Reggae Inspiration

I have bee trying to find some new musical influences and have gone from CCR, to 10CC now onto the wonderfully happy world of Reggae. 'Wonderful World, Beautiful People' by Jimmy Cliff ... if this song is not one of your top 3 feel good songs of all time then you're pretty clueless! This dramatic change from Rock 'n' Roll and Country has given me a sence of inspiration and a definite 'spurt on' to finish my current part time Art + Design Diploma. Fingers crossed this should then lead me onto a Masters course. In this recent sence of inspiration, I spent most of today day completing painted illustrations of Tobasco bottles and pencils. Let's see what magical creations I can come up with in the next day or two?

illustration

This is a loose term for anything that is displayed visually, whether it be hand drawn sketches or painting. Now I love to doodle and experiment with ink, paint and god knows whatever else, however it takes great skill and patience to provide visual representation to a story, article or poem graphically. Here are a few original attempts at illustration of the powerful novel, 1984 by George Orwell . During this short study of the discipline, I came across a few professional illustrators who's work caught my imaginative eye. They both share a great talent and love for capturing the modern metropolis. First is Chris Dent who takes a unique approach to drawing very dence interpratations of city scapes, including Manhatten Island below (which as a Geography graduate, I must say is slightly inaccurate!)

On a much quirkier and more intricate approach to the big city is Laura Barnard. If you visit her website, you can clearly see the amount of effort and consentration has gone into the detail of the buildings.

Another London Visit

Just back from another magical yet hectic exhibition filled trip to London...

• On the top of my list was the Design Museum. Quite happily flashed my student card to gain discount to the two exhibitions - top floor was the Plain Space exhibition - the work of 'The father of modern architectural minimalism' John Pawson and the middle floor was fashion illustration from over the centuries with Drawing Fasion. There were interviews and film clips but nothing took the attention away from the original illustrations. The collection displays some of the most 'remarkable fashion illustrations from the 20th and 21st centuries', so I spent a good while with my sketch book open sketching and scribbling down work by Karl Lagerfeld, Antonio Lopez and more recently Mats Gustafson (illustrated for Alexander McQueen in Vogue China, 2010).
• My second port of call was the V&A. After standing outside in the cold for what seemed like forever - was dissapointed to find the fashion collection, that always deserves a walk through was closed. Also the photography room was only showing about 8 new images! It was still inspiring as it displays examples of different photographic techniques and saw work by British photographer Nick Veasy, who uses a camera less x-ray as an alternative form of fashion photography.
• Last on my list was the The Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. It was showing the first exhibition in the UK of Philippe Parreno. Guiding you through the gallery space, it was a small collection of shorts films. One film titled June 8, 1968, (2009) recalled the transportation of assassinated senator Robert Kennedy's corpse from NYC to Washington D.C. It was so interesting I had to see it twice!

Lack of blog due to ...

There has been a lack of blog due to serious lack of inspiration! To find a dose of the magical stuff, I took a trip to Birmingham City University Grad Shows to see what I could find. Snapped a good few photos from the day and saw some amazing pieces of art, design and similar creations.

















The fashion + textiles, visual communication and photography exhibitions were all pretty inspiring and made me want to get back to Uni. I am going to dust of my portfolio and see if I can't apply for a creative masters somewhere. I better start saving the mula because a masters ain't that cheap! Still it was so refreshing to see all the graduates work. The fashion design was remarkable as well as the illustration work.


















Since I work for a small agency, my work load overlaps from creative, design + marketing, to photography, web design and now PR. Since my use of the English language isn't that shit hot, I know I will never be any good at PR! I can churn out ideas, creative concepts, design, adverts and branding but as a creative so-un-so, I'm finding the whole organisation of press trips difficult. It doesn't help that for the last few weeks tabloid sports journalists have all been at the US Golf Open and now Wimbledon. It also doesn't help that I am not a keen golfer!

Type & Font

With an unproductive weekend, spent not doing more of a market research assignment, I took interest in some recent typography and branding projects.

Up in Brum there is Created In Birmingham's ‘Not My Type’ Exhibition showing the work of 35 local artists who created illustrations from A-Z, 1-10 & punctuations. Visit their website or stop in if you are in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre before June 1st - it's impressive.

Not sure if you’ve noticed the new Waterstones image? Yes the beloved seller of books has re-branded. Bringing the logo up to date by loosing capital letters & trying to look a little bit more like amazon. They could have a lot of fun with it – and they have, but still I prefer the hogwartian-style older image that a book shop should represent. The more I look - it reminds me of saggy body parts!

Moving on to another typography project from advertising agency Saatchi, is the ‘Communication of Joy with Durex’. An impressive bit of work well worth the look (and a giggle!) Another re-brand was that of the famous swanky London hotel Claridge's. This was a heavy piece of work - not only was it a logo but a working image present on basically everything: 'branded teapots and egg cups through to slippers and dressing gowns'.