TESD #9 is all about Ghosts, therefore it's only right both images are of them! Quinn featuring as the Funky Phantom and just a random small ghost shape. Shoop shoop.
M x
Friday 31 December 2010
Cups of Tea 1021 - 1022
Just a quick post (it is hella late!) so I don't break my track record of posting everyday!
TESD #9 is all about Ghosts, therefore it's only right both images are of them! Quinn featuring as the Funky Phantom and just a random small ghost shape. Shoop shoop.
M x
TESD #9 is all about Ghosts, therefore it's only right both images are of them! Quinn featuring as the Funky Phantom and just a random small ghost shape. Shoop shoop.
M x
Thursday 30 December 2010
Cups of Tea 1021 - 1026
Quite alot of tea due to a long and arduous day of podcast annotation and design. This morning I got up bright and early to try and tackle the remaining TESD podcasts but then got offered by my parents a trip to the Beacon Beacons. Having never been, I said 'why the hell not?' and jumped in the car for a ride, hoping to get some photographs on the SLR. But it wasn't to be, as soon as we got into close proximity, the thickest mist i've ever seen descended on the car and the whole of the range entered Silent Hill style viability. Suffice to say, we just drove through and came back home...
So I got in around 2ish and sat down to work. Alas, it's been a hella struggle to visualize these podcasts. While some of them are to my eyes quite funny, I'm not sure what the general opinion would be... idk, I work alot better to music and obviously as I'm having to listen to podcasts as I work to meet the deadline it's starting to become abit of a chore >.<
Anyways, almost out of the first 10 TESD's and onto the Hollywood Babble-ons, so it'll hopefully be smooth sailing with Ralph and Kevin supplying the yucks... Which is weird, because TESD is probably my favourite of the three :/ So onto today's work!
TESD #5's art is based off the concept of Bryan's amazing goal keeping skills... While the original idea was to include pigtails descending from the helmet to back up Walt's claims that he 'goalies like a girl', it just didn't look right so I kept it simple. The alt. artwork depicts a phone because of half the episode's talk of prank phonecalling people within the Rec center that Bry and Walt used to work at. They don't describe the phone, but I imaged it as being an old red phone like this (it was the 70's...).
TESD #6 is mainly based around how 'Sunday' Jeff came to work at The Stash. The tale tells of loyalty and how Walt eventually trusts Jeff enough to give him his credit card to return items to stores for him. However, these return's are morally grey and end up with Walt Flannigan being put on a 'wanted' list by the now out of business entertainment stores in New Jersey. However, it turns out that they only got the name right and banned Jeff because he was returning Walt's things. The cross is through Walt for the naming purpose and the bags show returns to be made.
TESD #7 is based on the idea that Bryan wants a glass sell like Magneto to stop podcasting fans touching the guys while recording a 'live' TESD. As Quinn was yet to appear as a cover star, I threw him the Magneto hat as he's into comics. The mini picture depicts the Pod's main theme on debating whether corporal punishment is wrong, following a case where girls faced a paddling of expulsion for inappropriate prom dresses. The image is based on Bryan's visualization that a paddle looked like a paddle ball bat.
The art for TESD #8 is probably the most apt as it hits the point and appeals to the audience. It depicts Bryan as Lando Calrissian, who as for those who haven't seen Star Wars, ends up getting Han Solo frozen in carbonite by selling the main cast out to Darth Vadar, in what can only be described as a Judas move. I though visualizing Judas would be lost on the casual viewer / harsh. And after all, Lando does redeem himself!
Why Lando? purely because Bryan doesn't really stick by his friend's in the Pod by making their enemy his enemy... The Teflon refers to Bryan's ability to instigate the entire argument but take no dirt for any of it... which is possibly the funniest part of the pod
And that's it for tonight. I'm begrudgingly trying to finish #9 atm but as I'll probably end up doing no work tomorrow (it is NYE after all :D) I'll post that and 10 up then maybe!
M x
So I got in around 2ish and sat down to work. Alas, it's been a hella struggle to visualize these podcasts. While some of them are to my eyes quite funny, I'm not sure what the general opinion would be... idk, I work alot better to music and obviously as I'm having to listen to podcasts as I work to meet the deadline it's starting to become abit of a chore >.<
Anyways, almost out of the first 10 TESD's and onto the Hollywood Babble-ons, so it'll hopefully be smooth sailing with Ralph and Kevin supplying the yucks... Which is weird, because TESD is probably my favourite of the three :/ So onto today's work!
TESD #5's art is based off the concept of Bryan's amazing goal keeping skills... While the original idea was to include pigtails descending from the helmet to back up Walt's claims that he 'goalies like a girl', it just didn't look right so I kept it simple. The alt. artwork depicts a phone because of half the episode's talk of prank phonecalling people within the Rec center that Bry and Walt used to work at. They don't describe the phone, but I imaged it as being an old red phone like this (it was the 70's...).
TESD #6 is mainly based around how 'Sunday' Jeff came to work at The Stash. The tale tells of loyalty and how Walt eventually trusts Jeff enough to give him his credit card to return items to stores for him. However, these return's are morally grey and end up with Walt Flannigan being put on a 'wanted' list by the now out of business entertainment stores in New Jersey. However, it turns out that they only got the name right and banned Jeff because he was returning Walt's things. The cross is through Walt for the naming purpose and the bags show returns to be made.
TESD #7 is based on the idea that Bryan wants a glass sell like Magneto to stop podcasting fans touching the guys while recording a 'live' TESD. As Quinn was yet to appear as a cover star, I threw him the Magneto hat as he's into comics. The mini picture depicts the Pod's main theme on debating whether corporal punishment is wrong, following a case where girls faced a paddling of expulsion for inappropriate prom dresses. The image is based on Bryan's visualization that a paddle looked like a paddle ball bat.
The art for TESD #8 is probably the most apt as it hits the point and appeals to the audience. It depicts Bryan as Lando Calrissian, who as for those who haven't seen Star Wars, ends up getting Han Solo frozen in carbonite by selling the main cast out to Darth Vadar, in what can only be described as a Judas move. I though visualizing Judas would be lost on the casual viewer / harsh. And after all, Lando does redeem himself!
Why Lando? purely because Bryan doesn't really stick by his friend's in the Pod by making their enemy his enemy... The Teflon refers to Bryan's ability to instigate the entire argument but take no dirt for any of it... which is possibly the funniest part of the pod
And that's it for tonight. I'm begrudgingly trying to finish #9 atm but as I'll probably end up doing no work tomorrow (it is NYE after all :D) I'll post that and 10 up then maybe!
M x
Wednesday 29 December 2010
Cups of Tea 1017 - 1020
Just a quick blog update - Only 3 of the 4 promised podcast art due to #3 and #4 being particularly difficult to design for... unlike SMod, the first few episodes of TESD are a little dry in terms of designable content. Mainly stories in which Walt / Bry / Quinn are themselves retelling stories than the flights of whimsy that make SMod so great to visualize.
TESD #2's main image is of Walt being a good Samaritan and delivering a guy his comic books... that is until you discover Walt's motives are he wanted the money for the merchandise rather than to be nice. Hence the halo but dollar sign eyes. The T-shirt referring to Bryan's plans to be stuffed and placed in the Secret Stash to immortalize his role as Steve Dave.
TESD #3 is a cross-over podcast from SModcast to promote listener-ship from one to the other. The main story taking up 99% of the pod is Bryan's announcement that he slept with the mother of an ex girlfriend. Hence "mofo" (mother fucker...) on his forehead and the cheeky wink on his face. The Sub sandwich refers to him sending his girlfriend at the time out so he could commit this heinous act!
TESD #4 is based on the Cop-Out premier. The main image shows Walt holding a shirt over his face to escape the smell of a Limo full of subs he found distasteful and the other image shows Bryan as the Blob from the 1980's horror movie, based on him declaring he would have looked like him if draped in red fabric.
Until tomorrow folks, hopefully I'll have 3 if not more to show!
M x
TESD #2's main image is of Walt being a good Samaritan and delivering a guy his comic books... that is until you discover Walt's motives are he wanted the money for the merchandise rather than to be nice. Hence the halo but dollar sign eyes. The T-shirt referring to Bryan's plans to be stuffed and placed in the Secret Stash to immortalize his role as Steve Dave.
TESD #3 is a cross-over podcast from SModcast to promote listener-ship from one to the other. The main story taking up 99% of the pod is Bryan's announcement that he slept with the mother of an ex girlfriend. Hence "mofo" (mother fucker...) on his forehead and the cheeky wink on his face. The Sub sandwich refers to him sending his girlfriend at the time out so he could commit this heinous act!
TESD #4 is based on the Cop-Out premier. The main image shows Walt holding a shirt over his face to escape the smell of a Limo full of subs he found distasteful and the other image shows Bryan as the Blob from the 1980's horror movie, based on him declaring he would have looked like him if draped in red fabric.
Until tomorrow folks, hopefully I'll have 3 if not more to show!
M x
Tuesday 28 December 2010
Cups of Tea 1013 - 1016
Nom Nom Nom. Nothing like a cup of tea to make you feel less like hungover death...
Despite the thumping headache, temperamental tummy and lax concentration, I've got quite a bit done today for a day that should have been a write-off! I've got a hard day ahead of me tomorrow (I'm aiming to get all of the TESD pod art done so I can get them all done by the end of the week), but for now I'd like to show your the Vectors of Bri, Walt and Quinn, that will alternatively don the front of the artwork much like Kev did for the SMod stuff.
Getting a picture of Quinn head on was a pain in the ass, had to use his Haloween TESD picture in the end >.< While Bri's isn't as head on as I'd like it, I still think it captures his essence well enough :) And with that, I'd like to reveal the first of the TESD art and hopefully you'll enjoy it!
The Art for TESD #1 is all based around the concept of player hating. For me, other than Bri's worries (which was unfortunately to long for the quote box) that people would think using the TESD name would make them look pathetic (which I guess is funnier in hindsight than it would have been at the time I first listened), Walt saying he'd be un-effected by people on the net and 'player haters' was just so full of win, it had to be the cover. The red hat and douche-bag beard he sports are based off of a Chappelle Show Character called Silky Johnson, aka Player Hater of the year. Some of the gold can be found here.
Other than that, the Tales from The Coat is based on one of Brian's original name ideas... I was going to do Joint/Counter Joint but (a.) couldn't find the show logo and (b.) Tales from the Coat is discussed in the next two pods also, so deemed it more relevant.
Come back tomorrow when hopefully, I'll have at least another 4 to show!
