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)!

Advice No One Asked For...

What did you learn at uni? Well...

A few months ago I looked at all of my uni notebooks and found so much good advice, that I had forgotten about or just not take and thought it would be good to share these. But Scanning in my scribble and making people log onto my blog to read them sounded redundant so I wanted to make them pretty and here we are.

I have been trying this projects for a few months but couldn't get it right so I made this a one day  challenge to get it done. I have succeeded. I initially tried to make it like the work of Kate Moross and it looked just like I was ripping her off (that's not what I like to do). So a shift around was needed. I tried again by taking her as a inspiration stylistically, not as a source to be plundered.

Here we are using hand type (digitally); using the pen tool and simple bright colours. I used my handwriting quirk of using both upper and lower case at the same height as I did with the INVRTD typeface. I think they almost look kitsch in someway.

The Survey that needs your help

One year ago, I made these posters (http://jamesreaydesign.co.uk/this-is-normal---james-reay-de…) declaring "This is Normal" It remains my favourite piece of work and many of my friends think so too. But I want to take it one step further and launch it. What I mean by that is print and distribute it. But I need your help.

I want to turn this from my campaign raising awareness about depression to our campaign. Fill in this short survey about your experience with mental health; whether someone you know suffers or you yourself do and your words could be gracing these posters when they go out into the world.

Please like and share need as many replies as possible.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Y6XK67Z

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. 

are you TALKING to my HEADS?

this band are a constant stream of influence every time you put on a record of theirs you hear something new even on the 20th listen. Speaking in Tongues is the best. anyway... these are the result of my last listening session to remain in light and fear of music. "Stop Making Sense is one of the best lyrics from a song ever. Life During wartime is one of the best songs from them. I implore anyone to have a fear of music the thing that I love more than anything apart from the obligatory friends and family.

A clean fresh colour scheme that resembles the sound you hear when you first hear the band. the white space that resembles the minimalism involved in their compositions and the typeface, it's just a beautiful typeface that I used to hate.

How a Beall-ing

Lester Beall. A man that I had not heard of since I scrolled down my pinterest the other weekend and now I consider his work most highly. In one range of posters he used very simple colours and text  to advert the needs of the American people. Rural Electrification Administration's campaign was it's name. Ostritch sans was the main font more my choices but initially he used a serif typeface. I trimmed it down to just type as an extra challenge to see if I could make it work. Setting yourself limitations makes you work harder to find a solution. I think.

Love Can Mend your Life, But Love Can Break your Heart

It means so much to so many people, Its not exclusive to any gender or sexual orientation, it is universal. You would not be reading this is if it did not exist, it provides peace, stability and happiness to millions everywhere and its not hard to see why.

I made these pieces for Leeds College of art as a test to get an interview and it seemed I passed with 2 colours and a white but I didn't like the uni anyway. But these have always struck a chord with me. working and positive and negative space, the simple and the conceptual. Even at that stage, I knew love was important hence the reason for choosing the heart. I had gone through my first break up by this point so I knew how it felt and what it meant so experience made these ring even more true.

society has got it all wrong

I get really tired of ignorance when it comes to sexuality and gender. I am a hetrosexual man as far as I am concerned and I, in society, have it so easy. I don't have to worry about all of the rubbish that homosexuality brings. Tragic really in this modern age. But I believe that using the power of my art form I should promote an equality for all. I have done posters promoting love is love and to stop homophobia. These are on the same note. But not quite.

I am a big believer in, be who you are and as long as you are awesome you will be my friend. Society can't accept that. It wants to make everyone like robots; look the same and do the same things. which is saddening to say the least. Individuality makes people better. David Bowie wouldn't of made it if he was the same as every else and we all love him. (if you don't get off my blog). The point being you be who you are. If you aren't you will only hurt yourself.

Hope you like them, stay awesome, stay true to yourself

Digital Punk

 Digital DIY. Punks would of hand drawn these and hand coloured them using felt tip pens and then photocopied the life out of them. In modern times. Punks if they want this aesthetic can just use a computer tablet and a pen. No Photocopier. No Cost. You loose a little of the style but is an easy way of getting hand drawn text and images onto the computer. 

I did these flyers to promote records in general as i do consider them to be a marvelous invention. It has since become a status symbol for hipsters who want to look fashionable. Punks would of made flyers like this themselves to promote the new single or EP as it was the cheapest most cost effective way of doing so.

Love Is Love

Love is love, imagine being told you can't love the person you love more than anyone in the world simply because they are of the same sex as yourself. Love is all you need, the Beatles were right. Many people daily are feeling the effects of homophobia; verbal abuse, Physical abuse as well as sexual abuse and it's not fair. Society has come along way but it still needs to go further. No one should have to suffer because of love. It is universal, we all feel it for various things and a significant amount of people feel it for others. I love Music and Graphic Design and Cherry Bakewells. I love my friends; some of which who actually suppressed who they were through fear of homophobia.

I have lots of causes that are close to my heart and I want to promote them through my blog. Click and Share and we can promote equality in society. STAMP OUT HOMOPHOBIA.

All My Colours

 

Tumblr is a great source of images of the things that you love and when I stumbled across two images of one of my heroes, that were really very good; too good in fact not to do something with. The photos were of Ian McCulloch, the lead singer of one of my favourite bands, Echo and the Bunnymen. I chose to screen over some of the lyrics from one of the gloomiest songs due to the atmosphere in the pictures.

Scot Scot (a Man called Scot from scotland)

Scotland, I fear will leave the UK. Mr fish (Salmond) won the last debate and is currently neck and neck in the polls with Darling (Alistair). As a resident of England, I don't want them to go. I love certain parts of that place north of the border. They have great record stores, nice towns and the parliment building is beautiful. I don't want to need a passport to go there.

However, I would like them to go just to see the chaos that it would cause down in west minister. they refuse to make a Plan B if they do leave. They need to think of money, trident and powers. it'll be hilarious to see them all running around like headless chicken.

Scotland; a study of the people can be seen below. I made these this morning, in a satirical way to show what the Scots may be thinking right now.

State of the Nation

Satire is one of the things that I do enjoy a lot. so instead of doing some music related design, I did a piece of design based on this concept. These posters are based on the idea of a dystopian state run
future, very similar to the world that George Orwell imagined in 1984 and David bowie used as the concept for Diamond Dogs. The original design style harks back to the 1930's style of newspaper ads. I chose this style because it is the one that is used in Fallout; the video game about a nuclear future.