Cups of Tea 056 - 063

Lots of work, but it's almost done... good yeah!

Will post a large post tomorrow, for now... there is essays to be written!

M x

Cup of Tea 55

Rough Cover... I'm unsure but I'll take a look at it in abit...



M x

Edit - Changed the Font from Futura, it was feeling a little to Bauhaus for me.



And with that, the Book is Done! I'll post a I love design link to the full thing tomorrow :)

Cups of Tea 051 - 054

It's Over. 14 spreads are done and dusted. Now to do a front cover and an introduction, then I'm done. Gotta love stress / lack of sleep / short fuse. I'll blog properly later with the rest of the work...



Analysis.



Process.

M x

Cups of Tea 046 - 050

SHIT!

Okey, with less than a week to go, I'm not sure if my body text works on my sins and virtues... I know Rhys mentioned it and I thought it, but it doesn't look so bad on the PDF version... I really need to print it tomorrow and have a word with Dave about it...

Anyways, on a less stressed out note, here's one of my final layouts... Presentation.
Hope you all enjoy :)



M x

Edit - Re-upped because of a spelling mistake, nice catch Gem :) <3

Cups of Tea 041 - 045

Just a quick upload to show you the Typography Virtue, I really don't like the pie chart (not only is weight squashed but it looks squiggly around the edges... And yes, that is the correct terminology for it) so that will be gone tomorrow (in fact, it will probably be re-uploaded...) but I quite like the simplicity of the left hand page. If you couldn't guess, it's the Adobe type tool with a heart...



But for now, gotta go sleep! Presentation in the morning and I need to get my game-face on... Nos Dar!

M x

Cups of Tea 039 - 040

Argh. My Eyes seriously burn haha... 16 hours of consecutive design work today... bringing Sins and Virtues to a grand total of 48 hours... bad times...
Second Sin of the day, Over Thinking.



And on that note, night night!

M x

Edit - re-uploaded. The circle around the brain was slightly off :)

Cups of Tea 033 - 038

5 cups of tea and I'd imagine another 5 will come after this one! A looooong night ahead I think!

Done quite alot today, now have 18 pages to print for my fashion brand and I've just knocked off the first of today's two (possibly 3 if I feel up to it) spreads on Sin's / Virtues. Again, anyone spots any mistakes / things they're not to fused on please let me know, it's all helping guys and I can accept criticism :)

So for now, I'll show you the safe design spread... not to sure about the font I've used for the title but I'll decide if I like it in the morning, looking on it with fresh eyes and that! Be sure to check back later if you're up or in the morning, it's going to be a long, design and tea fueled evening!



M x

Cups of Tea 031 - 032

Dew Dew, yet another day eludes me.

Not managed alot of work today so i'll make this as quick and entry as I can. Uber Tired. Happily In Love. Saw Paranormal Activity, thought it was quite scary personally but formulaic / not a great movie. Borrowed Jon Burgerman's book of Dan downstairs to read, going to do that now before sleep.

Nos Dar Cariad

M x

Cups of Tea 029 - 030

After today and taking things out with someone, I'm really content with life at the moment, it's great :) <3

Anyways a little bit of design done today as I had to cook food to last myself the next two days (zomg...) and purely because I need a bath... my muscles are still aching from the gym on Wednesday.

Watched two films today that I got yesterday with Martyrs, Inside (another french horror) and Orphan (American wank). Inside was twisted on the grounds it could happen and wrong in the amounts of gore / ways people die. Though wtf the whole Zombie thing was about I'll never know... Orphan was so-so, not Halloween remake bad but it certainly had the basis of a good idea and then went all Omen with it... just not as good.

So here it is, spread eight of fourteen... Possibly one of my biggest virtues and probably the most important (next to selflessness and 1337 cake baking...) Imagination. Nothing would be possible without it. Hell, even this blog wouldn't be possible without it, let alone forming opinions and emotional bonds like love...



B00p!

M x

Cup of Tea 028

This has been the most unproductive day on record for a long, long while...

I ended up going out last night, not drinking much but still having a good time with one's wonderful girlfriend :) Paying for it today though... i've got the attention span of a goat right now...

Just bummed about in Uni to help Gemma with some photography before having a little walk around town and then coming back here... Watched a french horror film that's come highly recommended called "Martyrs"... In the word's of Gem, "French Horrors where it's at at the moment"... so I'm paraphrasing, but she's hip and down with the kids so it's alright.

Did a little bit of work on the new photo book we have to produce for Phil too... The basic concept is it has to be do something with nature or a man made item around us... then take 20 pictures of different versions of that item. E.g. Take 20 pictures of 20 different red phone booths. Did a mind map while watching "Without a Paddle" (which was gash...) with the guys and had 25 ideas... whittled it down to 8 but I'm really feeling 3 of them... Guess I'll have to have a word with Phil tomorrow to see which one he thinks could work... as two of them would have me being considerably naughty...

And on that naughty note, i'm off to bed... alot to do tomorrow and gotta be up early to do it all! Night Night kids!

M x

Cups of Tea 024 - 027

MY EYES BURRRRRRRN!

Quark doesn't help matters sometimes... the program really doesn't like .eps files apparently...

Nevermind! Spread 7 is done and here, feast your eyes on it and let me know what you think! I'm off for a run



M x

Cup of Tea 023

Not an exciting day to be honest but got quite eventful all the same :)!

Went in this morning and Angela liked my Fashion Brand logo which was aces, means I can just get on with it as apposed to spending more time tweaking things about and praying she likes it... She also liked Gem's which was aces! Went out for a wander and a celebratory Starbucks after the lecture :D Going to go full out on this on Sunday so it's all snazzy looking when I print it Monday... I need to find a cheap paper bag somewhere in town I can screen print onto and maybe a clothing box! Gemma's just going to wear antlers :) haha!

Decided to clean my room up finally... took four hours of my day but at least it's finally done. Can't let it get that bad again or I'll be screwed over by it closer to another deadline... Also had the idea of getting myself a whiteboard like Tom. Means I can writing on it what I need to achieve before I go to bed every night on it and cross it off as I go along. Even if it's just a little one like I had on my door last year I think it'll be a big help with the timetable. Check me out! Getting organized at last...

Other than that I started back at the gym again... feels good to run again but Jesus Christ I can't hack my old pace... tried running at 12.5km/h like I used to and died after a minute of it... Nevermind, I'll just take it easy for the next 2/3 weeks to get back into the swing of things and hit it hard after Christmas. Also saw a bloke with a really dodgy handlebar mustache... As Iain so poetically put it, "looks like he jumped right out the pages of the sex pest handbook"...

When I got back, I dove into work and knocked out two pages of my Sins and Virtues, means I've got 8 left to do... 4 of which will be hard but look awesome (hopefully) when they're done (going to aim for two of them tomorrow so be sure to check back) and 4 I'm not to happy with... I'll probably change them alot before I do them... hopefully all 14 will be done by next Monday though... want to gauge Dave's Opinion on them.

So without further a due, I present my nights work, Fear and Punctuality! Not to sure about the fear one yet or the list on punctuality (which is taken from cnn... I didn't make those awful excuse up, they seem to be legit...) but we'll see how it pans out :)





Feedback as always, on here of facebook is appreciated and encouraged!

