Tea on the TV

Recently we started a motion graphics project, which started with quite a lot on paper planning.
I would show you those things, but A. they are a dab boring and B. I 'd rather show this, as it's a little closer to the final product and not static paper.

Basically we have been asked to create a pretend television channel, and create Idents for said channel. If you are unaware of what an Ident is; it's the little clips that display what's coming next, what channel you are watching and basically reinforce the brand. http://theident.gallery/

If you have a gander below you'll see the clip, which is rather rough and unfinished. But I'm still happy with it.

The stations is called "Tea-V" and is deigned to be viewed when drinking tea. The channel is 24 hours and very soothing, all the idents feature warm colours, soft jazz and smooth transitions.

The channel will sit in the bracket of channel 60 and upwards on the freeview channels, as it's low budget and constantly on—sort of like a cheap, smooth QVC.

The programs will range from Cumberbatch's Novel of the Week, to The Brew (a tea based panel show) all with the constant hum of soft jazz.

Testing—a smartphone, a tea bag and ProMarkers

How do you visualise your ideas with no camera or budget?

Blue-Tac, an iPhone and the assistance of a friend. There really isn't much to say other than I hope you like watching a coloured tea bag bounce around.

If you are wondering why the tea bag is Orange, things will soon be revealed.

Devonshire Street, keep those eyes peeled.

I've been rather busy with chalk in my hands, and it's bloody brilliant.

I got a message late late last week from the bar that sits just below my flat window on Carlisle's most drunk, yet somehow more middle-aged—Devonshire Street.

The bar in question is named M'Queens, as named after the illustrious 'bad boy' of the 20th century Steve McQueen. The bar comes across to me as a smart, classy and loud—which formed a basis for the letter-form styles I wanted to put on the Chalkboards.

Please excuse the DJ deck.

 Above is the first chalkboard I did, and more importantly, the first I've ever done in situe. I did just the titles for this chalkboard, although I was prompted to do the text for it. I declined, although it may have had more structure than how it stands at the moment, I know my current handwriting isn't very legible. In person the additions to the board don't look so bad, but on this image it does look a dab naff (sorry Rob).

Just so there isn't any confusion, I wrote the titles; Specials, Light Bites, Drinks Offers & DJ Every Night. I also drew the pointing hand, mega-phone and the accents.

And standing outside.

This is where it gets serious. So as I am finishing up the interior chalkboard, I can hear rustling behind me—it's Rob (the manager) cleaning up a free standing chalkboard for me. I think to myself; WOO MORE WORK! but then I hear the dreaded words "Can you get this done by tomorrow?".

T'other side

And would you believe it? I managed to do it and I'm pretty happy with it. 

I've got some more work on the books so until next time people. Keep your eyes to the skies.

A is for animation, but B is for Boris.

I don't know what else to say, other than—we are doing an project that includes animation and we were asked to make a test animation, frame by frame on Photoshop.
This is what happened.

Yeah.

If you ever see this Boris, let me know if you want to make a stop motion film together.

Pour yourself a glass. OF TYPE!

Get yourself a nice glass of scotch, and pop your slippers by the fire. I've gone a little traditional.

I have become rather addicted to learning, sketching and oggling at traditional forms of typography and lettering—though it is mostly Sign Writing. It makes me feel even more like an old man and I love it.

Anyway, a few weeks back I bought myself a pen for writing on windows, as and idea to practically break into learning sign writing. I bought the pen originally to do an 'opening times' display on a friend's shop window,to slowly teach myself Sign Writing but the main draw-back was I had nothing to practice on.

So kicking my heels, bored as sin on a Tuesday afternoon, I thought I'd take action!
I did a quick google search for Framers in the area; as a friend had informed me that her day who is a framer has a tonne of free glass off cuts.  

I found one I had walked past a few times—Henshaw Framing & Gallery which had a hand painted sign (I think) so I called them right away. I explained I was a student, told him I was trying to teach myself and after 20 seconds on the phone, he had already told me I was free to have some off cuts.

I walked through his door, he welcomed me into his studio and just handed me some lovely, untarnished glass off-cuts for free. I didn't even get his name—but who ever you are, thank you very much!

Anyway, here are some of my first pieces. I rather happy with them and I'll post more as I progress.

