Octoblog

I'm all three at the moment. Happy that I've finally got around to updating this blog, OK about being back in the UK and sad that it's so cold. So, let's deal with the first two in one go - I've not updated this blog for a while because I was out of action for nearly a month on an amazing trip around the world and the build up to the trip was a bit frantic, trying to fulfil commitments and keep my clients happy. I'm OK about being back, home is where the heart is after all, apparently. When I le...

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• November 12, 2012

I've always admired the work of James Marsh, another artist/designer whose work came to prominence through its use in music related ephemera, most notably for material commissioned by the band Talk Talk. The incredible detail in his work was sadly diminished by the reduction from the 12" square record format to CD and is now all but gone in the digital era. I've whined on about this in a previous blog post, so won't repeat myself....

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• August 30, 2012

Most of the work I design is for public sector or health related causes so it's nice to do something a bit different. Above is a poster/flyer for a film night at a gallery in London celebrating the work of Philip Ridley. I like the surreal image I was asked to use and the paucity of words. The 'less is more' dictum is almost always applicable to graphic design and as a principle is employed by the most celebrated of designers. Often, I feel my design work risks being seen as cluttered with writ...

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• August 17, 2012

NOTICE (from the official promotional material) 100 is a new book by Bill Drummond It has a sole print run of 1,000 copies Once they have been sold, there will be no other physical edition of the book These 1,000 books also form a sculpture The sculpture is entitled ONE THOUSAND BOOKS #1...

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• August 1, 2012

There's a lot of horrible design out there. Walk down any high street, look in any magazine or visit your doctor and look on the wall in the waiting room. There are a lot of things that have made it to print that are a crime to aesthetics and good taste. Sometimes this is down to people not caring. Sometimes it's down to people thinking they can just 'cobble it together' themselves. And sometimes because, whilst people know it needs to look good, they can't afford to have it designed professiona...

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• July 12, 2012

For those that don't know, a 'pitch' in the design world is a submission of an idea or concept to a client in order to gain work. It works like this; the client approaches you and says something like "we need to get ideas from x amount of companies to see which we like best". There's always a lot of discussion about this in the design press as it's something you don't generally receive any payment for and doesn't happen in other industries. Try going to multiple restaurants and asking t...

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• July 10, 2012

I curate a website about a short lived art collective called The Cloth. They consisted of four people and only lasted for about three years but were incredibly prolific in the mid-1980s. Do check out the website for examples of their creativity. Sadly one of the members, David Band died last year - aged 51, and last weekend I was invited to an event at Glasgow School of Art to celebrate his life a...

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• June 28, 2012

I'm a geek, it goes with the territory really. One can't be a designer with an interest in photography, music composition and sci-fi without getting excited when Apple comes along with the latest and greatest new iThing. This company brings us the future today, sometimes it doesn't seem like it, or even make much sense at the time, but resistance is futile (I did say I was interested in sci-fi)....

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• June 26, 2012

It's been a while since the last blog entry. This is due to all sorts of things: work got in the way with a couple of new clients, I updated my website, was really poorly with a virus that knocked me out for nearly two weeks, a visitor from a distant shore arrived and Eurovision of course happened. All these things have now passed and the country is now firmly in the grip of Jubilee and Olympic frenzy - christened the 'Jubilympics' by some heretics....

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• June 2, 2012