M x

Cup of Tea 022

Cor Blimey Guvna! Awake for almost 20 hours and only one cup of tea?

Steady on Jeffery, you silly old doddle, It's okey, I have a lie in tomorrow!

Just done some concept work for my Fashion Brand, Augustine... I've produced a letterhead but it just feels so... Simple. Did something similar last time but with lines and got told it made the work too 'cluttered' on my feedback form...

So here it is, in all it's bloody simple glory, check it out and let me know what you think (oh and of the logo in the top right...). Oh and the white border is there to stop your eyes bleeding from brown...



M x

Cup of Tea 021

Purely because it deserves its own post

Cups of Tea 017 - 020

Day of rest my arse.

After a dreadful day at work i've come home and done nothing but try to relax... as you can tell by my sour mood it hasn't really worked. Lying in the Bath with Incense to the soothing sounds of Sigur Ros, Failed. Lying on my bed reading with a cup of tea to Damien Rice, Failed. Baking cakes... Failed. Hell, even watching the Labyrinth failed to cheer me up today... I guess I just must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. The 96 lifestyle annoys me.

Worse of all, a good friend of mine has had to start working there again because of the lack of Graphic Design work around at the moment... It doesn't bode well for my future... I guess it's relieving to think that I'll probably start my own studio anyways.

Other than trying to De-stress, I've done a little bit of work today, done my most risky layout for my Sins and Virtues on confidence... If I don't get absolutely massacred by Dave for this one I'll be very surprised, but it's all about the risks baby!



Other than that what else is there to say other than THANK GOD THOSE ANNOYING IRISH KNOBHEADS ARE OUT OF THE XFACTOR! Maybe we can get back to normality now.

M x

Cups of Tea 011 - 016

Alot of tea, what can I say? It's been quite stressful... but productive I guess!

Got 500 words of my essay polished off (even though I'm not sure if it reads properly... it's been awhile since I've essayed it up) and a new page of my Sins and Virtues! w00t w00t! Gotta knock off another 4 pages tomorrow... another 3 sins / and a virtue...

Anyways, gotta be up for work in the morning so I'll leave you with my biggest Sin...
Enjoy!



M x

Cups of tea 007 - 010

Not much time for tea over the past two days, been working my chaff off creating the Fred Diamond work... as promised, here's some of the design work :)

Now i'm off to bed, really run myself down over the past week... this amount of work x lack of sleep x lack of food is slowly killing me. Over Worked much?





Might pop the article up tomorrow if anyone want's to read it? Remember, add the blog, pop a comment on and share it with anyone you think'll be interested.

M x

Cup of Tea 006.

'Ain't got time for Tea!'... Or was that Bleed?

Regardless, deadlines are looming... panic is setting in all around me, the sensible thing must be achieved. BOWLING! Yes kids, I wasted a night bowling and it was fun! Good times were had by all (except maybe Aaron...) and I got a free burger out of it. Lovely jubbley.

So after this procrastination, some work needed to be done and work I did... I planned out a projected outgoings for my professional studies to include wages (dependent on if we MADE anything the first year)... Employing 4 people at minimum wage costs almost 10 times the office rent / bills / kitting the office out... I shit my pants when I realized our expenditure would be almost £50k if we did move the company into an office and got paid to work... If it's like that for a card company, God help how much it'd cost a design agency to get started up...

I also knocked up a playful double page spread for my sins and virtues... On which I will end this blog. I'm knackered! Hope you enjoy it!



M x

Cups of Tea 004 - 005

Holy Christ on a Stick Batman! Stressed out much?

After quite a fun filled afternoon of playing COD with Aaron on my new sexy 32" tv, reality slapped me in the face like a cold, wet kipper. Deadlines are looming and i've not done alot of work for them...

Well I guess I have... Done quite abit for Phil's 8 Word project in terms of concept work on paper but very little physical research as it was a character I created myself... maybe I'll knock up a few more pages to print with my research, just to thicken it out...

My branding project is now started and I've got the base of my logo done for it, just to vector it, knock up a quick business card and letter head, tweak my already made manual and then take pictures of the boys in suits for the catalog. Lovely. Well it would be if it wasn't supposed to be handed in two weeks from now... Apart from that you've seen my updates on Sins and Virtues and the Essay isn't started. This is of course completely ignoring professional studies. FFS.

Sink or Swim I guess. Freelance work will have to be put on hold until Christmas break but at least this is making me seriously consider my time management... hopefully I'll still come out of this with pretty good grades... that is if I pray really, really hard and don't play call of duty at all...

So alas, no design today as it's all on paper. Early start tomorrow to print on the newsprint stock I've got for my Fred Diamond article and then come home and knock out 3 double page spreads for Sins and Virtues but also do alot of facts and figures work for my Professional studies... FUN!

Beats the 96 I guess.

M x

Cups of Tea 002 - 003

God, I hate working in retail. Admittedly it's money at the end of the day, but by Christ I'm glad I've got a sense of ambition... It's probably what made me do this of my sins / virtues layouts first... Layout 1 - Virtue 1, Ambition.



Not the best picture I must say, gotta love screen grabs... but hopefully it's some insight into what i'm working on... just hope it's readable haha!

Other than that, today has been very unproductive. Got in from work at 5, cleaned my new shiny water filter (yes kids, it DOES make better tasting tea) firstly because my dorm water has that irony taste you get with meat (yes kids, in water...) which doesn't really make a good cuppa... Secondly, I want to try that tea experiment I talked about yesterday :) You will see mwhahaha.

If you are reading this, feel free to pop a comment down... i'm not sure if they're still not working, it'd also allow me to see if there's anyone reading this :p

M x

Cup of Tea 001.

Hi, How've you guys been?

Luckily, I've already filled you in about a week or two ago as to what's been going on and I've decided that Teasign will live on. They say you can't keep a good man down and by this sentiment, I guess it's true you can't keep a good blog down. So with eager fingers and a good brew, I begin again... typically on an uneventful day. Damn.

Had to work today and worked on a current project called "Seven Deadly Sins", the premise of which is designing a booklet 230mm x 160mm on seven sins and virtues of being a graphic designer... My ideas have expanded alot over the time I've been given the brief, starting as photographs with type in 3d environments, to photo-montage, to signs and symbols of navigation, narrowing it down further to hospital guidelines and now to something a little like the Feltron report... Well alot like the 2005 one in sense of layout... not its actual content and style.

I'm pretty much planning on a simple vector illustration on the left, then splitting the right hand side of the page into 4, the top left being a diagram (pie chart, graph etc.), top right being a quote, bottom left being a fact / statistic on the sin/virtue and the bottom right being my thoughts on it. Should be quite snazzy... need to start it digitally tomorrow so I have something to show to my lecturers on Monday. Completed one of my projects for next Friday based on a fictional rock star (which i'll post up later in the week) and started initial ideas for my fashion brand.

For fear of sounding like Karl Pilkinton, I'll approach the next topic with caution. Those who know me well (well, anyone that reads this blog to some degree...) will know I'm always buying new tea in search of the perfect brew... I shit you not, currently residing in the dorm is 8 different types of teabag and some twinning tealeaves... But this is the first time I've ever thought - "Is this the only variable?"

