Teasign

Cups of Tea 2221 - 2347

2011-11-24T15:46:00.001-08:00

Omgeeeh! He's alive! Sorry folks, it has been a SERIOUSLY hectic 3 weeks since I last blogged. For the most part, I've essentially been living in London all week for various interviews, coming home to work weekends, and then disappearing back upto London on Monday morning. Something that, to be honest, has left me tired and skint! Depressingly broke some might say, but hey, gotta spend money to make money I guess!

As such, there's been mini briefs, pitches etc. to do in preperation for these interviews, but in all honesty, I don't really know if I'm allowed to show them in a blog format, which is a bit wierd! But saying that, I certainly wouldn't be showing that work on here if I was a part of that company, so I'll play to the side of caution and not re-up it here... If you really want to see it, let me know and I'll show you the whole pitch haha!

But seriously, I'm pretty drained! Today, as it's been my only 'real' day off in the past 3 weeks (and by day off, I mean chance to vegetate), I've just been playing the new Assasin's Creed. (A.) Because I deserve a little bit of a break and (B.) Because I know the trade in value will spiral faster than water down a plughole if I don't get rid of it this side of Christmas... Under normal circumstances, I don't like trading in my 360 games, but I really want Rayman and all my spare cash this month if for presents... So it has to be done i'm afraid!

On that note, I'm going to disappear... Want to have an early night so I can get up and work on another sudo-blogging idea that should be quite fun! And unlike this one in the past few weeks, that'll be regularly updated because it won't just be by me! Winning.

M x

Cups of Tea 2218 - 2220

2011-11-06T13:45:00.001-08:00

Not a lot to say, ladies and gentleman, as I am blinkin' well tired! Not been able to get on with a podcast related piece of arty work because I've not got a source image for one of the people on it... So I'm going to have to go away leaving something unfinished, which is well annoying!

Anywho, I've got to be up early to get my train to London.

M x

Cups of Tea 2214 - 2217

2011-11-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

Ok. For those of you who know me, really, and I mean really well, I've just spent the last three hours playing with, and loving Flash. No. This is not a joke, although 'loving' is probably to strong a word to use... more toleration that leads to a general sense of self satisfaction, but it's slowly building it's way up in my estimations from Total Shit-bag to Disgruntled and Unreliable Acquaintance.

But Mat, what about the stuff you said you were going to do yesterday? Like that sodding infographic running piece you've been working on? Well blog reader, I'm glad you asked. I realized that, as I believe I also blogged last night (and if I didn't, I apologize), I'm in London for the better half of next week, which means I won't have my Laptop at my disposal... Which means unless I take my files on a flash drive and pray to Jesus my Brother's copy of CS2 Illustrator can open them, there's not a lot getting done this week... Alternatively, I'm setting myself another challenge for the up coming week, which you will see soon!

But yes, back to the ~~Total Shit-bag~~ Disgruntled/Unreliable Acquaintance that is Flash! I've been doing some motion graphics! Shock Horror! Something completely outside of my comfort zone? And in a program I've not left a name on? Surely not? Well Internet, you'll be surprised at what a pleasant experience it's been! REALLY! Apart from a few forgetful mistakes on my part (putting more than one item on a layer I wanted to motion tween) and some utter 'WTFs' on Flash's part (a large letter I appearing from no where mid-playback), it's been alright... 200 frames, 8 seconds out of 221 down. By my calculations, that's only 5525 more frames to go! By that time, I imagine I'll either love or loathe Flash again, only time will tell, but I'm guessing it's going to go back to being a Total Shit-bag. You may have guessed, but that's my new thing. Yeah....

On a design you can view note, have a look at some of the work by Australian Like Minded Studio, there is some stunning examples of Type there (for you Rhys...), the bellow being my favourite!

M x

Cups of Tea 2202 - 2213

2011-11-04T15:35:00.000-07:00

Two days without blog updates! I am disgusted at myself Ladies and Gentleman! Nevermind, nobody's to blame... Except maybe me? You forgive me? Awww, you shouldn't have. Really, I need to be held accountable...

Just a quick blog update today as my day has been taken up by some rather pressing matters of future employment (and maybe a little bit of Halo...), just to post up a flyer I did for another standing up comedy in Caerdydd, maybe if you're about that area, you can go along to it! Who Knows!

Apart from this and said job interviewing etc. it's been a pretty slow day! In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's been a pretty slow week on the design front... Halloween Party Monday, Driving Lesson + Freelance Tuesday, Work Wednesday, Freelance and some Gaming Thursday and employment related stuff today... Next week however, I intend to start redesigning the website (finally!). Also Running will restarted as well as the hopeful completion of a long over due running magazine style thing...

M x

Cups of Tea 2198 - 2201

2011-11-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Hey, Sweden! Oh Dear God, I just started off this blog with the most obscure of obscure references, but as I'm trying to stick to the whole stream of consciousness blogging malarkey, it has to stay... For those interested, it was a quote from John Carpenter's 1982 classic, THE THING! Obscure pop cultured reference box is ticked, now all I need is to set in Helvetica with some Triangles on a star covered background, then I'll earn my Hipster Blogger Boy Scout Badge!

Could Hipsters be Boy Scouts? Or would that just be to conformist? Though I bet the irony factor of them wearing the uniform would suffice to make this bit workable... Jeez, I don't half type crap sometimes...

So moving on, just because I felt like I haven't been reblogging enough and spreading some design joy... I just thought I'd repost a load of cool stuff I've seen over on Swissmiss over the past few weeks that have brightened up my day... All of them could potentially be probable cause to question my mental age and sexual preference, but just remember, it's not polite to ask those kind of questions!

First up, we have one of the greatest things I've ever seen... For those who know me well (and as the rest of you can probably guess from reading this blog / looking at my work), I'm really not a fan of Jabba text. I despise using Jabber text! I'd much rather right my own body copy or source an article that has something to do with my work, than to us 'Lorem Ipsum'... Luckily for you lovely people (more so for the Girlies I guess), there is now a less boring solution if you haven't the time to type your own copy, but are afraid that latin's just not your thing... I present you with 'Cupcake Ipsum'.

Essentially, it just creates a load of Dummy copy, but with cake types / flavors (and even some love...), now ain't that lovely!? Give it a try imho, it's quite funny!

Then onto two quick 'I want's (as I'm aware this is becoming an essay). The first, are these awesome Post It Note Watches! Which would save me scribbling stuff on my hands all the time in work...

The second (and this is where my real nerd comes out), Pantone Christmas Decorations! Bahahah! If I get my own place by Christmas, they will be mine! And The whole of Christmas will be CMYK themed... Who Needs Red, White and Green, when you can spice things up with some Cyan and Magenta?

And on that note, it's bedtime... There's a full day of work ahead of me tomorrow! So Merry Designmess to all, and to all a good deadline free night.

M x

Cups of Tea 2187 - 2197

2011-10-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hello True Believers! Or Not? I don't know? Well, hello anyways... It's been a bit of a long few days! I haven't blogged in almost a week because of zee night of Stand Up, resulting Hang Over and weekend of work. As such, I apologize!

This is just a quick blog post because I've got a driving lesson bright and early tomorrow (Yes! I'm learning to drive again! All Hail Zod!), but here's another Stand Up flyer in the theme of the Dan Antopolski one, this time for Wil Hodgson...

Enjoy!

M x

Cups of Tea 2181 - 2186

2011-10-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

A lot of Tea as it's been a bit of a busy day respective readers! A lot of brews, slightly strained eyes and a practical exercise for a job is completed... I think? And it's been nice! I've been using Photoshop PROPERLY for the first time in a good while. Cropping, using layer styles, blends, layer masks! The whole shebang! And I forgot how much I love the program.... I've been using illustrator for the last what, 8 years now? 6 of those I've used it pretty hardcore!

But alas, after an interview a week or two ago I was told to check out layer styles, and I honestly forgot how much could be achieved with them... It's been a nice change of pace! While I still love my vectoring (you know me, I keep it clean), in this period of me being unemployed I think I'm going to use the time to become as uber in PS as I used to be! While I can still remember how to do everything, I'm not as fast with the old lasso and my collection of brushes leaves a lot to be desired! This will be rectified! Then it's back to learning HTML 5...

Other than this news, I stumbled across a complete ARCHIVE of published material from Volkswagen since the 30s! We're talking Nazi Germany Volkswagen promotional things, it's incredible to look at! It's great to see how the brand has always been so visually stylized, most of it wouldn't look out of place to look at today, while others look a little dated but look like they were ground breaking at the time!

Unfortunately, there's none of the posters on there, but I'm still going to link to this article on the 'lemon' ad (as made famous by madmen), because I think the copy is awesome! And now, to bed! Nighty night all!

M x

Cups of Tea 2177 - 2180

2011-10-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

Hey up all, just a quick update again as I'm about to dash off to bed... Original plan was to 100% complete the illustrations for Rundown today, however I did one of the remaining 3 (now 2...) this morning, then practiced stand up. When I got back to the computer, the priority changed to something very exciting in the inbox that I'll hopefully be able to share with you all soon :) So unfortunately, this probably means Rundown won't be released until All Hallow's Eve, which I'm sure I'll also knock something up for! We shall see tomorrow ;)

Until then, enjoy the most cracking music video I've seen in a long time! I like the song, but I am seriously in love with the animation style...

M x

Cups of Tea 2168 - 2176

2011-10-24T16:57:00.000-07:00

Why hello there ladies and gentleman... Sorry about the late blog post, I'm currently getting back up to date with House after a day of writing (possibly the most unusual, unusable bits I've ever written, but there you go...). I have, however got some Graphic Design to show that I did on Saturday but didn't want to blog, as I'm almost ready to release Rundown, I've been in a weird state of mind the last week or two and I apologize... Hopefully this glimpse will make up for some of it, at least!

And now to bed, toodles.

M x

Cups of Tea 2156 - 2167

2011-10-22T15:00:00.001-07:00

I apologize for the lack of updates ladies and gents, but I really haven't been that busy on the design front this week due to a few social commitments (a funeral, some stand up, client meeting), so really haven't felt the need to update this old blog of mine for fear of boring you all! Rest assured, there will be some work up from tomorrow I think...! Fingers crosses aye?

M x

Cups of Tea 2149 - 2155

2011-10-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Sunny Port Talbot. Nuclear winter seems to be finally upon us so it is time to hibernate! I really don't know where I'm going with this train of thought, so I'll just stop typing and do a seamless transition into something else...

So Assassin's Creed 2 is now done and dusted. I have to say, it's probably one of my favourite games now... Even if some of the end missions were extremely tedious (I'm looking at you Sequences 12 and 13... But I suppose they are technically DLC). I popped Brotherhood in after I finished some tutorials and job applications and I'm not sure if I like it as much :/ It could also be that I'm probably Assassin's Creed'd out, so maybe I'll just lay off the Xbox for awhile, it was originally the plan after doing AC2 anyways. Either that or I'll finally finish off Dead Space 2... HMMM

On the design front, not much to show again I'm afraid! I've been experimenting with Photoshop as I realized I need to put a little more stuff in the folio to balance out the Illustrator / Layout work, so I may even do October's short Rundown in it (I tried to run yesterday and the ankle's still not 100% after last week)!

On a plus side for those interested in design, I've unearthed another treasure! A vintage Spec Sheet for the Volkswagen logo! The original can be found over at imjustcreative, which also has a download link to make it your iphone background... which it now is on mine! Aces!

M x

Cups of Tea 2147 - 2148

2011-10-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

Urgh... another long day at work! -sigh- Nothing done today to show (only a tutorial or two, but that's not exciting :O) but hopefully there will be tomorrow... God damned Super Market... I'm up at 5 and in for 6, so I'm going to skedaddle off to bed! Sweet dreams mofos!

M x

Cups of Tea 2143 - 2146

2011-10-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

Just the quickest of quick updates because I'm absolutely cream crackered... A long day in the life of a Welshman... Up early, proper breakfast with some rugby, then in work until 9... Very tiiired so going to goto bed now, as I'm up for 8...

However, before I do go - I would like one of these! Those who know me, know I have a love of funky USB sticks as well as Tea... (I own an original Blue Neko Incubot...), but this Hydrogen bomb from the amazing folks at H-57 is just kicks ass!

M x

Cups of Tea 2138 - 2142

2011-10-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

View discretion is advised, this blog may contain Graphic Design, anecdotal humor and possibly a journey through time and space.

I can't be sure on the last part, as I'm neither The Doctor or The Boosh. So now that's straightened out, hello and good day to you all! It's been a day of travel here in the world of Teasign, first to Swansea at the crack of dawn to finally get my hands on an iPhone! Hazaa! I have joined the modern age of smartphone users! Now I can Geocach, Four Square and augment my reality along with the best of them! I then took a trip upto Cardiff for a quick bit of sight seeing, some general chitchat and a spot of tea at a Tesco's. All in all, not a bad day out!

Apologies for yesterday's lack of a post, I was quiiite busy for most of the day, so short of spoiling some of Rundown (it's almost there, I promise!), I shall show nawt of my own work... I'm currently just playing around a little in Photoshop which is fun, short of the flyer below, I haven't really used it in awhile in favor of the trusty pen tool in Illustrator, but I'm toying with a few nifty little tips I picked up via some tutorials! No doubt I'll show you some of it soon!

But until that time, I'll just leave you with a little bit of this, as it's a bit of a fitting end of a blog that started with an iPhone / to do a little bit of a Steve Job's Homage, it's Paul Rand's Brand Presentation Booklet for the Next logo! (No, not the clothing company...)

While not my favourite of Rand's logos (and if I were pressed to pick one, it'd probably be abc's, purely for it's bold, minimalist and dare I even say, timeless look and feel), the bloke was undoubtedly a very clever chap, so it's a pretty damned interesting read! Full scans of it can be found here, and better pictures can be found along with Rand's logos if you scroll down.

