Bank Holiday Monday Special

 Posters galore for you this Monday. All of the photos used in these posters were taken from vintage issues of NME; most of which I had never seen before, making them more than a pleasure to use & incorporate them into designs. Interstate is the font of choice, which I haven't really used and was reminded of it's existence by the graphic designer and teacher and author Ellen Lupton.  

Admittedly some of these posters are better than the others and some are more interesting than others. but I suppose that's all in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. All of the gigs are real and did happen most of which I would love to of gone to.

Get Loose, Get Loose

On the contrary, to the great song by FFS, Collaborations Do Work. Me and by buddy Vincent of Progression through Inspiration "fame" gone and done a poster for the Brickyard's indie night. It is only second time we have collaborated on a client based project, The first was the first Loose Poster. (I got a thanks on the second, despite not raising a finger on design apart from helping on the ideas).

The collage of indie stars from past and present, in the main is mine. The colours were nicked from my website, because wincent liked it I suppose. handwritting his thing and giant paint splodge is also his doing. A team effort me thinks.

 I have never attended one of these nights despite looking for one to attend ever since my teenage years and I still won't be able to make this one. This is my aim to get to the next one we design Vincent, That is a promise Vincent if you are out there reading this.

If you are in Carlisle and haven't been lease go and tell me what it's like. Plus if you go, it means more business for a place I love to go to.

Book Club : Zapf Dingbats has a use.

David Carson is a man I have covered recently on this blog & how I seemingly used to hate his work, or so is my assumption as I don't recall seeing any of it. In college I was stupid, I could not see for looking. David Carson is now one of my all time favourite designers, up there with Jamie Reid, Chip Kidd & Peter Saville. I have more but the rule of three in literature is stopping me from writing anymore.

Out of control is not a monograph, which I thought it was before I bought it. It is a book that puts into perspective, what Carson meant at the time,  as well as showing the genius' vision for what a magazine with unreadable, in the main, could be. It destroyed, all in it's wake. I love his work for Raygun, hence the reason, I chose this book and not his more famous book "the End of Print" because that only has a chapter on Raygun.

"How can you like something you can't read, idiot?" because design can look beautiful and be madder than a ship's cat even though it fails on the direct level of communication; Don't mistake legibility for communication. Just because you can't read something it doesn't mean it doesn't communicate something. I will leave you with that thought.

PS he is really good with design lecture's so give him a search on Youtube. Informative and funny.

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.

Book Club - Drawing Music

I saw a sneak preview of this book prior to it's release on the social media platform instagram at 11:30pm and HAD to add it to my amazon wish list before I went to sleep. So a very tired James, spent the next twenty minutes when he should of been asleep adding this to his wish list.

I bought it the following day or two and it was delivered home a while later (it was a preorder) and when I opened it, it was beautifully. A perfect fusion of quirky illustrations of musicians I did know as well as those I did not. It does boast that it is not a professional book on music. It's all humble opinion & favourites.

It is a recommendation for the illustrations alone and expanding your music eclecticism. It's also a Nobrow book and they are beautiful things in general.

 

Bonus: the beautiful man did a mural at the urban outfitters in London. Which I saw while at NME. Their vinyl prices are far too expensive.

  

Film Review - helvetica: the movie

A movie about a font, would bore most common folk but for a designer it is something fabulous. The cream of the crop in the design world all appear to pay tribute to it's beauty or to hate on it. It is EVERYWHERE so it is hard to ignore it's impact.

Is it beautiful because it is neutral? Is it beautiful because it is multi purpose? Is it perfect? These are some of the questions raised in the film by (preapre yourself) Paula Scher, Stefan Sagmiester, David Carson, Designers Republic, Neville Brody & Erik Spiekermann. It has the son of one of it's makers looking over all of the tests before it became a finished font. The full movie is on youtube, which is where I watched it & I reccomend that you do.

4.5/5

Communism had one, so why can't I?