Bare with me.

I mean the tea bag obviously effects the taste of the brew... but what about the milk? The water? Hell, even the sugar / amount of it. The Brew Time? The Water Temperature... Jesus, I've though about this too much... but I smell a future project here haha... I shall experiment with some Glen Getti on monday and get back to you...

But until tommorow children, here's the new Cool for Cats flyer




M x

New Banner...

And The Start of A New Era of Teasign.

Phase 1 is complete.

Phase 2.5 starts today. Twitter account is launched for quick working edits before the blog is updated DAILY (yes, Daily...) as of tomorrow. Winnar.

Until then, Follow us on Twitter - @Teasigner

M x

8,000,000 cups of tea later...

Ok, so maybe not that many.

Christ alive it's been awhile, to be honest it's been so long I'm not even sure if I want to continue this blog or start afresh... Get a new, shiny layout design with fancy new posts about my dilly-dallying in photoshop, drinking lemonade on my front porch while shooting the breeze, merrily humming show tunes while I spout my views on the importance of typography and good dental hygiene. I have no idea what I just said, but hopefully you got the jist that I'm unsure about resuming Teasign. Only time will tell I guess if I am still that little welsh boy who likes tea and giggling at inappropriate behavior or if I'm a savvy designer, the big strong beardy type who wears wife-beaters and cuts down trees JUST BECAUSE HE CAN.

Blatant proof I'm probably the first, Bollocks.

So what has been happening since my 510th cuppa of 2009. Well not alot really. I did some commission work, I did some Uni work, I wasted a good portion of my summer playing WoW purely because I had nothing else to do. For this I blame the crap weather and a sheer reluctance to get the hell out there and do something. But I'm over that now, I promise.

The work has commenced again and the WoW has been put away... just waiting for the return of my mmo-curious self. But for now it's not stop blogging, working and drinking some grade A PG Tips.

So stick around, tell your friends and pitch a tent. I'll be back tommorrow after I figure out when I stopped blogging so I can do a proper update, but until then watch this space.

Cups of Tea 495 - 510

Blimey! 500 cups of tea aye?
Don't worry, im not abandoning the blog again you silly people... im just assessing afew things (such as a change of name before I revamp the entier layout). Be patient, you will like it yes?

Cups of Tea 490 - 494

Okey, so maybe designing a blogger layout on a wing and a prayer wasn't the best idea i've had. I've updated what will probably be the temporary banner, just to give you guys a look and feel :) If you like it let me know, if you don't say so... hmtl hates me so with that I go to the land of nod. Good Night!

Cups of Tea 155 - 489

Colossal amounts of tea have been drunk and just over two months have passed since my last post. Shit. Well put those torches and pitchforks down kids, rip down the 'lost' flyers and get me off those milk cartons, I'm back.

The simple reason I haven't posted is the amount of work I've been doing recently... seriously the last two months have been balls to the walls design, the results of that you'll see at the end of this post. But for now, I'd like to say that commencing the next post will be the launch of phase 2 of this blog. Everyday updates again, a re-design of the classic tea cup / overall feel of the design and some g-r-f-x goodness in almost every post... mmmmm! Isn't that just lemony fresh?

So what have I been doing between work you ask? To put it simply... Sleep/Drink/Eat/Draw/Take in exhibits. The usual really. Some great news that's happened over the past few weeks is me winning Swansea Metropolitan's Francis Morgan Scholarship. IT pretty much means I get a sweet £1k a year (while im in uni) to spend on graphic design related stuff. Holy Potatoes! So after 2 weeks of holding the money in my bank and dreaming the sweet dreams that money brings, I baught a Nikon D60 SLR... so expect some photographic-goodness thrown into the works, hell maybe even into my work itself!

And speaking of work...


Client/Designer Stationary.









Moving House Card.








Fresh Legs Flyer (unused... tour fell through).




Oi. Stop it. You're all too greedy for the design. There will be more tommorow so come back y'all... GO!

Cups of Tea 149 - 154

Shiiiitload of tea today <3!
Horray. Tea fuels design I guess, as I've been rather productive today :p it's all gravy!

I started the day very tired, then went in and did a little more on my spam brief (need to do the final sketches tomorrow so expect some work up by Tuesday night on it... although I really don't care for it much...)

Other than that, I've pretty much knocked out my Harvard referencing project as well! Its just a small project to see how we handle text but I thought I'd put a little shot of it up (I haven't done the cover / back of the booklet yet so I'll upload it all to my ILOVEDESIGN page when I'm finished with it).



Other than that, not alot to say! Saw Micheal Sheen talking about Port Talbot on Johnathan Ross and how wierd the town is. How many brilliant actors are from here. My job to break it and add a great designer to the list ;) Also Vin Disel plays WoW! Winnar haha!

Cups of Tea 134 - 148

Doesn't time fly when you're NOT having fun? By Jove, I didn't realize it'd been almost a whole week since I posted last. A lot to talk about, so sit down, brew up and meet me back here in five.

Sitting comfortably? Good. Tea pipping Hot? Well leave it to cool and have a listen. I FINALLY handed in the magazine today! YES! It took bloody long enough... So for your viewing pleasure, the pages you HAVEN'T seen (And I deem worthy of posting...) are below, enjoy the visual treats :)



Well what else is there to tell? Resident Evil 5 is bloody fantastic (you heard me Fraser...) and I've also become partially addicted to a US Drama Set in an Advertising agency called TRUST ME. It's pretty sweet to be honest, if you start watching it, please bare with it. The first two episodes are a little slow but it does get alot better! It also stars Thomas Cavanagh (a.k.a. JD's Brother Dan in Scrubs) So yes. Check it out!

Got a new brief today for A series of education books (it's all tiered, so the designs must relate through novice, moderate, advanced as well as with the accompanying CD) which should be fun, even though we've been given 9 weeks and I could probably do it in 3... should have given us more time on the magazine. But never mind, that's water under the bridge now.

Other than that, the weather's been gorgeous, the weather's been nice and I break up for Easter next week! Shweet as.

Cups of Tea 129 - 133

ALOT OF TEAAAAA. So much so I can't sleep.
fuck. I want to draw. I want commission work. I really want to design a flyer! ARGHHHH ROBOTS. I've got resident evil 5 and Wartech sitting next to me and I can't play them because everyones in bed / my surround sound is uber (i.e. it doesn't go bellow "loud" on volume xD)
nevermind, work tommorow. Need to design. Need to learn how to draw. ARGHHHHHHH. Arrp.

Cup of Tea 128

Okey I take it back... I was upset, I didn't mean it large bodies of text, I was just a little stressed out... do you forgive me?

Good day in terms of work, got 5 pages of the magazine done (3 left... EEEEEP!) and did a cool for cats flyer! Just went too Tesco to pick up Resident Evil 5 to reward myself so all is well! I REALLY don't want to goto work tomorrow but nevermind... And with that i'm off to bed. I'm not proud of 4 of the pages ive designed so I'm only going to upload the contents page... for I think it is genius.

Cup of tea 127

Brace yourself for this one kids, you might want to get your knives and pitchforks ready because this is a doosey.

