Friday Photo

Bear mention

Just had the sleeve of BLK w/BEAR latest release featured in Design Week's News in Pictures.

Uncle Sam

I was up in Derry the other day having my first look at the new Peace Bridge, well worth a visit! The weather was a little over cast and wet but seeing this ice cream van made me smile! I have lots of happy memories of seeing this van on Benone Beach and sampling it's wares.

Blog Break

Apologies for the lack of regular posts around here lately but this has been down to some unseasonal sunshine in the north of Ireland which means I have been out on the beaches and in the forests making the most of it while it lasts!

Friday Photo

Mr. Potato Head, from the series Toys, Northern Ireland, 2007

Bear Mix

Apologies for the lack of posts around here recently, just been relocating from France to Ireland for the summer.

It's been a while since I posted any of my own work but here is the latest record sleeve I've been working on. It is the next release from Manchester's Front & Follow label by Washington based artists BLK wBEAR who have reinterpreted a selection of tracks from Yonokierio's album Blue Apples.

The sleeve illustration is a photo of a selection of ceramic sculptures created by Robin VanValkenburgh under the pseudonym of Runny Bunny. With such a striking image I wanted to make the most of the groups name so I started playing about with the symmetry of the words BLK and BEAR and bent some  Helvetica Light into shape to create the typeface. It felt a shame to just stick it in the corner so I decided to place it full size over the image.

It will be release as a limited CD with a free digital and specially commissioned video download on 5 September and as always you can get it from the F&F shop where you can hear a soundcloud sample there now.

friday photo

The last Harry Potter book launch, Kings Cross, London, 2007

Friday Photo

A local fire, Versailles 2009

Bjork Crystaline

Some more fantastic work from M/M Paris for the latest release from Bjork. Just pop over to her website to see a new way of browsing, again the design is by M/M Paris aided by the technically astounding Jam3. The new logo is beautiful, refined and works perfectly with the imagery, part note, part eye, part planet! It's a bit hard to pin down like Bjork herself.

If that wasn't enough the Icelandic songstress has also invented a new instrument called the Gameleste which features in her show Biophilia which is currently at the Manchester International Festival, (as is Damon Albarn's Opera Dr Dee), anyway here is a video of the Gameleste being made.

The Gameleste - a custom instrument for Björk from Andy McCreeth on Vimeo.

Gummy Lips

I love new and innovative music packaging; stick a badge or poster in a release and I have to buy it, even though I know I have exactly the same record already! Well I was just over at the Flaming Lips site and discovered that their latest release is a USB stick that contains 4 new songs. The USB stick is encased in a jelly edible skull and is a very limited release! I've heard it rumored that this is the first in a series of monthly release from The Flaming Lips so it will be interesting to see if all the tracks will be gummy body parts! This release is $150 a little bit more than my pocket money can stretch to!
Anyone know who the design is by?

Nice use of Futura Black Plain for the text

Fun and Games

T'is the season of le vide grenier and this year our star finds have been a cool selection of vintage kids games, most of which were produced by a French company called Fernand Nathan who also published beautifully illustrated kids books too. Most of these were picked up for a few Euros which is great for such a nice collection of Illustrations.While I was doing some research on the company I came across this nice flickr stream of other Fernand Nathan bits and bobs!

My favourite has to be the English learning game which comes with it's own 7" single and looks like it has never been opened!

Friday Photo

Hurley practice, Northern Ireland, 2009

Richard Hawley's family tree

Just came across this 'rock' family tree on Richard Hawley's site. It's had me occupied for the past hour just tracing the lines back and forward between the various groups. I must read my liner notes more!

The Earl Bishop

When I was back home at Easter I picked up a copy of Stephen Price's book The Earl Bishop. The book is a biography of Bishop Hervey, the man who built the famous Mussenden Temple, one of the worlds most famous follies. As I'm from that neck of the woods it was nice to finally come across a book that told the story of the place and of the man who made it.
As a bit of a design challenge I decide to re-design the cover. I didn't have a design brief but as a rule I used all the elements that were on the existing cover and a turn around time of one day. The original cover looks like this, an uncharacteristic sunny day with a blue sky showing off the famous follie with a pillared wall echoing the monuments classic architecture which acts as a holding area for the books title and the authors name.

I started by researching architectural decoration of the period and mixed this research with the Antiqua series of classic texts. These are a real design treat and totally of their time. They were produced from the early 1900's in France and feature a refined yet restricted colour palette and a tidy visual framing which draws inspiration from classical Greek architecture.

The next step was to incorporate some of the actual architecture from Mussenden and start to work  these into the cover. One of the most famous parts of the site where the Bishop's stately home once stood is the Lion's Gate,(even though the two stone cat sculptures which the gate takes its name from are actually Ocelots). I drew a number of stylised sketches of the sculptures and continued to carry out a pencil sketch taken from a photo of the Temple itself. I inked these out, scanned them in and then played about with them in Illustrator, where I started creating the frame.