On that note, I'm off to do some writing before bed. I've got to make the most of my free time while it's still free after all! Toodle Pip all!

M x

Cups of Tea 2133 - 2137

2011-10-12T15:46:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Just a quick update because I'm rather engrossed in the rather brilliant Assassin's Creed 2! Yes, 2009 called and they wanted their game back, so I thought I'd best complete it ;) Already got Brotherhood on it's way and there's just over a month until Revelations is released... and since the launch trailer for it is what made me replay 1 / buy 2 in the first place, I thought it was time to get cracking! So here it is, the flyer I did for Let Them Eat Cake / Brown Bear's Dan Antopolski!

It'll be a cracking gig! I'll certainly be going to it, so you should come along! A little taste of Dan for you

And with that, I'm off to complete this and then goto bed. Laters Alligators.
M x

Cups of Tea 2124 - 2132

2011-10-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Hey You! Out there in the cold, Getting lonely, Getting old. Can you feel me? Please? No? Fine.

How the devil are you everyone? I'm sorry it's been two days without updates, but alas there are good reasons. Sunday as you all jolly well know if you're a regular reader, I did a stand up gig in Swansea for The Swansea Uni Comedy Club (go like their Facebook page, it'll make them happy) which I feel went pretty damned well. No idea of the exact numbers, but it's probably the largest crowd I've performed to so far and it went very well! Got asked back and the talk of more dates in the future, so that's always nice! I tried to blog about it after it happened from the old GLC (cheers Jim for the floor space!) but I'd changed my password and couldn't remember it (oops).

I got some pretty shitty news after I got out of the venue however. One of my neighbor's passed away. So when I got home, I wrote out some sympathy cards and then went over to see the family, which is why I didn't post yesterday. Nothing really got done and I didn't really have a lot to say if I'm honest.

But today's been a little more productive, which is nice. I did some freelance gig for a flyer I believe I'm on the billing for (which would be cool!) and one of the last Rundown illustrations, only 2 more to go and then the cover! However I'm at a loss for October's issue... While out running (only the second time this month... GRR!) I twisted my bloody ankle, so now I'm left at the mercy of seeing how it is on Friday before I contemplate running again... which may force me to make an October / November issue instead... Though to be fair, with what I've got planned for the next issue, getting to do it for 2 months would be amazing! Really looking forward to it :D Ordered the wood to sort it all today ;)

I could show you the Rundown illustration, but as I'm so close to finishing it, I really just want to try and push on with it tomorrow and see what happens! Stranger things have happened, I may even get to put it out into the world finally! So instead (as I can't release the aforementioned freelance yet...), I'm just going to leave you with some the fantastic Mr. Button, design and produced by John Caswell Design. These will be all over my person come winter!

M x

Cups of Tea 2114 - 2123

2011-10-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

ARGH! I am so blinking annoyed with myself over the lack of blog post last night. I splashed out and bought the blogger App for my iPod touch and everything, just so no matter where I ended up last night, I could post a blog... But it wasn't to be! And I ended up at home!

I did a great gig in Cardigan, West Wales last night in a small venue called The Cellar Bar. On the bill was me, Geraint Evens, Chris Chopping and MCing was Ben Jenkins. It was a really nice room (who paid me in Cups of Tea 2117 and 2118...) that was quite cozy. It was also quite cool to gig out of Swansea, as short of the Adam and Steve (A&E) / Eli Jenkins, I've not had the chance. All of the acts went over great, even with a local squash club in for dinner who wanted to chat over them! I've seen all of the acts on the bill before, know some of the material, but I still laughed my ass off, which is a reassuring sign not only in the strength of the material, but how good the comics were that I was lucky enough to gig with. Honestly, if you've not yet seen them in the A&E, check them out, they are all class acts.

It's hard to put into words how I felt about the gig and I don't really want to attempt to deconstruct comedy because (a.) I'm surely not experienced enough and (b.) it would get hella boring, but I'm going to go with the train of thought. I'm not sure if it was because I was in a completely different place or if there was nobody in the crowd I knew, but I guess it didn't feel like just me pissing about on a stage. It felt like that feeling you get when you first do a piece of freelance work. You know it's not going to just be seen by a few close friends and go no further, it's actually out there in the world, beyond your control. This is not to say I'm implying that in any shape or form I'm even a comedian yet (hell I'm a part time open mike-r at best), and I'm sorry if it comes off as pretentious douchery on my part, but I think get it now more than I did before.

Don't get me wrong, I loved performing any time I've been lucky enough to get up and do it, but even though I don't feel I did particularly well last night (misjudged the age of the audience a little, should have had more material and a lot more besides), I could see why people are 'bitten by the comedy bug'. I'll go no further, because I am sounding like a knob, but I just enjoyed myself the way I enjoy myself when I design, it was a great.

And now back to my first love.

I found something AMAZING over at Aisleone! The Graphics Manual for the 1976 Montréal Olympics! Oh my God! Not only was it cool as a resource at checking out old school branding practices, but it's so beautifully laid out. Simple design makes me happy...

I'm also doing another gig tomorrow in Swansea :) So as of work it will be another day of some of the cool stuff I've found but not posted! See you then, or Monday... There's be something nice Monday...

M x

Cups of Tea 2210 - 2213

2011-10-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

Hello. Is it me you're waiting for? I should hope so, this is my blog... Just a quick post tonight as I'm currently in a small stress over my arrangements for standing up comedy tomorrow (I wish I could drive... I seriously need to sort that to carry on doing this / better job prospects...). But I had to share this, as much as I love Matt Berry, the song by Three Trapped Tigers makes this video

Three Trapped Tigers - Reset from CHRIS BOYLE on Vimeo.

And no, I'm not related to Chris Boyle.

M x

Oh! PS! The URL in the video also works - http://globalsaviour.info/Site_3/GLOBAL_SAVIOUR.html

Cups of Tea 2205 - 2209

2011-10-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

Hello boys and girls, children of allll ages, step right and see what I've been a vectoring today... Why it's a water bottle! One based on my very own, fancy pants Gaterade bottle I got free at work with a 4 pack of Gaterade. Isn't it neat? Well, I'm bored of talking like an American. This is all she wrote for today guys, been practicing my standing up comedy ready for Friday... The cold is shaken however, so I'm going to crack the final illustrations out for this tomorrow so I can get it online asap :) Hopefully might even get a small run in... As i've yet to clock one for October... And I do like the idea for this Months issue, just need to finish this one first!

M x

Cups of Tea 2202 - 2204

2011-10-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to note that I'm tirelessly working on Rundown to get it done by the 7th... Yesterday's the wonders of yesterday's illness have knocked me off my pace, then today I couldn't get one of the illustrations to work... I decided to scrap it and have come up with a better one, but alas, it's put me slightly behind! Only 3 more to do and a cover... Then it'll be out ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 2200 - 2201

2011-10-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

Two cups of tea today? That's unlike you Mat. Well, I've spent half my day in bed knocked out with a cold. I'm feeling a lot better now however, so don't feel to bad! Just a quick update before bed with some of the coolest mixed media stuff I've seen in a while by Clark Goolsby... Suffice to say, I may be trying to recreate something similar in an upcoming edition of Rundown!

M x

Cups of Tea 2194 - 2199

2011-10-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

Urgghhh. I really don't feel well at the moment. I woke up this fair morn, at 6 o'clock Ante Meridian, to find myself with quite the mystery on my hands Scooby. I had a seriously sniffley nose, accompanied by a pretty sore throat. 'How could I contract what clearly seem to be, the early symptoms of influenza? Well it is October. 'Freshers Flu' must be going around, as my Daily Mail clearly indicates that young students love nothing more to share beds, drinks and other bodily fluids. But I've not really been out any where to catch it... Well could I have caught a chill? As I've said, it is October after all. Autumn is upon us so maybe I should be wrapping up warm in a Doctor Who themed scarf and some Thermal socks? Oh wait, It's currently 27°C. So what could the source be?'

The answer, ladies and gentleman? My own Nephew. The same Nephew I miss terribly that he's officialy moved to London, decided to give me one last passing gift before going away, not a drawing for my fridge or one of his toys, but a ruddy cold. The kid did me in better than Macbeth did Duncan. I have been seriously under the weather all day and I work in a freezer at -21°C... Suffice to say, he's getting a lump of coal that i've sneezed on from Santa this Christmas.

So yes, I've been a total bloke since I got in from work. Monged out under the quilt and drank a load of Chai tea to try and bring me around, but alas it hasn't worked. I only moan, you understand, because I'm hardly ever ill (which means I get a pass...) and it's come at a time when I'm also still recoving from the uber 10k run on Friday. To be honest, it's probably the reason I caught the flu in the firstplace. Coughs and sneezes with the aches and pains of my muscles being torn to bits and repaired with protein, does not a strong immune system make.

So which brings me to the next point, though it should be obvious from the above. Not a lot done today, but as I've cheated like hell on this blog for the better part of the week, I thought I'd flash you the 12th of September image. Now please, look at this while I go curl up and ~~cry myself to~~ sleep. Also, what do you think of the sneaky paper texture? It's more an experiment for next month's Rundown, but I think it works quite nicely on this one... or is it better clean do you think? My money's probably on clean because of the rest of it, but hey...

M x

Cups of Tea 2189 - 2193

2011-10-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

Why hello there chillblaines! And that introduction has lead me off on an amazing tangent down memory lane! Does anyone remember the ITV Friday (or more likely Saturday night program...) The Brian Conley Show? If there is anything to blame for my love of comedy, it would be this man. Brilliant sketches, filled with British Humor to the brim (What do you call a bear with no parents? Rupert the Bastard) and just silly over the top slapstick comedy, MAN I bloody loved this program... The favourite section of it for me was always Larry the Loafer (though its such a hard push, Dangerous Brian and Septic Peg also made me laugh no end). Have a watch, it's absolutely amazing. Trust me. At least I can admit to liking Brian without fear because it's still brilliant today... I will be less likely to admit my infatuation at the age of 8 with Joe Pasquale... (Mangos in a pub....) but that's another story for another time.

Anyways, today has been as expected, a day of vectoring illustrations and putting data together, and as I'm going to release the whole booklet in a few days, I don't want to really spoil it! So i'll just leave you with this one image of the final illustration and be on my way.

Yes, it's somewhat similar to my Bottle Rocket poster, but as I'm considering retiring a page of my Wes Anderson posters from my Folio, it's all gravy ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 2187 - 2188

2011-09-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

Goddddd Dammit! I'm sorry ladies and gents, today has got away from me and I've been 100% percent unproductive. I got back from London, realized I've eaten crap for the last two days and then went on a run to end all runs... Trying to run 10k in 50 mins, 5 minutes of my 2008 best at Margam Park's Reindeer run. However, lets just bear in mind, this was when I was running a training distance of 16 miles twice a week... Cutting a short story even shorter, I managed 52 mins... Which did shave off over 5 minutes from last week (which is nice) but looord, the last 1km destroyed my calf muscles. So I've been ko'd this afternoon. However, this means that I'm taking a rest day tomorrow, which means I can pull a weekender to try and get Rundown finished earlier :)

Sorry peoplez! But on a brighter note, I've started the plans for the 'set' of next month's issue ;) Trust me, if you thought this week's looked good, next months will hopefully blow your mind a little :)

M x

Cups of Tea 2180 - 2186

2011-09-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know! I'm bloody annoyed at myself too! I can't believe I broke my streak of posting... I mean, I kinda cheated on Tuesday night, but I would have done the same last night if I hadn't been so flipping tired when I got in! I went out to see the 'Killing Moon' gig I did the flyer for a week or two back, and as a result, didn't get in until about 1... Which was a shame, because I wanted to give a more accurate run down of Drive! But I'm pretty damned tired after a day of traveling...

So just another quick blog tonight because I need to keep to doing this! A day or two up in London's made me slip out of routine and I want to get back to that! Rest assured, ALL of the illustration for Rundown is now planned out to be vectored tomorrow, so I'm hoping to have the first 'issue' out around the 5th :) Then those who want it, I'll figure out some way of printing and shipping it from the 7th (i.e. payday)! So until tomorrow, stay tuned! I'll pop up some new spreads and then maybe, just maybe pop up some other design as well :)

M x

Cups of Tea 2177 - 2179

2011-09-27T16:36:00.001-07:00

Just the quickest of quick blog updates to tell you to go see Drive! Without a shadow of a doubt, my film of the year and has easily found it's way into my top 5! There is a cam TS available, but go-go to the cinema, trust me! You won't regret it :) M x

Cups of Tea 2173 - 2176

2011-09-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it, when you set out to do a day of work and everything just escapes you...? Today has been one of those days where you start the right way, then the universe decides to conspire to completely mess around with your plans... Ahh damn!

So last night I did a workout, then was KO'd by it, making me fall asleep earlier than I anticipated. Then after trying to come up with a rundown cover I was happy with, I realized I needed to print my CV... So I crack out the printer, only to find that in all the packing / repacking of the window's getting changed, the usb had gone walkies. I then spent half the day looking for it (for some reason, it was in the stereo cabinet) then find out that the ink supply was low. So that was a new colour cartridge that needed to be bought. Then the folks car broke down on the drive, so I was pretty much told if I wanted tea in the morning, I'd have to go grab milk. So I made the treck to Morrisons and back (which isn't long at all really) but by the time I sat down, it was almost half 6. A day out of the window. So naturally, being urked, I just chainsawed people in half in Gears of War 3 before I realized why I stopped playing 2, the damned over powered shotguns!!!

So anyways, enough moaning. I'm off to LANDAAAAN tomorrow (why that was capitalized, I know not...) so I need to finish packing. I'll try my best not to break this update streak of blogging and upload some of the street art / general cool stuff I see on the trip there!

