Vincent Walden's Not-So-Professional Reviews: The Computers

Last night was a mixture confusion, shouting, zoot suits and over extended microphone leads.

Last night, me and my buddy James went out for his birthday; and although it may be actually on Sunday, a gig on a Friday will have to do because I'm home for a Christening this weekend.

We started the night with a trip down to Moo bar (local ale bar), we were served some of finest local ale by out good friend Nathan. Pints finished, we headed to The Brickyard, really super early.

We were there so early, that we even managed to catch sound check. Of course to me, hearing the sound check of Colt 45 wasn't all that different because I've found myself around them quite a bit recently; but for James, this was a secret event that he'd be snook into—so with just the idea of getting to the yard quicker for the needing of a pee, I'd already made the night a little better.

After a pee, half a pint and a good ol' chin wag with the lads from Colt; they pondered on up to the stage and dived right in with a mildly aggressive "GO" and following heavy punk riff. It was such a strong and fast introduction. It was like being punched so quickly that you forgot that you had be hit square in the jaw with your nose dripping with angst.

So of course I'm going to be bias, as I design for them—but Colt 45 played great, possibly the best performance ever, possibly more memorable than Glastonbury and Woodstock combined. They were so great I could hear their guitars single handedly impregnating ladies and making grown men weep.

So after a half hour set; many law suits on the basis of unplanned pregnancy and a new song; Colt 45 had finished their set and we began to wait for The Computers to embark onto the stage.

Honestly, so much happened whilst The Computers were playing, I may accidentally leave a load of information out, but here goes. The lead singer had a great fondness for singing on the mosh barrier, he had the longest microphone cable on earth, he chipped Andy's lovely new floor, they were all in matching 'zoot suits', they ensued a mosh pit and he repetitively danced with a candle. Sounds mad right?

Well, it was. Half way through we even found ourselves straddled with this man, dancing in circles, whilst he continued singing the chorus. All the while being backed up by the brilliant band, just slightly behind him.

On the note of the band, a large round of  applause to them. The drummer was constantly in high alert and thrashing his hi-hat like a weasel on speed; on his left was the keyboard/guitarist who would switch between the two, whilst the drummer (already with a huge job on his hands) continued to smash fills and provide excellent backing singing. 

What else can I say, The gig was great. I can say that because I was in the audience, but I bet I'd think he (lead singer) was a right wazzack if I had be working that evening. They offered a fantastic set, full of energy and shouting, which you can't go far wrong with in my eyes.

To encapsulate a mixture of punk & rock n' roll is difficult but these guys really pull it off and making one hell of a sound out of it. With that in mind, I urge you, if you find yourself free to go to one of their gigs—you really should. They are described as one of the best live bands, and that really isn't wrong.

As a final note, if you hadn't seen before; I made the poster for the gig also, and I really rather like it.

Vincent Walden's Not-So-Professional Reviews: Lucy Rose

Heavy punk excites me; but soft folk soothes my soul.

Last night, I went to a gig; a folk gig. It's quite unlike me, but it was really rather good.

If you know me, you'll likely know I have a lady friend, and if you know her you'll likely know he has quite a love for Folk music.

If you are any good at joining up the dots, you'll now realise I took her to this last night as a sort of 'thank you' for all the crazy hours she put's in selling people drugs.

No she's not a dealer; well she is, but she works at a pharmacy.

First up we had Billie Marten. She was like a hybrid of Laura Marling, Bon Iver and a farmer's daughter (though I assume all folk artists are born out of agriculture). She was in a green-demin dungaree skirt combo and sang like she was trying her best to not wake her grandma; this is not a criticism.

Her soft spoken words and poetic rhymes made this short set very enticing. She graced the stage with a large smile, a lovely sense of politeness and an armoury of acoustic loveliness.
After a couple of tracks, she covered a Royal Blood track, of which naming isn't all that important; but it is important that I tell you it was brilliant—just like the rest of her songs.

It's a shame only a third of the crowd came to see her, because of a few reasons: She was brilliant and we got free badges.

Second up was Jake Isaac; a 6"4, smiley, handsome sort of bloke—the heartthrob of the entire female audience and this was only made worse that he played a whole song within the crowd. This isn't a problem, he's just a hell of a lot more charming than me and that's a problem.