I HATE working with large amounts of text. Yes I said it, a graphic designer who doesn't like pages and pages of text. Fuck that. Big money or not, with programs like quark that don't allow me to be the designer I am without a million complications, large text based projects like magazines, instruction manuals and such can take a big, running jump off a cliff into a shallow pool of jagged rocks. I fucking hate it ARGHHHH.

As you may have guessed, the magazine's not going well... infact I hate it. I really wish I'd done something with easier layouts like computer arts or NOM, nice, crisp clean design. None of this arty farty, grundge splatter brushes nonsense. Nevermind, its not like the marks count towards my degree...

And on that note kids, I leave you with this, the News section of my Mag... enjoy!

Cup of Tea 126

Veeeery slow day today, lots of work then did the silly thing of tidying my room while Gem was here when I should have been investing in kisses! Other than that, no done alot. I've got a year infect and it's pissing me OFFFFFFF. Going to have an early night and hope its gone in the morning...

Cups of Tea 121 - 125

I have no drive. No Zoom Zoom. No Va-Va-Voom.

Today has been a day of lackluster work it must be said. I got up, drew doodles of Rabbit's in my Seminar and then came home with Gem and had a cool, couple chatty day which was nice :) I then went to the Gym, came back and attempted some work to no avail... I managed a mind map for my next project (just a simple piece on referencing, i'll be able to do it Wednesday I think!) and then I gave up... quee making of Jacket potatoes, almost falling asleep and contributing to The GAMES YOU SHOULD BUY PODCAST. It was pretty fun... though I pretty much lowered the tone all the way through it... My bad xD

Nevermind, I was going to go out for a pint but I'm sitting here, drinking a cuppa and starting Eternal Sonata, it's pretty decent so far and I like the combat system. VERY NICE. Full day of uni tomorrow, which means I'll hopefully have some work to upload... if not there'll defiantly be alot of magazine stuff going up before I house party it up on Wednesday :D

Cups of Tea 116 - 120

The Most un-sunny Sunday I can remember.

I went to work, it pissed down. I came home, it was still pissing down. Wet, Wet, Wet. Typical British weather... and it annoyed me. Nevermind, I finally got the main tool I need for my street art mwhaha, soon poppits, soon...

Not alot done today to be honest, dragged out the old Xbox when I got in and played some "Beyond Good and Evil" in preparation for the Sequel in May! Other than that just imported some old and new music into Itunes (The Chemical Brothers "Surrender" and "Dig Your Own Hole", The Beta Band "The Three E.P.'s" and The Asteroid's Galaxy Tour "Fruit".) then chilled out with a cup of tea.

I have also decided the best way to find inspiration. Buy two small energy drinks. Knock both Back. Play Electronica (Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers). Run Bath. Get in bath. Lie with your ears in the water and think. Through this bizarre, mind altering method of relaxation / sedation / pulse racing mediation, I've finally decided what I want to do with my Spam Ad's. A kind of Marmite feel, of the desperation of eating Spam, it should be fun!

I also had great fun last night after posting this blog looking at old '70s TV ads, trying to coax the inspiration locked between relaxation and the need for sleep out to run in the big, green park of University Coursework. It didn't really work but I saw some cooool things, like the Unigate Humphry Ads and The Cadbury's Smash Martians. Gawd, they're both so Iconic... I love the Red/white straw creaping in at the corner... Gotta come up with something Similar!

Cups of Tea 113 - 115

Seriously... this magazine is starting to get old :(
It's kinda depressing how something that could be fun turns out to be such a pain in the arse >.< Style Sheets? Who the hell needs style sheets... I'd prefer to tweak everything by hand! Consistency? Nooooo. We'll just have a size 37.934 font right about theeeere. Okey so I jest, but God, redesigning a magazine must be such a pain in the arse! God, I wish I could just work on Music related posters... or theater posters, that'd be fun too!

Other than that, a pretty decent day all things considered. Working in the morning is so much better for me than working at night... I can actually get some work done and chill out... it's kinda nice having a Saturday again :) I also get a bit of a lie in on a Sunday now (not in until 10! w00t!), therefore the world rawks!

Other than those two points, not much to say. Started getting added by alot of random people from all over the world to do with design (or just general uni students) on myspace which is kinda odd... especially as I'm hardly on the thing! Some German girl taught me how to Swear in German which was pretty cool xD

Also I'm going to start a street art project tomorrow, the planning / preparation steps and get my blender hehe... should be fun :) I'll post some ideas up soon! For now however kids, here's some Cover-art from my magazine... its one of the boys with an accordion haha!

Cups of Tea 111 - 112

Who watches The Watchmen? Graphic designers. I saw it today, and it was GOOOOD. It was hardly "The Dark Knight" but it was never going to be (if you've read the comic you'll understand) but luckily it says true to the graphic novel so it's all good! I won't bore you with it, as almost EVER blog i've read today is either "OMG I WANT TO SEE IT" or "OMG ITS AWSOME".

Other than this, all I did was goto uni, read Grafik and do some simple page layouts for my magazine. Sorry about the awfully small blog but I am le tired...

Cups of tea 107 - 110

AND I STILL WANT MORE TEA.

Okey, so today didn't start out to great, I was tired and I lost my bankcard (I now have to wait 4 - 7 business days for a new one) but it doesn't matter. I'm really starting to enjoy design again. I've been working on my SPAM brief for a few hours and I'm liking the direction I'm heading in. It's starting to become fun again. I'm happy with life, the balance has been restored.

I got a chance to FINALLY play Killzone 2 as well. I traded in Resistance 2 and got it with the points on my Game Loyalty card (fundamentally getting a free game as I got Resistance 2 with the PS3 at no extra charge). I like it. At first I was a bit skeptical of it all, but after afew hours (3 or 4) I started to enjoy it. Don't get me wrong, it's not AMAZING. It won't change the face of FPS games, but it's not as bad as I was half expecting it to be.

And with that in mind, I retire for the night. I just finished watching "Bolt' (yes, the disney film... it's pretty good :) ) and now I'm going to read "Space Raoul" by Jamie Smart in bed. Fun times. For those who know not of the genious that is Smart, I leave you with an image and these wise words:- "Find and Read 'Bear'. Best thing EVER."

Cups of Tea 103 - 106

Dammit. Damn it. Damn it, buggering damn it. Yes, I said buggering... I can't remember if blogger has a filter or not, I'm pretty sure that this will be marked 18 plus if I do so bugger off.

I only got 3 pages done today of this cursed magazine. In all fairness, I've got the materials I need now to make the next 7, but it's not the point. What is the point is how much work I SHOULD have done on this project and haven't. Bugger.

Not that i'm not happy that I've got myself into a position when I only have to knock up another 4 pages. I just feel myself slipping and it's really getting on my nerves. There's only 3 weeks left though. Once this brief's out of the way, I can concentrate on the Spam one and the one we got given yesterday on making a booklet for theory referencing (which I know what I'm doing).

After a good 6 or 7 hours of work, I went to watch "The International". I wouldn't bother. When I felt a slight sense of disappointment at "Push" last week, this film makes "Push" look like "The Godfather". Nothing happens for two hours. A story that could have made a brilliant action flick was turned into a boring, albeit thought provoking attack at conglomerates and corporations. Everyone in the Cinema looked very disappointed with it. Shows you should never judge a film by its trailer.