M x

Cups of Tea 2168 - 2172

2011-09-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

Why how do there movie goers! The featured presentation tonight has been brought to you by a man, with a little too much time on his hands, to run and then design something based around it. It has been rated a 12a (PG-13 to all of you across the pond) as it contains some naughty words and an absurd narrative, that leaves me introducing a blog as a voice-over... So now I'll stop doing that because it was a very silly premise...

Just a bit of a quick update to show you how Rundown's coming along... All there's really left to do other than the illustrations is the foreword and possibly an over all stats analysis at the end of the issue... Oh, and a cover, but that's more illustration I guess! Suffice to say, if I do do a cover and another page layout, I can probably put it in my portfolio just in case any interviews come along :) I may even attempt to do that tonight!

As you can see, by flipping the 'Running On' page onto the left, the title worked a lot better, I nullified the tone to an orange on grey, as apposed to white on orange to better tie into the colour scheme / it looks nicer with the grid! (also, the wall shadow blends very nicely into a white page) The only real problem with the maps atm is the text... I'm going to do a few proof prints tomorrow to see how it looks, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to make it a lot more minimalist for the print version!

Hopefully a lot more to show tomorrow! Now to work out and then back onto the illustrations!

M x

Oh and P.S. Purely because I told Rhys I'd up it in on Facebook, here's the running ninja that almost got used in 'Running on'... Oh, I have fun...

Cups of Tea 2164 - 2167

2011-09-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

Shoop shoop, shoop de lang de lang. Oh balls, that's a Libertine's song. Scratch that from the record... Hello and good morrow! How are you today oh people of the interweb? I myself am fine and dandy, having taken a rest day to do some standing up comedy writing, which is always a treat! So I must admit, there's really not a lot to show you guys today, but as I got over 100 pages views yesterday (what's that about?!) I thought I'd treat you guys to some of the cool stuff I've seen around the net this week!

These BIRDBOXES are possibly one of the coolest things ever... Seriously, as a type-nerd and nature lover, I am seriously considering getting one or two of these for the folk's back garden... You know, something classy, like our surname 'BOYLE' in large, wooden bird box letters to nail to the washing line. I of course am joking, We'd put them on the front of the house.

I also happened to stumble across these old school beer cans via AisleOne (which is a fantastic blog).

Maaan, those beer cans are crazy! But a better question surely lies in who thought 'this beverage container will look good on a flickr page one day, best save it with the family jewels'... I guess the world of typenerds and creatives owes a lot to the late Victorian hoarder...

Other than that, I got sent this from my brawd earlier, a piece outside Hoxton overground. A quick google reveals it's by Cept (and apparently it's an 'iconic' piece of London street art), but damn! I can't wait to see it next week in person! It looks like it's probably a stencil of a panel from DC's 'The Flash', but it still looks sweet!

Anyways, that's it from me... gotta do a little bit more writing and then I'm off to bed. I'm up at 7 and I don't want to come home uber tired like I did today! There's things to be done, y'know!

M x

Cups of Tea 2160 - 2163

2011-09-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Hello world! I think that's a good way to start. I mean, it generally encompass everyone without being selective, right? Yes? Good times, we'll go with that then. Jeez, I really need to stop writing these things stream of consciousness, and come up with some sort of formal structure, but if I did that, where would the fun be? In a well formed and logical state I'd imagine...

Anyways, today has been quite chilled out if I'm being honest... I mean the weekend's here (which for me, means work) and as a result, I've just been taking my time, enjoying playing with some page formatting for Rundown... So here's a little snippet as to how the non-vectored pages will look! Because of the tight page size and the six column grid, the page essentially uses 2 columns each for text. Please forgive the pose, I'm no model but I thought it would make for an interesting layout dynamic and break the structure up a little.

Short of that, I've been vectoring maps of my running routes. As the clever people amongst you will have noticed on Wednesday's layout, the top left corner is 'Route B'... That's because opposite this page will be a corresponding image of my running routes! Please remember, at the end of the day, the aim of this is so that I can look back and see ma runs! Now back to my sweetened tea (couldn't last with no sugar... 7 calories and vanilla flavoring is surely better than two spoons sugars) and then to bed, up at 5

M x

Oh big P.S! Over 8000 pageviews! Wicked :)! Thanks to all of you that view this, it's the only reason I keep writing!

Cups of Tea 2157 - 2159

2011-09-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

Hello Guys and Dolls, you bunch of crazy Guys and Dolls... That right there folks, is a Simpsons reference! Though I must say, despite my loving of a bit of musical theater combined with Mark Hamel's line 'This song wasn't even in the show', I still somehow thought I'd heard it sung by the original cast. Sometimes, I disappoint myself...

Anyways, there'll be no design on show today because most of the day was spent sussing out EXACTLY how many pages I need, what I want to talk about and how I'll lay that stuff out in Rundown. The other half, was spent in a sketchbook brainstorming for the 15+ Illustrations I realized that would be in the book! I'm spoiling you people... While I think I've got ONE down... I know exactly what I want to do for next month's! So a little bit of a catch 22 situation with it, but we shall see! Also I'm not sure if people would prefer I release spreads individually, then as a collection at the end of the month, or would your prefer a few little teases, then 30 odd pages of design at the end?

And as I don't want to write a novel like I did last night, I'll move swiftly onto this beauty! It finally arrived! My signed Jason Munn Tsunami relief Poster. Not only is it my favourite piece of Small Stakes printwork, but it's also signed by Deathcab! Oh, happy days!

I'm going to drool over it some more, then finish of Gears of War 3... I've been playing it responsibly, now it's time to end this!

M x

Cups of Tea 2151 - 2156

2011-09-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

So yeah... no design today - is what I bet you thought I'd say! It would be a fair assessment but I caught you out sucka! I came at you with with a left foot and like Shane Williams in his heyday, ran right and scored a try! Good times! 5 Points! Grand Slam! The rugby savvy amongst you will notice I didn't say 7, because we know back in Shane's prime, Steve Jones was too hot and cold to be a definite 7. But this isn't Rugby by Design (that would be boring), so before I hear 'get on with it' chanted at me holy grail style, I'll move swiftly on!

I have completed the Master Pages and all that jazz for Rundown today! Yes! Go Me! It took a solid day of faffing, trying some different body copy instead of 'Lightyear' (which is the logo font - those with a fastidious eye for detail will notice the 'playlist' body copy is set in Brandon Grotesque, this isn't an accident), but in the end decided with it for this installment because it's a nice title font and infographics are, at their heart, bold and flashy / meant to grab attention like titles anyways. So it's all good!

But no! I can now tell you what it is... While I was going to release the first page, the 'what is Rundown?' page. I wanted to write it up all nice and stuff, use some strong adjectives, high caliber nouns and some rhyming couplets, but I thought 'well, that would just be a chunk of body text... These people want a little design!' So I guess this is kinda spoiler territory if you do want to wait for that! So if so, just skip to the pretty graphic and read from there. That point on should be spoiler free, even if the graphic kinda gives it all away. Well then, I'll go ahead and answer the big question. What is Rundown?

In short, it's a running log. To be a little more precise, it's my own personal running log, designed nicely in a limited pallet and accompanied by an illustration for every entry. It'll also have some other stuff in it that will be running related such short reviews, logs of my running routes and possibly a few other little gimmicky things like playlists and what not, but at it's heart it's simply a running log so I can keep track of my running, as I get back into my favourite pastime that doesn't involve some kind of screen.

Short of some nicely laid out typography, I guess at this point there's nothing in it for you lovely people. Well, I guess you're right. That's where the illustration comes in. Not only will every run be accompanied by a different illustration (as you can tell by the example, this month's is very 'me') that I'm giving my self a blank creative canvas on, but EVERY month, the whole thing will change it's visual style. In short, I am giving myself a month to experiment with a different style and then at the end of that month, publish it in this form.

Hopefully it won't go too badly and it'll be enjoyable to read / look at, but I guess more importantly for me, it'll give me a chance to experiment with stuff / flex some design muscle and get out of the comfort zone! But as for the printing aspect of it, when I release Rundown #1, I will be printing 25 copies of it, which I believe will be FREE (yes, even P&P...) if anyone wants them. So y'know, anyone who wants one, shotgun a copy I guess!

Anyways, onto the design!

It's a six column grid, a little bigger than A4 with the copy all set out in 'Lightyear' to help with the infographic feel. While this one was done in Illustrator (I hear gasps) it's because not a lot is really going to be standardize to style sheets... Because I want it to look organic / have a very illustrated graphical feel to it, for the most part I guess I'll be exporting the finished layouts into Indesign later. The obvious exceptions to this will of course be the aforementioned 'What is Rundown' page / anything with a lot of body copy that will be included monthly, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

So yeah, comments are more than welcome. If you want a copy, let me know and no, I'm not sure if the 'running water man' illustration pictured here will be in the final thing! (Inside source tells me that Mat Boyle didn't even run on the 10th of September ;) )

Hope you guys like it... Now to finish transcribing all the raw data onto paper, then to bed :) Night night!

M x

Cups of Tea 2146 - 2150

2011-09-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

Wowzers. Go-Go-Gadget unproductive day... So after seeing the lads at the GLC last night, and having a pretty damned good night out in Swansea Town, I got home to find some freelance work waiting for me! Hazaa! Which unfortunatly meant that I could not complete that page of rundown today... be patient, it's really not THAT exciting... Just should be quite cool. Don't worry, I have every intention of getting that sucker done tomorrow! In fact, as I've been teasing it so long, I may even put out a little print at home 'sampler' thingy of it. I'm to good to you guuuys.

But other than that, there's not been a lot going down really, the freelance work as always, is nice and comes before personal projects... However, I did stumble across some damned good Black Swan posters by LaBoca that I want to share with you guys!

Hot Damn these posters are sexy! If they were available for print, I think I'd have to track at least that first one down... Pity they're not for a better movie though, ammierite?

Anyways, time to have a quick cup of sleepy time tea and hit the hay. I want to get up extra early tomorrow to mock up the freelance, so I can get a lot of Rundown done... Ahh, so little time!

M x

Cups of Tea 2142 - 2145

2011-09-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to keep up with the blogging as I'm off out for a social occasion! A little bit of rundown is done, but I really don't want to rush out a half finished page that isn't ready to be shown yet... I want to do it when it's ready. However, because I like you lovely people, I'm going to do one of the proper content pages tomorrow so you can see what it's REALLY all about.

M x

Cups of Tea 2138 - 2141

2011-09-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

Why hello there campers. Does that require a hi-di-hi? I know not. What I do know however, is that today has been awfully tired! Well, today I had a bit of a conundrum when I got in from work! Did I goto bed as I usually do on a Sunday afternoon, then end up getting up around 8 / 9 o'clock, only to then stay up until a silly time and throw my sleeping pattern out of whack again!

Or I could be responsible, ride out the tiredness and in doing so, goto bed at a reasonable time (oh say, right after I finish this blog post). However, due to the whole nap / silly o'clock sleeping time / early start pattern I want to avoid today, but yet committed yesterday. I am very. very tired right now. What does this mean? This means that there's not been a lot done other than attempting to edit some of the comic stuff talked about yesterday (as one or two amaaazing illustrators have shown an interest...). However, as I want them as a high quality as possible... I had to just save them as an uber rough draft, and now I'm going to have to re-do tomorrow -sigh-

So the million pound question is, what did I do with my day to stay awake. Well, this is a simple one. I read possibly the BEST comic series of all time (if not the best, then a close second. But as my favourite ever comic book is written by the same ruddy genius of a writer, I can't really bicker about it). THE WALKING DEAD.

Now I've read the first few comics of Robert Kirkman's long running, AMC award winning series inspiring, Romero inspired zombie saga many a time. However, as I've always been one to own and read Kirkman's books, mainly due to wanting to support such a high quality writer, I've not got around to purchasing past the second trade. This was until I happened to realize that someone had given me the complete run in ebooks at some point (found it on an old flash drive)! So while I may have had to download the last 10 books, I read it in all it's page turning, grip you by the balls story telling glory. Oh my Days! Suffice to say, if you've not read it, please. PLEASE, go here and at least read the first issue. There are many differences between the comic and the series, so don't let the 'I'll know whats happening' excuse put you off, because you really won't! Rick Grimes (the dude on the horse from the trailer...) is without a shadow of a doubt, one of the greatest characters ever created. With such a complex story arch and a million kick ass lines, trust me, you'll love him!

And with that knocked off and the hour growing late, I can goto bed, get up early and crack on with Rundown! I'm actually really excited about it! Which is really sad, I admit, but if I do it well, it's going to be cracking! Nighty Night all, some stuff to show tomorrow!

M x

Oh P.S. My favourite book of all time is probably Kirkman's Invincible... The first arch beats ANYTHING I've ever read by Marvel / DC hands down! Find the first one here! Also if you like his writing, check out Haunt. It's a book he wrote and Todd McFarlene (creator of Spawn) inks... It's damned good!

Cups of Tea 2134 - 2137

2011-09-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

A rather strange day today, it must be said! After coming home from work (4am wake up today because of the weather, then in for 6... joy!) I had a kip, then began researching some places to print Rundown (did he say print? I think he did you know ;) ), and then began to read the two new books that came through my door today! (namely 8 Faces #3 and CSS - The Missing Manual, which I'll write about in more detail when I'm more than a 10th into it...), but then, something happened almost accidentally!

Back about a year or two ago, me and the very talent other half, Ms. Gemma Anderson started a very short lived idea of collaberating on a comic book series... I wrote it, she was going to illustrate it... However, this never came to be. I wrote the first trade and plotted out the first arch, which she did some preliminary sketches before uni got to hectic... But after accidentally opening the first issue's script after thinking it was something else (ahh, the days when I named files randomly...) I started writing. And I've got to say, I think it's a pretty strong draft! So what I'm wondering, is if anyone fancies doing a few sketches on some of the character bios I've got kicking around...? Hell, it's early days but if someone could get the art down, I'd probably pay for publishing it myself... Always wanted to write a comic book. I'm going to browse stuff like the Swansea Comic Collective, but if anyone fancies it, drop me a facebook message or something and we can have a chinwag!

