Heads Up!

The heads are up, the stakes are bloody!

Heads Up Productions, is a drama production company started by two people who actively seek to make people sick, learn about murderers and shout at any given cause. 

They are of course drama students; so loud by nature, but these two are another breed. Going by the names Tommy and Amie; these two single-handedly made my first year experience of halls one of the strangest possible, the loudest possible, but also seriously interesting. From creating a production of Jeffrey Dahmer (the serial killer) to being stark naked in my kitchen watching The Little Mermaid, they are not what I'd class as normal and they needed for their production company to reflect just that.

So for these two people I created a dark, open and exploitable branding system for them to use. I took the idea of heads up as literal as possible, making the logo a severed head; warning off any unsuspecting theatre goers. I wanted to make something that both worked in many situations, and could be exploited for many purposes.

I created a branding / logo system that could be used and abused. It could be a logo, a logotype and a frame. It can be a sticker and it can be stamp. It can be any colour and it can be any size. I mean clearly, this is what all logos should be able to do but I worked with the shape of a head because it's almost instantly recognisable image.

This branding was very simple, but really rather fun, I've also bundled in the idea that they can use my font as part of the branding system because it seems to work really well in situe.

The Colture Tour

Colt are going on tour soon & EU should be there.

As I did last time, and as I'm doing now—we have both a professional poster and the poster I'm given free reign upon. Can you figure out which is which?

Honestly, these two aren't all the different but when you create the free reign poster that the band are digging and they need a smart one, it'd make no sense at all to make something completely different.
It's like Ben & Jerry's deciding that they should put a core of sickly sweet syrup inside their ice cream, even though everyone loves the ice cream without it. (Sorry Ben) (Sorry Jerry)

Anyway, if you live in Europe I see little reason for not travelling to one of these venues to see some punk boys from the hills perform for you. No, I don't care that you live in Scunthorpe—get to Leipzig, you lazy shite!

The ignored beauty of Jewel Cases

The word Jewel Case, is kind of like 'moist'.

Because everyone cringes at it, but used correctly, it's pretty sexy.

If you are still thinking 'eww' then either you still hate jewel cases or I've gone a little too far.

So, I was born in the generation where tapers weren't really relevant, and CD's were king; though by the time it came for me to consume my own music, digital was king. As a 13 year old boy, I couldn't see why I would want to buy a CD: I couldn't afford them, they were blocky, easily broke and like hell I owned a personal CD player.

But, I did have internet access and the need to listen to terrible misogynistic rap and endless pop-punk, so the infamous Limewire was my best port of call. Downloading music just became a habit; so much so that until I started university I had physically bought roughly 3 albums in my life. As soon as I started university I was thrusted into the world of record collecting because my buddy was a massive collector and lived for music. This rubbed off on me, and suddenly I was buying all these terrible 'I've just started collecting' LPs.

For the first time, I had a lust to buy music, to own music and to collect music. I wanted to know I could physically collect this music, but this wasn't for all music. I still didn't want CDs, just like everyone else in the world. I wanted records, they are huge, beautiful and highly varied, everything CDs are not.

My collection is a little larger now

Now with a 50+ strong music collection to be mildly proud of, I'm starting to dislike CDs less, but they certainly don't hold any real place in my heart. I'm also currently designing an EP that will be release in a jewel case, so I'm slowly warming to these plastic cases of cringe—slowly.

As I work with this format, I find a few things I like about it; but the most annoying part about it is that nobody cares about this certain part. This part is know by every designer and every consumer, it is a beautiful space for creativity and everyone ignores it—even me.

Remember these guys?

Looking above this you'll see the basic format of a CD, which honestly doesn't look all that great does it? But do you see that little frame? That bit of ankle? That bit of sexy? No?

Any better? It's that little half inch tall frame on the far left of the CD. It's always visible on the front cover and it's always ignored. It's almost always just a plain colour, following on with the rest of the design and doing nothing interesting at all.

Even David Bowie doesn't do anything interesting with this area. EVEN DAVID.
You could do so much with this space—I've tested it!

So if you are wanting to exploit this space, here is a small list of things you could do:

• Put a pen or pencil in there
• Fill it with small dice
• Put 3D type in there
• Have a rolled up poster in there
• Fill it with sweets
• Fill it with beer
• Fill it with tears
• Fill it with the blood of virgins

That pretty much covers it.

Visit Maysten!

So, awards have lost their glitter, and I'm starting to care less.

For my final project of the first semester, I had one final brief. It was the final competition brief and it was the daddy off all the of them; the D&AD brief.

Now, two years earlier I'd be so excited about this, but right then, I really wasn't. I'm bored of these competitions, they only prove to be a way to exploit students ideas and they are all run by companies, aiding companies. The only people who gain from them are the companies.

Yes perhaps you could win and get your name on centre stage, and it'll look fantastic on your CV, but once the hype has faded and people loose and care about your pencil; you are right back where you started and the company you designed for just got great design, without paying a single designer.

So when this came round, I weighed up my options and I thought I'd choose the only option that was a charity Amnesty International, because competition or not; I'd do free work for them anyway.

Amnesty wanted to 'Make Injustice Personal' by linking to the youth market and allowing them to relate and involve themselves with the charity.

And with some talking to my tutors, I realised the best way to jump this brief into action—was to annoy the young people of this world. How do you do that? I heard you ask. Block them from social media.

I invented Maysten, the hermit nation; an anagram of Amnesty. The idea is that you would be enticed to visit Maysten—have the maysten experience, of which you'll very quickly realise it's an experience that you didn't really want.

Upon accessing the website, you instantly become a member of the hermit state. You are a number, you are locked out and you are barraged by as much propaganda material as possible.

Trying to access social media is hopeless, you are re-directed to state approved social accounts, of which only one exists. The account of the supreme ruler; with a surprising likeness to Mao and the Jong-Il family.

Acessing anywhere else on the internet is even more difficult. You haven't even the mundane writings of the supreme ruler to entertain you. Merely propaganda, and a clear message of restricted freedom.

Clearly, you cannot stay in this state forever. For a young person, restricted access of the internet for the rest of their life would be one sure fire way to hate Amnesty International; so to combat this, from the moment you become locked out, you are on a single hour timer to the time of your release.

The idea for this, is to give make injustice personal, it is to unfairly silence you and draw upon the restrictions that people lie through each and every day. Hopefully this poorly pieces together GIF will help explain it.

So Amnesty, if you see this, please contact me; lets make something cool! But for god sake don't make me compete to help you make some good design. Also, I know I said I'd work for free, but I demand my own empire, 6 packs of sugar free Smints and a miniature pony.

To catch a Colt

Colt 45 have got me working hard, and here is the beginning of the spoils.

Above is the front cover of their new EP—of which I am designing. We are working with doing a complete EP, a music video and other bags of goodies! Keep your eyes peeled! EP Launches in April.

I don't know how I've done it, but I've caught myself a brilliant client and some good friends; we're having a bloody blast getting these projects sorted, very much looking forward to showing you all.

Also, I've just done a poster for the EP launch at The Brickyard, based on the cover, so there is that also. Have a nice day.