M x
Despite the thumping headache, temperamental tummy and lax concentration, I've got quite a bit done today for a day that should have been a write-off! I've got a hard day ahead of me tomorrow (I'm aiming to get all of the TESD pod art done so I can get them all done by the end of the week), but for now I'd like to show your the Vectors of Bri, Walt and Quinn, that will alternatively don the front of the artwork much like Kev did for the SMod stuff.
Getting a picture of Quinn head on was a pain in the ass, had to use his Haloween TESD picture in the end >.< While Bri's isn't as head on as I'd like it, I still think it captures his essence well enough :) And with that, I'd like to reveal the first of the TESD art and hopefully you'll enjoy it!
The Art for TESD #1 is all based around the concept of player hating. For me, other than Bri's worries (which was unfortunately to long for the quote box) that people would think using the TESD name would make them look pathetic (which I guess is funnier in hindsight than it would have been at the time I first listened), Walt saying he'd be un-effected by people on the net and 'player haters' was just so full of win, it had to be the cover. The red hat and douche-bag beard he sports are based off of a Chappelle Show Character called Silky Johnson, aka Player Hater of the year. Some of the gold can be found here.
Other than that, the Tales from The Coat is based on one of Brian's original name ideas... I was going to do Joint/Counter Joint but (a.) couldn't find the show logo and (b.) Tales from the Coat is discussed in the next two pods also, so deemed it more relevant.
Come back tomorrow when hopefully, I'll have at least another 4 to show!
M x
Monday 27 December 2010
Cups of Tea 1008 - 1012
I can't believe I'm typing 1000 haha, it's weird! Anyways... onto the last 4 of the SModcast artworks, I'll only list a brief synopsis as it's my birthday (22 today! winnah!) and there's some drinking to be done :)
The first half of Smod #7 talked about the American box office and how movies like Zodiac were getting beaten at the box office by movies like Wild Hogs. The image of Kev is wearing John Travolta's aviators and bandanna from the movie. The couch is the murder couch from the crazy Icelandic who promised to "show you Iceland, then I show you my ballsack", and murdered his couch surfing guests.
Smod #8's work is all from the opening story as it is mainly based around Kevin's experience of directing the Reaper pilot, the execs not casting Kyle Gass and Kev's response to it all. Elvis Kev and the scarf is based on Kevin being dragged to see an Elvis impersonator as a child and being dumbfounded as to why women went crazy for fake Elvis' scarf.
Smod #9 is based on Kevin saying all the magic of Disney world was taken from him, when he went there almost every week with Harley when the moved near. I just thought visually it would look better than the other option of a sweaty Kev (he hates running) or one with yellow teeth (Jen makes him brush his teeth in the morning). The blue Canadian flag links back to the episode title.
Smod #10 was based on the concept of Kevin infiltrating the chicken coop to discover if chickens really could communicate when nobody else was around (ala Chicken Run)... infiltrating them as a chicken himself. It took 5 attempts to get Kev looking decent, and while not exactly as described in the pod, is as close as I could get while making it visually appealing. The bear in the suit is based around Bear's becoming top of the food chain to make us the equivalent to Chicken's are to us...
And with that... I am tempted to call this project a day for now... I'm going to start the TESD ones tomorrow, but tbh am not really sure what to do with it / I want to get on with my branding project and dissertation. Either way, there'll be some work up tomorrow if I'm not viciously hungover :)
M x
The first half of Smod #7 talked about the American box office and how movies like Zodiac were getting beaten at the box office by movies like Wild Hogs. The image of Kev is wearing John Travolta's aviators and bandanna from the movie. The couch is the murder couch from the crazy Icelandic who promised to "show you Iceland, then I show you my ballsack", and murdered his couch surfing guests.
Smod #8's work is all from the opening story as it is mainly based around Kevin's experience of directing the Reaper pilot, the execs not casting Kyle Gass and Kev's response to it all. Elvis Kev and the scarf is based on Kevin being dragged to see an Elvis impersonator as a child and being dumbfounded as to why women went crazy for fake Elvis' scarf.
Smod #9 is based on Kevin saying all the magic of Disney world was taken from him, when he went there almost every week with Harley when the moved near. I just thought visually it would look better than the other option of a sweaty Kev (he hates running) or one with yellow teeth (Jen makes him brush his teeth in the morning). The blue Canadian flag links back to the episode title.
Smod #10 was based on the concept of Kevin infiltrating the chicken coop to discover if chickens really could communicate when nobody else was around (ala Chicken Run)... infiltrating them as a chicken himself. It took 5 attempts to get Kev looking decent, and while not exactly as described in the pod, is as close as I could get while making it visually appealing. The bear in the suit is based around Bear's becoming top of the food chain to make us the equivalent to Chicken's are to us...
And with that... I am tempted to call this project a day for now... I'm going to start the TESD ones tomorrow, but tbh am not really sure what to do with it / I want to get on with my branding project and dissertation. Either way, there'll be some work up tomorrow if I'm not viciously hungover :)
M x
Sunday 26 December 2010
Cups of Tea 0996 - 1007
Wow, so I'm finally there! 1000 cups of tea :O!
Its been three days of merriment so there really isn't anything to show :) Just wanted to blog to show that I hadn't keeled over in the snow and died haha!
Hope everyone had an amazing christmas and I'll show you what I got tomorrow (my birthday)!
M x
Its been three days of merriment so there really isn't anything to show :) Just wanted to blog to show that I hadn't keeled over in the snow and died haha!
Hope everyone had an amazing christmas and I'll show you what I got tomorrow (my birthday)!
M x
Thursday 23 December 2010
Cups of Tea 0996 - 0998
Almost there :o almost! Just a quick update tonight as alas, I am tired!
Just a look at my favourite of the 10 SMod arts i've done so far, though most people will probably think "meh" if they're not a hardcore nerd like myself. Here's my spin on it -
The art for SMod #6 is based heavily on one of the conversations half way through the SMod, in which Mosier and Kevin discuss 9/11 and Tom Clancy being interviewed, before delving into Kev's relationship with him and how Clancy made his cash. For those who know their games, they'd have noticed Sam Fisher's goggles from the off, but for those who don't, the Kev is in a piece of head gear from Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell franchise. The rest of the quotes / the note image are really centralized around one of Kevin's ex's mothers... who had abit of a strange roll in her child's up bringing.
Anyways, I hope you guys like it and it's time for bed. One day left of work... ho.ho.ho.
M x
Just a look at my favourite of the 10 SMod arts i've done so far, though most people will probably think "meh" if they're not a hardcore nerd like myself. Here's my spin on it -
The art for SMod #6 is based heavily on one of the conversations half way through the SMod, in which Mosier and Kevin discuss 9/11 and Tom Clancy being interviewed, before delving into Kev's relationship with him and how Clancy made his cash. For those who know their games, they'd have noticed Sam Fisher's goggles from the off, but for those who don't, the Kev is in a piece of head gear from Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell franchise. The rest of the quotes / the note image are really centralized around one of Kevin's ex's mothers... who had abit of a strange roll in her child's up bringing.
Anyways, I hope you guys like it and it's time for bed. One day left of work... ho.ho.ho.
M x
Wednesday 22 December 2010
Cups of Tea 0993 - 0995
I could theoretically get that 1000ths cuppa tomorrow, but wouldn't it just be grander if I did it on Christmas morning ;) Also thanks for the views everyone... it's a real intensive to write when you can see that people are actually reading the blog.
As promised, here are Smod's #4 and #5... I love #6 so much, I'm going to post it to almost soften the blow of the ones that precede it, as imho, it's definitely the strongest of the 10 created so far!
A kinda strange one to create... for anyone who's not heard it (at 9/10th of you...), the title kinda explains it all... The funniest, most wtf moment of the entire podcast is pretty much Kevin talking about his shame of being so 'in the mood for love' shall we say, that he resorts to a very desperate act. I'm not going to say it here, because that's just not cricket... but suffice to say there is no clever way that wouldn't get my project kicked in the arse by uni... so I had to go with the more subtle image of Kevin with an ashtray on top of his head, ala a follow up story to the pre-mentioned shameful act from high school...
There's an awful lot of Oscar talk at the start of the SMod so I thought I'd throw an academy award image out there with a K.S. Beard and glasses as they didn't get the credit for producing Good Will Hunting (as discussed in SMod #6...).
I had this image in my head a very long time ago. Kevin joined a YMCA in his youth during one of his yearly 'I'm going to get in shape!' attempts to take advantage of the Y's CAM2 machines... fundamentally a multi-gym that uses air pressure instead of weight (which as i've never seen one in a gym of today, probably wasn't that great...). As if this weren't enough of a reason to Village People Kevin up, some guy also made a pass at him in the hot tub... it's quite a YMCA central pod when I really think about it haha. I choose the Indian not only for it's higher visual qualities over the other members (like I'm not going to run out of uniforms in #149 SMods without using the police man at the first hurdle...), but also as a Homage to SMod #2, where Kevin and Mosier's mugging incident in Time Square happened on the way to see Wayne's World 2, which has a naked Indian in it...
So that it from me folks, comments are always appreciated :) Especially if you are a SMod listener yourself and want to pitch in your two cents...
M x
As promised, here are Smod's #4 and #5... I love #6 so much, I'm going to post it to almost soften the blow of the ones that precede it, as imho, it's definitely the strongest of the 10 created so far!
A kinda strange one to create... for anyone who's not heard it (at 9/10th of you...), the title kinda explains it all... The funniest, most wtf moment of the entire podcast is pretty much Kevin talking about his shame of being so 'in the mood for love' shall we say, that he resorts to a very desperate act. I'm not going to say it here, because that's just not cricket... but suffice to say there is no clever way that wouldn't get my project kicked in the arse by uni... so I had to go with the more subtle image of Kevin with an ashtray on top of his head, ala a follow up story to the pre-mentioned shameful act from high school...
There's an awful lot of Oscar talk at the start of the SMod so I thought I'd throw an academy award image out there with a K.S. Beard and glasses as they didn't get the credit for producing Good Will Hunting (as discussed in SMod #6...).
I had this image in my head a very long time ago. Kevin joined a YMCA in his youth during one of his yearly 'I'm going to get in shape!' attempts to take advantage of the Y's CAM2 machines... fundamentally a multi-gym that uses air pressure instead of weight (which as i've never seen one in a gym of today, probably wasn't that great...). As if this weren't enough of a reason to Village People Kevin up, some guy also made a pass at him in the hot tub... it's quite a YMCA central pod when I really think about it haha. I choose the Indian not only for it's higher visual qualities over the other members (like I'm not going to run out of uniforms in #149 SMods without using the police man at the first hurdle...), but also as a Homage to SMod #2, where Kevin and Mosier's mugging incident in Time Square happened on the way to see Wayne's World 2, which has a naked Indian in it...