So unfortunately, no design today either! But I PROMISE tomorrow you'll at least get a page layout (or at least a tease of one...)! Who knows, Monday you might even get the cover and so actual information on what it is ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 2132 - 2133

2011-09-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

The lack of tea today should tell you the type of day it's been... After enjoying a few hours sketching layouts for Rundown this morning (I'm almost ready to start compiling the base elements, then I'll tell you what it is, I promise!), I then went to Swansea with my mate Jamie with the aim of buying a few new rough sketchbooks and project wallets to orgainise the stuff I'm working on a little better, but alas, totally forgot to buy them as we didn't walk past Smiths! In fact, I forgot almost everything I went there for, minus the company and to finally see The Inbetweeners Movie (which I'd rate about 6/10 maybe? I was alright, felt a little diluted over 1hr 1/2).

Then when I got home and ran / began to commence work again, my Mum told me it's probably the last time I'll see my Nephew before he moves, which sucks! I love the kid... so most of my night has been spent playing games, reading Bunny Suicides (he's a smart kid, he gets it) and then watching a little bit of Disney's Robin Hood. Because after he goes, I honestly don't know when's the next time I'll see him, which is weird. But this diary entry sounds like the narrative to a 90's teen drama, so I shall move on.

So as a result, I've not really done a lot today, then on top of that, I forgot all the stuff I need for Monday onward (I've got enough paper to last the weekend I think!), so an uber quick trip to Swansea will be required Monday Morn (or maybe tomorrow afternoon, I'll go hassle the GLC kids a little...), to get things back on a 9 / 5 track.

So I'll leave you with a little nudge to go buy the digital copy of 8 Faces if you haven't already done so (I'll give my full rundown of issue #3 when it clunks through my mailbox...) And this video I lifted from Swiss-Miss of a lady called Jessi. Oh how it made me chuckle... ~~I feel it's something I would do...~~

Rainbow Skateboard from Jessi Arrington on Vimeo.

Until tomorrow, I'll give you a sneak peak of Rundown, I promise!

M x

Cups of Tea 2127 - 2131

2011-09-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

Why hello there sports fans. I don't know why you would be, that's just an assumption on my part and I'm sorry for that. Another day of reading, paper based design and job applications here (thank you to Tom Ward for his uber tip of spread sheeting my applications! Go check out his illustration here!). So there's really not a lot to do, but partially review a book and show you some design from the blog hiatus! Exciting times!

Yesterday, I said I was reading a book by Andy Clark (you can read about that below or here), which is a pretty damned good book. However, after doing a little research into the rest of the books published by Five Simple Steps, I discovered that there was a book I should probably read before it... By none other than Mark Boulton called 'A Practical Guide to Design for Web'.

Now. I'm over 100 pages in. And the book has not yet touched on Web Design. But the book is fucking fascinating! It talks about Boulton's own experiences working for different sized design agencies, then starting his own business, then to how he approaches (and believes other should) research and the design process. For the most part, it reads a lot like Adrian Shaughnessy's 'How to be a Graphic Designer without losing your soul', (which is a fantastic read, the latest version can be found here, but I linked to the one I read because i'm not sure of the changes...) but then it almost becomes a basic design school for web designers who've not undertaken design training. I won't lie, there's some stuff in here I didn't know and I'm now somewhat of a type nerd. I can't wait to get the web design part, but honestly, pick it up if you can. The first half of the book alone is worth the cover price.

Anyways, onto some actual design! This is some work I did for Fierce Panda that I don't think ever got used, but I was quite fond of it. Just a basic logotype for their new monthly night, Bamboozled! I'm particularly fond of the white one, but there you go! What do you guys think?

M x

Cups of Tea 2123 - 2126

2011-09-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hello there all! It is I, the boy who has been very unproductive today...

Such is life I suppose! After a day or two of making some designs I'm quite proud of, today was the start of my 'eat healthy' and 'run daily' kick, and it's left my body in a bit of a sugar coma. I've cut the sugar out of my tea, gone back down to skimmed milk and been eating a shit tone of fruit and veg. I am not used to this nutrition, thus my mind is without sugar, and like the TUC, considering strike action.

So I took the day, post run / food shopping, reading a wicked book by Andy Clarke called 'Hard Boiled Web Design'. The book published by Five Simple Steps (who are Mark Boulton's publishing company - damn, I really wish I'd got that job now I'm into web...), and focuses on the debate of why we should be using HTML 5 and CSS3 now, as apposed to waiting until the W3C deems it as completed (Which, according to the book, will be around 2022).

The books is a nice, light read, filled with my kind of humor (as you can probably tell from the title, the book is filled with Pulp Crime / Film Noir references and at times, in the dialect of a 30/40's detective)! It gets to its point pretty quickly and from there, begins to break down the reasons why we as designers need to champion HTML 5 / CSS3 now to allow for an exciting web.

The most important lesson in the book so far (I'm only 90 or so pages in at the time of posting), is the emphasis that websites absolutely DO NOT need to look the same in each browser. While certain brands may require this, Clarke states that these slight shifts in the display habits and capabilities of browsers, should be embraced as a form of creativity, allowing for a more defined user experience (after all, different kinds of people use different kinds of browsers).

Now I've kinda come to terms with the fact that HTML only dictates to a browser what a page should look like, which was a silly hard thing for me to get used to. I'm a print designer, I like the level of control. But to embrace these differences as a higher level of creativity, well that just sounds like the right thing to do.

Suffice to say, I'm edging over to the dark side of web design, and as am such, am going to try to find a placement doing it if a certain dream job doesn't come off. I'll give the book a full review when I'm done, but from what I've read so far, it's defiantly worth picking up!

Other than that, something to watch and be inspired by is this! The Museum of Obsolete Objects, a youtube channel which I think is pretty damned funky! It's designed by German Digital Agency Jung von Matt/Next. It's an appreciation of (and almost a digital tomb too...) those objects and devices of yesteryear that have been replaced or improved upon by advances in technology. Why it's a youtube channel / the mechanical whisk (I bought one a few months back and still use it...) is in there, I know not. But it's still a pretty funky idea anyways. That's the second time I've used funky (now third...) in this paragraph, so it must be so!

Anyways, time for bed... I promise there'll be a more productive day with physical work tomorrow. That is of course, unless my brain holds me hostage until I resume putting 2 sugars in my tea...

M x

Cups of Tea 2118 - 2122

2011-09-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Chaps and Chapesses! I made that word up apparently as spellchecker went nuts...

So first off, I feel like an idiot! For those who looked at the image of the new blogger, there's a reason that page looked like a HTML editor, that's because it IS the HTML editor for the blog! I feel like a right numpty... Following yesterday's theme of taking pictures of the UI while typing, here goes! The REAL new blogger...

Unfortunatly, I now have to switch back and forth between the 'Compose' and 'HTML' option to insert a bloody picture... -sigh-
Anyways, as promised! The new flyer I did today, isn't that fun! For an up and coming gig at London's Bull and Gate, I like it! Though I did prefer my original moon, I wasn't happy with it's Res, so had to redo it... oh well, you live and learn!

Short of that, I've been playing around with grids and mindmaps etc. of Rundown, which I may even have a draft of tomorrow :o Who knows! I shall have to see how the day goes... Hopefully will record the first new Episode of Twoddle tomorrow too, then edit / upload it on Thursday or Friday :) However, this will be the NEW #001! The old two will be deleted when it's uploaded! So if you want to listen me babble crap, go download them while you can!

And on that note, it's time for a workout, a fresh cuppa and then to bed. Nighty night!

M x

Cups of Tea 2111 - 2117

2011-09-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello lovely people! Bare with me... I've just switched over to the new Blogger layout and it's... alright, I guess? The break down of traffic etc. is a very nice feature to have, but I'm not to sure about this posting screen... For those not on blogger, I'll take a sneaky screen grab!

As you can see, it's very google plus in its minimalism. Some would even say there's a little bit TOO much white space, but hell, I've been staring at TextWrangler for the last week, so it just looks like a plain text editor to me! For those with a fastidious, I literally took that then... Improvised blogging man, it's like freeform jazz... Though a nice feature that's been missing for awhile, is that pictures now appear at the cursor point, and aren't automatically placed at the top of the post! Now Google, just give me some sweet customization options and the ability to host this on my own server, and we'll be the best of friends!

Anyways, enough about blogger. I've been setting affairs in order for the most part today, emailing sources for freelance and scribbling down some rough page layouts, I did get a litttle bit of graphic design done for an up coming project, the logo for what I hope to be working on for the next few weeks! And while I shall reveal the logo and it's name now, what it is for now at least, will be a secret :) Though don't worry to much, I plan on working on it tomorrow afternoon after some freelance, so I'm sure it'll pop up on here sometime this week :)

But other than that, I've been whiling away the weekend by listening to Never Not Funny's new Podcast, Rock Solid. I say new, but it's been kicking around on my iPod since its launch in August, and while I've listened to it passively, I've started to listening to it while running. 'Lulz' and excellent music certainly help take my mind off shitty weather! For those who've listened to Never Not Funny, it's a show with podcast regular Pat Francis and a gentleman by the name of Gary Lucy. The basic premise is just two people talking about music, not in a 'lets analyze the cultural impact of the Bee Gees' way, but in what movie posters tend to describe as a light hearted romp. It's the kind of stuff you talk about to pass the time at work or in predrinks, such as who has the best debut album? Or what's the best Bond Theme? Just me talking about that shit in pre-drinks? No wonder I've got such a bad rep... As the 'NNF presents' would suggest, both of the hosts are ex comics / writers / lovers of music, so it's fun and educational. And by educational, I mean by giving me some new tracks to listen to, which can never be a bad thing. I highly recommend it. A word of warning however, the podcast uses Hockey's Song Away as it's theme tune, and my God, as a result it's been in my head for around a month...

With that in mind, the third episode of the podcast, entitled 'CD Force Feed', saw Mr. Francis and Mr. Lucy give each other an album to listen to that the other hasn't heard, in an attempt to gauge their opinion and hopefully convert them to a fan of that band. While Gary has quite a broad taste in music, Pat is a very big fan of '80s rock (Kiss, Van Halen etc.). Hilarity ensues. So when Pat was given his album, The Black Keyes (Grammy Award Winning) Album, Brothers, Pat was not at all impressed!

"This album is for trust-fund hipsters. The first thing, It was always tough for me to get past the 'oh look how cute and clever we are album cover. This is an album by The Black Keys, this album is called brothers'. (Gary - That's a nice Cooper font.) And on the back it says, These are the songs on the album and these are the guy's that aren't very good in the band."Pat Francis.

So naturally, I couldn't resist but to do an album cover spoof for the podcast...

I tweeted it to them and they loved it haha! So go listen imho, you honestly won't regret it :)On that note, I'm off to bed... Got some running to do first thing and then on with some freelance :) Hopefully a new flyer for the folio and a sneak peak at Rundown ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 2102 - 2110

2011-09-09T14:39:00.000-07:00

Hello, Hello World. My apologies once again folks, the wonders of working in a house that isn't mine has completely destroyed all my plans for this week. The folks had new windows fitted and as a result, there's been drills, hammers and all sorts of interference and interruptions that have pretty much made the work I wanted to start on most projects neigh on impossible.

But never fear, I'll be making a start on them Monday, as well as the return to regular daily blogging and hopefully weekly podcasting... We shall see how it goes :)

So now that you're up to date, here's an update on the current life and times of Mr. M. S. Boyle, I'm off to bed! Nighty Night!

M x

Cups of Tea 1964 - 2101

2011-09-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Why hello there people of the world! Where have I been you might ask? Well that would be telling, but tell I shall! I'm good like that! As was seen by the wall of orderly sorted-ness in one of my last posts, I've been getting my act together! With a little bit of freelance here, taking some time to write stand up that I didn't get to perform, but more importantly... learning how to code.

HTML, then XHTML, then CSS, now HTML 5 and CSS3. I might even throw in a little bit of Javascript... We'll see how far it goes...

For those who know me well, this might come as a bit of a shock. I was, for a very long time, annoyed at web. Perhaps this might seem a little silly for somebody who wanted to be a Graphic Designer, but when you're a designer who's bread and butter is print based design, where all elements are fully controlled by the designer, down to the tiniest detail, where what you see is what you get, web was a frustration.

This is something I'll cover a little more in the upcoming week when I relaunch Twoddle, but I seriously got annoyed by Web. I'm past that now... Past it so much in fact, that I might have a bit of a crush on web design at the moment! Hence why i've been so methodical in my learning of code (I'm pretty much fluent in the elements I have learned now). So the plan for next week is to begin a total over-hall of Teasigner.com as well as the start of two new semi-daily projects :)

I should have one of them up tomorrow (hey, I'm almost at the end of my second book on html / css, I'm long over due some design!) for your viewing pleasure and more on how that's going to work... I may also design a tumblr to accompany this fine blog o' mine, for the more image conscious of you all :)

Until tomorrow ladies and gents, I shall leave you with this wonderful Etsy product by the user Gnomesweeetgnome, which is further proof that the simplest ideas are the best... it's a tissue box!

M x

Cups of Tea 1961 - 1963

2011-08-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

Just the quuuickest of quick updates as I'm on a bit of a writing spree! I stumbled across this video earlier today and it made me chuckle so I thought I'd share it...

'Movie Line Rhymes' by Jordan Laws from ScreenWerks on Vimeo.

Apologies about the lack of toy design, it was only going to be a tease anyways, but I shall show it tomorrow!