Nevermind, here's a little tantalizer of the magazine... Hurray for Skitch, it makes life so much easier... I think I'll have to buy it :o

Cups of Tea 101 - 102

Not a Dalmatian in sight.

Not alot done today but I wanted it that way. Today was the last day of procrastination, as of tomorrow I will being AT LEAST 3 hours of work a day, even if I have no briefs. If I don't I'll just draw or something, but my days will be broken up into 5 slots.
1.) Go to Uni / Work (2.) Seeing Gemma (3.) DESIGN (4.) Gym (5.) Sleep. Of course i'll have breaks / watch a film while doing these things (I can't work without background noise), but it's taken me 100 cups of lukewarm Tea to realize I really want this. I've wanted this for as long as I can remember and I'm falling behind. I won't let it happen. I am going to be THE best at this.

So as a result, today was chilled! Went to Uni, spent time with Gem, Went Back to Uni, Came home, Got Food (PIZZAAAAA) and then watched the new Heroes / Defiance. Please. If you haven't seen Defiance, you owe it too yourself to watch it. The film is amazing. I can't help but feel like i;ve been hit in the stomach any time I see anything to do with WWII / The Persecution of the Jews by the Nazi Regime. To think home much pointless bullshit we stress over everyday when we compare our lives to these people.

Cups of Tea 99 - 100

OMFG! Tea-Triple Figures... If each cup of tea i've consumed in a regular 170ml mug has 14 calories with semi-skimmed milk (i'll crank that to 24 with the sugar), that means over the past 61 days, i've consumed 1,468 calories... that's almost a days callorie intake JUST from tea... ANYWAYS.

The day has seemed endlessly long with the exception of the 4 hours I spent with Gem, which flew in pure wall-cleaning action xD... after such events I have been DRAINED. I did an hour's work on my "Bring back Spam" Brief and then went to the gym for two hours... by the time I got back, it was 7, by the time i'd cooked it was 8, then I wanted to sleep. Cue and 2 hour argument about wether or not I should go out, to which obviously I didn't. I'm so tired my eyes are starting to sting...

Nevermind, tommorow is a tuesday, therefore I can look forward to a day of pure work... hopefully it'll help me get into the idea of a fixed timeline for working (other than WORK ALL DAY WEDNESDAYS) Gotta have at least 8 pages of the magazine done by Thursday imho...

Cups of tea 96 - 98

May I start by wishing you a HAPPY SAINT DAVIDS DAY! Y'know, Patron Saint of Wales? Nobody? No? Alright then... moving on.

Not alot done today really, drank tea, went to work, did work, came home. Realised I had no lead ANYWHERE in the house so work was out of the question, instead I began reading "Thinking Course" by Edward De Bono. I have to admit it's pretty helpful for knocking out some good ideas. It gives you a basic incite to how creative peoples minds work and how you can exploit it. I'm going to use the "Random Word" Tool for my Spam project. I got the dictionary, told my mum to pick a random number then a number of the word on the page... it was 50 and word 9. "Bedbugs"... from this I derived Monsters, things that go bump in the night! And from this, I got the idea of a Spam Monster! hehe, should be fun!

Also found a great new Application while searching for Comic Life. It's by the same people and called "Skitch". It's pretty much an interactive, editiable screen grab software for Mac, but it also allows you to upload / edit images at the touch of a button. You can even edit file types! I'll have to have a play with it later, but to check out what it can do, click here. It'll sure make blogging easier :D

Other than that, not alot to say. Other than if you really, really love me... you'll buy me some Mechtorians when they're released. I WANT STEPHEN LEPODD!

Cups of tea 92 - 95

Over the past3 days, I have had the over-whelming urge to draw.
Seriously, I haven't been able to think of nothing else in terms of recreation / what i'd rather be doing instead of work. I've had such a need to pick up a pencil that I'm actually sat here shaking from energy drink, LCD Sound-System cranked through my Skullcandies and my sketchbook recieving a firm pounding from my Uni-Clipturn. My hands are so stained with lead that i'm currently typing with my ring finger/pinky. I fucking love drawing.

Seriously, if I had enough incentive to draw, I'd love to be an illustrator. I guess I'm just not as naturally talented at it so I don't find the time to do it enough. I mean something will ALWAYS put me off when I get into drawing, which is kinda sad. I'm going to try to stick to it this time however... I'm getting better at figures/animals :)! My perspective drawing however leaves a lot to be desired.

Other than this, work was actually alright, I had stuff to do so I didn't mind it. I got in, watched Scotland vs Italy and then between writing my essay / drinking tea / mercilasly tickling my nephew for trying to poke me in the feet, watched the Ireland vs England Game... Possibly the worst game of the six nations imho, it was so bloody boring...

So I've talked enough crap about drawing so here's two pages of my sketchbook, hope you enjoy kids... and please, don't be overly judgmental of them...

Cup of Tea 91

Before I start, bloody French...
I couldn't post yesterday because of the lack of tea! I know... I didn't have any milk which sucks, but nevermind... I've finally got one!
There's very little to write other than i'm starting to coast... nevermind. I will get back on top of things this week. Time to goto bed. Nos Dar all.

Cup of Tea 90

Alot to say but i'm really to tired! Must Condense. Into. Paragraph. -wheeze-.

Got up at 11, went to Gregs, realized lent started today and couldn't eat pastry so bought a box of wheatabix and milk. Got home did some design. Stressed out over home much I have to do atm and went to subway. Bought Dragon Quest on the way home (COD5 traded in got me £25 and with the student card I got it for £1.99... WIN) Worked until half 9 then went to the cinema to see Push. It was ok, reminded me of jumper. Came home finished working, wrote blog, went to bed. Ahhh Now i'm getting ahead of myself!

Pretty fun day but also harsh amounts of work... I really need to use the College Diary I bought to plan out a timetable of when I do work / See Gemma / Play Games... -sigh- It could be worse, I could be Tom and have to give up Cola for lent... God, I'd miss the Caffine! I leave you with the six finished Stamps. I don't really like them, but i'm sure someone will!

Cup of Tea 89

Aye, I am so sleepy. Please don't tell my manager...

A most normal Tuesday was had today old chaps. I got up at the usual 0800 hours, had a spot of blighty and went chim-chim on my merry old way to the University. Such technological wonders astound and intrigue me, so much so that I did absolutely diddly squat. Cor Blimey, if I hadn't gone I wouldn't have missed a tuppenny bit. All I did was sit at the old Macintosh and had a chinwag around the water fountain with some of the chaps about global policy and who's butler was the better shoe shiner.

OK, so that's a lie. I fancied a bit of a toff rant... as Gem will undoubtedly agree, I've been in a bloody strange mood today. It is true, I did nothing this morning in Uni other than get a little help with my stamps brief (as much as I loved my game boy, I wasn't to happy with the other two stamps...) so now I'm on the same track, just using different shoes I guess.

Learned some nice things in my illustrator elective though, a few things I didn't know how to do such as additional strokes / fill colours and also got a better understanding of the arm tools. Also gotta draw 5 rough sketches from a list to vector up next week.

