Tuesday 25 May 2010

Needs a home!

I started working on this after watching a show on BBC1 called 'Invisible', the show was about filming things in super slow motion and actually seeing things that our rubbish human eyes couldn't see! There was an awesome part about shockwaves, hang on....

Right I'm back, found a trailer on youtube!



Sweet!

Well there was a part in this show about how certain animals fly, birds, bees, basically anything that seems to float. It was awesome also, but it got me thinking, I went away and made this...

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Link to the larger version would probably help, it's at the end of the post, don't worry.

On point, I am posting this as "for sale" as it doesn't have a home yet, and I guess it needs one! At the moment it would fit lovely on a card sleeve, but I can work this up for a dual case if needs be.

Right, bedtime.
Michael

Link
Larger Version

Logo styling...

A band I love dearly from Cardiff recently asked me to make a logo for them, that band is Whistling Biscuits.

Not heard of them, shame on you! They are truly special, an odd blend of folk, funk, acoustic, country...basically takes lots of good things squeeze them together and they are the result, awesome sunny afternoon music.

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This was the version that flew out of illustrator, but that is never enough for me...



So I took it into photoshop and added some texture, I sent this over to the band and they were happy, but asked if there was another version, I had a few that were very similar, just different versions of texture, so I had a brainwave...This is a re hand generated font, I know what I am doing wrong, I am attached to my computer, so I printed the original non-textured version out and set to work.



Again this was an amazing process, as I had no idea as I was drawing how it would evolve, the answer is, not a great deal, but it did happen in ways I wasn't expecting and certainly in ways that wouldn't have happened had I been on my computer.

Once I had done the hand drawn version, I scanned it a whole bunch of times and pieced together a version from several scans.



I think it is a much stronger result for get my hands dirty.

Safety
Michael

Links
Larger Versions
Whistling Biscuits Myspace

Saturday 15 May 2010

Just a quicky!

I'm playing a gig with my band in the not too distant future, and I asked to do the poster.

Only spent an hour on it, loads of elements scan from the old books under my desk. I think it came together rather well!

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I have done a few different takes on this ready for printing, one I am thinking will be awesome if I get some interesting paper and run it through a photocopier. I'll probably take some photos of the prints once they are made and post them. On the other hand you could come to the gig and I will probably be giving them away. the gig is exciting as there will be more stuff (hopefully) ready for sale that I'm not going to post just yet....

Cool and the Gang...
Michael

Link
Larger Version

Tuesday 11 May 2010

Logo and a mess!

On the 6th of May 2010 the Great (hah!) British public went to polling stations for the first time in (large numbers) for a very long time.

I voted, and I was curious to see what happened, so I decided to cook dinner for a few friends and watch the anti-election broadcast on Channel 4. We had a great night, but by midnight they were flagging and I don't sleep like most poeple, so I was planning the long haul. When the Channel 4 show finished, it was time to turn over to the BBC.

I don't know how many of you have followed an election, so quick explanation, polling stations close at 10pm and then it is a race to get the votes counted and the results out. The results tend to trickle in between 11pm and 2am and then they flood in on mass, but nothing much happens apart from a lot of repetition in this 'Trickle Window', so I decided to do something productive. Cue a conversation with a friend a few days previous about his Wayne's World grunge project.

Drains are a weird band, they right all their songs about Wayne's World, yes the movie with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey (what happened to him?). There is a point somewhere....

I had it in my head that I wanted to do a logo with paints and brushes, not my usual medium, hence the challenge.

I did a few quick attempts...

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I liked the ideas, but as opposed to being on a computer, where you can just nudge something this way or that way, I had to do it again.

So there were more attempts...

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Again, I liked where it was going but I still wasn't sure...

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And then I realised my living room was half full of versions of the logo, so I thought I would do a few more...

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By this point it was about 3am and I couldn't have been more pleased that I was on my own, because this is the kind of mess that can annoy my girlfriend and confuse my cat! I piled the dry ones up and left a few out and went to bed (praying for a hung parliament and a possible coalition between Labour and the Lib Dems, how wrong did that go?).

25 ish versions later, I narrowed it to yes, no and maybe piles and started scanning and playing around on the computer, and then discarded a few more versions and finally settled on this.

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A really enjoyable process, that I wouldn't mind trying again, I wonder if it will make it to a tshirt....

Gunrack? What am I supposed to do with a Gunrack?
Michael

Links
Larger Versions
Drains Myspace

Tuesday 4 May 2010

It's amazing what Photoshop can do...

..with a little know how and a bright idea!

I get bored sometimes, more to the point I get a little distracted when I should probably be working...(Frazer, if you are reading this, expect an email soon)

I did a bit of generic stock hunting for a logo I'm working on right now, I wanted the buildings for a texture, but got a little distracted when I started playing with the levels.

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So here we go folks generico stock imagio. Just a city skyline, nothing special.

This is almost a half assed tutorial, but tweak your levels, turn reds up, greens down, blues up, then just play some more. I noticed an almost complete change to the feel of the image, it felt different, it was warmer, more worn looking, the colours were washed out, I liked it more already.

I thought to myself this isn't enough, so added these...

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all of these image layers were changed to overlay and then opacity jerked down to around the 30% mark.

And you are left with...

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Which is far easier on the eyes don't you think?

NB: Some of these images are mine, some are from stock sites, some are from CD's from mags, I doubt anyone will notice or mind that I have uploaded them to my photobucket, however if you do have a problem, tell me and POOF they will be gone.

Time to send some emails....
Michael

Link
Larger Versions

Saturday 1 May 2010

Every now and then...

You get a client who truly blows your mind!

And today, that client is Juliet Echo. When I agree to take on the job of designing her artwork, I was given a title of the record, a list of songs, a few lose ideas of what they wanted on the cover and that it had to be a cd in a card sleeve.

Every idea I presented was greeted with open arms and a positive response, but above all else I was faced with a client who was happy to just let me run away with things and do pretty much whatever I felt was right for her and her record. Even this is an amazing thing in terms of being a designer, but this story has an even happier ending.

I always want a physical copy of whatever I have made, it just makes me happy and once the CD was all pressed, I was promised one in the mail. This morning when I came downstairs I found a mailer from the US on my doorstep, I was excited enough to be getting the CD, but this is what I found...

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The CD, a thank you note and some origami birds. How nice is that? The answer, incredibly!

I have a massive smile on my face right now, and I probably will smile every time I see the record on my CD shelf.

So simply put, Juliet Echo, you are a wonderful lady.

Thanks,
Michael

Links
You can buy it here
Juliet Echo