Communism had one. Yeah I own a copy. When penguin released the 80p version of it; in the format of a little black book. I haven't read it yet but the concept is what I wanted to steal. Many artist have written one; a manifesto. There are two reasons to do this; either to be pretentious or to outline your morals/principles as an artist. The reason I did it, was a bit of both. I would like people to know what I am about but in the same vain, it was just to say I have one.

You know what you getting from me as a designer if you read this document before you hire me. I like to think that it makes fairly common sense. have a look and see what you think of it.

Book Club - Importance of Peter Saville

My bible, the holy book, of beautiful post modern record cover design. People who know me, personally, know how much praise I have work the work in this book. Especially, the early work done by Peter Saville. Blue Monday 12" sleeve is the reason that I am in Graphic design. Art over the cost of production. The morals of Tony H Wilson; the subject of a new charity/single by the poet Mike Garry. A beautiful dedication to an awesome man. see below for the original version.

I am preparing an in depth blog post on the work of peter Saville for my university dissertation so stay tuned for that little beauty, it is in the vain of post modernism so it should be a jolly good read.

How did i get into uni?

This is a question, I often ask myself, and to be honest I have no idea. I would like to say it was down to my outstanding grades. It wasn't. I did put a lot of effort into my limited graphic design course, which I am labeling art, sort of. Art, maybe. The anti comic sans course. I will choose one of them.

The only reason I say this as I was sorting through my work and found my portfolio, the very portfolio, untouched, that got me into team grillust, into the next step/branch of my educational adventure. Now by today's standards of my work (not perfect but learning) the pieces in there don't even count as design. The body of work over them ten pages shows a primitive knowledge of Photoshop, an ability to copy/trace pre-existing materials as well as poor type choices.

It is a time stamp. I have just sort of said its bad but it was of its time a brings home the fact that I do not suck as much as my depressed mind sometimes tells me I am. I still love my "Hey Jude" collage, it took hours but just represents how much of a behemoth that song is: especially the LOVE version is.

Book Club - Chip Off the Old Block

Graphic design doesn't have many so called "rockstars" but in the press/media Chip Kidd is the closest you will get. He is a book cover designer by job, now that may not sound very exciting but I promise you once you see his work. Its marvelous. So when this man writes a book telling you how to design it is something to look out for.

This book could be taken as one of the most condescending books of all time because its in language and tone it is very very simple. But past that it is very informative; tips, tricks and tasks. The three  T's. (My tablet has just tried to change that to the three R's (repition, repition, repition). It is odd always by its construction as a book. It has the look and the feel of a children's book. 

I bought this 2 years ago, at the very beginning of my uni course, having only been taught college, what in hindsight, didn't really feel like the bare bones of design, more art but not quite.

Keep Calm and Carry Wrong

It's over, lets celebrate. I think it's over at least, I haven't seen any imagery of the "keep calm..." variety in a long while so I assume the fad is dead. nothing stinks of lack of creativity then revisiting and old idea and ripping it off shamelessly without a bat of an eyelid or any care for it's history. the original was intended to keep up morale during the blitz during the second world war. It was designed by the ministry for information, and for a public sector body doing a design job they did a smashing job. According to wikipedia "The typeface is often assumed to be Gill Sans, which is very close but not exact (see the terminals of the 'C', for example). The lettering was perhaps hand drawn by a now-unknown designer." Making this ever more tragic that the maker of such an icon is unknown.

One thing I would say is that I would hate the man responsible for this to see what a mess the market make of his piece. He certainly wouldn't of made any money off of the thousand and thousands and thousands of parodies of this. It's on mugs, t-shirts, tea towels, stationary, phone cases and probably underpants. It became widely destroyed icon I started to hate it; I mean what is the link between this;

One is to keep spirits high in the event that you and/or your family home is bombed during the blitz and the other is keeping you calm casting a fictional spell that does nothing outside the lens of the camera in a film studio with a special effects guy making something happen. Having it on a pop compilation album is wrong, having wrapping paper is wrong. making fandom relevant versions of it is wrong. removing carry on and putting love _______ is stupid and wrong.

I am so happy to celebrate the end of a fad that stopped originality and creativity in it's tracks.

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.