Like the Antiqua series I decided to stay with a two colour scheme. I chose blue and green simply because of the geography of the area and the relationship between the land and the sea. In case you have never been the Temple is right on the edge of a cliff looking out over sea, in fact the inscription that circles the temple it's self reads "Suave mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis, E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem" which translates roughly as "Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore, The rolling ship, and hear the tempest roar." and probably not "Agreeable husband very turbantibus the waters to toss in the air, out of earth large the second specter to sink" which I got the first time I fed the quote through an online Latin translator!
For the text I used Gill sans in caps for the titles and Perpetua Regular for the quotes and book blurb. I liked the balance between these two typefaces, the geometry of Gill sat well with the frame work while Perpetua Regular gave a classic book feel. One of the only deviations I made from my original brief was that I didn't use an actual portrait of the Bishop instead to fit with the graphic nature of the frame I decide to use a silhouette of the Bishop. The silhouette originated in the 18th century, so it felt apt that it could be included. While I was researching this I found out an interesting little fact about where the word silhouette comes from, if your interested click here!
Anyway the final cover back and front turned out like this:

It's by no means a final finished piece of design more a play around with genres, type and applying these to the elements of a pre-existing design. If any thing it has also been a bit of light design relief and fun to boot!

Friday Photo

From the Series Toys, Northern Ireland 2008

Nobrow niceness

Monsieur le facteur has just passed by my letterbox and left me a beautiful bundle of goodies from Nobrow including this beautiful print by illustrator Robert Hunter. I also got a copy of his latest illustrated story called The New Ghost. The smell of ink filled my nose when I opened the package and I was transported back to the print rooms at CSM.
The print comes from an exhibition called Murmuring Landscapes and is simply one of the nicest pieces of print that  I own!

A selection of spreads from The New Ghost © Robert Hunter

The current exhibition at the Nobrow Gallery looks equally promising, it is by Stuart Kolakovic and is called Under The Damp Earth, but hurry it's only on till the 23 June, you can find out more at the Nobrow website . Take some time to browse through their shop as they have some excellent prints and publications.

Friday Photo

Grenoble, France 2007

Music Matters

I just came across this series of animated videos that were specially commissioned by EMI to illustrate why music matters. I know growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1980's music really did matter to me, it was bith a means of escape and a point of contact. If you want to watch some more on Dylan, Bernard Butler or The Jam then pop over to here.

In the meantime I'm off to put "Piece of Mind" on again, it's been a while and that Tom Judd video took me back to being 14 again, now where did I put my air guitar?!

Gill's brother

OK I'm in danger of turning this blog into an arts listing but here are another couple of exhibitions that if I had the chance I would love to go to. The first is on Eric Gills' brother, Macdonald 'Max' Gill. Now I know it is horrible to introduce someone through the life of someone else but to be honest Eric Gills figure loomed so large that I had no idea that he had a brother, let alone one who worked in a similar field and to an equally high level.
Macdonald Gill was well known and respected in his day and was reputed for his highly detailed pictorial maps which all have a strong sense of Englishness about them which reflect their time and, like his brothers work, a certain sense of national identity, just look at the map above which places Great Britain at the heart of the world, it reminds me of medieval maps of the known world which did exactly the same thing with Jerusalem!

Detail from the Wonderground Map of Londontown

What looks like a highlight of the exhibition will be Macdonald Gills' Wonderground Map of Londontown. This was printed in 1914 for Westminster Press and shows an intricate and beautiful look at London and its Underground stations. The illustration style, colours and lettering evoke an almost Arts and Crafts take on London. The original was printed as 16 sheets (roughly A4) and sold in it's thousands for six shillings, I hope they do a modern reprint as I don't think I could track down never mind buy an original!

The exhibition is in Brighton at the University of Brighton and runs from 22 July - 29 August, for more information click here. There is also a fascinating blog on the restoration of Macdonald Gills' work by Sirpa Kutilainen.
To continue the Gill trip then pop into The British Museum to see Eric Gill; Public and Private Art. This exhibition looks at pieces of art created by Gill for Public commissions and for his own private pleasure. As the museum says itself 'The exhibition features work by Gill intended for both public use and private delight, including stamp designs for the Post Office, coin designs for the Royal Mint, drawings for the Stations of the Cross, and his own engravings and publications on religion, politics and art. The centrepiece of the display is his famous sculpture Divine Lovers, on loan from Ditchling Museum in East Sussex. The display also examines Gill’s work on the British Museum building itself, including the war memorial at the main entrance.' The exhibition runs until 9 August and is FREE!

Images from top:
Self-portrait medal depicting Eric Gill. Engraved by George Friend, about 1933. © reserved.
Proof for a one shilling coin by Eric Gill, 1925.© The Royal Mint.
Air Raid Precaution Badge, Eric Gill, 1939.© The Trustees of the British Museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
And just for good measure  here's a reminder of Gills most famous creation  Gill Sans, originally created for a book shop in Bristol and then developed as a full typeface for LNER rail travel posters.

1000 Paper Cranes-Last day to donate

Regular readers to this blog will be well aware of my friend Miho's mammoth challenge to fold a 1000 paper cranes to help raise awareness and money for the Red Cross Japan Tsunami appeal.
They will also be aware that she has passed her original target and has (to date) folded 1408 paper cranes.
Well today is the last day of Mihos paper crane challenge and it is the last day that you can donate to her fund so please, please, please take a little time out and donate what you can to a great effort for a great cause.
You can find her donation page here , and as a well known supermarket chain like to remind us "every little helps!"