So that it from me folks, comments are always appreciated :) Especially if you are a SMod listener yourself and want to pitch in your two cents...
M x
Tuesday 21 December 2010
Cups of Tea 0990 - 0992
Almost at that 1k mark :o exciting times! Also thanks for the collosal amount of views last night! almost 70 of them, gee willikers batman! If you people can spread the love / possibly re-blog it, that'd be aces...
Had a wicked day with Jimjam today, haven't seen the boyo for a long time so it was good to catch up and get a bear and burger. Finally got a new copy of The Usual Suspects, which means the IOU I was given last year (along with a new copy of fight club...) has been spent. Can't wait to watch that movie tomorrow, been meaning to see it again for such a long time... But in my defense, he did get a copy of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine out of it...
So onto Smodcast #2... and I'm also going to give you lovely people #3 ;) Expect possibly 3 more tomorrow... though after a hard day at work, I can't promise anything :)
For SModcast two, I went with the image of Kevin in a 'cunt cap' as he calls them, after the use of the word in the start of the SMod (and no, we can't get call a cab driver a cunt and get away with it...), then used the description of the dirty brown bag of 'weed' (Jason) Mewes got from the dude in Time Square.
Urgh. Smodcast #3... how many times I had to listen to this podcast to try and get some kind of 'Alt. Kev' face out of it was immense and pretty frustrating... Because of the Pod's large focus on 'who should guest star on the SMod', I tried to make him look like Larry King, Then Conan O'Brien and then Jay Leno, all of them didn't seem right :/ I must have listened to it about 10 times before finally realizing that if the chat show option didn't really work, that I should probably just use something that (barely) sticks and move on with the project. So in reference to Kevin's quotation of the Hulk TV Show ("And I was lifting up the car..." which strangely, is the only bit of that podcast I can ever remember) I created a Kevin / Hulk Hybrid. The 'Bachelor' robe is from Kevin's day of lounging around in a robe with a friend at a young age... which is probably the funniest part of the podcast imho!
Until tomorrow peoplez :)
M x
Had a wicked day with Jimjam today, haven't seen the boyo for a long time so it was good to catch up and get a bear and burger. Finally got a new copy of The Usual Suspects, which means the IOU I was given last year (along with a new copy of fight club...) has been spent. Can't wait to watch that movie tomorrow, been meaning to see it again for such a long time... But in my defense, he did get a copy of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine out of it...
So onto Smodcast #2... and I'm also going to give you lovely people #3 ;) Expect possibly 3 more tomorrow... though after a hard day at work, I can't promise anything :)
For SModcast two, I went with the image of Kevin in a 'cunt cap' as he calls them, after the use of the word in the start of the SMod (and no, we can't get call a cab driver a cunt and get away with it...), then used the description of the dirty brown bag of 'weed' (Jason) Mewes got from the dude in Time Square.
Urgh. Smodcast #3... how many times I had to listen to this podcast to try and get some kind of 'Alt. Kev' face out of it was immense and pretty frustrating... Because of the Pod's large focus on 'who should guest star on the SMod', I tried to make him look like Larry King, Then Conan O'Brien and then Jay Leno, all of them didn't seem right :/ I must have listened to it about 10 times before finally realizing that if the chat show option didn't really work, that I should probably just use something that (barely) sticks and move on with the project. So in reference to Kevin's quotation of the Hulk TV Show ("And I was lifting up the car..." which strangely, is the only bit of that podcast I can ever remember) I created a Kevin / Hulk Hybrid. The 'Bachelor' robe is from Kevin's day of lounging around in a robe with a friend at a young age... which is probably the funniest part of the podcast imho!
Until tomorrow peoplez :)
M x
Monday 20 December 2010
Cups of Tea 0985 - 0989
Almost at that 1k cup of tea kids, and almost at 2,500 page views :O Wowzers, If I can get it to 10k by the end of February... I promise all of you 14 followers a cup of tea and maybe some other goodies! So spread the word ;)
So yes, as promised, here's Smodcast 1's artwork, the explanation copy / pasted from the view askew board where I posted it last night :)
"I tried to build of the idea of Kevin's idea of celebrating births, so put Kevin in a surgical mask to go with his claims that it doesn't really happen in child birth. I also laughed at the idea of instead of a ring bearer, having a scissor bearer, hence the pillow and scissors The quotes are pretty self explanatory I hope!"
No bugger commented back though... so feedback (especially if any of you listen to SMod, if you don't... you probably won't like it hahah).
Until Tomorrow / Smod 2 + 3...
M x
So yes, as promised, here's Smodcast 1's artwork, the explanation copy / pasted from the view askew board where I posted it last night :)
"I tried to build of the idea of Kevin's idea of celebrating births, so put Kevin in a surgical mask to go with his claims that it doesn't really happen in child birth. I also laughed at the idea of instead of a ring bearer, having a scissor bearer, hence the pillow and scissors The quotes are pretty self explanatory I hope!"
No bugger commented back though... so feedback (especially if any of you listen to SMod, if you don't... you probably won't like it hahah).
Until Tomorrow / Smod 2 + 3...
M x
Sunday 19 December 2010
Cups of Tea 0968 - 0984
Not really alot of tea drunk, but almost 1000 in year... that's pretty impressive I think... when you really think about it, that's alot of bloomin' tea bags!
So where have I been? Unfortunately not London to see the Queen but enthralled in the wonderfully sadistic world of retail... Joy. But as always, it's pushed me to work and work I have. I've been slowly plodding away at work on the project I talked about in the last post, and am ready to reveal!
So those who know the work of Kevin Smith (aka Silent Bob, Director of Clerks) will be aware that he does a weekly podcast called "Smodcast", mostly with his long time producer Scott Mosier and other times with family members / other people involved in the view askewniverse of old. This pod-cast's popularity took off and three years after it's initial launch (2 years after I began listening to it...), The Smodcast Podcast network was born. It started with Tell 'Em Steve Dave, a weekly pod with Brian Johnson and Walt Flanagan, Steve Dave and Fanboy from Mallrats / long time friends of Smiths. Then came The Mo and Glo show, film Director Malcolm Ingram and his Mother, Gloria.
Now, The Smodcast Podcast network has a podcast for every day of the week (hell, some days has more than one podcast) and generally takes up to two hours of my listening time a day. But as much as I love the podcasts, it's very difficult to sort through them to find funny moments I want to re-laugh at. Sure, the early SModcast's had a description of the episode's contents, but as the network developed, with more and more of Mr. Smith's time being spent cutting podcasts, I guess these fell to the side. Not that this is a complaint, I mean how can you complain about a free source of entertainment?
But I wanted to remotely sort them for my own sanity. Focusing on memorable quotes, a visual cue to what is talked about in said podcast... and I guess because I'm not really that keen on the art supplied...
My first task - re branding... As I originally set out to do over 70 podcasts and at least 5 pieces of art for each, I've had to scale back my ambitions for the moment. Focusing instead on the first 10 podcasts of SModcast, TESD and Hollywood Babylon, the podcasts I listen to most. I wanted to stay with Tokyo One, the font used for the original SModcast logo because it would tie in with the SModcastle, Smith's podcasting theater (and the first of it's kind in the world). For TESD, I wanted to get some of the attitude of the Pod across but in a clean san serif. Hollywood Babylon needed a more solid and instantly powerful logo that tied back slightly to the LA theme (hence the star ala Hollywood Boulevard...)
Thoughts, as always... are welcome :)
Tomorrow - The Art of Smodcast 1.
M x
So where have I been? Unfortunately not London to see the Queen but enthralled in the wonderfully sadistic world of retail... Joy. But as always, it's pushed me to work and work I have. I've been slowly plodding away at work on the project I talked about in the last post, and am ready to reveal!
So those who know the work of Kevin Smith (aka Silent Bob, Director of Clerks) will be aware that he does a weekly podcast called "Smodcast", mostly with his long time producer Scott Mosier and other times with family members / other people involved in the view askewniverse of old. This pod-cast's popularity took off and three years after it's initial launch (2 years after I began listening to it...), The Smodcast Podcast network was born. It started with Tell 'Em Steve Dave, a weekly pod with Brian Johnson and Walt Flanagan, Steve Dave and Fanboy from Mallrats / long time friends of Smiths. Then came The Mo and Glo show, film Director Malcolm Ingram and his Mother, Gloria.
Now, The Smodcast Podcast network has a podcast for every day of the week (hell, some days has more than one podcast) and generally takes up to two hours of my listening time a day. But as much as I love the podcasts, it's very difficult to sort through them to find funny moments I want to re-laugh at. Sure, the early SModcast's had a description of the episode's contents, but as the network developed, with more and more of Mr. Smith's time being spent cutting podcasts, I guess these fell to the side. Not that this is a complaint, I mean how can you complain about a free source of entertainment?
But I wanted to remotely sort them for my own sanity. Focusing on memorable quotes, a visual cue to what is talked about in said podcast... and I guess because I'm not really that keen on the art supplied...
My first task - re branding... As I originally set out to do over 70 podcasts and at least 5 pieces of art for each, I've had to scale back my ambitions for the moment. Focusing instead on the first 10 podcasts of SModcast, TESD and Hollywood Babylon, the podcasts I listen to most. I wanted to stay with Tokyo One, the font used for the original SModcast logo because it would tie in with the SModcastle, Smith's podcasting theater (and the first of it's kind in the world). For TESD, I wanted to get some of the attitude of the Pod across but in a clean san serif. Hollywood Babylon needed a more solid and instantly powerful logo that tied back slightly to the LA theme (hence the star ala Hollywood Boulevard...)
Thoughts, as always... are welcome :)
Tomorrow - The Art of Smodcast 1.
M x
Friday 10 December 2010
Cups of Tea 0916 - 0967
Yes. It has been that long, and there has been that much tea! I'm back in the swing of working (after abit of a designer's block moment last week) and will be updating tomorrow properly with some visuals (though I'm in work pretty solid the next 3 days... so possibly expect a rant I guess ;) )for you to enjoy!
But first I'd like to swing some attention to this book - While it's got no real conclusion in my eyes, the first two parts are pretty damned insightful into how we should be working as designers. By a bloke called Dan Pink and called Drive, it discusses the implications of money on our craft and well being, but also how intrinsic gain from work should be aimed for above monetary gain. Give it a read, it's pretty cheap on amazon and the last part is supposedly a self help type of spiel you can come back to. Personally, I was more interested in the facts presented in the first two parts, but it's made me set my aims properly for the rest of this degree anyways.