Unfortunately, I've been subjected to a the biggest '70s cheese music for the past 3 hours, thankfully it's now stopped (I hate ABBA...)... So as any gentleman would do I just slapped The Fresh Legs on full blast and stuck a speaker to the wall! I also got added by quite a cool clothing company earlier, might have to pick up one of THESE on Friday.

Right then kids, time to go to bed. Tomorrow there's an Essay to write, at least 6 master Pages to design and two more stamps to design (and tweak the current 4). So I'll leave you with a gander of what I've done... as much as I hate internet pictures these will have to suffice I'm afraid... to late to go out finding interesting looking TVs, especially with the rest of the work I've got on!

Cup of Tea 88

Goddamit I need my sleep. Thank God for the Wednesday Lie in or I would most definitely be a dead man by Friday!

While I would like to follow my weekend trend of very little design work, I forced myself to get something done for the stamp project i've got to hand in on Friday... and if I'm being honest I'm quite happy with what i've produced for it so far! Admittedly I think the text needs a little tweaking here and there but it's relatively sound / to the specifics I wanted... So I present to you the first of three of six stamp designs... don't they just pop?



And with that short but sweet entry, I think i'll hit the hay. Not alot else to talk about and I'm afraid I'll fall asleep at the keys. Nos Dar Cariad. x

Cup of tea 87

A most uneventful day, but inspiring.

I worked 7 - 4 (worked through my lunch, my head was pounding and my chest wasn't much better) slept until 8 and then woke up with this over powering urge to design... I could have also eaten a small cow so I cooked up some roasties to go with my reheated Sunday dinner and got to work on some concepts for my stamp brief. It's almost finished now, I'll start to digitize them tomorrow and post one or two up to gather opinions. A bit gutting I can't get authentic white noise though, that would have been shweet! (Hurray for photoshop filters).

I've also come up with three or four concepts for new street art pieces... I say new but I haven't really DONE any, just cooked up concepts... these will be pretty cool though... going to try the first one on Plywood board, need an organic surface to create the effect I want so I can always do a grundged to fuck background... They kinda tie in with a collaboration project I'm Starting with Gemma, but I don't want to say to much about that just yet! After all, it would hardly be an underground movement if I went along blabbing about it now, would it :O? I say that like we're art terrorists haha... We're really just kids with chalk drawing on sidewalks...

EDIT / P.S.
The street fighter thumb is ALOT worse... ooops.

Cups of Tea 84 - 86

Anyway you spin it, today was rubbish blog day.
Got up, packed, went home, read some of Brian Eno's Diary, went to work, came home, eat food, watched The Good The Bad The Wierd (Good Korean Film) and now i'm about to goto bed. Nothing interesting to report (I even read 4 papers trying to find something to talk about!), No Design (though I've FINALLY figured out how to do my stamp brief) and I've got a cold. I should have stayed in bed...

Cups of Tea 82 - 83

HADOKEN! Oh yes... this is the real world... no need to dragonpunch here... too much street fighter make Mat go giddy. Okey, poor attempts at humor and misquotations of the shining aside, Street Fighter IV makes me want to draw in water colours all day. Seriously, not only is it beautiful to play but also to look at.

I've played it for a good 8 hours today (then I watched "Shooter" with Mark Wallberg... I wouldn't recommend it.) and God, if I didn't have work tommorow I'd still be playing it now. The only problem being of course it has acctually worn away the skin on my button finger. No word of a lie, it is RED raw.

That is acctually missing skin at the top of my thumb kids... fucking Sagat WHY ARE YOUR MOVES SO COMPLEX.... WHY IS AKUMA NOT A STARTING CHARACTER!?!

But enough of that, It's not a games Blog. All i've really done in terms of design today is buy a new 0.3 mechanical pencil and a new project sketchbook for a brief on "Bring back Spam" (The Meat). Should be fun I guess, just got to get stuck into it over the weekend... Now if only I had space to store these Sketchbooks...

I spent my time between street fighter and Gemma as every uni student does... having a Nerf War! It raged almost two hours of Foam Dart Shooting madness, flanking corners and taking survillians hostage but oh, the joy it caused!

Also talked more to my brother about going to visit him sometime in Easter Break... We're going to see Takashi Murakami's Exhibit and there's some Design Award Thing going on at the Design Museum that I wouldn't mind taking a look at... So it should be fun :)

Now, if only I didn't have work in the morning :(

Cup of Tea 81

Today has really been a wasted day.

I got up wanting to hurt people, went to lecturers and nearly fell asleep and then have been running on a mental capacity comparable to that of a wooden cow. Suffice today nothing has been done all day. Hell, I even couldn't play street fighter IV properly which made me die a little inside (not to mention the 360 Controllers REALLY aren't built for Beat 'em ups....)

However, I did pop by the comic shop and get some new toner paper (its the last two sets they've got, so i've now got a stash of 8 to cock about with, one of them even came with the proper toner cutters -squee-) So I can be all manga-esq! I really want to write a comic though... Been reading Gun Smith Cats all day (baught the Omnibus... its almost 400 pages!) and love it sooo bloody much. Going to pick up the second one tommorow while it's still there!

And with this rather boring turn of events (or typing of blogs) I will go to bed.
Night Night.

Cups of Tea 79 - 80

Yes I'm appalled at myself too... there actually hasn't been ANY tea drinking in about a week! Shocking... Even more shocking is that it all boils down to me being to lazy to fill the kettle... So you can guess how work's going... However, I did switch Brands! I now Drink Saga Tea, its 38p for 50 of them in Tescos in the international section (It's a Polish brand).

I've done very little this past week. I had a great valentines day (Thanks Hunni) but apart from that I havn't done anything worth mentioning. I did attend a talk by Ken Garland however (see earlier blogs for First Things First Manifesto) on metaphore which was amazing! Afew people I spoke to didn't really get what the point of it was but the art he showed was simply epic.

It was mostly polish artist's who I'd never heard of under Polish communism and how they had to use metaphore to communicate how much they hated the socialist regime forced on them. People like Stasys Eidrigevicius and Andrzej Pagowski who's work almost makes me shake with how good it is. Bastards haha.

Hmmm now what else to talk about... I feel after such a long time that I should give you something that's at least afew paragraphs long to read. Incidently, please try and pass this blog on to people who might be interested... I've got no idea who reads this other than three people so it'd be nice to have afew people reading it as incouragement to post! Also, if I don't post X360-uns, Myspaces, Facebookers etc. Spam me with messages giving me hassle if I miss a day. I really need to stick to doing this!

Along side it, I finally started creating my new visual diary with all the cut out paper, flyers etc. that've been floating around in my bag for the past 6 months... really need to keep adding to that, but now it's there it'll gradually fill up over time I'm sure.

Also for James (Jammer) here's the Alphabot front cover for the Children's book project as you wanted to see some design and also the newest Cool for Cats flyer i've produced.

Cups of Tea 76 - 78

Argh. I write this so tiredly! And for no real reason other than the mental wear and tear of having to get up ridiculously early and attend a theory lecture. C'est la vie.

