Musician and Designer rolled into one Human: Part Two.

So yesterday I talked about what I did and then threw out the window. Today I am going to talk about what the work looks at the minute. Half of the music I still need to record and all of the music I need to render and actually burn to disc so the design has been doe before the music. That is a weird way round admittedly but it may change again.

I only recently fell in love with the work of Barney Bubbles so maybe I didn't understand his work enough to do a spin on it. What I knew I understood was punk which was a catalyst for me getting into design. I have ripped it off so many times but this time I really wanted to do something with it.  Something physical; I got a book for Christmas which is scans of man's collection of punk flyers, posters, album covers and it was a very physical thing. The message was in the music put was also in your hand with the fanzines.

My first approach was drawing the song titles again in black fine liner on white post it style notes. This suffered the same problem as the first versions. Try and order a bunch of squares into a comprehensible order for a track listing. No no not working.

 

So instead of typographic illustrations I just went screw it! I'll just write the song names. Hey, that looks good. It looks a bit bare. What if I scribble the song illustration next to it. Perfect. Song listing sorted. I then had an idea (two in one blog post) Four Tracks that we'd recorded as a band they could go on one EP and then the rest of the tracks could go on EP two...but what do you call EP Two. Where could you wake up? In a bed? The wrong side of the bed? Perfect!

Front Cover for EP 2 was easy but one was harder. I tried replicating the last one but it looked ugly so went for a hangman type thing where all of the letters are Z's replacing the correct letters of Waking Up. 

Below are my mock ups of the front and back cover. 

To add a bit more gravitas to this was to scan the covers in and then print them out on coloured card and then build the digi pack for them. Going back to having something physical and something unique. There will only be one digipack made like the one in your hand. 

So that's my journey to get to an album cover I like, the music is coming soon and thank you so much for reading.

*disclaimer waking up on the wrong side of the bed is not a political metaphor and is not me telling you that I woke up a tory one morning. The wrong side of the bed is an anger metaphor.*

Musician and Designer rolled into one Human: Part One.

I am a musician, sorry I am a man who plays music but I am also a designer. Knowing music like I do I understand the importance of the marriage of the two. Now imagine you have to design for your own music.

That's the crisis I found myself in at the end of last year as I was putting together a collection of songs that I had recorded. I played around for ages in sketchbooks trying to work it out and I settled on a style not dissimilar to the work of the great Barney Bubbles. I'd fallen in love with a font called 'Compacta' and that's how I was going to do it.

Using the bright colours and play that Barney Bubbles had in his work (for Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and Hawkwind), I was going to produce a small illustration for each of the songs. These would be arranged on the back cover in track order. Presented below are what I was thinking.

For the front cover; I put the emphasis on play. I wanted to call the album 'Waking Up', as in waking up to the world; politically, emotionally and just in general waking up because we all do it on a daily basis. If you are reading this, you have woken up at some point today. Anyway...in a little brain storm session I had with myself; sleep > snoring > zzzzzzzzz. This was to be the cover;

 However after problems with arranging the tracks on the back cover, having doubts with the front cover and the option to re-record some of the tracks with a band (of my Dad and Bro); I fell out of favour with these designs.

Placement; Day One - Jump into the FOG

First day on the job and I feel really comfortable. Straight in 10 o clock and the team treat me like I have been there weeks. A joke and then back to work, seems to be the scheme here. Reasonable lunch break and deadlines for work. The office even has a Ping Pong table; I didn't expect that.

Been working on some posters for a gym run by the manager here. However trying to come up with synonyms for train (the exercise one and not the one Corbyn sat on the floor of) isn't as easy as it sounds. I have no knowledge of whether I can share these work in progress versions or not so here is a really awkward crop of one of the posters;

I look forward to seeing what additional days and weeks have in store for me. I think a packed lunch might be more cost effective instead of a store bought £3 lunch trip everyday. But I have saved money on metro travelling with a week pass. It is odd starting on a Wednesday but that's just the way it's panned out.