M x

Cups of Tea 1958 - 1960

2011-08-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

Hohoho there sports fans. It's ok if you don't like sports, you can be a fan of not watching footie ball if that's more up your alley. The point is your here, and in being here, get to see the name / logo reveal of the new exciting adventures in clothing :o!

I present to you - Marching Brand.

For those of you who completed that survey I put out last week, cheers! We're aiming at getting a few designs out soon and you lovely people will get some form of discount if you want it! More info shall be coming soon, but out of sheer curiosity, any thoughts on the logo would be nice! Would you wear it on a tee of shirt? Let us know ;)

With that I'm off to bed, it's been a very hectic day of running around and physical running and I'm pooped because of it... Some cool 3D stuff of the toy design me and the very talented Mr. Gareth Lloyd are going to be producing tomorrow!

M x

Cups of Tea 1948 - 1957

2011-08-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

Well my apologies good ladies and gentlemen! I had a rather lackadaisical weekend seeing my brother and sister-in-law / working, so I honestly didn't get a chance to update the blog! That is all passed however, and more importantly, I'm back on the hardcore work schedule / working out! Hazaa! I've done 9 hours work today on various up and coming thing, namely two tshirt designs and some brainstorming for yet another future project! Yes, I know... I do have a lot of these 'secret projects', but I really did have a epiphany moment on Saturday morning, and I will be going full steam ahead on them all over the next few weeks.

I woke up at 5am Saturday to goto work at a certain Supermarket Chain. I got in, tired and altogether discontent. I've work at said Supermarket for 6 years. There are a lot worse jobs, I like the people I work with (not so much the management, but what can you do...) and the pay is alright for the hours I work. However, it's just not for me. The only thing it really is decent for is that my mind tends to wander and I can brainstorm. Cue Saturday morning, I begin to think about what I wanted to do with tumblr that I mentioned in the past, that me and my girlfriend, the lovely / talent Gemma Anderson, were going to share... Despite me developing it in a million different directions in my head in a relatively short space of time (over like a cage of stock...) I realized that I had done a lot of thinking / talking lately, but I hadn't done much on it.

It was then, I thought fuck it. I got home, wrote a load of shit down and then got on with my weekend. Skip to this morning, the alarm goes off at 9. I get up, completely change my room around to finally have a workplace in this household, then I go for a walk. I come back after this small 15 minute strut around the block, which acted as a metaphorical commute to work, then sat down and work poured out of me. I started at 12 and I stopped around 9pm, only taking an hour break for lunch. W00T! I then worked out, and am appalled at how unfit I've become... -le sigh-

I am planning on doing this everyday (while there will actually be a commute tomorrow, I've gotta get up early / goto Newport for a passport interview...) for at least the next month (this is of course if I don't hear back from the jobs I've currently applied for), the wall is set up as it was back in the old GLC (see below) and I'm going for gold. Watch this space peoples!

While I needed that huff and puff, I am aware I promised the reveal of mine and the aforementioned Ms. Anderson's clothing line logo and name, however I'm going to do this tomorrow now instead. Yes, I am a proverbial tease, but I want it to have it's own blog post, not off the back of me being a whiny bugger! So for now at least, night night! I'm going to do some comedy writing before bed :)

M x

Cups of Tea 1940 - 1947

2011-08-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

A lot of Tea drunk today as I've done quite alot of brainstorming and basic fleshing out of ideas... again, none of which I can show at this moment in time! Yes, it's bloody frustrating! But as I can reveal the name and logo of mine and Gem's clothing company tomorrow, it shall all be worth it... That and y'know, these designs are going to look pretty damned sweet :)

I was going to post up a few designs from a side project I started today tonight, but I didn't realize my Nephew was home today... His Mum and Step-Dad are moving to London in 2 weeks, so after Saturday, I don't actually know when I'll see him next... which has left me with mixed reactions... So naturally, I stopped work for the day when he walked in the door, but it will commence again tomorrow! At least I'll be able to talk about half the stuff I'm working on then...

So for tonight, I shall leave you with another find from the world wide web during my blogging hiatus...

The colour of is a website that uses flickr picture tags to compile a colour from a large portion of images, placing each image on top of each other with a degree of transparency, to reveal the colour of that word! As you can imagine, Sunshine results in a nice yellow...

and of course 'sadness' creates a murky brown (complete with creepy childs face)... However, it can be a little hit and miss, Death was a little 'light' for my liking and 'gloom' had a definite pinky tinge. But as you can save the image, it may come in handy for some future mood boards / hipster facebook wallposts!

However, I was very sad to learn that despite what I had been lead to believe, Red was not in fact the colour of Anger... Anger is apparently a more merky orange :( (There was a band who had a song... ahh forget it...). Anyways, until tomorrow, ciao!

M x

Cups of Tea 1936 - 1939

2011-08-10T16:09:00.000-07:00

Ok. So remember when I said that I would be starting a new project today and that there would be some work to show you? Well I lied. It was to be expected really, I'm a terrible person... As much as the previous statement could be mined for its hearty nuggets of truth, an explanation is in order! After a trip into Swansea to tidy up some affairs, buy some coke zero and some more teabags, I didn't actually get home until 6 o'clock. By the time I'd poured a brew, had a bath and scribbled down some ideas for the clothing firm, it was bordering 8pm... Which is now known as 'tidy up time'.

Why and what is being tidied up you ask? Why, my beloved games collection of course! For as those who know me well will more testify, I did go through a phase where I did buy a lot of games... purely because I could, but alas, I was seriously to busy to play them. So I now have around 20 titles that I've barely scratched the surface of, and am faced with the prospect of of moving away / being full time employed and may even sell alot of them. So for the time being, despite the games coming out in September and how much it will break my heart, I am officially on Gaming Lock-down. The Hours of 8 - 11 are no the only computer-able hours of the day as I get ready to throw myself back into serious design as of tomorrow. I finished Mirrors Edge tonight (I got to chapter 8 of 9 and quit it...), so Bioshock 2 will be completed tomorrow hopefully... I'll let you know how I progress.

Now, as I am the aforementioned terrible person, I believe I owe you all something to look at. Well, there is a position I applied for as part of a well known toy company... I don't want to show all of what I designed as part of my portfolio I sent out to them, but maybe one or two of the minifigures... I roll some of the others out in due time :) Obviously, I'll keep you guys updated also on whats happening on that front, as I know...

M x

Cups of Tea 1931 - 1935

2011-08-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit of a strange day for me to be honest... Ive mostly been watching sky news and just looking over notes from professional studies / a few random ebooks on selling stuff over the internet, exciting times... not. I promised I'd have design to show, but alas, the day didn't call for it... Instead, I have two absolutely AWESOME websites to share.

The first, indulges my wonderful love of expletives... Oh how I enjoy the odd swear word, peppering my constant chattery with some of the wilder words of the english language is my equivalent to smoking a Cuban cigar or a fine glass of port... I thought I had excelled the use of George Carlin's Seven Words to an art form. However, I was wrong. I have been stripped of my crown by the talent typographer, Theo Olesen. Olsen has a website called Beautiful Swear words, which is very quickly becoming my favourite site on the Internet... The concept is simple. Olsen does a beautiful piece of hand drawn type, vectors it up with some awesome colour choices and then posts one a day. Wonderful, wonderful stuff! Not for the easily offended, but for those who still feel the stinging taboo of the 'big c word' or a sneaky fecal cuss, this is living proof that there can be beauty in bad language.

More of this uber work can be found here!

The second site I want to share is Vi.Sulaize! It's a lot like FFFOUND! and many other websites currently floating around the net, but unlike those websites, it's got a built in Firefox widget (I'd imagine there's Safari / Chrome support too!) that allows you to right-click an image and upload it onto your account... meaning you have an online visual diary for any and all cool shit you find on the web! Means I can now keep my desktop tidy + have one place to look at everything, without having to print off and paste up!

Here's me using it to also show off some beautiful swearwords haha! If you sign up, let me know! I'll friend you on there, or whatever you do along those lines lol...

That's all from me tonight anyways folks! I'm starting a new project tomorrow after I pop off to Swansea tomorrow for lulz... So there will DEFIANTLY be something to show you guys, scouts honor! Well, unless riots consume Swansea City Center while I'm there >.< It'd be just my luck!

M x

Cups of Tea 1772 - 1930

2011-08-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

Jesus Christ, I'm sorry people of the world, it's been awhile! A lot has been going on with me in the past few weeks, some of it exciting, some of it just the usual day to day... either I've not been able to post about it (like the freelance I got shafted over -.-) and some of it will be revealed in the next few weeks or so :O Exciting Times! However, what I can confirm is that there will be some very exciting entrepreneurial stuff going down :o Namely some clothing, vinyl toys and a website... OOOOO!

The anticipation aye? I was going to talk about design and what i've been up to, but I'll leave that until tomorrow as this is a bit of a mental day to start reblogging... London currently looks like a war zone, and I'm glad I didn't get the job I applied for that that way, as I'd have been right in the middle of it! Scary bloody times. It's not just London however, it's now in Birmingham. There's even rumors being spread online that the rioting, scratch that straight out Anarchy spreading to other areas...

Scary times... Hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow and there'll still be a capital to wake up to :/ My thoughts go out to anyone in those areas effected... I'm just hoping people in Wales have enough common sense to not try and imitate this shit here >.<

Anyways, I'll be showing some design off tomorrow... until then, just take a look at these two videos. One showing the madness, one showing the anger of the community, both of them show incredibly brave people.

Anger and Bravery

M x

Cups of Tea 1767 - 1771

2011-07-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a long and busy day folks! So long and busy, working on freelance that I can't, as of yet talk about (but oh, how amazing it shall be when I'm legally allowed...) that none of the other stuff I promised to do has been done! My apologies! The tumblr will hopefully up tomorrow, and I'll get cracking into some freelance that I can actually show!

Until then, I urge you to check out the veeeery sexy looking iPad publication, Timbuktu! While it is an iPad magazine for children, as you can probably tell from the cover below and the screens on the itunes site, it's pretty nice to look at! Will show it to my nephew tomorrow to see how it goes down with the target audience!

However, I do think that the 'T's look a little... dodgy...

M x

Cups of Tea 1762 - 1766

2011-07-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Graduations and Celebrations to all of you fellow Graduates! Go forth and get employed! As i've got a LOOOOT of freelance to commence tomorrow, I'll now be going to bed early, but first... I will post the only decent photo of me in a cap and gown that exists...

You can imagine how bad the others are going to be...

Coming tomorrow - some graphic design, a new joint tumblr between me and my very talented other half, Miss Gemma Anderson (it's going to be fun!) and some drawings... perhaps! A lot of exciting stuff in the works, it's going to be fun to stick around folks, I guarantee it!

M x

Cups of Tea 1755 - 1761

2011-07-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hohoho? To soon I guess, but nevermind! Hello and good day to you all! quite a nice day in terms of it's content, some freelance work (that may possibly lead to a job) won and a suit to wear for my graduation tomorrow! Hazaa! So yes, to continue the London talk, but this time with pictures of work I actually created myself. By hand. With markers! Its fun stuff!

So the exhibition went very well. Overall, I got offered a few interviews and the possibility of future work from some interested companies! A lot of business cards received and a lot more taken which made New Designers very much a worth while en devour... especially if I get one of the jobs I was offered an interview for! But more on that later... the interview is quite a way away!

But back to the point at hand! During this trip to New Designers, a contest was held for Secret Wars, for those who don't know, is a kind of 'street art battle' of sorts, where a group of illustrators competes another group of illustrators to paint a huge mural, which is then voted on. Upon seeing this, the Illustrators of the old SMU went out and bought a massive roll of paper and several marker pens. They then drew on this huge scroll, then illustrators from Portsmouth joined in, followed by a few other people (yours truly included...) to create something that was nothing short of a master piece. Suffice to say, my involvement in this one was minimal and I don't have a picture of the finished thing... but I'll try and get one! This will have to do for now!

Roll on Saturday. When the need to create another scroll of awesomeness was demanded by the general population! The wonderful students of Portsmouth supplied the paper, New Designers tweeted it was happening, then we got to it! Here's some pictures of the general thing, then some of my terribly dull contributions!

My Rabbit!

My Unicornasaurus!

And who says I can't draw ;) Anywho, that's it for me for tonight! Gotta goto bed, as I graduate tomorrow! Ohhhh, EXCITING!

M x

Cups of Tea 1713 - 1754

2011-07-11T13:47:00.000-07:00

God Damn it! Time did sneak past me quickly this last week! So Deathcab was amazing! They played mostly tracks from Narrow Stairs and a few classics (they played 405... I was chuffed!). Ben Gibbard has so much stage presence, it was amazing to watch him. I got maself a tshirt and a print that I have no idea who it's by...

Zee Print

The T-shirt

Short of that... this is a street sign you'll only find in Brixton Academy ;) I'll update properly tomorrow! Some exciting news in coming ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 1707 - 1712

2011-07-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

The quickest of quick updates ladies and gents, as I've been on my feet for the last 13 hours! It's been a funny old day! Dancing, romancing and talking the heads off all the students and clients who pop by to see my work! So for tonight, I shall just upload the shots of the exhibition space and post a more detailed post tomorrow!

And now, BED TIME!

M x

Cups of Tea 1702 - 1706

2011-07-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

How goes it people of the world!? London's going well thanks, I spent the day setting up for the opening of New Designers tomorrow! Which looks to be a fantastic day! Short of a terribleee sketch on the front of my visual diary (which I will now cover with some paper from paper chase...), I haven't done any design today! But again, a very busy day of awards etc. tomorrow! We shall have to see how it goes :)

Short of that, here's some of the wonderful things found in London today! A very nice paste up (ruined by a Che sticker...) and some funky stickers on a stop sign! Just a constant reminder to keep looking around in old Londaminium for street art! I seriously need to go hunting for some over the weekend when this exhibition's all done and dusted!

Anyways, an early night must be had! I've gotta be at the Business Center for 9am just in case the judges take an interest in my work, what what!