Anyways, time for bed... large shift tomorrow at the work house and I want to design when I get in, not be knackered... so I'll love you and leave you all!
M x
P.s. For those interested in buying me stuff... I wouldn't mind This, This, This or This. ;) I guess I also wouldn't say no to this and this also, but thats looking ahead a little :)
But first I'd like to swing some attention to this book - While it's got no real conclusion in my eyes, the first two parts are pretty damned insightful into how we should be working as designers. By a bloke called Dan Pink and called Drive, it discusses the implications of money on our craft and well being, but also how intrinsic gain from work should be aimed for above monetary gain. Give it a read, it's pretty cheap on amazon and the last part is supposedly a self help type of spiel you can come back to. Personally, I was more interested in the facts presented in the first two parts, but it's made me set my aims properly for the rest of this degree anyways.
Anyways, time for bed... large shift tomorrow at the work house and I want to design when I get in, not be knackered... so I'll love you and leave you all!
M x
P.s. For those interested in buying me stuff... I wouldn't mind This, This, This or This. ;) I guess I also wouldn't say no to this and this also, but thats looking ahead a little :)
Thursday 25 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0909 - 0915
Creativity is a strange thing. It manifests itself in such strange and limitless ways. Even if you think your not creative, I believe that whatever your job through time and the tiniest bit of dedication, each person improves a post in his or her own way. Be it slightly lowering a shelf so people can get a product easier, being able to judge the speed you need to impact a tackle to allow a turn over ball, or even cooking the egg precisely so the yolk is drippy but the white hardens, all of this, each little decision, skill and act of independent thought is branched under creativity in my eyes.
It's all a matter of perspective. The way that you see this world in which we eat, love, live and eventually die is different to those around you. You may perceive colours slightly differently, you my smell things more strongly or you might just think a little differently and this can make you unique.
I am recently beginning to realize that while I can create pictorially, my creativity manifests itself more in ideas and linguistics. While there is no doubt in my mind that I am not the brightest or most creative person, although I can come across as smug or simple depending on the social situation, when given a pen and paper I can express myself fully and comprehensively through writing. In fact the mere thought of words like 'soliloquy' or even simple little ones like 'opus' make me love the english language. I say this not for any kind of self-praise or egotistical back patting, I just find myself watching this video more and more, wanting to express my own love and share this with you...
Admittedly my grammar is awful and I do occasionally pull people up on wrong quotes from films, even though I myself trip up over words that muddle in my head. Which I admit is both twatish, irritating and sad, but please know I'm working on it. I therefore vow from this moment on to think before I speak. As we all know, I can ramble and I do at times like the sound of my own voice. But I will sort this out, I promise.
The irony here lies in me saying I can express myself and this probably makes no sense, so maybe I'm wrong about that too... but it is 01:25 in the morning!
M x
It's all a matter of perspective. The way that you see this world in which we eat, love, live and eventually die is different to those around you. You may perceive colours slightly differently, you my smell things more strongly or you might just think a little differently and this can make you unique.
I am recently beginning to realize that while I can create pictorially, my creativity manifests itself more in ideas and linguistics. While there is no doubt in my mind that I am not the brightest or most creative person, although I can come across as smug or simple depending on the social situation, when given a pen and paper I can express myself fully and comprehensively through writing. In fact the mere thought of words like 'soliloquy' or even simple little ones like 'opus' make me love the english language. I say this not for any kind of self-praise or egotistical back patting, I just find myself watching this video more and more, wanting to express my own love and share this with you...
Admittedly my grammar is awful and I do occasionally pull people up on wrong quotes from films, even though I myself trip up over words that muddle in my head. Which I admit is both twatish, irritating and sad, but please know I'm working on it. I therefore vow from this moment on to think before I speak. As we all know, I can ramble and I do at times like the sound of my own voice. But I will sort this out, I promise.
The irony here lies in me saying I can express myself and this probably makes no sense, so maybe I'm wrong about that too... but it is 01:25 in the morning!
M x
Sunday 21 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0891 - 0908
A lot of tea and a lot of Sopranos does not a productive weekend make. While alot has been done when I really think about it, not in terms of actual design... It was mostly spent catching up on sleep and i'm kinda angry at myself. But at least the three ideas i'm currently working on are solid and in full swing... while there is a fourth idea I've hinted at in the works, it will have to wait until after christmas... or one of them defiantly isn't going to get done properly!
Anyways, I want an early night so I actually get up at 9 tomorrow...
I'll leave you with this nifty little site, It's fun AND educational ;)
M x
Anyways, I want an early night so I actually get up at 9 tomorrow...
I'll leave you with this nifty little site, It's fun AND educational ;)
M x
Friday 19 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0886 - 0890
Did you see that ludicrous display last (to)night? ARGHHH GATLAND WHY?! Awful, Awful game but nevermind...
Little design's been done today, as after a night of french horror (oh la la) I am absolutely shattered... So only a quick entry again as I want to be up for 8am tomorrow to dive into work!
This should suit the purpose to give you some idea of what I'm going to be working on though ;)
M x
Little design's been done today, as after a night of french horror (oh la la) I am absolutely shattered... So only a quick entry again as I want to be up for 8am tomorrow to dive into work!
This should suit the purpose to give you some idea of what I'm going to be working on though ;)
M x
Thursday 18 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0884 - 0885
You'd think with the lack of Tea, there would have been a lack of design. Well there you'd be wrong... but it was bread and butter design work that pretty much meant relaying out an older version of the flyer, changing the font (the original designer picked a free font with only upper case...) to Futura so I could differentiate between bands and venues... Sigh, where for art thou creative music jobs gone!!!
Other than that, about to settle down and watch some French Horrors, so I'll leave you with a cool multiple choice diagram of picking the right font... It got linked to me by my friend Ingrid :) Cheers old girl!
Tomorrow, the real work begins...
M x
Other than that, about to settle down and watch some French Horrors, so I'll leave you with a cool multiple choice diagram of picking the right font... It got linked to me by my friend Ingrid :) Cheers old girl!
Tomorrow, the real work begins...
M x
Wednesday 17 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0871 - 0883
Alot of tea consumed over the last two days people. Which means alot is going on in my head... after tomorrow, I'm going to be shut away in this room with no loop to the outside world. Friday / Saturday / Sunday are full work days. 8am - 10pm I'm going to drill out work for the 3 projects I have in my head right now. Will it be a successful weekend? Who can tell, 3 things I know for certain are these.
- I'll have something to show you.
- I'll be able to dress myself (buttons and all...)
- I will finally put to rest my distaste of vegetarians.
Wow, ain't I cryptic? Hopefully this centurion shift of work will get me back in the mood to blog every day, not just every other...
Anyways, Imma make this quick because alas, I have to be up early tomorrow to do some work before I meet the wonderful ms. Anderson and set about a day of watch french horror movies! oh la la (8)
So i'll leave you with this:
I wish I was the sucker who came up with this idea... Damn them... see more here!
M x
- I'll have something to show you.
- I'll be able to dress myself (buttons and all...)
- I will finally put to rest my distaste of vegetarians.
Wow, ain't I cryptic? Hopefully this centurion shift of work will get me back in the mood to blog every day, not just every other...
Anyways, Imma make this quick because alas, I have to be up early tomorrow to do some work before I meet the wonderful ms. Anderson and set about a day of watch french horror movies! oh la la (8)
So i'll leave you with this:
I wish I was the sucker who came up with this idea... Damn them... see more here!
M x
Monday 15 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0861 - 0870
There was originally, a 0861 - 0862 which I posted off of the ipod touch, but alas... it seems to have not uploaded again. How silly!
Anyways, just a quick note to let you all know i'm not dead and that the cogs are turning, possibly with some exciting new things that you (yes, you :O) can all be apart of... but as it's late, I just thought i'd share a neat little link :)
http://makedo.com.au/
Suffice to say, I seriously want one of these kits! I thought the idea was absolute genius!
Hopefully some design tomorrow, chim chim!
M x
Anyways, just a quick note to let you all know i'm not dead and that the cogs are turning, possibly with some exciting new things that you (yes, you :O) can all be apart of... but as it's late, I just thought i'd share a neat little link :)
http://makedo.com.au/
Suffice to say, I seriously want one of these kits! I thought the idea was absolute genius!
Hopefully some design tomorrow, chim chim!
M x
Thursday 11 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0857 - 0860
Goddammit! How easily I slip out of posting every day... nevermind, I shall soon fix that... I hope haha!
Today has been a day off of sorts, after seeing Gemma yesterday for her birthday, I got back to mine around 4ish today so I pretty much just sat down and read The Hobbit from cover to cover. while it's kind of dimmed the nostalgic glow that the book once held for me. I remember so well being 11 and reading the hobbit and lord of the rings with friends, all of us reading it together and discussing the parts we got to together as we'd discuss TV shows or games... Did you get to The Mines of Morrior Yet? HAS GANDALF FOUGHT THE BALROG?!"
Which when I think about it, is probably a show of Tolkien's skill to tap the imagination. The only other writer capable of producing such a reaction today would probably be J.K Rowling, but I mean for 7 boys to all be reading the same book at one time was a rare occurrence in the early days of the net, I doubt that thing really happens now off of message boards, which is quite sad.
But it has given me one or two ideas for projects after re-reading it... so look out for something hobbit-esq. soon I guess... But then again, I've got so many ideas for projects rattling around at the moment ><
Other than that, I pre-ordered the 2nd issue of 8Faces, which you can do here. If it's anything like the first, it'll be worth the £10 it costs!
M x
Today has been a day off of sorts, after seeing Gemma yesterday for her birthday, I got back to mine around 4ish today so I pretty much just sat down and read The Hobbit from cover to cover. while it's kind of dimmed the nostalgic glow that the book once held for me. I remember so well being 11 and reading the hobbit and lord of the rings with friends, all of us reading it together and discussing the parts we got to together as we'd discuss TV shows or games... Did you get to The Mines of Morrior Yet? HAS GANDALF FOUGHT THE BALROG?!"
Which when I think about it, is probably a show of Tolkien's skill to tap the imagination. The only other writer capable of producing such a reaction today would probably be J.K Rowling, but I mean for 7 boys to all be reading the same book at one time was a rare occurrence in the early days of the net, I doubt that thing really happens now off of message boards, which is quite sad.