Nothing really happened today design wise because of this, after me being all fired up to design last night, I'm like a tired man shielding his eyes from sunlight today. Got the new issue of Grafik (bitterly disappointing for £9...) and the new Juxtapoze (Which for £3.50 was a bloody steal). Also picked up Rocksound, Art Rocker and NME for analysis for my magazine brief and all I can really say on them is how ugly magazine design can be when you really look at it.

Take Artrocker. It's a magazine for Indie bands / the general London music scene but the design reflects that of the local paper. The column's are horribly spaced and feel much to static, the backgrounds make the text hard to read and the image layouts seem very forced, just slapped onto a page at random, jaunty angles. Where's the passion of the music? The fire and contemporary spirit of what these people are trying to do? I don't know. I honestly can't read some of it because of horrible design. Yes, I'm becoming that guy.

And I guess that's what seperates it from being something you'll find at your local supermarket / corner shop like the NME or Rock Sound, the layout. The other two are cleanly collumned, spaced appropriatly and generally are alot nicer to read. Aestheticly they do it for me too. Not to the degree of say a surf magazine or Front, but there's definatly a sense of style and modern feel to the magazines that make's you want to look at it.

And for the record, I don't condone anyone to read NME. Skins is on the cover. Great stuff if I'm 16, to anyone else, no. Who the fuck cares? I certainly don't believe it's made "Music Better" as the cover caption states. Though the second season had Crystal Castles on it... That was pretty awsome.

God, I'm turning old and bitter.

Cups of Tea 67 - 75

Yes that's right, almost 10 cups of tea... and most of them today haha!

Where to begin, the week's been a little uninspired, all I've wanted to do really is see my girlfriend and sleep but alas, snow and noisy people didn't really allow anything xD So I sat uninspired and perhaps lazily didn't really design for a week.

I started the week by reading computer arts projects and being slightly daunted by the ammount of research that went into some logos... but alas, I'm kinda past that now. It's given me a sense of what I should be achieving to create great work... but then again I guess it's all based on what a clients budget will allow. God, I feel so dirty saying that >.<...

But this weekend after turning my brain back on from work designed several stamps based on power wastage due to standby buttons (I won't bore you with facts, my parents were ranting about it while I was designing them xD) and one or two drawings for a future project which you'll soon see!

Cups of tea 61 - 66

I'm almost out of tea and sugar. Damn.

Just a quickie to let whoever's reading this know i'm not dead... the country coming to a stand still because of snow has kinda given me the insentive to be lazy... after all clients can't get to offices in the snow... HAZAA! It's a really bad worth ethic admitidly, but it's helping pass the time none the less... I'm currently catching up with Lost (watched season 3 / first 10 episodes of season 4 in less than a week... wOOt!) and im doing research for the stamp brief i'm currently working on.

Some design tommorow kk lol?

Cups of Tea 57 - 60

Christ alive! That's 60 cups of tea in 32 days. When you think about it that's not really that much, but seeings as these boil down to one day of not having one cup and the next having 6. I must drink moooore!

Design seems to slump for me at the weekend... Work just drains every inch of inspiration and replaces it for sheer hatred of working a 9 to 5 (even though I work from 7... BAH). I just don't get how people can be content to working in sheer, spirit crushing retail. It makes me believe in Ken Garland's first things first manifesto even more... Seeing people buying things because their told, completely impulsively and it's usually bollocks. Two customers have summed up this weekend for their sheer comic genius that couldn't be written by even the Python team.

One woman once showed a television with an i-pod dock atop it didn't comment on this feature as "how marvelous technology is these days" but from the front of the television and the "keyhole"... to which a college said "I think you'll find that's the stand by button."

The second, a young girl about 19 (I love saying "young" about teenagers, I'm so bitter about being 20 haha) asked a friend to recommend a good, dry white wine. He curiously responded "Yes, of course. Which country?" To which she replied "Well. I'm Welsh..."

I'm not pretentious. Just being subjected to such events for the past four years is purely spirit crushing. Gotta hate retail. No wonder a lot more people are applying to do creative courses... Much like First things First, my own personal statement against this is using the depot number 96... I go on about it a lot to people I know so I won't mention it again. But I put a small helvetica "96" in every piece of work I do... they're usually VERY well hidden but i'm thinking of making them a more prominant piece of my work.

God, let me win the lottery so I don't have to do this anymore xD

Cup of Tea 56

So there has been little tea drinking since the last entry, it has to be said, but I'm trying to keep to the habit of writing in here before I goto bed!

Jesus, it's been a week and i've done almost no design in it, and I actually feel quite down about it. But it's gone so fast I havn't really had chance! One thing i've decided however is I'm going to take one Polaroid for every day, use them to decorate my walls and maybe use them in my magazine project in uni, kinda a photographic diary. Maybe drop subtle text onto them like in party scene in RocknRolla, making each dance move into a piece from Hello!

How wierd would it be to find a designer in ammongst Kerry Catona and Jade Goody? I'd be like a marine behind enemy lines. After all, if it's one thing designer's hate it's attention on them, not their work. If they do then they generally go into advertising.

Cup of Tea 55

I blog to you now a distraught man. Artistic perfection of toast is a fools game. Once that recipe is discovered by an individual, karma jaunts to distort this happiness in another part of a mans life. That I why I blog to you at 1:30 PM on this Thursday the 29th of January, much earlier than my usual blog to inform you of the death of a friend, a lover, a toaster.

Mark "The Toasterfaced Bastard" Sabichi, aged 57 days. Died tagically this afternoon while the Bloomers were toasting and his owner, one Mat Boyle was high on toasty delight, tragically Mark came down with Toasterpulndgeritis, the inability to hold bread down to be toasted. After several failed attempts to replundge the bread, Mark was pronounced broken by an electircal engineering student.

Let us remember the good times, the toasty times. Whether it was White Bread, Brown Bread, Wholegrain or Farmhouse, Mark accepted them all providing they were sliced finely enough to fit in his slots. So remember when you lift that crunchy delight to your lips, your toaster could be taken away at any time, so enjoy the time you have.

R.I.P. Mark Sabichi.

Cups of tea 53 - 54

The tea has been minimal, the design has been even less!

What started out as a mess around this morning due to me waking up excited like a child at christmas have proven one thing. I cannot draw realistic people to save my life.

It's true and I guess kinda expected, that as a graphic designer my place is to making text look pretty and maybe a liiiiittle bit of illustration thrown in for good measure, not to be an over-kill illustrator like some people I know.

But God, I wish I could draw.

After a recent DA by my girlfriend, who's work can be found here, I thought i'd be romantic and suprise her with a simplistic illustration of a similar thing (hehe, teaboy... geddit?) but alas, it took me almost two hours to draw something relivity simple. Phail.

Nevermind, I learned of pure artistic perfection later that day... Tesco's "Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper Bloomer" combined with Anchor butter is quite literally, THE best toast ever... it's esentially seasoned tiger bread, but christ, it's tasty... I've almost eaten the whole thing in ten minutes...

Sorry the design and blogging is at a minimun at the moment, with that book project passed all I really want to do is relax, read and cwtch up in bed and pretend to watch films. Life is good <3.