M x

Cups of Tea 1696 - 1701

2011-07-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

Hohoho! So if you hadn't have guessed, I'm in LANDAN! Horray! Oh, how i've missed you Islington... With your arty atmosphere and amazing sources of deliciously expensive sustenance! NOM NOM! Cyber Candy, Chillango and the rest of upper street beware! For I will be raiding the shit out of your food stores these next few days! Here's a picture of the week's first Chillango... Chicken with Pinto beans, hot salsa, cheese and lettuce! There will be many more to be devoured!

Short of this, I had an interview at Pearlfisher, which was amazing. I've got an 1 month internship position there, however I have no idea when I can start it, but it's looking to be October / November. But I am chuffed! I'm so damned grateful for the opportunity, but more on that one as it develops!

After that, I went to New Designers to see the ol' gang and start building the exhibition up! It's an early tomorrow when we'll put all the work etc. up. But I shall put some pictures up I'm sure :) Anywho, as I say... early start tomorrow so it's time to get some shut eye! So I'll leave you with this little gem!

Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.

Night Night!

M x

Cups of Tea 1660 - 1695

2011-07-03T14:48:00.001-07:00

Gosh darn it! I'm sorry people... another busy week left me with no time to post! On Tuesday, I went to see Transformers - Dark of the Moon, of which I wasn't a fan (not enough robot on robot for my liking). Wednesday, I died on my bum doing stand up (which believe it or not, was an amazing feeling). Thursday, I got to see my buddy Aaron and draw profanities in 11ft tall letters in the Sand, with Friday being spent with my Canadian Family and then Saturday in work. Que today.

I get up, headaches. Then more headaches. And still, more headaches. A lot of sleep later, and I'm alive again, doodling some new t-shirt designs and sketching out one or two new ideas to remake my portfolio! I've also managed to get onto Google+, the new social networking platform if anyone would like an invite :)

I'm slowly wanting to branch out into a few law abiding street art ideas as well, if anyone's interested! I've got a few ideas together for one big 'heist' of peoples imaginations, and will need some no good outlaws to help me pull it off. Anyone interested, pop a comment on the old blog ;)

Until then, I'll leave you with an ingenious bit of semi-street art I found at swissmiss... They're floor stickers that are part of an initiative by the city of Lucerne (Switzerland) to get people to notice and use garbage cans. I think they're amazing!

Short of that, off to Foggy London Town tomorrow! Hopefully there'll be some exciting news tomorrow ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 1644 - 1659

2011-06-27T15:01:00.001-07:00

Hello Hello, you wonderful people! Today marks the official return of Teasign! Hazaa! After a week of moving out, I'm holed up again, back at the dinning table at Boyle Family HQ... it's a very strange experience if I'm honest... There's no date of moving out set just yet, though with one or two interviews and New Designers next week, hopefully it won't be too far off! Some good news on Thursday too! I got a First in my degree, which is pretty spiffing!

Until then, personal projects have resumed! Though saying that, I will be taking on some light freelance work if it arises (I can't really commit to anything full time until after ND, as I have no idea what my workload will be after this week if things go well). But for the main part, I will be designing for an upcoming project with my looovely girlfriend, Ms. Gemma Anderson and some fellow conspirators!

Also, I'll be returning to some stencil / paste up work while I'm back in the Port of Talbot... until then, enjoy what's been inspiring me for the past few hours! The amazing work of Ben Newman, these masks are truly incredible!

M x

Cups of Tea 1459 - 1643

2011-06-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

Crikey Moses! It's been awhile folks! My apologies for leaving you all without updates. It's been a long and stressful week since the old hand in! It was hand in, then exhibition, then my first stand up gig, then relax with some LA Noire / write comedy for a week or two, between freelance work. Then, had some bad news, which caused me to sit down and play games for a week (completed Assassin's Creed / Batman Arkymn Asylum / Mass Effect 2 (and the dlc...) that week). Last week mainly consisted of writing job applications 24/7. That leads me to this Monday, the 20th of June, 2011. Just over a month later! Due Due, a long month indeed!

So here's a picture of my exhibition space for those who didn't get a chance to see it! Some of my Wes Anderson Posters at A3, My Infographic and then my packaging projects, Tea packets, Cauldron boxes and SModcast Vinyls. Cheers to Laura for the image!

I'm moving out this week, but will be resuming full freelance duties as of next week. So to the man who needs a flyer for his car boot sale, or the lady who needs a web site for her cake bakery, feel free to hit me up :) Incidentally, anyone after a look at my stand up, pop me an email at hello@teasigner.com and I'll hook you up with the link! Twoddle will also be resumed from next week! Horray! I finally get to do my podcast again. It's going to be a little less jaded, possibly a little more funny than it's original incarnation. We'll have to see! If anyone's got a topic they'd like me to cover, leave a comment and I'll share my view on it maybe!

As i've got no design work to show today, I've gotta link the amazing work of a fantastic illustrator! Designed by the very talented Rosemary Travale, I got this awesome T-shirt from Threadless (as much as I love drooling over the design on the site, I've never bought a T-shirt until this one...), it just went on sale today, so get it while it's fresh!

You can also get the awesome wallpaper version HERE. I've got the white on pale cyan one. NOM.

Until tomorrow people :)

M x

Cups of Tea 1423 - 1459

2011-05-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

Holy Crap... My bad ladies and gentleman respectively! It has been a no holds bared, adrenaline (and Relentless...) fueled, nose to the grindstone this month! I can't believe I haven't updated in a month! It's a bit of a kick in the teeth of how fast this last 4 weeks or so has gone. I remember being sat down at my mums, drinking a cup of tea and writing the last post up... And here I am, just over 30 days later, and pretty much at the end of my degree!

It's been weeks of mounting, typing, cleaning and sorting, and in terms of blog posting, it's been pretty uneventful. To much happening to really design anything new (hell if I did, I'm almost out of cash to print it!) so it's just been pretty hard going. Not even that much Tea drunk if I'm being honest. My first cup this week is currently brewing, as I've not really been here to use the kettle! I've either been at Uni or at The Grand Theater (where my work is currently being exhibited... pictures to follow tomorrow or Tuesday) and haven't had time to indulge! That will soon change, a lot of Tea + Movies + Sleep + Design is going to happen over the next few days!

So why the early blog post? Well, I feel I owe you something to read on a Sunday Afternoon, before I tuck into the last of this work... Just a sneaky peak at my Marketing and Self Promotion Design woot woot ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 1412 - 1423

2011-04-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

Why hello all! Sorry for the absence, but in the light of once in a lifetime theater event that graced my home town, I had to go watch a Teacher get nailed to a cross! I refer of course, to Micheal Sheen's Passion, a 3 day episodic drama that took place in various locations across the town. I loved it. It was strangely serial to walk down a street I used to walk every day, accompany a beaten man carrying a cross... It was moving and made me miss acting a hell of a lot. A huge, huge shout out to Matthew Aubrey and Kyle Rhys, two people I've known all my life, whos performances were exceptional and are living proof people can make a name for themselves in this town. Kristian Phillips and Jordan Bernard were also wicked in it, have to tip my hats to them... God, it made me miss acting...

Anywho, on to design ;) I set myself a day project of designing an Energy Drink, purely because I wanted to use a tag line I'd come up with and want to continue the roll of solid logo designing. I used a technique that Gav talked about in one of our classes, writ down the first 5 ideas in your head, then rip the page up and start fresh. I did this and loved the finished result. No conceived notions of the design or even a name. Just a tagline (that could apply to any energy drink) and went for it.

Amongst the names brainstormed were 'Sledgehammer', 'Beat', 'Apollo' and 'Charge', before I finally went with 'Shift'. Then breaking this down even further into what shift could mean, settled on the idea of cars and shifting gears, which I believe led to a striking concept that then became the finished logo :)

The Font is a custom job, with the 'I' modeled on the idea of a gearstick diagram. Shoop shoop. While the can design is done, I want to print it out and photograph it properly, as I don't think it'll work as a flat image ;)

With this one, thoughts are not only appreciated but encouraged! See you guys and gals tomorrow, and thanks for reading / looking!

M x

Cups of Tea 1408 - 1411

2011-04-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

Hello all, me again. So I've been getting quite alot of brainstorming done in the old sunshine today, I took full advantage of being away from the Mac so don't have as much as I'd like to show, but hopefully it should benefit me tomorrow if the weather isn't nice, as I'll have a lot to get on with!

However, I do have a new logo vectored for was is fundamentally going to be my LAST major project of my university career, scary times but hopefully it will be fun. This isn't to say that it will be the last project, heavens no... I've got another 3 small things I'd like to do (whether they get done for the May 9th Deadline is another thing, if not I'll just do them afterward) but this is the core of the next 3 weeks while I stress printing everything else!

Anyways, I digress. The final core project I will be attempting is a small blurb book on something I feel quite strongly about, mainly because if you asked those around me, I probably suffer from it slightly. Yes ladies and Gentleman, I am a shopaholic.

I jest, I don't suffer from Compulsive Buying Disorder REALLY, but it was fascinating to me that such a condition existed, but as it's productive to the cogs of Western society to keep buying, even if we can't afford things, I could find little on it. As I wanted to find out more on the subject, I planned the Stop Shop project, not only to warn of the dangers of CBD, but also as a general rule book of keeping compulsive buying decisions in check.

Over the next 2 weeks, you'll see a lot on it at this here blog, as well as the other 3 small projects but for now, here's the logo for it at least :) It's the first time I've tried anything like this and I believe it came out well :) Thoughts and opinions, as always, are Welcome!

M x

Cups of Tea 1404 - 1407

2011-04-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

Hello again guys and girls, hello too to Twitter followers! I realized I should probably attack this whole self promotion thing on both fronts... so yeah, hi ;)

Again, another quick update due to the wonders of a 9 hour shift but here's the (approval appending) final stationary for Young Oliver Westicles, I tried to keep it as straightforward as possible after seeing some beautiful stationary on the weekend by Moving Brand (which I'll post up tomorrow). It just seems alot more effective to work

Hope you enjoy it! Tomorrow, I'm aiming to knock a whole project out of the park ;) At least the logo / stationary / a few designers for what they produce.

Exciting times! See you tomorrow :)

M x

Cups of Tea 1399 - 1403

2011-04-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

Ho-Ho-Ho! I really don't know where I was going with that one! Due Due... Anyways!

As promised, another day of consecutive blogging and some Design! Wow, you wouldn't swear I was a graphic designer at this rate, but thank God the main hump is now over... 3 weeks left! Christ alive, that's a scary thought! But it does also free me up to do a hell of a lot more design work... the blinders are off and I can once again see completely creatively. It's a nice feeling!

So here for your consideration, the logos of a good friend of mine, Mr. Oliver West. It's a quick project admittedly but seeings as I seem to be uddles better at Branding at the moment, I thought I'll strike while the Iron's hot. 3 colour variations of his new logo with the stationary and some new project work to follow tomorrow!

M x

Cups of Tea 1357 - 1398

2011-04-17T05:07:00.000-07:00

Ho-Ho-Ho! Crikey, it's been awhile! I've been hard at work (mostly on paper... and in my head 8-) ) for the last week or so, but slowly slogging away at the rest of the Wes Anderson posters! To be honest with you, most of them have been done for a while, but I didn't update for a day and then thought bugger it, I'll put them all up in one go for you lovely people!

So without further a due, here are the rest of my posters - Starting with 'The Life Aquatic', Wes Anderson's Short, 'Hotel Chevalier' and the feature film that follows it, 'The Darjeeling Limited'. Then to wrap it up, the last of Wes' films, the delightful 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'.

Anywho, I've gotta get some grub down me and then head off to work (hence the early update!) and I'll possibly post something up after that! Regular updates start again here guys :) If you enjoy the posters, give me a comment or a facebook message as I'll probably be making prints of some of the nicer ones to give away :)

M x

Cups of Tea 1354 - 1356

2011-04-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

Shoop Shoop!

Unfortunately, due to some things that needed to be done today (namely making the rounds to see the family, moving back for Easter) little work has been done today :o Yes, I know, this is shocking! To make matters worse, I have also left The Life Aquatic (along with my camera) in the dorm... which means I need to waste more time tomorrow by going back to get them. Monkey fudge.

However, I have at least done the main illustrated Royal Tenenbaums poster despite all this! Horray! So for your viewing pleasure, my poster of my favourite movie of all time - The Royal Tenenbaums!

M x

Cups of Tea 1349 - 1353

2011-04-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hellooo everybody! Sorry for the lack of a blog post yesterday, I was feeling a little under the weather and while I'd done one of the following, I wanted to post them in a complete set :)

While the Blume International poster was pretty self explanatory in where I got the inspiration, it was very hard for me to try and create a piece of artwork that in my eyes at least, is up to the quality of Rushmore. It is without a shadow of a doubt, in my Top 5 movies of all time. In fact, only second in my eyes to The Royal Tenenbaums, which I can imagine is going to be a nightmare for me to design the poster for haha!

I looked around a lot at what had already been produced for this cult classic, they all seemed to focus on the same things. Either Max's hobbies / Beret, Bill Murray's Bad Ass moments or The Rushmore crest. However, as the first frame of the film after the curtains open, we as an audience are exposed to the beautifully simple and modernist 'Rushmore' sign on the school gates. Just 8 fading red squares with 8 dulled gold letters. And nobody has done a poster of it! haha!

so I present to you my Rushmore posters :) My original, and then the logo version (with the original from the movie)!

M x

Cups of Tea 1330 - 1348

2011-04-05T15:56:00.001-07:00

Ho-ho-ho!

While I had planned and strategically drunk my cups cups of Tea throughout the week to reveal this at 1337, by the time that magical cup of tea rolled around, it was 4:15 in the morning when I'd finally got this to work... but alas, I am here now! Batteries rested, and another project underway! Hazaaa!

