04.02.2010 & 11.02.2010

February 12, 2010 //

Things have been pretty slow around here this month, but let me assure you there’s been all sorts of crazy going on behind the scenes. I’ve flew four times in two weeks, the first to chaperone my sister to a uni interview and the second for an interview for myself, and now I’m scheduled for another flight of the chaperoning variety later this month. That’s SIX flights in one month. I didn’t think I could fly any more than I already did when I was living in Newcastle! So that’s been a big part of why activity’s been jilted around here and subsequently, was the obvious subject choice for February’s first Sketchblog!!

As mentioned, last week I had an interview; All will be revealed, if there is a positive outcome, of course! I also spent some time putting on the finishing touches on the Hostel project. I vectorised my aquatic chums and played around with some patterns, and I was rather pleased with the result. So much so, I made it into a rather fetching desktop wallpaper! And into this week’s Sketchblog.

I’ve also been redesigning my CV and updating my portfolio, creating a fresh, new look for 2010, but that too will be revealed at a later date. Sunday, maybe?

So how has February begun for you?

New News!

February 5, 2010 //

Gosh, what I thought was one week of unexpected events is actually running into the next! I got an e-mail out of the blue a couple of days ago, which has resulted in me doing some travelling across the waters to attend a very important meeting this weekend. This means that unfortunately Sketchblog will be late again this week, so apologies, please bear with me. I’ll be back in the ‘office’ on Monday.

[Edit] Make that Thursday night!

Sketchblog // 31.01.2010

January 31, 2010 //

Here it is, finally! January’s final Sketchblog Thursday entry. My goodness, what a crazy week. As you know, I spent the weekend polishing up my Hostel concept to send off, which is still awaiting feedback by the way. Things have been pretty slow at CP HQ since Christmas, though that’s not to say I have little else to be getting on with! From Tuesday to Thursday, I was in Newcastle with my little sis playing responsible chaperone. She had an interview for university so I did the noble thing and made sure she was well prepared prior to her interview day, before fattening her up at a sushi and noodle bar and taking her on a massive shopping spree (found my dream shoes, at last), then onwards to a gorgeous cocktails bar. Oh yes.

The big news of the week was Granpop moving into our home. He had fallen ill whilst he was living by himself in England, and now that he has recovered and out of hospital, he’s moved across the sea and in with us. My granpop is one hell of a dude, no messing, so I’m pretty happy that he’s here. It’s nearly been a week already that I’ve been temporarily lacking a bed/room/desk/all my crap, but no more! Come Tuesday, a brand new bed is arriving, with which we’re using to set up a permanent room for Granpop. As you can imagine, productivity has been pretty low being without a desk, so it’ll be nice to have the ‘office’ back.

While I was in Newcastle, I went to see ‘The Road’ with le Éléphant. Oh my days. It was rather.. intense, to say the least! I guess I wouldn’t recommend it much. It’s a bit heavy on the psychological trauma, without actually showing or explaining anything. I’d much rather ~~tell~~ urge EVERYONE to watch Zombieland instead.

How was your week?

New News!

January 29, 2010 //

It’s official! My grandad has moved in! After recovering from a spell of ill health, I’m glad my granpop has decided to no longer live on his own in England, and to move in with us. As such, I’ve given up my own room until we’ve sorted out one for Grandad. With limited access to my printer and scanner, and essentially my work desk, there will be some delays. I did have my Sketchblog entry ready (albeit a day late), but now I can’t get to my scanner til the morning. So I hope you all understand and will put up with this irregular activity for a short period of time :)

Hostel Project.

January 24, 2010 //

After getting an email from CP headquarters a couple of days ago saying they were going to have a meeting on Monday with the client to talk through the concepts for the Hostel brief, I’ve been busy pulling together my sketches and preparing my design document. They’re still rough around the edges (thanks to Mr. Appalling Scanner), but here they are in all their glory. So with a few minutes left of the day to spare, I wanted to show you guys too.

I decided to go for a deep sea theme. As well as uniting all the caricatures, soothing marine tones and lush, soft furnishings would complete the relaxing atmosphere with an edge. So during the week, I’m gunna get my little guys tidied up and vectorised. Then expect the brood to expand!

Sketchblog // 21.01.2010

January 21, 2010 //

Can you figure out what my suggestion was?

I’ve done it again! I busted in on another graphic designer’s project and am totally riding on their wave of glory. I was invited, of course! I’m not that barbaric.. It started 14th October 2009, when Johanna Basford decided to embark on a great Twitter Picture adventure. For two days, she accepted suggestions through Twitter to draw a huge picture to showcase the imagination of Twitterers. I was on board on the second day, and managed to sneak in Domokun! Check him out. Then last week, Johanna decided to take Twitter Picture 2 on, in a mammoth 24 hour, non-stop drawing marathon, which was streamed live across the web. Of course, I was poised and ready for this one too. Not only that, I also tuned in just in time to see her sketch my suggestion live (pictured above)!

Don’t you just love finding a really good font? One you know will be ready and raring to go once you’ve added it to your ever growing typographic library. Call me a geek, but it feels so rewarding! Like clothes shop thrifting, but better, and in the comfort of my office chair and slippers! Well, I spent one afternoon font-hunting across the interwebs, and found not one, but many! Not only that, they’re free! And of the several gems, my favourites were the super-bold serif, Romeral and fun-fresh Ripe. You’ll be seeing one of these featured in a project very soon!