But it has given me one or two ideas for projects after re-reading it... so look out for something hobbit-esq. soon I guess... But then again, I've got so many ideas for projects rattling around at the moment ><
Other than that, I pre-ordered the 2nd issue of 8Faces, which you can do here. If it's anything like the first, it'll be worth the £10 it costs!
M x
Tuesday 9 November 2010
Cup of Tea 0856
Just a quick post as it's late and I want to goto bed. Yes, the dissertation (2035 words of it to be precise) is written... To be honest, I think I'm going to still carry on writing it... I pretty much know where I'm headed with it and believe it's alot easier if I polish it off by christmas!
Still no word back on the sub logo, so I'll just post up this cool video I saw on facebook earlier, it really does make you think! Props go to Rhys.
M x
Still no word back on the sub logo, so I'll just post up this cool video I saw on facebook earlier, it really does make you think! Props go to Rhys.
INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.
M x
Cups of Tea 0851 - 0855
Sorry I didn't update last night! Therefore you get two posts in one day. How's that for a slice of fried gold?
So this is just a quick little update before I crack on with the rest of my dissertation (900 words left...) but some people wanted to see the rest of my steam punk ideas... and now that they're with the client, their kinda in the hands of God anyways... so behold, the other 3 pages of ideas!
There is a 3... jut imagine 3.5 without a drop shadow (client's request...)
Until tonight!
M x
So this is just a quick little update before I crack on with the rest of my dissertation (900 words left...) but some people wanted to see the rest of my steam punk ideas... and now that they're with the client, their kinda in the hands of God anyways... so behold, the other 3 pages of ideas!
There is a 3... jut imagine 3.5 without a drop shadow (client's request...)
Until tonight!
M x
Sunday 7 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0843 - 0850
Not alot of tea drunk because of the old paintball and steam-punk design :o Despite the awesome poetry about not hearing back, I got to do the final designs :) w00t w00t! No word if the logo will be used 100% yet, but hopefully it will... that and it's quite a nice project to have in the folio :)
It's been a busy day on it, I received the concept art for their sub on Friday, I spent the day vectoring it before going to bed bright and early, well... 12. Which is early for me, but alas... I was given free sparklers!
Then yesterday I went paintballing for the first time in forever (I'm talking about 6 years...) It was aces! One death to 6- 8 kills (got at least 4 direct kills, 3 SURRENDERS, then me and Ollie were spraying the bridge in the last game and people walked out dead so I coulda got one or two...) Which was a nice break... even if it did KO me into an early night :o
Today was spent doing all the final logos, there's about 40 in total... I wanted to get some dissertation done but this was kinda priority one... I mean CBBC has Newsround and last time I checked, THE NEWS WAS IMPORTANT! (even the opinions of people my mental age...) Nevermind, tomorrow I think I can crack out the last 1.5k :) I've gotta remember to print off the guidelines however, I left my last load in the seminar room.
Anyways, here's a brief sneeeeeak peak of the logos I've done, the first 2 of 5 pages of idea... They're based on idea 11 from the last post. They asked me to steampunk it up, so I did... Steampunking up the original logo and recreating it totally based of their concept sketches. Then obviously some play with font! The other 3 pages (imho the better stuff...) will be uploaded tomorrow, so be sure to swing back!
M x
It's been a busy day on it, I received the concept art for their sub on Friday, I spent the day vectoring it before going to bed bright and early, well... 12. Which is early for me, but alas... I was given free sparklers!
Then yesterday I went paintballing for the first time in forever (I'm talking about 6 years...) It was aces! One death to 6- 8 kills (got at least 4 direct kills, 3 SURRENDERS, then me and Ollie were spraying the bridge in the last game and people walked out dead so I coulda got one or two...) Which was a nice break... even if it did KO me into an early night :o
Today was spent doing all the final logos, there's about 40 in total... I wanted to get some dissertation done but this was kinda priority one... I mean CBBC has Newsround and last time I checked, THE NEWS WAS IMPORTANT! (even the opinions of people my mental age...) Nevermind, tomorrow I think I can crack out the last 1.5k :) I've gotta remember to print off the guidelines however, I left my last load in the seminar room.
Anyways, here's a brief sneeeeeak peak of the logos I've done, the first 2 of 5 pages of idea... They're based on idea 11 from the last post. They asked me to steampunk it up, so I did... Steampunking up the original logo and recreating it totally based of their concept sketches. Then obviously some play with font! The other 3 pages (imho the better stuff...) will be uploaded tomorrow, so be sure to swing back!
M x
Thursday 4 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0835 - 0842
So there once was a grand logo design contest,
that run for two days and it was quite a test,
it was the general consensus that time was pressed,
but design away anyway the class did to their best.
Feverishly they toiled without any rest,
making sure the aims of the brief were clearly expressed,
as the deadline neared they started to stress,
until it was submitted by email, by the client's request.
Then They all cheered at completing their quest,
to the best of their skills, all points addressed,
But they got no reply, they were all depressed,
when 12 hours later, no reply was possessed.
Sigh.
M x
that run for two days and it was quite a test,
it was the general consensus that time was pressed,
but design away anyway the class did to their best.
Feverishly they toiled without any rest,
making sure the aims of the brief were clearly expressed,
as the deadline neared they started to stress,
until it was submitted by email, by the client's request.
Then They all cheered at completing their quest,
to the best of their skills, all points addressed,
But they got no reply, they were all depressed,
when 12 hours later, no reply was possessed.
Sigh.
M x
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Cups of Tea 0822 - 0834
By jobe, what an uncharacteristically moody weekend! Possibly due to illness (my ears are still abit stuffy and I have a bit of a fever) but I generally felt like crap over the past three days. Nevermind, despite a rock start this morning I seem to be on the mend!
The dissertation has finally been started. And to tell you the truth, while I feel I haven't done nearly as much reading as I probably should have, I feel like I could easily finish it by Christmas if I set my mind to it. Not to be arrogant or snobbish, but much like swimming comes naturally to some and rhythm seems to for others, I've never really had a problem with words, so 8000 really isn't that daunting a possibility for me when I really sit down and think about it.
It's just the lack of research I feel will cripple me. I'm finding it harder than I imagined to link the ideas back to design and how they want the essay structured. It's almost impossible to show illustrations in a section based on explaining the current state of a music industry. I could say "This is Ke$ha's new album, it sold X amount of physical copies to x amount of downloads" but it seems an unnecessary waste of words for such a broad topic.
I'm sure I'll figure it out...
Anyways, it was brought to my attention awhile back and I never checked it out, so I now implore you to do so as it really is an interesting read. This is 8Faces, a magazine devoted to type that in a Desert Island Disks fashion asks, if you could only use 8 typefaces for the rest of your life, what would they be?
It sports a very stylish and modernist design and has some great interviews, pity all the physical copies sold out 4 months before I even caught wind of it! However don't threat! It's available in digital format! The cost of the PDF is £3 but I'm sure its available in other, less legitimate places...
Right then. Early to bed, early to write...
M x
The dissertation has finally been started. And to tell you the truth, while I feel I haven't done nearly as much reading as I probably should have, I feel like I could easily finish it by Christmas if I set my mind to it. Not to be arrogant or snobbish, but much like swimming comes naturally to some and rhythm seems to for others, I've never really had a problem with words, so 8000 really isn't that daunting a possibility for me when I really sit down and think about it.
It's just the lack of research I feel will cripple me. I'm finding it harder than I imagined to link the ideas back to design and how they want the essay structured. It's almost impossible to show illustrations in a section based on explaining the current state of a music industry. I could say "This is Ke$ha's new album, it sold X amount of physical copies to x amount of downloads" but it seems an unnecessary waste of words for such a broad topic.
I'm sure I'll figure it out...
Anyways, it was brought to my attention awhile back and I never checked it out, so I now implore you to do so as it really is an interesting read. This is 8Faces, a magazine devoted to type that in a Desert Island Disks fashion asks, if you could only use 8 typefaces for the rest of your life, what would they be?
It sports a very stylish and modernist design and has some great interviews, pity all the physical copies sold out 4 months before I even caught wind of it! However don't threat! It's available in digital format! The cost of the PDF is £3 but I'm sure its available in other, less legitimate places...
Right then. Early to bed, early to write...
M x
Friday 29 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0816 - 0821
God these have been two unproductive days. A lot of screw ups and a server lack of sleep has driven me to have an early night to hit work head on tomorrow... (well, after work work...).
I leave you with one of the brighter points of the day - It's kinda sad how a teapot can brighten up one's day, but alas, it did just that.
Pity about the price :(
M x
I leave you with one of the brighter points of the day - It's kinda sad how a teapot can brighten up one's day, but alas, it did just that.
Pity about the price :(
M x
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0807 - 0814
Sorry for not updating yesterday people, I got sucked into Red, Left For Dead Redemption... Also known as Red Dead Redemption - Undead Nightmare... Ohh it's such a good add-on!
It's been a seemingly slow two days, I've been slowly chipping away at the little research left for my Packaging / Infographics and am about to begin writing up my next two briefs! I should really make a start on my dissertation though :/
Real serial moment just now, seeing a logo I produced on a shopfront... As in a physical version of it. Its such a strange feeling! Going to go to uplands myself sometime in the week to feast my peepers on it in the flesh when Katie opens :) Hopefully all will go well for her. I encourage everyone to support her with all their flower based needs!
Short of that, there's talks of more flyers in the work so hopefully there'll be some nice design up in the coming days! So i'll love you and leave you with something I found while doing a little research on copyright last night, made by Talk Talk (the broadband suppliers of all people...) Enjoy!
M x
It's been a seemingly slow two days, I've been slowly chipping away at the little research left for my Packaging / Infographics and am about to begin writing up my next two briefs! I should really make a start on my dissertation though :/
Real serial moment just now, seeing a logo I produced on a shopfront... As in a physical version of it. Its such a strange feeling! Going to go to uplands myself sometime in the week to feast my peepers on it in the flesh when Katie opens :) Hopefully all will go well for her. I encourage everyone to support her with all their flower based needs!
Short of that, there's talks of more flyers in the work so hopefully there'll be some nice design up in the coming days! So i'll love you and leave you with something I found while doing a little research on copyright last night, made by Talk Talk (the broadband suppliers of all people...) Enjoy!
M x
Monday 25 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0804 - 0806
Two of those were my new vice, Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea... do they still count I wonder? An yes, shit is acctually served in a jamjar! Amazing!
Simple day, boxes are mocked up so expect pictures of all 3 of them made up and good to go tomorrow... Other than that, my Periodic Table of Typefaces finally arrived. Yes, I am that cool.
