ENVISION : Step into the sensory box from SUPERBIEN on Vimeo.

This is a project that i feel didn't live up to its potential. It looks really nice even though the idea for the year was a little unclear (the number 5 was the fingers in the background. v being the numeral for 5). I wanted a magazine cover which people wanted to cut out and put on their walls. I thought of all things associated with the subject as well as the feel (including previous covers) and realized that it was time narc just had a good photo (not of depressed looking band members) that made people pick up the mag.
i wanted to have the CD cover with the whole bike on. So when you opened out the CD cover the rest of the bike would be visible on the back. This I'm afraid is no longer possible because some really cool people nicked it and burnt it out before i could get more photo's taken. An unfortunate event but I'm glad i still have the main cover photo. because of the colour (magenta being narc's signet colour) some people thought the logo had been photoshop'd on. This was a potential idea at the start, but I thought doing it physically would pay off. Guess not.
This project was probably the only one where I actually worked with photo's. Its a very satisfying and limitless world, and I will definitely be using what i've learn't in the future.
Overall I think my Idea is strong (vespa's being closely tied to the music scene) as well as being visually very pleasing.

Placement Work

This was a brief I was given from my placement at studio one nine four. I had to come up with a simple design (something that could be spray painted) that would go on the shutters of a hair dressers. now the plan was to come up with idea visually relevant to the site with a positive word (for the negatives in Gateshead) 'Do' as in 'can do' as well as 'hair do' was what i was given to work with.
what they had been doing on the other sites was just making up the letters with shapes of things that applied to the building. for example 'UP' was one of them for a venue above the painted shutters. the lettering was made up of lots of little arrows pointing up. this idea had been used for all the sites so i thought they could try something different because it wouldn't have been hard for me to do the same.
so after some research and sketches of all things to do with hair dressing i figured something very simple and bold that looks like hair straight away would do the job nicely. The first thing that came to mind was the classic characters on a deck of cards. their hair is very thick and bold and isn't really like hair at all, but it looks good in that style. i thought this combined with the word 'Do' could work very well. here is my idea rendered up in illustrator. my design wasn't used in the end because it was a little too complex and none consistent with the others. (hair and do, do being the eye's, or sunglasses) but given the circumstances i think i came up with something rather nifty.
i still like where i went with the development of this project because like i said before, it wouldn't have been my idea or hard to do the same as what they had previously done.

Nuby Live Brief

Now i know that straight away your thinking. hmmm none drip ai? then why all the drips. well i'll tell you. because it looks good. And because its showing what it doesn't do... somehow. i came up with this idea in about the time it took me to draw it. once i'd finished my online research as well as exploring the baby sections of shops, i decided to illustrate my piece. i figured the industry was bored of photo's and might like a change. besides my research told me that mums probably don't want dumb pictures of other peoples babies on packets, having loads of fun when theirs is screaming in a shopping centre. so i thought i'd go for something that might catch their eye, something different from the rest. 

although the illustration looks fairly simple, i found it quite difficult at the time to get right. this is why i perfected the idea on paper. so i could scan it in and use the pen tool right on top without having to go back in and adjust it. i did however have to adjust it in difficult parts, but as a result i became familiar with the smooth tool. this just re-space's your original points around a curve to get a flowing result. i think if i was given this brief again, id keep it along the same lines. just because the product is for babies doesn't mean it has to be babyish. besides, they aren't the ones looking out for it. i think the fact that i managed to come up with a design that was totally different from any other, and make it look nice is good, especially in preparation for the work place. your rarely presented with a brief that appeals to you, and that you have current knowlege of. so stepping out of the personal idea zone and applying the skills ive learnt to an idea that isn't all that fun is becoming easier due to project such as this.

Frazzles Rebrand

As soon as i presented my rebrand idea, i realized i'd picked a hard piece of packaging. Apart from everyone disagreeing to frazzles needing a rebrand boost, i thought it looked cheap and dated. i suppose thats why most people like it. so anyway i stuck to my guns and began to think of an amazing new logo that would be pasted on a classy new packet of lovely bacon strips. This vision frazzled out after a week of staring at doodles of utter crap, and i started to doubt why i was even born. To cut a long story short i felt that pigs were the baseline to these porky snacks and decided to incorporate this into my design. now trying to get a healthy organic feel to fake strips of bacon isn't going to work so i decided to go for a cartoon style, fun and free. (just as pigs are before their eaten) as you can see the logo shows this (badly). i do like it in many ways, especially the f, r and a of frazzles. which fit together with a satisfying even border around them. the rest of the lettering looks cack and the bin full of broken items in my house have felt my frustration.
But seriously, it was interesting to see how one gets around difficult projects, and how to develop a good idea into something brilliant. Because sometimes in order to achieve an understanding in the problems this business holds, you need corner yourself to see how well you handle the situation for the future. Anyone can doodle an idea and say hey! Check this out. But the question is; how you check something out and then doodle it to be the best it can be.

Packaging

This project always makes me laugh. Me and Ed worked on this together and decided pretty early on that our company name would be a combination of our first and last names. Ted Girks. Brilliant. whilst thinking about what kind of crisps we'd like to be the manufactures of, we thought about putting a potato in the name. Besides we have them to thank for the wafer thin snacks that are known world wide. so we thought; Maris Piper's are a good type of potato, and we as a company would bag them, and sell them. Bagged Piper. Unforgettable. Now the logo i felt worked really well and i created a typeface for it freehand (classic serif kinda like bodini). the letters fitted snugly together and it looked smart. I realize now that using the d as part of the r isn't obvious and it read as bagger pipe. Still a great name but not what was intended. further development for the future i think.
Me and Ed worked particularly well. I used my super typographical skills and Ed his incredible drawing abilities to form the worlds best packet of crisps. Haggis neeps and tatty flavoured Maris Piper's. I really got an understanding of how things are created within a work force of differently talented people. I realise that two people is nothing compared to the construction of the Chrysler building for example. But the concept of production line industry is realised this way and remembered with experience.

4Mations

This is probably one of my favourite pieces. I got completely addicted to developing it and couldn't stop. There was just so many possibilities that this idea had, I found myself going in circles. Development of work is good, but one has to know when to stop because sometimes you waste time when the primary idea was the best. I realised this but did fine tune my logo for the better. I didn't quite get around to creating the entire alphabet but the letters you see are 100% original... i hope. When i have a little extra time I'm intending on doing a big typography piece using my font.
My idea was simple, just like every good one is. A logo that describes the new age of animation with a typeface suitable for the name. A formation of basic shapes that look good and work well with the brand. The 4 is made up of 8 (when standing alone from the 'mations') perfect squares which can be animated in more than 12billion ways. Maybe a little farfetched but you see the possibilities at hand. This also is a formation of shapes in its self because the 4 isn't actually there, Its just visible though the arrangement of the shapes.

Alex Varanese

This guys work is amazing. i love his typographical pieces.

3D typography

Mint

i like the way this one becomes more and more simplified the further away it is.

More 3D

This overall particular style appeals to me. they way he uses retro technology in his designs is awsome. simular to stuff that ive been doing with old radio's and spray paint. red is probably the greatest colour of all time, and he knows it. A lot of his work uses (i think) mixed media in way that makes everything look like its real. I've no idea how he creates some of his pieces. he must use a combination of many programs to achieve his outcomes.