I believe this week panned out so well because of seeing Mr Richardson (my secondary school GCSE English teacher) on Monday. That teacher taught me so much, even though the class was so rowdy, he battled through that and gave the people who wanted to learn the time and space to do while he dealt with the more rowdy members of the class. I have seen him three time since he retired and I left school and he always asks after me and wishes me luck in the future. Massive thank you (if you are reading this)!

Back to Basics / kcaB ot scisaB

Back to Basics were a popular beat group from the North East of England from 2010. Featuring the talented guitar player; Phillip Reay and the designer/drummer James Reay. The latter has recently started a campaign to redesign and repackage the Back to Basics trio of albums and the live album. 

I am the latter band member and below are my simple typographic interpretations of some of the Back to Basics 'hits' and a simple dabble of colour. Looking back the album covers and singles were suitable at the time but a facelift can sometimes be seen to be a good thing.

Second Annual Report

Last year, I published a 5 page issuu document which was my first annual (not so) report and it was rubbish. It made no sense and was using my old branding framework. This is year, today,  I publish my second (not so) annual report and it can be read below.

We have changed format this year and it is now a poster. We have changed the typeface to match my (not so) new branding. The colours are what you expect from a Jamesreaydesign professional document. There is a lack of sideburns for it might detract from such important stats as Four Pairs of Shoes, One broken Bookcase and Five blog followers. (Don't forget if you have a google account you can subscribe and never miss a post.)

The typeface increases one point depending on the value of the item detailed. Every effort has been made to fact check and spell check. Information is correct as of a week ago.

Have Logo, Will Travel

Transport, we have all used it. Depends if you are a car person, bus man or train lady. We have all used some form or another or used all three maybe even trying more obscure methods. My latest project was transport related which is the reason that I have have done this riff raff of an introduction.

Doit.org had a request for some help as a "Corporate Identity Designer" for the ERTA (English Regional Transport Association). I contacted them and they wanted a logo and a banner to go on the top of their office stationery. Below is the response.

The plan being that the circle was the wheel of the chosen method of transport (they mainly deal with the railways and motorways) and the initials were cut out of the wheel. The final version includes an image because they wanted an image to go next to it so instead I combined the two instead. Have a look and leave your comments below (if you want);

stadium (bar) fillers

It's quite good when a company you have contacted in the past comes back to you for work. quick work. The Mighty Boof is a promotions company based out of Whitehaven &  wanted two posters doing. One for a comedic songwriter, the bloke on the left looking sad and a member of former indie band, Jonny Brown or Twisted Wheel fame.

I could of done better but I am thinking starting off functional and simple/safe with a client and then once they return, try something different. He seemed impressed with the speed of the turnaround so fingers crossed. Mighty Boof; if you are listening drop me a line if you need any posters doing for your comedians/bands/anything.

Less musical than Throbbing Gristle

A year in numbers. 12 months in figures. 24 half months in stuff and so on...etc. That is what I wanted to summarize in a report before the third year starts. the big scary final year of university with dissertation.

So in a very similar vain to my manifesto, I have used the same fonts and colours to show the true extent of what my year has been like. Including some facts that you may find surprising. to the extent facts about an up and coming graphic designer can be. I would print these publications but due to not having money or a double sided printer. Come to think about I could print them off when I get back to uni. Not that people would want to buy it but would be nice to have a paper copy.

Gun Flaws

 America, I love you. You have created many of the things I love. Your Punk Rock was amazing. Rock and Roll spawned from your shores but you are letting the side down with your homicide rate. Homicide; the act of a human being causing the death of another human being. Especially via guns. Now I know you love them but there are times when you can protect yourself from a so called threat by using other methods of protection. 

Now there are a few things that may be to blame.;

•  Maybe you are violent people; nope other countries have had just as a violent past as you guys and they don't have a mass shooting every other week.
• Maybe you guys play violent video games; nope, the same games are played all over the world.
• Maybe you have violent hip hop and rock music that is teaching young people that guns are cool; nope, this music is widely available in other countries too. 