What am I babbling about you may ask? Why, the launch of Teasigner.com of course! Go look! it's got some of the work i've been upto over the past year, with more updates to come of past work and of course future projects! It's all exciting. Now, when someone asks 'do you know a graphic designer?' You can say 'Of Course I do, but boy does that fella love Tea!'

Short of this, I started a new project today, what initially started as a project that was a homage to my favourite movies / directors, it soon became something more...

I started, as regular readers would guess, on posters for my favourite film maker, Wes Anderson. I've slowly been starting at the beginning of his movies and working my way through, screen shoting and taking notes as I go (I'm currently watching 'Hotel Chevalier'). But what started as a rather nerdy poster project, is now and extremely nerd-core project...

You see, while watching Bottle Rocket (A film that I've warmed to after repeated watches over the past few months) I began to look REALLY hard for an angle that hadn't been used in a poster yet. There are plenty out there with the Yellow Jumpsuits and the 'You look like a Banana' line... Similarly, There are many typographic pieces that I feel have covered the best quotes... So I had to look EXTRA hard. While I realized quite early on, that nobody had made a big deal of the massive Colt .45 that Owen Wilson wields for most of the movie. So I started here, combining it with the tip of a rocket from the firework stand, the Futura typeface from the title sequence and the exact same shade of red used on this title card. Nerdy yes, but apparently not nerdy enough...

Despite the poster being done, I continued to watch the film, then I noticed something that I'd never noticed before - Mr. Henry, the man Dignan (Owen Wilson) spends the film trying to impress, has a branded truck of his company 'Lawn Wranglers'!
It's only in shot for about 3 seconds, but I saw it. Then I screen Grabbed it. Then I did the most nerdy of nerdy posters... because I thought it would be fun...

And now this, has become the project. The Branding of fictional companies within the films I love. Rushmore has Blume International (which I shall post tomorrow), Royal Tenenbaums has The Tenenbaums Flag, Various hospital logos and a few other 'blink and you'll miss them' brands, Zissou of course has the Team Zissou logo and I'm hunting the others in Darjeeling and Hotel Chevalier as we speak!

Fun Fun

M x

Cups of Tea 1311 - 1329

2011-03-29T07:54:00.000-07:00

Doop doop doop! A week of non blog posts later, I have some something so show (yay, I hear you cry...)!

Its pretty much been a day project due to low productivity as of late (which I believe is directly correlating with my complete lack of exercise / lack of post-viva stress), so I decided to do some designs for the No To Violence Against Women campaign!

I pretty much started the research by looking for some examples of Stats that showed how big of an issue this was in the UK and I was quite astounded by how bad it really was :/ The original idea was to show these vectors in brusing on the skin backgrounds but it looked crappy, I instead opted to use the colours of the campaign, white and red in the illustrations instead...

Not to sure what I think of them, but meeeh. Some feedback would be nice...

Anyways, time to start designing my website... JOY!

M x

Cups of Tea 1308 - 1310

2011-03-22T17:50:00.000-07:00

Busy, busy boy today! Just a quick blog update with something lol worthy because I been prepping Viva Stuff for most of the day and I've got to get up early for the Viva itself tomorrow :)

If that fails to make you laugh, you should question your existence...

M x

Cups of Tea 1299 - 1307

2011-03-21T16:18:00.001-07:00

Shoop Shoop!

Been doing Sound Mason work all day and I got the whole thing done! Winnah, got all 6 basic's of it down. It's a little so-so tbh. While I'm getting better at web design, I'm not quite there... Think I'll set myself another project like this AFTER this one. Well, this brings the total upto 5 completed projects (7 if you include the first two and 10 if you include some of my branding work / my surface pattern pitch).

Just gotta start on projects new as of tomorrow and see where I get to for the Vivas :) Need to print this stuff and then crack onto whatever I'm doing next!

M x

Cups of Tea 1296 - 1298

2011-03-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

Not alot of tea drunk today because it's been a day of stress and of immense tiredness! As a result, I've mostly been reading Dave Gorman's American Unchained before I take it back to the library on Tuesday (It's a decent book, no where near as good as 'Are you Dave Gorman?' mind...) so I thought i'd round it up with the cool crap that's been shown to me by various people over the course of the day!

These PIXEL OVEN MITTS will be a certain must have when I move into my own place.

Then there's this very sexy looking time management app (for mac) called Solo that I would currently be trying if I had snow leopard (fu apple!)

but last but not least (courtesy of Miles) the video that made me want to go to the University of Lincoln...

M x

Cups of Tea 1293 - 1295

2011-03-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

A low tea to high creativity ratio you might say? Because I'm out of bloody milk! Dammit! I've drank the emergency can of Relentless, and now I'm into 70p cans of coke because I haven't got time to leave the house haha... I'm going out for a pint for Dai's 21st and then I must come back and start my Sound Mason site -sigh-... And THEN, tomorrow I need to start two other new projects. Oh... and my personal website. GOD DAMMIT!

Anyways, I'm glad to say I've not only speeding up my work rate, but I'm really enjoying designing again. The fast paced but detailed approach to design is alot better than the slow, steady but stewed approach I'd been bogged down in since the start of uni. I really should have got myself to this speed of working earlier in the year, I'd have a good 20 projects by now >.< -sigh- you live, you learn...

Here's the last 3 layouts, two on lambing (steady on the Welsh jokes) and one on bees (remember that phase...?) enjoy!

M x

Cups of Tea 1289 - 1292

2011-03-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Quick update as it's bed time, hot damn!

Went to see Hall Pass tonight, which was pretty funny... more info on the tomorrow though! Just a quick update with two of ma new layouts... the whole project now has a deadline of 1pm, then it's onto The Sound Mason Website! This project would be done and dusted by now if I could find some decent high rez pictures of farm animals... -sigh-

Love me them Pigs and Alpacas... Until tomorrow chaps and chap-esses!

M x

Cups of Tea 1285 - 1288

2011-03-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

As you can tell by the little tea, it has not been a productive day... I've spent the day after uni and spending some time with Gemma trying to unblock my head. The creative downpour that happened yesterday seems to have left my head a little tired today, after a nice relaxing bath, I got back into the swing of this but then realised the time... much to my annoyance, my giving up 'ubër-late-nights' for lent is kicking my tail when it comes to working... in an effort to get myself back into the spirit of a productive sleeping pattern, it's now bed time. YAY!

Anyways, as a result, I've only got one spread to show you... however, I aim to have the whole project finished tomorrow (it's only another 5 layouts and I've got the style-sheets in place now...) so I'll be streaming them to you while I finish the Sound Masons site. Oh Goody, as then it's time for new projects and for me to finally start work on teasigner.com! YUS!

Without further a due, the layout!

And now, for bed...

M x

Cups of Tea 1259 - 1284

2011-03-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

There's been quite alot of tea these past few days, you can bet your hat on that guvnor!

As a result, there's also been quite a bit of work! The first of which I'd like to quickly show today... so a few of you may have caught wind that I was going to be redesigning a magazine known as 'Smallholder', something I've got no interest of attachments to emotionally so I could just concentrate on the brass tax, the bare bones of the design job at hand... The cover (even though I can only find a small copy) is pretty dire, so I've began by redesigning it!

The Original -

The Redesign -

I'll start rolling out the spreads tomorrow :)

M x

Cups of Tea 1255 - 1258

2011-03-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

The quickest of quick blog dates for alas, I am le tired and am busy designing :o

Just found this via Swiss Miss / through research for a project I'm considering doing next... who knows if I will, just thought I'd share it :) You can read the full article here.

Anyways, now time to do some before bed reading, nighty night!

M x

Cups of Tea 1251 - 1254

2011-03-09T15:30:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update after quite a non-productive day... uni early in the morning, then home to do some work... then hit a brick wall with it... I'm pleading to anyone who has Titling Gothic FB to send it my way...

Oh my gawd! I went to watch Rango after hitting said wall and I loved it... for those who like Westerns, I strongly advise you to check it out. While alot of online reviews I've read about it claim it 'has no heart', I beg to differ. It also has some luscious visuals, I mean the animals almost look realistic. I may have to take the nephew to see it on the weekend :)

On a design note, I love this... If I had a kick started account and it wasn't over pledged already, I'll chip in!

Anyways, off to bed... early to bed, early to rise, early to design!

M x

Cups of Tea 1246 - 1250

2011-03-08T15:18:00.000-08:00

Just a quick blog update :) Been doing A LOT of work today... So much so I'm taking a new approach to creating a layout (yes, at the end of my degree...) and it's been so satisfying :o It's made me see a truly creative side to them that I'd kinda over looked!

Anyways, as promised... some of the stuff I've found over the past few days (hopefully there'll be more of my own stuff tomorrow) starting with a poster that now graces the wall of my room (that I probably shouldn't have... thus won't reveal the source of haha).

For those of you who are Port Talbot based, you've probably seen this already. Micheal Sheen is taking over the Easter 'passion' play in Port Talbot, with himself as Jesus. A good friend of mine (Matthew Aubrey, an exceptional actor and possibly the funniest person I've ever met) is also in the play so I can't wait to see it... Actually, play is probably the wrong word, it's kinda a live theater event more than a play. It's taking course over 3 days (Good Friday (22nd April) / Saturday (23rd April) / Easter Sunday (24th April) in various locations around Port Talbot... With apparently, Mr. Sheen getting crucified in the town center at the end!

But that's not the part that excites me. It's the poster! My God, no image of my home town has resonated with me more than this beautiful piece of Graphic Design. I delved a little deeper and it's done by Dave McKean! The same Dave McKean who's collaborated with Neil Gaiman many times on Sandman Covers, The art of Coraline and The Wolves in the Walls. Suffice to say, it's stunning. For those who don't want to go / can't due to location, apparently Dave McKean is also filming the experience and cutting it into a film! Aces :D

Other info can be foundhere and here. Imho, it's exciting...

Anyways, as that's not the Sheen that everyone's talking about, here's another song of the one who is on everybody's lips... even if it is for being crazy...

M x

Cups of Tea 1241 - 1245

2011-03-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

It's been a most productive day! And while what I got up to will largely remain a secret for the next month or so, trust me you will eventually get to see it. Suffice to say, it bodes well for the future of Teasign in the most sexy of ways.

But back to what I promised you lovely ladies and gentlemen, the third in the series of posters, drum role please... ITS THE LUTE! Yes, ye olde plucky instrument that bards and merry maidens everywhere love to play at a rousing historical reenactment or game of D&D...

It's the first of the three I designed because it's most important... With Sl0w release's bassist Jamie being the protagonist of the whole ARG... I'm still more keen on the hurdy gurdy to be honest, but that's probably just because I like the name. Anyways, in trying to keep with my good mind = rested mind philosophy, I'm off to bed :) Hopefully some awesome stuff to show you tomorrow depending on my productivity rate, but we shall see... if not, I've been trawling the web and found some beautiful designs... one a little closer to home than some of you might realize ;)

Until tomorrow you lovely gents!

M x

Cups of Tea 1238 - 1240

2011-03-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

Back from work with poster 2 of 3 in The Duchess series, OOOOOOH! I can tell your excited haha!

As you can tell with this one, I started to have a little fun with it. I searched the old google for something that would look good in terms of medieval musical instruments and came across one called a 'hurdy gurdy'... which to me was always a game where you Shepard sheep with a pink bear... Nobody play that one? Fine...

The instrument is again another fiddle typed instrument, that is played via that wierd crank at the bottom. It originated in the 9th century and the melodies are played on a keyboard that works the strings. Wierd aye?

Anyways, the 3rd on will be revealed tomorrow ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 1231 - 1237

2011-03-06T04:36:00.000-08:00

ho-ho-ho! Sorry about the lack of an update last night ladies and gents, but I ended up going to sleep when I got in from work (a combo of dissertation stresses, the night out Friday and the early morning Saturday killed me a little haha)... so When I did get up and created the three music posters that I promised you that would be posted up this weekend, they were finished around 1:20am... so as it was a Saturday night and I guessed everyone would be tucked up in their pj's / out getting leathered... I'd update this morning :)

So here is the first of 3 very similar music posters as part of my mini-ARG / Transmedia marketing campaign... The basis of which is a fictional venue opens up in Swansea called 'The Duchess' and a specter of a 16th century duchess is murdering the bands... Why you ask? Well, you'll just have to wait and see... hopefully it'll be up in the week for those who want to play around with it :)

But as a 16th Century lady, the ghost's choice of illustration is of medieval musical instruments. While this started with horns / pipes, I moved onto the stringed instruments of the era, which just look very sexy... Due to her grizzly death in the story, I did play with the idea of medieval torture devices... until a google search showed me things I didn't want to see lol... So that plan was cut short...

The typography selection is also trying to reflect this transition into modern design but with old principals. The typeface used for the band names, which some of you may recognize is Kraut-Type-a-Fuck, made popular in the movie 'There Will Be Blood'. I LOVE it black letter style and the way it looks on a grained background, like it's been smudged through hasty printing. The smaller typeface with the venue / date / time is of course, Baskerville Old Face. She was trying to go as modern as she could with it, after all, The Duchess may be a confident artisan but she can't seem to let go of her old style... So while Baskerville was created over 100 years after her timely death, she's just really slowly getting into modern typeography...

The first poster contains the ancestor of the Violin, known as a 'Rebec'. It was quite difficult to get a picture of one head on, so this is a mash up of various parts of different ones at different angles. They are, much like the mandolins, pipes and brass of their time, very simply designed. Due to the intricate nature of the other two illustrations, the Rebec looked a little plain in comparison. So I searched for an image of an original bow and found a Norse one from 200 years earlier... It's amazing to see the time that man has made music!

So without further a due, I reveal the first of three posters for this marketing campaign. March 8th, the first unlucky souls to play The Duchess...