I've just bought some paints and brushes to do more elaborate pieces in the future; keep your eyes peeled.

P.s. do you like my oven's hob? It makes a good background for white text.

R-R-R-R-REDESIGN

New year, New design.

So as I bug Mark in the closing moments of 2014, I realise, it's a new year soon meaning I have an excuse to redesign the Motown & Soul posters. I didn't want to do a complete overhaul as I had already made branding for the posters for the evening of funky dancing and James Brown yelps.

For the new designs I wanted them to be quite similar to the previous posters, but I wanted to make a mix of modern design and design that was rife at the era of Motown's peak. 

For the modern design aspect I wanted to use the idea of the overlaying text, and also I have recently become mildly obsessed with using underlines after seeing Japanese designers use it all over zines and such like. For the old design style, I used colour washes and grain textures—of which I became crazy about after doing more in depth research of Blue Note Records for my website.

Overall I'm really happy with this and will continue to make more in the style, as both myself, Mark and the DJ for the night like it. Happy boy and keep your eyes peeled.

#TypeInAMole

Now, should I post these images in even numbers so it doesn't get confusing? Feck no, let's see the first 7!

I decided that I would like to break open my new Moleskines and fill one of them with type because I had nothing to do over the Chritstmas Holidays and I just love drawing type. I wanted to make this series just full of experimental type; I didn't want any of it to be all the neat and I just wanted a fun way to practice type and possibly even my sign writing skills.

#1 – Inspired by Reza Abedini

I haven't any reason for wanted to do this other than I think arabic looks beautiful and I wanted to make a social comment but I can't remember what I translated and I reckon it'll be very broken.

#2 – Inspired by Charles Spencer Anderson

Basically, it's Sunday and I've got lots of bright Promarkers and tea. 

It's an expression for my love of Sundays.

#3 – Inspired by some type I can vaguely remember from the window of a Tattoo shop on Brick Lane

I listened to lots of Hip-Hop and could get the image out of my head of a lovely shop window.

The words depict my mood of just wanting to hear more and more Hip-Hop that day.

#4 – Inspired by the album artwork of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Got this wonderful album for Christmas, and I was really taken back by the Psychedelic type on the reverse of the CD sleeve. And all the text is what I was thinking as was making it.

#5 – Inspired by old Circus posters

I'm not going to beat around the bush—I'm going to re-do one based around a Circus poster as I really don't like this one.

The text is the bickering I heard from an older lady that day.

#6 – Inspired by the Monty Pyphon titles (Terry Gilliam)

Hadn't touched on perspective for months, so I did this to commemorate the New Year.

#7 – Inspired by old Oil cans and branding

Late night and I wanted to draw. I kind of hate those people who just draw old looking type to make it say crap like "Always keep your head high" so this is kind of mocking them whilst being ironic.

Springing into 2015.

First poster of 2015, and it's Bruce Springsteen. Boss!

I'm not sure if there is much to say—the poster was originally given to me in December but after quite a few tests and tweaks it was actually the first poster I finished this new year of loveliness.
This first poster is for a Bruce Springsteen Tribute band, with the true sound of the 'E Street Brand' (I'm being paid to say that) (Not really, I don't get paid for anything).

When I think of Bruce, I think of Americana; as to my eyes, "Born in the USA" is quite possibly the most patriotic and american song that ever existed. So if that's not enough to make everything look faded, red & blue and flag ridden, there is also "Born to run" to reference.

So for this poster, I want to link back to the times where all paper had a cream hue and all typefaces available in America were stretched slab serifs almost always printed in red. So firstly I thought; LETTERPRESS! But then I had the sinking feel that this would be a gig poster, so it wouldn't translate that well and my university made the wise move in not indulging in any poorly crafted slab foundries.

You wouldn't believe how many textures it takes just to make a flag look like it's been printed on yellow-ish paper years ago and has spent it's lifetime being stood on and left in the rain.

Overall, this poster isn't my best and it's not my favourite, but from what I had to work with—I feel it worked rather well, also I always jump at the chance to incorporate the old fashioned sign painted hand. 

So, although I feel this poster went well I have one big gripe with it. and if you are part of the band, or the bands promoter please take note. It was lovely doing this poster and would happily do it again, but when someone asks for a high-res version of your logo, please don't take a picture of your monitor with your phone—sending the digital file you took an image of would of been much easier.