Not only was he possibly the most handsome man to grace The Brickyard (excluding Andy of course) but he brought along the worlds happiest drummer by the name of Fez. This man could not stop smiling if he tried. It was like watching the sun from the Teletubies smash out a heavy drum fill, except male and real.

Anyway, his set was pretty brilliant and very much upbeat; so just like Billie Marten, well worth coming a little earlier to hear.

Last up; we have the main attraction, the lion in cage and the grand finale – Lucy Rose. She played the hits, she played new songs and she played soulful quiet songs. It was a rollercoaster of emotion and it was really rather brilliant.

Even though her hits have saturated the market, and are all over the radio; they were performed in such passion and with such empathy that they felt like they were played from the heart strings of her beautiful acoustic guitar.

Overall, I have little more I can say. Both myself and Gaby really enjoyed the gig. It was fantastic and it was a very nice way to escape all the stress I've got pushing on my Third Year shoulders right now.

p.s. apologies for the lack of weekly posts recently, I'm working on two long deadline projects so it's hard to post up any work from them because they are all really rather rough at the moment.

New blog name, Same old me

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Vincent—for those of you who do know me, I'm still Vincent.

Nothing exciting here, just I've changed the name of my blog; and I have for a few reasons.

• I don't like to take myself too seriously
• The other one was boring me
• And I bet you to it sucker!

Stay tuned for more posters, gibberish, writings and general design; and if not…

Remember kids: Vincent Walden Sucks

I walked the line

Vincent, we need a poster. I've been told you are the man to come to and we need it quickly.

That's what I was confronted with yesterday; I feel that my A3 notoritity has become somewhat of a signifier for me. I think a name change by depoll might be best option: Vincent Poster Walden

Anyway, an illustrator by the name of Oliver East set a brief for the studios illustrators, with the outcome being exhibited along side his in the gallery space. The exhibition was under the name "Walking the Line" as the brief was that you had to take a journey, only take notes and then recreate the experience you had in a comic style format.

So of course, after weeks of knowing that this would be the outcome, days before they realised they needed a poster; bloody tutors ey'
I'm complaining a lot but I actually really rather liked the project and it's strictly short time scale—it was somewhat of a challenge and I'm always up for a challenge.

You may be looking at it thinking "Why the hell is that text so strange?" well he has strange text in his comics when he is amplifying sounds and noises; and I thought that it looks pretty darn strange (and brilliant)

Overall, really rather happy with the poster and I think it looks rather brilliant in it's place on the wall. 

As a sneak peak; I have a little more for you.

Here I have the first version of the poster I did; the incorrect one by my favourite one. I made the poster exclusively about Oliver East as I was unaware that the other students would be displaying in the exhibition also.

There is little justification for me feeling that this is better than the other poster other than I like the heading text better. I would even argue the other one has a stronger layout, is more legible and works better as a poster; just the rebelling angsty designers in me just wants to go with the inappropriate 'pretty' poster.

Without the 's', it's just a mint

No really, it's the most simple branding idea on earth.

For our first project of the year, we were given the guidelines to use and abuse the resource pack supplied by Smint, to create a poster in which to enter their poster competition.
That may sound a little crap, and I thought it was pretty crap to start with also; but the fact it was so limited and un-established (when compared to Coca-Cola who often run this same campaign) that the constraint of it all added to the fun of it.

I'll say, I think little of their branding guidelines and campaign title; but they gave me a lot of weights of Avant Garde for free, so I'm just going to say thank you on that font.

Their competition ran under the mast head of their new 'ingenious' slogan Fresh To Impress, which is a pretty poor excuse for a slogan. When was the last time you were out on a hot date, and they go "Oh, you're breathe is very fresh" and you've replied with "Oh yeah, thanks. I got a smint from the machine next to the condoms in the bathroom".

Anyhow, I had two strong ideas for this project. One had classic painting and the other I removed the 's'—and there was me slagging of Smint's mediocre ideas.

So as you'll of see, above is my idea with the classic paintings. It works on the idea of photoshopping the 'iconic' Smint box into the paintings; with the tag line, reinforcing that the main characters of the painting are impressive because they are fresh rather than the subject matter of the original artwork.

This may be a big blasphemous middle finger to my love for oil paintings and the early works of Picasso but my goodness, look how happy Jesus' disciples are to see that mint box in the age of standardised halitosis.