It was pretty expensive, but worth it imho! Grab one here.
It looks rather snazzy if I do say so myself! Alot of work will be done tomorrow so make sure you keep an eye out, there'll even be a saucy sneak peak into what I'm doing next ;)
M x
Simple day, boxes are mocked up so expect pictures of all 3 of them made up and good to go tomorrow... Other than that, my Periodic Table of Typefaces finally arrived. Yes, I am that cool.
It was pretty expensive, but worth it imho! Grab one here.
It looks rather snazzy if I do say so myself! Alot of work will be done tomorrow so make sure you keep an eye out, there'll even be a saucy sneak peak into what I'm doing next ;)
M x
Sunday 24 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0800 - 0803
Back into the design and the consecutive cups of tea that go with them!
Mostly paper work done today (mindmaps, annotation yada yada) so not alot really to say... so here's a link to a cool piece of info-graphics / its creators ;)
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Exclusive-Interview-Creators-Of-The-Other-Guys-End-Credits-20143.html
M x
Mostly paper work done today (mindmaps, annotation yada yada) so not alot really to say... so here's a link to a cool piece of info-graphics / its creators ;)
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Exclusive-Interview-Creators-Of-The-Other-Guys-End-Credits-20143.html
M x
Saturday 23 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0796 - 0799
I'll probably have a cup of tea after this (sleepy time tea is imba...) but that would be cheating. Almost 800 cups, blimey!
A rather lackluster work day... I get easily distracted after a day in the cold, cold backup that is work and felt abit ill / tired when I did try and do some. Depressing, no? So I did what anyone would do, I took a few hours of me time and completed Professor Layton and The Curious Village. For those who don't know, The Prof. Layton games are DS puzzle-based visual novels, think Phoenix Wright. They're also like the crack of hand held games... the second one is already in my DS waiting for the next time I get a few hours to myself...
Short of that, I had a nap and started some brainstorms and analysis of the upcoming project as well as some character plotting for my multimedia project, both look fun but are going to kill me in terms of workload I fear :/ Only time will tell, but as I'm back in work mode, I believe I can get it all done and possibly juggle another project along side them. Possibly one of the penguin briefs?
Anyways, you're not here to hear me prattle on about games and spider diagrams, you good ladies and gents came here to see some design! Some of you will have already seen it, but for those who haven't, I present to you the completed (well, unless it gets torn a new one Monday) piece of my commodities project, Apple Eye Candy... The colour scheme is a homage to that of the Feltron 2008 report which really got me into Data-graphics way back when... I thought it only fitting to pay my respects on my first endeavor into that field!
As always, comments are appreciated :)
M x
A rather lackluster work day... I get easily distracted after a day in the cold, cold backup that is work and felt abit ill / tired when I did try and do some. Depressing, no? So I did what anyone would do, I took a few hours of me time and completed Professor Layton and The Curious Village. For those who don't know, The Prof. Layton games are DS puzzle-based visual novels, think Phoenix Wright. They're also like the crack of hand held games... the second one is already in my DS waiting for the next time I get a few hours to myself...
Short of that, I had a nap and started some brainstorms and analysis of the upcoming project as well as some character plotting for my multimedia project, both look fun but are going to kill me in terms of workload I fear :/ Only time will tell, but as I'm back in work mode, I believe I can get it all done and possibly juggle another project along side them. Possibly one of the penguin briefs?
Anyways, you're not here to hear me prattle on about games and spider diagrams, you good ladies and gents came here to see some design! Some of you will have already seen it, but for those who haven't, I present to you the completed (well, unless it gets torn a new one Monday) piece of my commodities project, Apple Eye Candy... The colour scheme is a homage to that of the Feltron 2008 report which really got me into Data-graphics way back when... I thought it only fitting to pay my respects on my first endeavor into that field!
As always, comments are appreciated :)
M x
Friday 22 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0790 - 0795
Tea breeds creativity... or so this blog would have you believe ;)
Finished the other two packages for Red Berry / Green Teas for the re-packaging project. How spiffing?! Sorry, excuse the language... I've been playing the Professor Layton games and they do pepper my vocabulary so...
Other than that, I've started another project :o Yes, the 5th project (I'm so claiming my display face, Lenna as a small project lol...) and it's going to be quite awesome hopefully! Not sure how long to make it last though, the main focus of it has 140 episodes without the 7 spin off shows... That's all the hints I'm giving for now ;)
M x
Finished the other two packages for Red Berry / Green Teas for the re-packaging project. How spiffing?! Sorry, excuse the language... I've been playing the Professor Layton games and they do pepper my vocabulary so...
Other than that, I've started another project :o Yes, the 5th project (I'm so claiming my display face, Lenna as a small project lol...) and it's going to be quite awesome hopefully! Not sure how long to make it last though, the main focus of it has 140 episodes without the 7 spin off shows... That's all the hints I'm giving for now ;)
M x
Thursday 21 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0781 - 0789
A good day it has not been. Is that grammatically correct? I don't know, nor bloody well care at this point. I swear to God, there is somebody orchestrating cruel and unorthodox methods of taking the fish a chips out of me this week.
Monday - My tracker pad dies but I complete my info graphics, which prompts celebratory drinks only for me (and it turns out later, also Adam) to get started on by some prick pulling my hair. Tuesday, still tainted by the sour taste on Monday was only productive in terms of dissertation reading. Wednesday was semi-productive, and would have been more so had I not so desperately needed to run home for a haircut... When I get back, my copy of Data Flow 2 has arrived, but the book is misprinted so it's upside down to the cover. I put it aside and when I fire up the macbook, realize the inability to click my tracker pad was cause by my Macbook's battery swelling (see picture below). FUCK!
But all of this pails in comparison to the annoying day i've had today. I mean, today takes the bloody digestives as far as ticking me off is concerned.
I take the defective and swollen battery back to the Apple store, who practically laugh at me when I ask for a replacement (even thought it's a common problem...), so I end out having to fork out my heard earned £100 on a new battery, wankers. So I take a stroll around town to cheer myself up, having a great idea for my Multimedia project I begin to raid charity shops for vintage t-shirts when I lay eyes upon THIS beautiful copy of one of my favourite movies, The Royal Tenenbaums. But alas, as you'll have probably have gathered from the website - The sucker is Region 1. FUCK!
I get home, I die a little inside. I then watch A Wes Anderson Marathon to cheer myself up (currently into Darjeeling Limited, Though I doubt I'll get to Fantastic Mr. Fox, a little to tired) and have an uber nice bath with candles in which I read a dissertation book. I then get down to the hard graft of vectoring the rest of my packaging... But low and behold, the mac freezes, forcing me to turn if off at the mains, which makes me have to repair my hard drive via Mac's "single user mode" (the equivalent of MS DOS for you PC users), the third time this has happened in two weeks, which leads me to the rather speculator grounds that the hard drive is going... I am not a happy man at this moment in time.
Anyways, here's the first in my packaging project design, the white triangles represent the window that will allow the consumer to see the foil packaging inside, which will look nice... I hope. Feedback as always, is appreciated either on here or facebook :) Now im going to go break things.
M x
Monday - My tracker pad dies but I complete my info graphics, which prompts celebratory drinks only for me (and it turns out later, also Adam) to get started on by some prick pulling my hair. Tuesday, still tainted by the sour taste on Monday was only productive in terms of dissertation reading. Wednesday was semi-productive, and would have been more so had I not so desperately needed to run home for a haircut... When I get back, my copy of Data Flow 2 has arrived, but the book is misprinted so it's upside down to the cover. I put it aside and when I fire up the macbook, realize the inability to click my tracker pad was cause by my Macbook's battery swelling (see picture below). FUCK!
But all of this pails in comparison to the annoying day i've had today. I mean, today takes the bloody digestives as far as ticking me off is concerned.
I take the defective and swollen battery back to the Apple store, who practically laugh at me when I ask for a replacement (even thought it's a common problem...), so I end out having to fork out my heard earned £100 on a new battery, wankers. So I take a stroll around town to cheer myself up, having a great idea for my Multimedia project I begin to raid charity shops for vintage t-shirts when I lay eyes upon THIS beautiful copy of one of my favourite movies, The Royal Tenenbaums. But alas, as you'll have probably have gathered from the website - The sucker is Region 1. FUCK!
I get home, I die a little inside. I then watch A Wes Anderson Marathon to cheer myself up (currently into Darjeeling Limited, Though I doubt I'll get to Fantastic Mr. Fox, a little to tired) and have an uber nice bath with candles in which I read a dissertation book. I then get down to the hard graft of vectoring the rest of my packaging... But low and behold, the mac freezes, forcing me to turn if off at the mains, which makes me have to repair my hard drive via Mac's "single user mode" (the equivalent of MS DOS for you PC users), the third time this has happened in two weeks, which leads me to the rather speculator grounds that the hard drive is going... I am not a happy man at this moment in time.
Anyways, here's the first in my packaging project design, the white triangles represent the window that will allow the consumer to see the foil packaging inside, which will look nice... I hope. Feedback as always, is appreciated either on here or facebook :) Now im going to go break things.
M x
Sunday 17 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0777 - 0780
Just a quick post while I drink some sleepy time. I was in work until 9 but started my Info graphics project (on apples...) at about half past and have been working on it ever since.
While I was hoping to have it up and finished tonight, It'll have to wait until tomorrow I'm afraid! Still, I'm very happy with how it's turned out. I want to personally thank tea for getting me through it hahaha! Na kidding, Gem's feedback has been very helpful and encouraging, which is kinda what I needed atm, baby steps before I get back on the design bull!
I'll leave you with some Seerauber Jenny, They helped a little too.
M x
While I was hoping to have it up and finished tonight, It'll have to wait until tomorrow I'm afraid! Still, I'm very happy with how it's turned out. I want to personally thank tea for getting me through it hahaha! Na kidding, Gem's feedback has been very helpful and encouraging, which is kinda what I needed atm, baby steps before I get back on the design bull!
I'll leave you with some Seerauber Jenny, They helped a little too.
M x
Saturday 16 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0773 - 0776
Bare with me, I'm still getting back into the swing of everything...
Having family down, although a nice experience is very counter-productive. Hell, even being in this house, where there is no designated work area other than one situated within 5 meters of a X-factor emitting television and parents, with their own opinions on the crumbling state of music competing for volume to distract me, ('they've got no talent', 'would buy / listen to an album of this?' and 'why are we watching this rollocks?' are the one million pound questions pondered throughout the program...) I then have a very inquisitive six year old and an older brother going through Central-London withdrawal to entertain.
