

FMP - Research - Film Title Screens

I found this amazing archive full of the title screen from all sorts of films ranging for the 20's all the way up to present day and decided that maybe looking at the style and typography of sci-fi film titles would be a good idea. While searching through the archive I noticed that pretty much after the 60's title screens became completely shit. There's such style and imagination in some of the typography used in the 40's and 50's then it's like the computer came along and everyone just gave up.

There are definitely some recurring themes in the titles of sci-fi movies, the typography tends to be coming at you rom sharp angle, or oozing, and is just brilliantly imposing. I'm especially a huge fan of all the black and white ones with moody black images overlaid with huge glowing text that is just screaming at you.

Couldn't resist posting some non sci-fi titles as well. the typography is just too good.

Film - David Sington - In The Shadow of the Moon

In The Shadow of The Moon is a documentary made in 2007 about the new who landed n the moon. It's a really brilliant and emotionally engaging documentary. This segment I've embedded above is what really blew me away. It's footage from the 5 successful Apollo missions to land after Apollo 11 which shows the moon up close and it's mind blowing. The whole film is on 4oD and it's well worth a watch.

FMP - Research - AVCO Print Ads

I've ben a bit slack with the FMP lately, but I'm getting back to it now. I found this brilliant flickr set of old Science & Technology print ads from the 50's & 60's and it's just full of beautifully designed ads. There's one company in particular who's ads really caught my eye and that's AVCO, they're some kind of aviations company and their ads have such a distinct style and sense of consistency in them. I love the imaginative use of lines in the images to help illustrate what the thing does, it's so simple but is so much more effective that the kind of photoshop wizardry that would be used to day. Also they're so simple and minimal there's nothing to distract you from the message, They just scream confident design.

Zine - Buildings? - Work In Progress Day 2

So I've been working on this piece on and off all day and it's come along quite far. I'm actually really pleased with it so far. I forgot to mention in the last post that I'm using pixen to make this. It's a really simple and easy to use program for making pixel pieces.

Zine - Buildings? - Work In Progress Day 1

Kathryn and I have been talking about doing a zine together for a while, we kind of decided on a loose theme of buildings and I posted some pictures a couple of weeks back that we took for it and we finally got down to doing something. After a spurt of inspiration from the 'super mario copact disco' I decided to recreate one of the houses in pixel form. After close to 2 hours of work this is what I've got to show...

Music - Foals - totallifeforever.co.uk

Film - Charles Shultz - It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown

Whats a holiday without a charlie brown special? Granted the easter one isn't on the same level as the christmas one, but still a good way to stop the boredom of a slow day.