I really liked this idea but within the conjunction of possible copyright issues and people actually fully understanding the premise of the poster; I went back to the drawing board, stood there wondering why I still have a full scale drawing board in the 21st century and started again.

After a bit of thinking & some tutor intervention, I came to coin the term "Without the 's', It's just a mint." and that's where the fun (and pain) began. I got a dictionary and hired the help of many immature students as we embarked on trying to think of any word that would mean something else if the 's' was removed.

Above are some that I rather liked, but below is the one that made me giggle my toilet humour right through my rib cage and straight onto the page.

So this, is the polished poster that made it to the final cut. I would have done something else but I had to follow the branding guidelines and other such rules; either way I still rather like it.

Now it's in the competition and I was wondering if you could vote on it? I could win £500, and I will happily buy you a pint for your effort.

You can vote every 15 hours (I think) and the cash would really make my overdraft feel a lot better than it currently does. Thank you please.

https://www.facebook.com/SmintUK?sk=app_451684954848385&brandloc=DISABLE&app_data=from-g25g1l%2Cchk-561946cfe8663

I've heard from people that there are problems accessing it, so if you are on mobile or can't access via that link; go on this one and click "Gallery". THANKS!
http://woobox.com/nhb4de/g25g1l

Forget Machete Kills, Colt 45 Kills

Points to the first person to correctly guess who that man is.

Colt 45 are touring in January; and like any band, they need a poster. So here we are, a moustache man, a strict colour pallet and a few dates.

I'll be honest, I really like this poster; and I hope you will too. Fin.

Colt 45 vs. Germany

Three northern lads went to Germany, got lots of free beer and filmed it all—from that I edited it into one coherent sequence of punk and elevator music.

It was hard to edit due to University work, but it was pretty darn fun looking through all the footage and making their terrible divings sync to the backing track.
I've got to say, the background track is fantastic, the lads were rather easy to interview and well although there are a few too many 'erms' and middle fingers, I kind of love it!

Uma Thursdays: Make William Extinct

THURSDAY, THURSDAY, THURSSSSDAAYYYYY!

A few good buddies and a string of fine artsy farties have clubbed together to start running their own little space for arty and strange things alike—they run by the name of The Fisher Street Collective, and operate out of Carlisle's strangest looking building.

Like anything run by artists, it's full of random crap and great, expressive things; one of those is a film club focusing on particular actors that have made an impact on cinema, and what you just saw is a product of that film club. The club will change through different actors and directors, exposing their best, worst and most notorious films.

For this run of films, it's focusing on the widely eye-spread woman by the name of Uma Thurman; and I rather kindly was asked to do the poster for it. Like any rational person, you think, "well this poster clearly needs to have her eyes spread right across both sides", so that's exactly what I did.

Though there is little I can say that you can't already see; with these posters I'm trying to have a strong typographic feel to them, using a mixture of production techniques and effects to make a poster that has mainly just titles and dates, but can grab you a little more than that terrible 'factory' poster you'd see at a traditional cinema.

Also, Morgan is there because he can be there, alright? MOTHERF*CKER!

Dahmer: possibly the strangest poster to date

If there was ever a rule at the Brampton Road campus, it was that drama posters look terrible – so I wanted to break that, and make it really rather red.

Drama students are as drama students do; they act all the time, shout, scream and make performances about serial killers. Yeah, that seems a little out of place.

Jeffery Dahmer was a serial killer—he was also a paedophile, a rapist and a cannibal. There is little to be celebrated in his life other than the fact it came to and end. Though, this is my view, I feel it is not supported by the dreaded drama students of Carlisle.

I was approached by an old housemate to make them a poster for this performance based around the events of this mans life. I know nothing of their play, and I know little of what it contains but anything that is based around a person with such notoriety as he would surely have to be more serious that the EDL in a Halal abattoir, armed with christianity & bigotry pamphlets.

With a little research it seems only fair to have a strict 'blood' colour palette and a selection of dismembered bodies. I was going to have 17 different body parts on the poster, to reflect the amount of people that died at the hands of this man; but as you'd imagine it looked like a crowded prop department after reaching around 12.

With a mixture of blood, body parts, terrible hand writting and the disgusting 'Stanwix Theatre' logo I feel that this poster is quite a success. Two pats on the back for Mr. Walden.