I also heard back from CP on the Hostel project. They want me to go ahead with the character concept! So I’ve begun doodling all sorts of the weird and wonderful for the final concept to be sent in and put up against other themes submitted by various designers. So here’s a couple of the little guys as a preview, along with other snippets from the rest of my week.

How was your week?

Hostel Concepts.

January 18, 2010 //

Hey all. I hope you guys had a good weekend and aren’t too overcome with the Monday blues. Apologies for postponing yesterday’s post til now, yours truly had to help out with the family business last night! Anyhow, as promised, I said I’d show you guys my concepts for a project I’ve been working on. The brief is to create a memorable and unique experience for the visitor of a new Hostel. And that’s it. No restrictions, as of yet. I pieced some ideas together, based on areas of personal interest, and came up with three concepts.

The first concept is based on vector, graffiti-like character illustrations. Dotted all over the room, they would keep the visitor company, as well as amused. The rest of the room would generally be kept neutral in terms of colour, with modern furnishings.

The second concept was inspired by the lovely scribbles of Miss Johanna Basford. I want to create a monochromatic, botanical wonderland, keeping the furnishings strictly black and white, and mod, this would have such a striking impact.

The third concept is all about richness and indulgence. Creating patterns is something I’ve always wanted to try my hand at, and this is the perfect opportunity. It could either be used to dominate the room or sparingly, to make a focal point. The furnishings would be a mix of traditional and contemporary to make up super-opulent surroundings.

I’ve sent these off to the managing director of CP for review. I can’t wait to see which one he chooses. Which one would you choose?

Sketchblog // 14.01.2010

January 14, 2010 //

Welcome to the second entry of Sketchblog Thursdays! It’s been a relatively quiet week, but pleasant enough for a fun sketch. This week has seen several conversations about travelling, serious searching for luscious beaches, talks of tattoos, a very fun and filling birthday celebration, oodles of character doodles, increasing interest in hand drawn type, and of course, massive measurings of tea.

What has your week been about?

Easy Like A Sunday Afternoon.

January 10, 2010 //

I hope you are all enjoying your weekends! Although I don’t know about you guys, but I’m kinda getting fed up with this snow malarkey. Mainly because I have exactly zero pairs of suitable footwear to face those horrible conditions. Pressing onwards, I’ve decided it would be good practice to regulate my blogging as it would force me to be more prompt in delivering you guys some more insight into my work, not to mention, make it easier for you to keep up-to-date. So Sunday will be the day! It’ll be a good opportunity for me to let you guys know what’s been happening in my sketchbooks, and what I’ve accumulated in my bookmarks over the week.

I’ve got some concepts lined up for materialisation this week, in regards to the Hostel Project I received last week. I’m quite excited about getting stuck into it because each concept is an area of illustration in which I’m rather affected by, so for next week I’m going to show you guys the three concepts I’m going to send off as my pitch. Expect some characters, bigging up florals, and wallpaper your Nana would be proud of.

I’m also expecting some lovely mail this week. Specifically the new Logo Design Love book by David Airey. I’m becoming quite the amorous fan of his work. Hailing from Bangor, Northern Ireland, he specialises in branding identities and runs the website Logo Design Love. If you check out his blog, David not only posts about design issues from the industry, he also offers valuable advice on securing creative jobs, like this video.

Lastly I’d like to leave you with this rather fun video-questionnaire by Pentagram called What Type Are You? The password is “character”. My result was “Universal”, which pleased me muchly!

“..with no uppercase to shout with”

Let me know what type you are.

New Year. New Projects.

January 7, 2010 //

2010 Greetings one and all! I may seem a bit late for joining in the annual resolution’s craze, being in Newcastle over the New Year and then coming home to a back catalogue of errands to run, but here I am nonetheless, armed with a new plan, new project, new me.

After the holidays, my ambition has been renewed and refreshed. I feel this is the year to make everything and anything happen, and that it all comes down to me, and me alone. So with that attitude, I’m totally prepared to take on anything, and coincidentally, I have just the project to start off what will be an incredible year; I have been given the opportunity to pitch ideas for designing a room for a hostel. Yup. I know, how awesome is that! There is no restriction on the imagination for this brief so I’m going to have fun with it. Interior design is foreign territory to me so I aim to show you guys a few concepts in the next couple of weeks. It’s gunna be pretty exciting, hopefully for you as much it will be for me.

Also I’m going to embark on an exciting, self-initiated project inspired by Smashing Magazine’s article, I’ve decided that I’m going to up an image to my blog every Thursday for at least a year. After some thought, I decided a theme, although cohesive, would be restricting for a year long project. But after trying to sketch freely, I found a common, old friend, ‘The Block’ was being a bit too intrusive. Finally, I figured with it being weekly, the most interesting concept would be to try to sum up the week’s events in an image; it could be one significant event, person, object, or a collage of moments. That way I won’t be short of inspiration. And after a year, it would be pretty amazing to be able to look back and remember the entire year through images crafted by my own hand. I’m going to call the weekly entry, ‘Sketchblog Thursdays’ (Sketchbook + Blog + Thursdays = Genius At Work). Conveniently, this is the first Thursday of the year, and unfortunately, as mentioned, my weekly concept came after my first sketch. But significant, nonetheless! So to you, I present..

My toy elephant, a gift from my parents to me when I was born. It’s got as many years as me and counting! Amazingly, I still have him by my side. 2010 to me is a new beginning, full of infinite possibilities, just as giving a toy elephant to me signified to my parents. Not to mention, I’ve welcomed in the new year with another special Elephant, otherwise known as Science Boy. And he is a very special dish, indeed.

So, how do they say.. Bring on the trumpets!

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