Event - London Zine Symposium 2010

It was the London Zine Symposium yesterday and me and Kathryn got to go down and pop our zine fair cherrys. we had a stall under our kind collective name 'This Bombardment Society' and were selling our zines and some other peoples stuff from uni. We had a great time and got to meet some really nice people (got to swap a copy of one of or zines with Josie Long which was extremely exciting) and bought some really awesome stuff. I'm going to a separate post about all the stuff I bought later on today. Really hope we get the chance to do another one of these things really soon, they're extremely rewarding and inspiring and great fun!

Music - Gold Panda - Quitters Raga

Gold Panda "Quitters Raga" from Cody Bralts on Vimeo.

Typographic Workshop - Final Piece

I posted an unfinished typeface a couple of weeks ago that I was working on with Nic and for assessment we (or more him to be honest) brought it to a place where it was good enough to put it in portfolio.

FMP - Final Piece - Poster

I managed to get round to re doing my space project the other day just in time for assessment and this time it's a lot closer to what I was actually aiming for. I think I got to caught up in the romantic notion of making things by hand when I know that's not my strong suite and it didn't really help my message either. This is a lot simpler and I feel it communicates my message a lot better.

Portfolio - World Aids Day 2009 Book

Finally managed to get this book printed, it's a collection of the best men that we made. I don't think I ever posted about this project on here, but well theres loads of info on the seperate blog for it joinhandsagainstaids.tumblr.com

Portfolio - InDesign Layouts

I am well and truly sick of doing layouts for my portfolio. Have spent all weekend working on them and I'm still not really pleased with any of them, these are some of the ones which I don't completely hate.

Music - Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends DVD

If you've got half and hour to spare and feel like being bombarded with analog synths and trippy VHS visuals then watch the hell out of this video accompaniment to the first Tobacco album.

Photography - Jenny Holzer Exhibition

Went on a trip to Newcastle earlier in the week with uni to see a Jenny Holzer exhibition at the Baltic. Managed to get a student photography pass and had loads of fun photographing the exhibition.

Portfolio - CD Case

While shopping today I found these beautiful little recycled card CD cases in Muji and thought I'd invest in some as I have portfolio assessment coming up soon and it would be nice to package the CD in a nicely designed sleeve. On getting home I decided to experiment with some Type transfers I've had for a while and they seem to have got a bit fucked up sitting round in a hot room for ages so I kind of used this to my advantage and made this, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out and it was a really fun to make gunna have to try and get my hands on some more of those type transfer sheets, they're addictive.

Books - Seth, Audrey Niffenegger, Jeffrey Brown, George Herriman

So in the last week or so I've managed to buy quite a few books and all of them have been great purchases, have not regreted any of them, so here's a little overview.

Krazy & Ignatz: 1925-26 by George Herriman (book designed & edited by C. Ware)

Krazy & Ignatz was a pre-war daily comic in america that ran through to the 40's and is a joy to behold. This edition is the first volume in a complete collection of the full page strips which are hilarious and really fun to read. It's a beautiful book designed by my hero Mr. Chris Ware.

The Adventuress by Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger is mostly known for writing The Time Travellers Wife (a book I am currently reading through and very much enjoying) but before writing that she used to make beautiful and elaborate limited edition picture books. The Adventuress is one of those such books re published and made affordable, it's still really lush with a beautiful green satin spine.

Wimbledon Green by "Seth"

Before buying Wimbledon Green I was already quite aware of Seth's work having loved It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken and his beautiful art book Vernacular Drawings and this book is of exactly the same quality. Telling the story of an infamous comic book collector through a collection of smaller strips that form the narrative it's really easy to pick up and read.

Undeleted Scenes by Jeffrey Brown

What can I say about Jeffrey Brown? He's the man who introduced me to "alternative" comics and this is latest book a collection of short works, most of it mainly published before in his minisulk and feeble attempts comics, but was a necessary purchase for the couple of strips featured that are unpublished.

Musical Instruments by The Horniman Museum

The Horniman Museum in Forest Hill is probably my favourite museum in London, it's got a great collection ranging from taxidermy african art and musical instruments. So when I cam across this beautifully designed book all about their musical instrument collection in a charity shop I just had to buy it.

Event - She & Him @ KOKO

Me and the girlfriend went to see She & Him (Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward) last night at KOKO in camden. I've never been to KOKO before and it sure is a beautiful venue, shame about the atrocious drink prices. The night started off pretty badly to be honest, the support band were unbearably boring, They were just really generic pointless country music. But then once She & Him came on stage it all livened up. They played a great and quite long set with an encore of M. Ward doing a cover of Roll Over Beethoven and Zooey doing a breathtaking cover of I Put A Spell On You which was an amazing way to end a brilliant gig.

FMP - Final Piece - Finished Earth, Moon & Space Ship

Unfortunately these are the only photo's I could get of the final piece as due to a complete and utter cock up at the crit (which I don't really want to go into) my space was dismantled and worked chucked away before I had time to recover it. To be honest I wasn't really satisfied with what I presented, but I still stick behind the concept and would have loved to have got the opportunity to make a film out of it in situe but unfortunately that isn't a possibility. Hopefully I'll find some way of resolving it, because after spending over a month working on it I don't want to just leave it like it is now.

FMP - Idea Development - Diorama

As I was restricted by time and the deadline i decided that creating 4 or 5 posters not using illustrator or anything and doing it all handmade was near impossible so instead I picked one of the stronger ideas and decided to create a 3D diorama of sorts of out it. Making an earth and a moon and putting the typography on it and just displaying it as a 3D piece.

The Space I created to display my globe.

The earth (made from a football) and the moon (made for a tennis ball) nearing a stage of completion. They were both made with the help of my magnificent girlfriend as I'm pretty abismal at 3D work.

Testing out placing of the earth and moon in situe.

FMP - Idea Development - 'What a Ride Babe, What a Ride' Poster

my initial goal was always to try and steer clear of illustrator when creating work for this project. So with some basic layout sketches made I decided to get on trying to make these posters using more craft-y means. I bought some teddy bear stuffing, wire and blue back drop in an attempt to tackle the first poster design. Unfortunately after about an hour of working really hard to try and resolve it i realised it Just wasn't going to work...

Stuff I Like - Public Apology

Saw this in the laundry room today, definitely the best flyer in the place, gave me a proper chuckle.