So naturally, little work has been done short of me barricading my bedroom door like an anti-social teenager, headphones blaring some Seerauber Jenny while I attempt to read the history of the LP. It's because I'm classy, not begrudging of family visits, honest.
But read I did. Mostly about Jazz in the book "The Long Player Goodbye" by Travis Elborough, while the book documents the physical format from the very beginning, I feel it's not really the type of thing I really need for my dissertation. Although I've picked up a few things across the 100+ pages i've read so far that've made me question my protest at the death of album artwork so much that I have become slightly hollow to music in general...
Other than that rather depressing note, I picked up Dataflow 2. Shiny, shiny data graphics. While i've got two ideas down for it, I've not really done much beyond annotating sheets of apple facts. Either way, there's alot to do on it tomorrow...
As for your need to consume something graphical, I present to you the new Radox advert.
Yes, I know. WTF indeed.
M x
Having family down, although a nice experience is very counter-productive. Hell, even being in this house, where there is no designated work area other than one situated within 5 meters of a X-factor emitting television and parents, with their own opinions on the crumbling state of music competing for volume to distract me, ('they've got no talent', 'would buy / listen to an album of this?' and 'why are we watching this rollocks?' are the one million pound questions pondered throughout the program...) I then have a very inquisitive six year old and an older brother going through Central-London withdrawal to entertain.
So naturally, little work has been done short of me barricading my bedroom door like an anti-social teenager, headphones blaring some Seerauber Jenny while I attempt to read the history of the LP. It's because I'm classy, not begrudging of family visits, honest.
But read I did. Mostly about Jazz in the book "The Long Player Goodbye" by Travis Elborough, while the book documents the physical format from the very beginning, I feel it's not really the type of thing I really need for my dissertation. Although I've picked up a few things across the 100+ pages i've read so far that've made me question my protest at the death of album artwork so much that I have become slightly hollow to music in general...
Other than that rather depressing note, I picked up Dataflow 2. Shiny, shiny data graphics. While i've got two ideas down for it, I've not really done much beyond annotating sheets of apple facts. Either way, there's alot to do on it tomorrow...
As for your need to consume something graphical, I present to you the new Radox advert.
Yes, I know. WTF indeed.
M x
Friday 15 October 2010
Cups of Tea 0661 - 0772
The Long Awaited Return of Teasign is Here.
The past few weeks i've been a little lax. There have been very few things done in the wake of moving, working and some bread and butter flyer work. That all changes from today.
This moment is the revival of all things Teasign. Daily updates will be resumed and graphic design shall be shared and if not, wonderful links will be posted (although I warn they might tie into my dissertation...) to fill your day.
It's wierd. After a year of writing this blog, it's become part and parcel of my process. One cannot exist without the other for me now, I need to write to design and I need to design to write. The catch 22 that I believe has kicked me in the arse over the past few weeks, but it's ok. I love design and I work better when I'm thrown into it. So you shalln't see me around Wind, I won't be wandering around town (unless I'm on my way to Uni) and I certainly won't be playing Halo all day long. Scouts Honor.
So then, onto the design.
This is work I've done for a good friend who's currently opening a florist in Uplands, I heartily encourage you to check it out when it launches (I'll post when) as I got to see inside today and when finished, it'll look incredible! So here it is, the first of this year's projects done and dusted (well, client pending...) Feedback is as always appreciated. Hopefully there's someone to read this after such a long time away!
M x
The past few weeks i've been a little lax. There have been very few things done in the wake of moving, working and some bread and butter flyer work. That all changes from today.
This moment is the revival of all things Teasign. Daily updates will be resumed and graphic design shall be shared and if not, wonderful links will be posted (although I warn they might tie into my dissertation...) to fill your day.
It's wierd. After a year of writing this blog, it's become part and parcel of my process. One cannot exist without the other for me now, I need to write to design and I need to design to write. The catch 22 that I believe has kicked me in the arse over the past few weeks, but it's ok. I love design and I work better when I'm thrown into it. So you shalln't see me around Wind, I won't be wandering around town (unless I'm on my way to Uni) and I certainly won't be playing Halo all day long. Scouts Honor.
So then, onto the design.
This is work I've done for a good friend who's currently opening a florist in Uplands, I heartily encourage you to check it out when it launches (I'll post when) as I got to see inside today and when finished, it'll look incredible! So here it is, the first of this year's projects done and dusted (well, client pending...) Feedback is as always appreciated. Hopefully there's someone to read this after such a long time away!
M x
Friday 20 August 2010
Cups of Tea 0653 - 0660
Yes, alot of tea this week, but less than half the sugar! Builders and 1 1/2 sugars is now my vocation when it comes to tea :o It's been a most productive week to be honest! The workouts ive been doing are beginning to pay off and I'm noticing positive changes in my stamina and upper body strength. This stamina is seriously helping me get back into the graphic design flow.
The logo for the Florist is done, The Stationary will be sorted in this hectic coming week. On top of it, I've got two flyers to knock up (one for the first Giant Haystacks night, the other for the Bull and Gate's 30 year celebration taking place throughout September) and some more of my rabbits to do... I'll post a blog containing the two (possibly 4 by that point...) that i've knocked up probably Sunday :) I also did a small acrylic canvas yesterday which rather therapeutic!
Other than that, I found out I'm off to Reading next weekend (purely for Blink 182...) with the brother (hence the hectic week, dentist and design Monday, work tues weds...), Watched all of Fringe (which was amazing) and popped to Bristol on Wednesday to finally see their Art From The New World exhibition!
The exhibition was amazing if not a little small. 49 mostly original pieces from American Illustrators including Luke Chueh (below), Gary Baseman and Joe Ledbetter. While it was missing afew of my favourites (Amanda Visell for one :( ) it was still a great show, some snaps from it are below :D
Luke Chueh - Pin Cushion
Sarah Folkman - Experiments in Flight #1
Joe Sorren - At Tea with Roeishi
If you get a chance / are bored over the weekend, catch it before it closes Sunday!
And with that, i'm off to bed. Hopefully there'll be a flyer or two to show you tomorrow :)
M x
The logo for the Florist is done, The Stationary will be sorted in this hectic coming week. On top of it, I've got two flyers to knock up (one for the first Giant Haystacks night, the other for the Bull and Gate's 30 year celebration taking place throughout September) and some more of my rabbits to do... I'll post a blog containing the two (possibly 4 by that point...) that i've knocked up probably Sunday :) I also did a small acrylic canvas yesterday which rather therapeutic!
Other than that, I found out I'm off to Reading next weekend (purely for Blink 182...) with the brother (hence the hectic week, dentist and design Monday, work tues weds...), Watched all of Fringe (which was amazing) and popped to Bristol on Wednesday to finally see their Art From The New World exhibition!
The exhibition was amazing if not a little small. 49 mostly original pieces from American Illustrators including Luke Chueh (below), Gary Baseman and Joe Ledbetter. While it was missing afew of my favourites (Amanda Visell for one :( ) it was still a great show, some snaps from it are below :D
If you get a chance / are bored over the weekend, catch it before it closes Sunday!
And with that, i'm off to bed. Hopefully there'll be a flyer or two to show you tomorrow :)
M x
Friday 13 August 2010
Cups of Tea 0605 - 0653
Yes kids... almost 50 cups of tea later (and 16 days later...) I return to the blog :o! Leena Script Designed, currently working on a logo for a florist (which I shall hopefully be able to show before the weekend) and a few street art related things... A new rabbit (soon to be two or 3...), initial stages of some NES inspired artwork and in the early stages of building a fake wall to tag on :) So expect alot of that soon!
Other than that, life's been nice... Back running (did 6k yesterday) and doing other cardio related workouts (press ups, crunches, light weights, cross trainer...) which is getting me back on my feet... it feels so good to have a degree of Stamina back!
Anyways, enough of the babbling, here's my concept artwork for Leena, as it's as far as I can really take it at the moment... damned limited Fontographer!
M x
Other than that, life's been nice... Back running (did 6k yesterday) and doing other cardio related workouts (press ups, crunches, light weights, cross trainer...) which is getting me back on my feet... it feels so good to have a degree of Stamina back!
Anyways, enough of the babbling, here's my concept artwork for Leena, as it's as far as I can really take it at the moment... damned limited Fontographer!
M x
Wednesday 28 July 2010
Cups of Tea 0571 - 0604
Yes. It has almost been a week... "Most unproductive Mat!" I hear you cry, "What happened to daily updates?" Well if I'm being honest, I didn't want to bore you. Friday I went for a pint with Mike and Janina (Mike's girlfriend who I had the pleasure of meeting that day), and by the time I got home it was almost 9 o'clock. I went to bed not long after.
Working weekend killed any ambition I had to do work after work... Saturday my Aunty and Uncle visited so we had a meal and talked as a family all night which was nice. They're in New York as of next week so I'll be getting an Ipad on the cheap! Woohoo! If anyone's got one / played with one... is it worth the 3G or should I just upgrade the hard drive with the extra cash?
Sunday was a night of reading for my dissertation that ended up with me watching the A-team movie (in a dubious format...) which I thought was wicked, see it in the cinema if you can because I'd imagine it's epic! So Monday, Tuesday and Today I have been solidly designing and slowly adjusting my sleeping pattern back to reasonable hours... I've been designing so hard in fact, that hopefully I will be able to release my first typeface either Friday or in the following week!
I've vectored all the upper / lower case and the numbers... only the symbols etc. to vector now, they're all drawn up in the planning book... I've never taken one across to font book before so I don't know how long it will take / what I need to tweak in the program. I've got ideas for 3 more typefaces after it, and when you don't set yourself silly restrictions like I have for this one, I really enjoy designing type. Which is weird, I never thought I would have.... Future Job prospect I guess!
Anyways, that's it for now... I don't want to show the typeface until it's done, dusted and I get the credit for it deserved... Don't want blog stalkers stealing it from under me haha!
M x
Working weekend killed any ambition I had to do work after work... Saturday my Aunty and Uncle visited so we had a meal and talked as a family all night which was nice. They're in New York as of next week so I'll be getting an Ipad on the cheap! Woohoo! If anyone's got one / played with one... is it worth the 3G or should I just upgrade the hard drive with the extra cash?
Sunday was a night of reading for my dissertation that ended up with me watching the A-team movie (in a dubious format...) which I thought was wicked, see it in the cinema if you can because I'd imagine it's epic! So Monday, Tuesday and Today I have been solidly designing and slowly adjusting my sleeping pattern back to reasonable hours... I've been designing so hard in fact, that hopefully I will be able to release my first typeface either Friday or in the following week!