Maybe you guys have a 2nd amendment that gives you the right to bear arms; you do but that doesn't mean you have the right to kill anyone. But accidents do happen when you keep a killing machine under your bed. Maybe you have an association that promotes guns and refuses to accept that murder using said weapons means they need to be regulated. oh yeah, you do and it annoys me so much.

the people who want to regulate and put controls on your guns are not evil they just want to stop people who carry out the mass shootings with your favourite thing. they don't want to take them away. So let the below be a warning to you and your unfair behaviour to straighten up and take a little bit of regulation to save the people of your nation. The press does say you are an exclusive organization of angry white men & I believe them all the way.

Anyway, in design terms these are themed like 1940's style newspaper ads, when the good time supposedly were, and are for the NRA (national rifle association). They are racist, sexist as well as in appropriate to be provocative. it tends to make people listen when you over step the mark.

Deck the mac's with wallpapers of joy

One of the the projects for summer was to create a set of wallpapers based on the course in which I am studying.Now for those of you who may or may not know the Grillust Graphic Design and illustration course is unlike any other course it is run by professional type people who at heart want whats best for you but have a funny way of showing it via laughing at your work, telling you straight and telling you via some long and twisted riddle.

It's a good course I have learnt a lot of good things just I thought I would give you a students perspective on the ordered chaos that the course is. Since the course is funny I thought humour was the best way to tackle. this project, so here is the reality of that we as students put up with... I mean treasure

 

Rock the Kasabian

Rock the casbah, rock the casbah. Hang on...wrong band. I love Kasabian, new album not so much. but yeah their first album and third and fourth albums are all masterpieces of modern indie guitar music. Not quite that band are Kazabian, a tribute to them. They are playing at my local gig venue and I was given the poster. They are an excellent tribute to a band that are in such high demand in festivals. I am definitely going to this.

I chose to use the silhouette photo of the fake Tom Meighan because it is mysterious and also alludes that it could be the real man himself as it even had the promoter at the venue got confused. I am trying my best to avoid helvetica on these posters mainly because it is used by everyone ever. It is a beautiful typeface but over used so I am using Univers as a good replacement.

All Punned Out

 I am a closet romantic, much like Damon Albarn in the one song he did for trainspotting. I don't really have a chance to show it, but in a small move to show it I made some valentines cards. or E cards. They were sent out yesterday to the great and the good of my friendship group. The response; all very positive. Made peoples days apparently.

As you can clearly see they are all puns. We love puns, We have a pun jar at uni to prevent us going overboard on them as a sum of money will be paid to the jar. The style is my illustration style. Yeah, I hear you said that "but James you are not an illustrator" and I know that. strange that people seem to like it. the lecturers like, my illustrator friends like it and I do. The text is just my handwriting which also seems to draw the tutors eyes.

Concrete Jungle

Bloc Party can hunt for witches and I can hunt for work. I have been messaging companies on companies asking if they need any work doing. I have been asking; cafe's, Bar's and anywhere that I can think of. I got a number of rejections but one reply was from the biggest clubs in Carlisle, concrete. They wanted two posters both in quick succession. One for a UV Party and one for a Battle of the Halls event both to be held at their low ceiling venue. Glad they liked the style of them as it's something different to the standard club night poster. 

Doing Good out of Something Horrible

My most successful set of posters to date. In another attempt to promote mental health awareness, I used a set of found photos from my late grandmothers house and put some "inspirational" text over it. So in some of these ways these are a dedication to her. Mental health awareness is something that I care about deeply and at every opportunity I will raise it's awareness.

I consider these the most successful posters because on social media they have reached five "shares", 10 likes, as well as positive feedback and inquiries about usage from multiple sources.

Go Explore, I dare you

People need to get out more. I say that as a designer who spends most of his time inside spending all of his spare time in my room designing away or looking for work. but yeah I admit it. Going out in the open air, walking the hills or on the beach. I should do that, so people like me need motivation to get on up. Using exclusively type, cos that's my thing at the minute, I aim to motivate people to get out and enjoy themselves. If you feel motivated to do something, anything, go outside and breathe in the winter air then proceed to walk.