I'll post the 9th of March up when I get in from work, then the 10th tomorrow night. Hope you enjoy!

M x

Cups of Tea 1228 - 1230

2011-03-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update because I'm off out tonight and I am trying to keep it to a daily update :) This is the music print that I did last night and to quote Gemma, 'This poster is Diamonds!' I think she may have got that from The Old Spice Guy but hey, all quotes are appreciated :o!

Based on City and Colour's amaaaaazing song 'Like Knives' which you can hear HEAR.

Hope you guys like it, if any of you ESPECIALLY like it, news of where you can buy it / help fund my design course's exhibition fund in the process, check the blog Monday :)

M x

Cups of Tea 1214 - 1227

2011-03-03T15:58:00.000-08:00

Shoop da woop... Blogging daily starts again today! Yes sir, as I believe it is the only way for me to keep designing to a quality I enjoy... otherwise, I'm just banging my head against the wall with all the stuff going on at the moment...

A fairly unproductive day... though I have thought of some amazing ideas, which is always a good thing. I'm currently working on my music prints (Yes, I did say prints...) and also 3 posters for the marketing campaign mentioned in the last blog post... Hopefully I'll have the two music prints to show tomorrow, and the marketing campaign posters over the weekend :)

In non design related news... I kinda want a 3DS... Not enough to warrant the £229 it costs, but I do still want one all the same after experiencing it for the first time. Played it in both HMV and game and WOW, it's quite nice! The way it handles augmented reality was quite special...

I highly recommend checking it out if you've got time to kill near a HMV store, as at least the guy demoing it in Swansea was really cool and seemed passionate about it... where as in Game, they tried to high pressure us into pre-ordering it (which really doesn't work...).

Other than this youtube video, I'll leave you with one of the funniest things I've seen in awhile... Thanks Tim!

It makes me lol because Charlie Sheen has turned into Butthead when he speaks xD

M x

Cups of Tea 1213 - 1254

2011-03-01T16:47:00.000-08:00

God Dammit! I meant to post this earlier, I didn't realize that I hadn't posted it... Started watching Easy A, so you now get a review of that as well haha, Aren't you lucky!

Anyways on with the blog!

-----

Sorry I haven't posted all week! I've been trying to get my Dissertation down... so it's finished, bound and now just needs signing and handing in! WINNAH! So this means I can get on with design work, which is joy! I've spent most of the day writing an outline 'design' (and I use that term loosely) of an ARG / Transmedia marketing campaign haha! It's been fun... wrote 3500 words and I now need to do the DESIGN for the Design... oh dear xD

Other than that, over the weekend I did two poster designs for the exhibition, I'm not over the moon with it if I'm honest, but I believe it's a strong idea that if I get the chance could be aces... the wonders of having Dissertation Stress!

and here's the website design... which I don't really think comes across minus the outlines I had in place... I might have to put them back in. For Tom, if you read this - It's designed for 960 grid ;)

Ho-ho-ho!

Anyways, I'd best go to bed... Having a nice cup of Tea but I do have Easy A here... hmm!

M x

-----

And yes, I did watch the movie haha! I enjoyed it if I'm being honest. As those who know me very well, I'm a sucker for '80s movies, and I love John Hughes beyond words. He and Wes Anderson are without a shadow of a doubt my favourite directors / story tellers... Both make films for dreamers and I probably like them to do my dreaming for me a little to much sometimes...

But anywho, it's very reminiscent of an 80's flick. It's a tale of a girl, raised by liberal parents, who doesn't really fit in with those around her. Olive (Emma Stone) who tells one little lie about sleeping with a boy and is over heard by the school's over achieving, overly Christian bitchy girl Marianne (played by Amanda Byrne of 'Amanda Show' Fame). In true high school fashion, the rumor spreads and Olive becomes known as the school slut. While she first tries to rectify the situation, Olive ends up embracing this role and experiences the trials and tribulations of life.

While I don't want to give to much away, suffice to say it's a movie about growing up, realizing who you are and growing from experience. The supporting cast is also excellent, Penn Badgley who i've never seen in anything (a quick IMDB says you'll know him from Gossip Girl) gave a great performance as the typical jock who goes for the geek girl in the old, Jake Harvey to Olive's Samantha Baker.

And then we get to my main problem with the film. Some of the better moments of the film, nods to movies spiritual predecessors, the breakfast club, sixteen candles and say anything, are not only explained to the audience in an almost pandering way, BUT THEY SHOW US CLIPS FROM THE MOVIES HALF WAY THROUGH! UGGGGH! They could have done it a little more subtitle, weaving them into the narrative with polite nods (like Paul did) as apposed to stopping the movie, erecting a whiteboard and walking the audience step by step through why Badgley is standing outside her window with a boom box.

I'm a fan of Stone because she manages to pull quirky / sarcastic off very well and if you're going to have an 80's lead, they've got to have attitude. The cast are likable and the plot is both funny and charming throughout. It's a great movie to watch if you're longing a new take on the teen drama. I recommend it!

x

Cups of Tea 1179 - 1213

2011-02-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

A lot of tea drunk while writing this dissertation! But alas, it's almost finished! Hazaaah! Not even joking... I enjoy writing but what started as a labor of love become more of an arduous lumber... -sigh- despite talking to such awesome people as Jason Munn, Dan Mumford,Keaton Henson and Phil Clandillon, it still seemed a little bit forced in the end.. that and lead me to believe that there is almost no hope for anyone interested in album artwork haha!

Anywho, here's the cover of it :) Not the most original idea I must admit (Binary code coming out of a record for those who don't get it...) and it's probably been done a million times, but I'm quite happy with it!

And now time to go to designing my exhibition ideas... also, if anyone's on Twitter, I'm back on there (and over sharing like a bastard), so feel free to follow me here.

M x

Cups of Tea 1174 - 1178

2011-02-15T16:52:00.001-08:00

Not alot of tea drunk these last few days... been kinda ill for the last 24 hours >.<

For this ill time, I've been making the most of it... writing down questions to conclude the dissertation, but in doing so... got to talk to some of my favourite graphic designers :) it's been pretty ace.

Then I decided to mess around with the play doh I bought earlier and I am creatively unblocked (h) work coming to a blog near you tomorrow ;)

Yes. That is a penguin.

M x

Cups of Tea 1168 - 1173

2011-02-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

Arghhhhh! One of those days of frustration, already not kept to my 'to do' list due to me having to read stuff again for my dis.. realized that while I know what I want to write, there are no books that give me quotes for it... Currently trawling through journals to see the music industry's view on apps... joooy!

On a brighter not, I did get to doing my new project logo... I'll post it up here, but you I can't tell you what it's for yet ;) Some of you into your conspiracy theories may recognize the symbolism that it's parodying in what should be an awesome project!

Any thoughts would be nice... Also as promised, the No More Excuses piece can be downloaded here. Also put a print option up... as I'm tempted to get one for myself... hahaha!

M x

Cups of Tea 1158 - 1167

2011-02-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

Ho Ho Ho... Gotta love the wonders of being organized... I've had two days of working to a time table and it's been pretty decent... Well, yesterday wasn't the best but alas, I had THE BLANKS to see :D!

Anywho, just some quick updates of the wall of organization... winnah! Also if anyone wants the No More Excuses, I'll post it up tomorrow I guess... Gotta stop '...'ing >.<

Other than that, not alot to show today... been writing my Dis and getting sketchbook work done. Hopefully should have a logo to show tomorrow ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 1155 - 1157

2011-02-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

Horray! I can post some work again lol...

Some layouts from my surface pattern work (that I submitted today...) which will hopefully get short listed... I hope? No idea if the pictures of people match up with the work as there were 54 images of work with none of them named... The only reason the people are there is because they're the only surface pattern students I know the name of... oh dear.

Anywho, layooouts (and one cover... I hate the second cover lol).

The idea being that the green represents the designer's colour from the front of the booklet, which then identifies them with their work in the exhibition.

Layout numbero two is the landscape. Replace the green with a grey and add some more space for images over words :) Suffice to say, as is possibly evident by the lack of enthusiasm in this blog post, I'm really, REALLY tired and that I have just realized I can't have a lie in, I've got uni tomorrow... BED TIME!!!

M x

M x

Cups of Tea 1153 - 1154

2011-02-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

I can finally update this properly again tomorrow! Two different layout ideas to show and a small project completed woop woop!

until then however, have some Da Vinci's Note Book...

M x

Cups of Tea 1150 - 1152

2011-02-05T14:55:00.000-08:00

Just another quick update as alas, I have been working again on paper... I wanted to post something the relates to the post up of The Old Spice Guy... Saw this and thought it was brilliant :)

Original Here.

M x

Cups of Tea 1146 - 1149

2011-02-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

It's been a day of much work. I woke up this morning and thought 'fuck this' to my lack of drive and just dove into work. Surprise surprise, my design mojo has seriously returned. I've come up with some awesome ideas for the surface pattern brochure which will I'll put up on Monday!

But until then, oh joy of joys... HE'S BACK!

Also in an act of total OMFG I WANT THAT... here is the poster I'm currently pre-order... It looks oh, so sexy...

There'll be some new work (Possibly cauldron work?) up tomorrow...

M x

Cups of Tea 1139 - 1145

2011-02-03T16:18:00.000-08:00

Just a quick blog post... I've been crafting a CV and doing some light reading today, as the result of a sleeping pattern I can never seem to get under control these days! Been heavily researching Transmedia and looking at Dulex catalogs... all will be relieved soon enough...

Anywho for now, an experiment in Transmedia from No Mimes Media... Trust me, one of the best thing's i've ever played about with and in 10 minutes, shows you the power of Transmedia!Find it here. And yes, you do need to input a valid phone number etc. ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 1133 - 1138

2011-02-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

Well Twoddle #2 is up on iTunes, I don't think it's updated in the search field yet (it takes a day...) but if you subscribe (and hit refresh in the bottom right corner of the podcast menu) it should download no problem. If you're having trouble doing that, you can listen to it here.

Short of that, my Cauldron packaging is now mocked up! Unfortunately, the lighting in this room is a bit rubbish so I had to make do! -sigh- I need a decent area to photograph thiiiings!

Anywho, feedback on both is appreciated and encouraged... also yes, I realize there's a spelling mistake on the Tofu packaging...

M x

Cups of Tea 1131 - 1132

2011-01-30T17:38:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, so blinkin' tired! I got into work for 6, then didn't wake up until I was pretty much getting ready to leave work... at which point I went back to bed. Lazy? Possibly, but I knew there was no point in just sitting around trying to write when I couldn't even remember where I'd put my glasses, before rather embarrassingly realizing they were on my face.

So I went to bed and bumped my head, so I got up at 8 ready for the All-Star Game. Which I only watched for the first two periods... While there was definitely a lot of goals scored, the player's didn't seem to give a damn. There wasn't the same sense of urgency or drive that regular NHL games have (especially for the Devils) so I turned it off and began writting the outline for the podcast, which is now complete and flows a lot nicer than the last imho. We'll see how it is once it's recorded.

Anyways, I'm going back to bed because I want to post my FINISHED Cauldron packaging up tomorrow... I'm going to take a note of Rhys's book and do some nice snaps of the mocked up packaging as apposed to posting the net or a picture taken with Photobooth.

Until then, I'll leave you with a link full of great Russian Health and Safety posters I stumbled across yesterday by accident, and also the song that I haven't stopped listening to. God damn, I love me some Prog Rock sometimes!

More Posters Here.

M x

Cups of Tea 1128 - 1130

2011-01-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

Not a lot of tea drank today because I've been back in work -sigh- Nevermind, an early shift tomorrow and then I get to come home, sleep for abit and then watch the NHL All Star Game while I write the copy for these boxes and draft the next podcast... I'm really looking forward to it :)

I got the other two packaging designed today, again it's just the front of the boxes, namely because there's one tab without the aforementioned body copy (which ties it alot more into the whole Cauldron / Mythical themes of my rebrand...), but as a result of the copy on the box (ingredients etc.) I won't be adding Serving suggestions... namely because I don't cook that much vegetarian (sorry Rhys!).

Also slight recolourations on the unicorn for it to meet the boldness of the other two pieces of packaging. I'll hopefully have the full packaging for all three of them tomorrow, then the 'other two' on Monday... Maybe an Ad or Two!

Anyways, bed time. I'm up at 5 tomorrow... -sigh-

M x

Cups of Tea 1124 - 1127

2011-01-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

Absolutely zero work done today because of Family coming home so I shall make this blog post short and sharp, just showing the front of one of my packaging designs for the Cauldron project :)

Full packaging will be done tomorrow... shoop shoop!

M x

Cups of Tea 1118 - 1123

2011-01-26T15:08:00.000-08:00

A day of Sighs, then a day of joys!

It took me an awful, awful long time to figure out how to set up an RSS feed so I could submit Twoddle to iTunes but after much moaning an groaning, I got it done (after 7 hours of complications...) and after that, it was time to play the waiting game for approval to have my podcast on iTunes, a process I found out can take a couple of days / weeks... But then took me less than two hours! I don't know if it's the short length or a low submission for the categories, but I was amazed and a little bit chuffed! A few people I know over on the View Askew boards have been waiting a week or more and heard nothing.

Anyways, so let me present Twoddle -

It's called Twoddle. It's nice and short,just over 6 mins. Weekly, it'll deal with
Graphic Design, the ethics involved in it and topics that generally effect the creative process... This week the topic is 'Incentive' to design / create and I guess applies to a broader scope than just designers.

It can be found on iTunes here if you'd prefer, listen to it in Word Press... Which will only be used for podcast uploads :)

The Intro / Outro is the song 'Push it Away' by Seeräuber Jenny (who kindly let me use it.) You can check out the full version of that here.

Any comments on it, will be greatly appreciated! New Horizons and all that, so all feedback is welcome...

Hope you enjoy it!

M x