Who let the horrendously terrifying hybrid dog out? Again? Oh come on now! This is getting excessive.

Why have a short title when it can be tediously long? Riddle me that.

So as we continue; we are continuing into the part where it turns into a colourful and thoughtfully designed infographic and stops being a mutilated cross-breed turkey dog.
For this project, we were put into pairs, and from those pairs we had to make a hybrid puppy of our two dogs and make an infographic all about the dog.

I was grouped with Sir Benjamin Pinkley III—Lord of Driffield who had the breed title 'Hunting, Fishing Spaniel', so that combined with the secret agent dog—thus spawned The Classified Spaniel.
We made up features such as interchangeable genitalia, detachable tail for use of rifle silencing and so many built in pockets that even the dog itself is unaware of the exact total.

You may have to click on it to get a proper eye-full.

For overal look of the poster, we wanted to convey the idea of it look secretive and sleek but at the same time related to the earthyness of the Hunting, Fishing dog. For this, we went with a simple, sleek and modern layout, but mixing that with rough textures and earthy colours. We used a sans serif and a serif to make a distinction of headings whilst making body text smaller and more legible.

We wanted to make charts and graphs about the dog but we didn't feel that run of the mill, and obvious ones would work, as that really is the opposite of the dog. We decided to add some humour (or at least tried to) and make charts that wouldn't really matter but add character to the dog, as the dog doesn't exist, it's easier to make up things and make it really over the top – see the pie chart – and I feel that worked really well.

I won't say anymore, because as an infographic it should really work without much explanation—but as a side note, we got a first for this, and that is rather make me smile! 

Well done Ben, it was lovely working with you!

SLOTHS ON POST-IT NOTES!

I LIKE CAPS-LOCK TITLES. OKAY?!

Happy 2015! You lovely people.

Here to brighten up your hungover, extended festive morning is a blog post; a post about exactly what you want to read when all you can stomach is a bacon butty and your head feels like someone is playing Slipknot's Greatest Hits on your left-side lobe. It's a post about Silver Sloth Productions people!

And if you'll excuse this post being painfully late, I'll show you what I've been doing recently and why it has gotten me so excited.
Recently I have been helping my good friend Emma with her business cards, and of course because it's Emma – the girl who shaves half her hair off as a hair cut and named her media company after the world's most stupid creature – it couldn't just be run of the mill.

To start we spoke for a while about what she liked, and what the business card had to say or show. This quite quickly came to the point where she had drawn a blank and started oggling over colourful sticky notes, as they are her favourite variety of the mildly adhesive note family. As she pissed around with them, explaining how much she loves 'post-it' notes—the timid northern creature we know of as James Reay bellowed the words "POST-IT NOTE BUSINESS CARDS!"

We all looked at each other and within minutes a flurry of notes and sketches had been made, taking up a few pages of my Moleskine; and we had it, and rather cool idea, and rather cheap as well.
To make them I made the design for a stamp, of which Emma got custom made, helping make the process fast and cheap.

If you look closely at my messy desk you may be able to make out the stamp, next to some test prints and the roller (that I lovingly stole from Illustration Corner).

I've subtly added some arrows and a circle just in-case my bad desk organisation had you confused.

P.s. it's not always like that, I just don't have time to clean my desk when I'm on a roll (geddit?) or a good bit of inspiration has just come to me.

Here you can see my lovely assistant and client Emma, placing the business cards down on the desk to dry. You may also notice that desk is clean and clutter free, that is also because it isn't technically mine.

And here is a prime example of my desk. Crap everywhere, ideas everywhere. You may also be able to spot the local wildlife. But also you'll be able to spot two tests; one green, one pink, and they are there so we could see what the business card looked like in both states. 

By that I mean we designed it to work in two ways; firstly as your average sticky note it will stick on surfaces and you can use it to note reminders down on the back. But also, if you fold the paper along the black line in the centre, it then sticks to itself and becomes the shape of a mountain side with the logo standing dead centre.

And to jump ahead, for fear of constant waffling, here are the final products in the photography exhibition they were initially deadlined for. And personally, I think they are different, confusing, colourful and reflect Emma greatly. Good well done!