Talented Friends

The second exhibition in the new uni gallery space (formerly the library)  that I have been too (can't remember the first but we are gonna roll on) went off with a great amount of pomp and hype. Two comic book artists opened it, one American illustrator/artist and the other a Cumbrian with a fondness for walking. Both were in the region for the lakes comic arts festival in Kendal. Oliver East opened it with a small speech about the theme of the exhibition, walking comics, speaking on that, his dyslexia and his future plans and the work is great. Below are my photo's but there are some better ones on the Grillust blog for you amusement.

The reason I am writing this is to congratulate all the illustrators on all of the hard work that they put into their comics. All were fabulous in a variety of different ways.

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

 

Last night a DJ Saved My Life

Have you ever felt so proud of a piece of work you want to shout it from the rooftops, well that is something that I have just made. In uni I got given the job of developing a TV ident for a new TV channel that I have made. It won't get to telly but hey I wish it was a channel.

I chose to make a TV channel of vinyl records because they are my life outside of graphic design. Style wise it was initially based on the google play logo it has turned into an MTV bright light show. The dots are my love of litchenstein, most of the elements are hand drawn and the bright colours are because I have a little soft spot for design that visually attacks your eyes.  In the words of Miss Sophie Taylor (my bro) "I like it but it hurts my eyes"

Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (or black)

It's fun to stay at the C M Y K as one famous designer said. A famous designer who studied on my graphic design course at the university of cumbria. He chose a song that everyone knew to pay tribute to the colour scheme and I have just made a typography poster using a font that I have never used before (world first). I am a fan of these bright colours. which make up all of the printed images in an average printers.

The Official Opening

This blog post is the official opening of the James Reay Design website. It has been constructed and coded by my good self as part of a university project. It is a portfolio website and is there to display some of my most of my personal and as well as client based work. This is something that potential clients who are looking for designers will look at...if you are one of those people don't hesitate have a look. Click on the image below and prepare for a journey into the work of James Alexander Reay.

ENTER THE WEBSITE

Water-Stain

 I am not a grudge but I am well and truly annoyed at the moment with the tutors of Grillust, because of one simple error I was marked as a 45 with no constructive criticism to move forward with. Thank you guys. Really Helpful.

...Anyway, Watermark is a publication that is produced alongside the Keswick literary festival and our class has been given the opportunity to design this publication. There were many great designs on display during the sessions yesterday varying dramatically in terms of style, colour, approach, quality and ideas. Even with such an open brief, I never expected the level of creativity that was present. I ended up liking mine until it went to print and discovered that the type was too big so I have since fixed that. That is what can be seen here.

I managed to sneak an image of some of the cooler people from modern culture. Sue Perkins (cool Lady), Mark E Smith (Not a singer) as well as Adam and Joe (podcast kings).

Magical Illustration Nation

Illustration is a thing that I am not very good at, never have been never will be. I like to draw but not illustrate. I have friends on the course that I am on, that can do this marvelously well. Magical Illustration Nation, Miss Sophie Taylor, can illustrate with great skill and I love her work This was her latest project as a one week comic. It's all about the love of the three C's; conventions, cosplay and (being) cool. 

Below are a few of my favourite panels from the comic. I went from not truly understanding the idea to loving the final result. Whats more is it was photocopied. King of the Photocopier approves. 

Highlights; Trying Something New

 Trying something new is always a good way to develop as a designer but doing so isn't always that easy. In uni, an entire unit was dedicated to doing exactly that. We were given two different designers or artists and we had to do pieces in the style of said person. Above you can see my work inspired by the great design guru; Chip Kidd, who is probably most well know for his logo for Jurassic Park. His main selection of work is in the design of high quality book jacket design. All of the above are mocked up potential book covers in the vain of what he would design.

Below, are selection of four different paintings/drawings that I did during the other part of this unit. I have not done any painting in many many years as secondary school kicked it out of me because they taught me nothing. These didn't turn out half as bad as I thought considering this fact. These pieces are in the style of Joan Eardley, a Scottish born artists who's main focus was landscapes and images of the poor youth.

Highlights; Logo's

 As a designer it is wrong to have favourite projects but when a logo brief comes a long I really like it. It is always a challenge to try and fit an entire company's style and ethos into a single identity and for said identity to be seen everywhere.

This project at uni was creating several logos for stupid and silly companies that could never exist. I worked in collaboration with my friends Vincent, Sophie and an exchange student called 吴吴珊. We were set the challenge to make 9 logos (because our group was so big). We collectively got a decent grade out of all of our hard work. 

The approach for each of the logos was different and the style of each one had to be different for each. Working in collaboration made it easy to decide on which way to do each one was best.

Portable Double Bass

Faberge Scotch Egg

Night Club For Pensioners

Fighting Game for the Under Fives

Jamaican Cheese

Recycled Cardboard Robot

Tree Based Refreshment Drink

Turbo Charged Scooter from the Elderly

Lost Sock Detector

highlights part 2: Typography

Typography is something that I have never explored before coming to uni. I had no prior knowledge of it what so ever apart from font choice was important. I wasn't told which ones were good but knew that comic sans was bad. I have since been taught that;

• Garamond
• Didot
• Baskerville
• Times
• Futura
• Helvetica
• Univers
• Gill 

are all top notch quality fonts. I will never forget this. The amount of bad typefaces outways the good by 95% to 5%. Type is something I have explored more and more throughout the year. Above are the pieces from the 2nd type project of the year. They are poor examples of good type but I count them as a milestone.My typography improved and below is the my best marked piece of type that was featured on the course blog. It was called premier league typography.

Highlights of my first year at uni; Part 1. Congratulations it's a horse

During my first year I was given three moving image projects and I have never done a moving image project on a graphic design. I have studied media before but this was to prove of only minimal use as the software that I was to use was different, the hardware was new and sometimes strange.

We were give the brief of; create a title sequence for a fictional TV program from Charlie Brooker's website http://www.tvgohome.com/. We were given the sitcom "Congratulations, it's a horse". I say we as I was working with my good friend Sophie Taylor. This was the definition we of the program.

Over the first week we came up with the idea of it being stop animation or a POV scene. However, at the end of the week, the tutors did not like it. So we took it on board and just decided the only way to achieve what they thought would work, would be to green screen it. Yes it would look tacky and have a low production value but it would get the job done. We filmed it all in one day and edited it 2 days. The illustrations are done by Sophie and work really well with my bad action on top of them.

65 was the grade that me and Sophie achieved for this piece which, safe to say I thought was a great a achievement.

 Below you can see the finished film;