Cups of tea 50 - 52

Wow, that's a whole lot of tea for 27 days. Winnah.

I love reading week, its a chance to chill the hell out, watch films, draw and read books. Over the next week i've set myself a goal of the following -

• Read 5 books
  
• Design a typeface
• Seek out new promoters for freelance work
• Sleep lots.

But for today, I just kinda kept to the bottom, I've worked hard all week and now I'm going to keep number 4 true to form and goto bed. Tommow my typeface will be vectored, I'll read two books (A year of swollen Appendices by Brian Eno and Stephen Sagmeister's Things I have learned in my life so far) and if i've got time draw / watch the DVD on Helvetica. But now. SLEEEEEP.

Cups of tea 48 - 49

A long, stressful day in work. It was made better by the tea I drank at the end I assure you.

I watch a lecturer on the design museum website last night about what makes an iconic design and it got me thinking. They pretty much stated how designers all want iconic designs and in this quest to gain momentary design fame and glory, they were willing to sell their souls to the perilous world of advertising and how this is becoming what design is. The ability to hock people things they don't really need by giving it sense of cultural significance.

The Ipod seemed to be the best used analogy. How there are millions of other MP3 players on the market, but the one that is clearly stated on the boxes for headphones etc. is "Ipod Compatible", not only this but how we're in a culture of "Perishable Design". For as we all know, Apple release a new model every 6 months... or they break not long after that, almost forcing us to upgrade.

It's kinda had a lasting effect on me past the 40 minutes of my life it took to watch it... It made me think of all the crap I owned that I don't really need to "define me". Abeit designer, gamer, reader, lover, son etc. While I'm hardly going to be as radical as Micheal Landy (the guy who destroyed his "life" on the site of a London Department store for an exhibition) it's certainly made me think.

It kinda made me think of "How to become a Graphic Designer Without Losing your soul" by Adrian Shaughnessy (at least that's where I think it's from...). There's an interview with Neville Brody in the back (Aswell as several other well known designers) and he states something along the lines of -

"Always stick to your principles as a graphic designer, even if it means losing the bigger clients, people will respect you more."

And I can see what he means, to be honest I really don't want to become a whore to advertisers, selling people products I wouldn't buy or I know could be harmful to them. The day I design for a tabacoo company is the day I put away the mechanical pencil and break my mightmouse. I'm going to try to stick to Ken Garland's First things First Manifesto... Design for things with purpose, with substance. Not to sell a fat kid cake. Well... unless I get to attend the photoshoot of a hawt model seductivly eating cake. Naked.

Cups of Tea 24 - 47

Jesus, how much tea and time have passed, dew dew!
Just a quick update for the three or four people who do check the blog to let them know that I'm not giving up on it... and as of now on it will be DAILY UPDATE. Even if I havn't got anything to say... fun!
I'll do a proper entry tommorow, so yeah... Teasign aye?

Cups 21 - 24

After a long thought, I've decided on something. I'm not going to update everyday but every two. I mean if I update EVERY day, i'm going to be forcing out content when i'm totally uninspired. Like yesterday, I hungered to design all day and when I got home from work, was just to tired to want to know... This tiredness hit me like a ton of bricks and I slept for like 4 hours this afternoon before a 2 1/2 hour gym session which wore me out even more.

All i've really done today is draw, yawn and sleep. While this could sound like an ideal day to some people, to me it was hell. I need to be active, I need to do SOMETHING with my time. But alas, what I should be doing is the only brief that's ever been "meh" to me... such is life I suppose... I'll just crack into it tommorow when I finish writing the story behind it... yeah!

And for those who havn't seen him, I present to you George, The Chameleon... doing what chameleon's do best and blending in with my furniture... bless him!

Cups of Tea 18 - 20

So kick my ass... I didn't update. Nor did anyone care, the world kept turning thank goodness, I was afraid that this world would spiral into anarchy and the worlds best and brightest would be hunted down and burned at the stake. Luckily, I'm not that full of my own self-importance to believe this could happen. Nothing changes. Well somethings do.

Today my perspective changed.

Being the design student I am, I thought with this loan I would improve myself slightly, I baught some books. I got Fingerprint (The art of using handmade elements in graphic design, by the Chen Design Associates), The Art of looking sideways, The Things I've learned in life so Far (by Stefan Sagmeister) The Complete Factory records and Peter Saville Estate 1 - 127.

However, these are not the books that changed my perspective. Reguardless of how they sent my brain into motion with creative flair, their bright colours and provocative insight were inspiring.

The Book that has changed how I approach design is "It's not how good you are, but how good you want to be" By Paul Arden (The man responsible for such advestising slogans as "The car in front is a Toyota" and British Airway's "The World's Favorite Airline").

No truer words can be spoken than in this book. He says anything can be achieved by setting a goal. That no one can get to any destination without first establishing where it is they want to go. That every job needs to be done to the full potential. There is no next job. Being right is almost being wrong.

I set my goals. I will one day run my own studio. I will one day be an art director for a magazine. I will achieve the same level of knowledge of my craft as Peter Saville, whilst maintaining his standpoint on design celebrity. I.e. I won't strive for it, just to be the best.

Now I need more tea. I need a pencil and I want to design. But alas, it is late, I'm working early but I dare not sleep.

Cups of Tea 4 - 17

Christ, I hear you exclaim! That's a whole lot of tea drinking! Believe me, if I had more milk I'd be on about 25 by now...

What a week I say, what a week! So much to talk about and such a little blog to fit it in... Where to begin. Where I left off of course...

So I finished Sophie's design t-shirt (which I've yet to model for here, otherwise the picture would be here...) is pretty simple, it looks abit like this. How Snazzy aye?

Unfortunatly, for some unknown reason, Karma came back to bite me on the arse in this one as there's now a sign on the door to the courtyard (where I use my spray paint for test stencils, splatter brushes etc) prohibiting the use of "Paint Spray" in the area / building... fun and games. Seem's a little of the black paint got on a bin and they're afraid the council might sue them for "defacing Goverment Property"... Nevermind, i'll just do it outside... "Use of Paint Spray in and around the building prohibited" sign to follow.


Other than this ban on my civil liberty to spraypaint in the property i'm paying to live in, I did acctually do alot of work this week when I wasn't bogged down with manflu (Friday too Monday, cups 4 - 10). I did uni work in the form of Tina Turner flyers within set text restrictions, a flash portfolio for a 1K a year grant and some work on the children's book I'm creating for my core module... but now on to the exciting stuffs, work for fierce panda!

If you know me, I regularly do the flyer for Cool For Cats. Well, I got asked to create a flyer their main label, Fierce Panda (with such acts as the blackout! and Shit Disco on the books, aswell as being the original labels for Muse, Ash, Coldplay and Idlewild...) for their 15th birthday. Well I jumped at the chance,

I originally created something a little bit nu rave, geometric fonts and magenta /cyan paint splatters,(Left) but after sending it off and then listening to the music didn't think it fitted... So afew email's later we arrived at the (at the moment...) finished flyer! (Right) Phwoar.

Soon to be gracing NME don't y'know ;)







Anyways thats pretty much a week condensed into one, meaty blog. If I don't updat tommorow, kick my ass plix? kthnxbai.