Logo Design

Logo Designs for bands are either annoying or loads of fun. To be totally honest this was both! When you are confronted with a band name like Chains of Hate, who are an old fashioned NYHC band, it's hard not to just churn out some stereotypical college style font and call it a day! But I was the best man at the guitarists wedding, so I couldn't just knock it out!!!!

First attempt was based around an industrial idea, you know chains = industrial...



I wasn't at all sure whether this was any good or if I hated it! So back to the drawing board...

I started thinking about how hip hop style and NYHC have gone had in hand, so there had to be some easy way of getting the two together in a way I liked.



and the end result was a very hardcore looking logo, textually and visually, but I used a very hip hop colour palette, the main gold colour was sample directly from a pair of Missy Elliot signature Adidas! You can't get more bling bling than that!

We out!
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Chains of Hate

Logo Design

This is from the end of 2005, I was working for a club in Cardiff, one of the owners got his hands on a club in Bristol, knowing full well I did "that design stuff" he asked me to come up with a logo and any ideas about how to apply it.

Logo...



Once again, I'm not going to hide where my ideas came from, the boss asked me for something big and bold, and I was watching scrubs the night before I did the logo! No surprises that the logo has similarities with the scrubs logo!!!

I was really happy when they listened to my suggestion of spray painting the logo onto the shutters outside the club.





The club under that name doesn't exist anymore, I haven't really been back to Bristol since, so I have no idea if it's still there or not. Would be nice if it was though, my design work literally 10m away from a genuine banksy!

Much Love
Michael

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Something for fun!

This is older, maybe 8 months, but it's been sat on my computer for ages, and I thought I'd post it as I like it!

I took a photo of a telegraph pole. and then spent an hour or two playing around with it and a bunch of photoshop brushes later, it looked totally different! I want to just try and create something that had nothing to do with anything! I was trying to be artistic!



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Myspace layout and Corporate ID

As I just posted the poster design I did for Engineering Consent, it seems a little random to not include the myspace layout and corporate ID I did for them! I was given a ball park idea, he said he like political style posters, I was given an example from the fine selection of work(the graphic design, lets not get all political here) done by some of the Communists.

We'll start with the corporate ID as it's been a while since I made one!

First a full sheet...



Now a closer look at the front of the business card...



and the back, I did try to add continuity to the front and back.



Compliments slip...



Letterhead....



Myspace layout!!

I've included the little gif, just so you can see how I it works!



This was alot of fun to do, as it involved some random elements, but I was pleased with the result!

Much love
Michael

P.S. Definetly an example of spilt personalities working in harmony!

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Engineering Consent

Poster Design...

Well there is a gig a coming! I've just finished the poster!

I will openly admit that I have been looking at a lot of Scott Hansen's work as well as the gent who designed my band's album cover, Ben Griffiths.  There is no denying it this is where the inspiration for this poster came from!!!

I wanted to get mostly detail into it, but have some drama around the detail, so the focus remains on the info, but it wasn't so dull.

A big thing for me, is the fact that you have no idea what medium your work is going to be used in. So I constantly try to think about a different appropriation a piece some it can work across more than one format. It's all well and good a design looking great on screen or when someone can afford full colour super high quality printing, but that is so rarely the case! So I've done one in colour, with a bit more detail should it get to the printers/can be used on the web and one with most of the detail, but a few tiny changes so it could run through a photocopier and still look half decent.

Colour version in all it's sparkly glory!




Black and White version in it's photocopyable glory!!



Much love
Michael

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Ben Griffiths
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Engineering Consent

Logo Design...

So in truth I had an idea in my head about something to do with playing cards, and I had just played with a band from Plymouth called Youth Gone Wrong twice in the space of about a month, so I just decided to use them as the name for it!

Here is the first version i did, there was genuinely something i couldn't put my finger on that i didn't like about it.



So I thought I'd add a little more detail to see if that helped...



But that didn't do it either, then I realised what was wrong, I totally wasn't fussed on the text, white with white, so a change was needed.



I also upped the darkness on the back pile of cards, so they had a little more detail. As well as changing the colour of the 2nd text layer and adding some texture.

But as with all good design, if you change something it's worth changing that original idea aswell...



I am more than happy with both the 3rd and 4th results. Lets see what happens...

Explanation: The reason for the seemingly random card choice is, I was thinking of doing a full house, but then surely that would be a good thing?!? Nothing gone wrong there! So I chose what was a straight draw in the making, but not got. Somewhere there is an idea about bluffing and failing, over exuberance of youth etc... I've never explained my work before!

Love to y'all
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As if by magic....

Well it's only day 2 in the existence of this blog and I've got something I want to post!

Yes one of my photo's being used on fully backed.



Article as you can see is on south wales freshest, finest hardcore band Chains of Hate.

A few choice cuts from the rest of the album include...





Love to you all.
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Chains of Hate