I've vectored all the upper / lower case and the numbers... only the symbols etc. to vector now, they're all drawn up in the planning book... I've never taken one across to font book before so I don't know how long it will take / what I need to tweak in the program. I've got ideas for 3 more typefaces after it, and when you don't set yourself silly restrictions like I have for this one, I really enjoy designing type. Which is weird, I never thought I would have.... Future Job prospect I guess!
Anyways, that's it for now... I don't want to show the typeface until it's done, dusted and I get the credit for it deserved... Don't want blog stalkers stealing it from under me haha!
M x
Thursday 22 July 2010
Cups of Tea 0562 - 0570
Missing days again... dew dew. Yesterday was a wasted day in terms of productive graphic design as I couldn't sleep the night before... I woke up uber late and then as the day was already gone, Read the entirety of Scott Pilgrim 1 - 6 (as I finally got the 6th one 'delivered') and then went for a productive run. Managed 5k in 28 minutes, not only improving my average time per km from last week, but also the distance... which is looovely.
So today, I was determined to do something remotely productive... I finished mapping out Lenna in the squared notebook (for scale) to scan and vector tomorrow (as each initial draft are on post-its) and read a quarter of "The Music Industry - Music in the Cloud", a book about how the music business is changing in the digital age for the dissertation. Its quite eye opening, I'm considering tweaking my question already as a result of it. This is the last week of casual design anyways, next week its back nose to the grindstone... Although i've been playing about, I've not really dedicated myself to getting better like I feel I should have.
Other than the work I did, I downloaded and played the new XBLA title, Limbo. Visually, the game is absolutely stunning. The simple, black and white tonal pallet really draws you into the title. It instills a feeling of uncertainty and dread into the player (especially in the earlier stages) as to what is lurking in the shadows. The gameplay is unforgiving, one small step out of line and you're dead baby, and when I say dead, I mean dismembered, impaled, beheaded and sawed into tiny chunks of shadowy boy (it's got a pegi rating of 18+). Luckily, regular checkpoints are in play so the game doesn't get too frustrating, even into the later portions of the game. It's about 4 - 5 hours gameplay depending on how proficient you are with puzzlers and for 1200 (about a tenner) to some it really won't appear to be worth it. But I implore you to try the demo, it really is a breath-taking game that you need to experience to believe.
But one thing I found strange with the game is it helped clarify a conversation I'd had with Gem earlier in the week about "feel" v.s. plot, we decided that a great movie is made up of the right mixture of a great plot and it's own style, ergo artistic direction must go hand in hand with dialogue, characters etc. I argued the importance of the writing over style but the Limbo came and slapped me with a wet fish. The game has absolutely no plot. Other than its gameplay, the sole selling point of the game is how beautiful it looks. The same goes for Flowers on PSN and a whole lot of other smaller studio titles currently being released... Proving me wrong like the world really likes to do, what makes Limbo a fun game is that it isn't bogged down with a "THIS BOY HAS TO TRAVEL THROUGH SEVERAL MAGIC WORLDS TO DEFEAT EVIL!" type story, cinematic or celebrity voice acting. It's fun because the gameplay is challenging and it's style sets the tone.
Other than that, caught this off a tweet from Adrian Shaughnessy (who seems to be creeping up in this blog an awful lot lately...). Looks very interesting, he's even hinted it may challenge the future of publishing. (top tweet).
Anyways, enough babbling... night all!
M x
p.s. I've added share buttons, tweet / facebook etc. if you want ;)
So today, I was determined to do something remotely productive... I finished mapping out Lenna in the squared notebook (for scale) to scan and vector tomorrow (as each initial draft are on post-its) and read a quarter of "The Music Industry - Music in the Cloud", a book about how the music business is changing in the digital age for the dissertation. Its quite eye opening, I'm considering tweaking my question already as a result of it. This is the last week of casual design anyways, next week its back nose to the grindstone... Although i've been playing about, I've not really dedicated myself to getting better like I feel I should have.
Other than the work I did, I downloaded and played the new XBLA title, Limbo. Visually, the game is absolutely stunning. The simple, black and white tonal pallet really draws you into the title. It instills a feeling of uncertainty and dread into the player (especially in the earlier stages) as to what is lurking in the shadows. The gameplay is unforgiving, one small step out of line and you're dead baby, and when I say dead, I mean dismembered, impaled, beheaded and sawed into tiny chunks of shadowy boy (it's got a pegi rating of 18+). Luckily, regular checkpoints are in play so the game doesn't get too frustrating, even into the later portions of the game. It's about 4 - 5 hours gameplay depending on how proficient you are with puzzlers and for 1200 (about a tenner) to some it really won't appear to be worth it. But I implore you to try the demo, it really is a breath-taking game that you need to experience to believe.
But one thing I found strange with the game is it helped clarify a conversation I'd had with Gem earlier in the week about "feel" v.s. plot, we decided that a great movie is made up of the right mixture of a great plot and it's own style, ergo artistic direction must go hand in hand with dialogue, characters etc. I argued the importance of the writing over style but the Limbo came and slapped me with a wet fish. The game has absolutely no plot. Other than its gameplay, the sole selling point of the game is how beautiful it looks. The same goes for Flowers on PSN and a whole lot of other smaller studio titles currently being released... Proving me wrong like the world really likes to do, what makes Limbo a fun game is that it isn't bogged down with a "THIS BOY HAS TO TRAVEL THROUGH SEVERAL MAGIC WORLDS TO DEFEAT EVIL!" type story, cinematic or celebrity voice acting. It's fun because the gameplay is challenging and it's style sets the tone.
Other than that, caught this off a tweet from Adrian Shaughnessy (who seems to be creeping up in this blog an awful lot lately...). Looks very interesting, he's even hinted it may challenge the future of publishing. (top tweet).
Anyways, enough babbling... night all!
M x
p.s. I've added share buttons, tweet / facebook etc. if you want ;)
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Cups of Tea 0563 - 0568
Yesterday was tea-less! Well, I had one cup at 10 in the night when I woke up after a day of blitzing around Swansea and reading comics / Naomi Klein when I got in... Got up this morning after abit of a disjointed night in terms of sleep and decided to begin working on my display font. Had the right frame of mind to do it so knocked out the lower case, numbers and most of the necessary symbols (shift numbers / punctuation...).
So without further a due, the teaser for a typeface I hope will be finished before the end of the week (vector wise...) Leena.
PLEASE give me feedback. First font and even if it isn't a script font, I'd still like a little feedback.
Other than that, found this on you tube. Amazing!
M x
So without further a due, the teaser for a typeface I hope will be finished before the end of the week (vector wise...) Leena.
PLEASE give me feedback. First font and even if it isn't a script font, I'd still like a little feedback.
Other than that, found this on you tube. Amazing!
M x
Sunday 18 July 2010
Cups of Tea 0559 - 0562
Found this last night and thought it was cool. Hellish day at work, hopefully some new design stuff tomorrow :)
M x
Saturday 17 July 2010
Cups of Tea 0556 - 0558
Balderdash! I got roped into working today and ended up getting tucked up. No night shift so left with alot to do which I wasn't really happy about... cleared most of it though so hopefully tonight I will have a nights person and won't be totally screwed tomorrow xD Nevermind, if one thing... working encourages me to do design!
Well... it didn't today... I came home, and I was rather worn out... so I did bugger all :/ which is abit of a nightmare :( I got home and now have a reinstated drive... and now that the sleeping patter's back in order, next week there's a shitload of design going to get cranked out :) I also have a serious desire to create a font... And I know i've been toying with a display font while I was housebound ala mumps, but I mean an actual script font... got the name and the idea for it in my head and it should be nice if I can pull it off... but we'll see... I'm really not the best on illustrator with curves so it might be abit of a challenge, but hell, it'll be worth it I'm sure :)
Anyways, onto some design in the world -
I've probably missed the boat with this for alot of you but FIFA have unveiled the 2014 world cup logo... Which I'm not really to keen on. I mean world cup logo's haven't exactly got a history of being great logos, but when Euro 2012 did such a nice job of tying the brand through its stadium concepts etc, (see the video below) It's supposed to be based around "‘wycinanka’, the traditional art of paper cutting practiced in rural areas of Poland and Ukraine, as a tribute to the fauna and flora of the region." (source) and I think it works quite well! I thought the world cup would have taken on some of this flare... I mean yes, Brazil's logo is the world cup made of hands, and yes, I guess everyone is trying to get their hands on it... but come on... at least go for something abit more original!
also, how the hell THIS sucker slipped my attention, I'll never know. But as i've mentioned the man before (and if you're in uni, he's had a few mentions), Adrian Shaughnessy, Author of "How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul" released a new book in March called "Graphic Design : A User's Manual". I want it! This video explains it more than I can (purely because I haven't read it yet ;) but it's in the shopping cart...).
M x
Well... it didn't today... I came home, and I was rather worn out... so I did bugger all :/ which is abit of a nightmare :( I got home and now have a reinstated drive... and now that the sleeping patter's back in order, next week there's a shitload of design going to get cranked out :) I also have a serious desire to create a font... And I know i've been toying with a display font while I was housebound ala mumps, but I mean an actual script font... got the name and the idea for it in my head and it should be nice if I can pull it off... but we'll see... I'm really not the best on illustrator with curves so it might be abit of a challenge, but hell, it'll be worth it I'm sure :)
Anyways, onto some design in the world -
I've probably missed the boat with this for alot of you but FIFA have unveiled the 2014 world cup logo... Which I'm not really to keen on. I mean world cup logo's haven't exactly got a history of being great logos, but when Euro 2012 did such a nice job of tying the brand through its stadium concepts etc, (see the video below) It's supposed to be based around "‘wycinanka’, the traditional art of paper cutting practiced in rural areas of Poland and Ukraine, as a tribute to the fauna and flora of the region." (source) and I think it works quite well! I thought the world cup would have taken on some of this flare... I mean yes, Brazil's logo is the world cup made of hands, and yes, I guess everyone is trying to get their hands on it... but come on... at least go for something abit more original!
also, how the hell THIS sucker slipped my attention, I'll never know. But as i've mentioned the man before (and if you're in uni, he's had a few mentions), Adrian Shaughnessy, Author of "How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul" released a new book in March called "Graphic Design : A User's Manual". I want it! This video explains it more than I can (purely because I haven't read it yet ;) but it's in the shopping cart...).
M x
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