News & Blog

Haven’t had time to post the last couple of days. The future in-laws are visiting, so we’re taking them around London, having sumptous British and European meals (ROASTS! PIES!) and spending time with them. Tomorrow we’re off to Antwerp so I can show them my roots, the family and eat more meat and chocolate!

I was going to write something about this year’s May 1st Reboot, but then felt I might sound like a hypocrite - having been a participant twice - to criticise the event. But the more I think about it, the more I feel I want to say something. So I will.

Ever since the first Reboot in 2000, and the first (massively successful) public Reboot which followed in 2001 the remit has been to present a mass relaunch of websites, free of any restriction. I.e. let your creativity flow. It was the perfect platform to show your experiments to the online world. But I feel it no longer is. The key element what made it so interesting was individuality. Every single designer who participated had, it seemed, something to say - and that was reflected in the sites. That 1st of May was something to look forward to, and spend a couple of hours clicking away through the endless list of sites.
Continue reading…

Sometimes you get little extras thrown in from the clients - a little “thank you” for all the work you’re doing.
Like yesterday, for example, when I recieved an invite to attend the preview of Damien Hirst’s new show at the White Cube galleries.
Nice! But then I realised I’ll be out of the country that weekend…

And no, I’m not giving it away.

Finished my piece for The Wallpaper Project yesterday and sent it off to Alex. I haven’t seen what everyone else is doing for it, so I’m curious to see how everyone’s style will fit together on the huge canvas.

This month’s Computer Arts Projects (#96) is all about
exposing your work to the world, including (according to the blurb):

Self-promotion tips
Twenty self-promotion ideas that really work, from the cream of the world’s design industry

I’m one of those creamy guys giving you 2 tips that have worked for me.

Our neighbour Liam is a singer/songwriter who is working on his first fully produced album that he’s currently taking around various labels. The demo CD needed some design TLC so he asked me if I could give him a hand.

The photo is taken on the roof of our building by a photographer friend of his, and I did the rest.

…Were basically Liam’s words when he asked me in an email earlier today… The poster is for a launch party of a new media collective in Derby, and I believe Mam Tor is going to be part of it… Anyway, 15 minutes after the email:

It doesn’t always need to be difficult or take more than a day…

Ivan has started posting it around, and it’s already covered on The Beat, so now its my turn.
Here’s the cover design for Vol.2 of 24SEVEN, a robot-themed anthology edited by Ivan Brandon and published by Image Comics.

Cover art by Ashley Wood.

The current issue of Computer Arts Magazine (#136) has a nice little write-up on the Wallpaper Project curated by the Space Jockeys, which I’m participating in (and still have to send in my piece).

“Wallpaper, the new collaborative project by graphic design agency The Space Jockeys, is calling on designers and illustrators from all-fields to lend a hand in the shared design venture.

The aim of the project is to unite as many up-and-coming artists as possible and get them collaborating with more established design names.

So far, the likes of Computer Arts contributor Sam Gilbey, Hellobard, Tom Muller, Richard May and Gavin Strange from Jam Factory are all involved, bolstered by rising stars such as Couk, Map-Map and MmmYeahNice.

“The concept was inspired by an after-party doddling session, with six of us simultaneously drawing on the same pad,” explained one half of The Space Jockeys Alex Cicciu. “We then decided to take it online in the form of Wallpaper.”

As well as Wallpaper, the Space Jockey’s site also hosts profiles of the artists involved in its Uncovered section. There’s no deadline for the project as of yet, and anyone interested in contributing should get in touch via email.”

Last weekend we went to the Bristol Comic Expo, and aside hooking up with the Mam Tor crew I spent quite some time (much to the lamentation of my better half) roaming the convention, looking for old Marvel comics I used to read as a kid.

When I grew up, I got my superhero fix in the form of Dutch translated editions. These would usually run out of order (compared to the original series) and were a cut-and-paste job. The thing was, that an American comic back then ran 18 pages of story, with 12 or more pages of ads (you know, the classic Atlas Muscle Man and X-Ray specs)… The Dutch versions ran at 32 pages without ads, so to get around the “missing pages” they’d mash up two issues in one and cut out pages to make it fit their 32 pages.

Nowadays, whenever I have the time (and money) I try to hunt down my favourite ones, and get the original 70s, yellow paper prints and revel in discovering new pages of art, stories that make much more sense and the awesome cover designs (the Dutch editions had horrible typography, even as a 10 year old I noticed).

I loved the old Hulk and Marvel Two-In-One comics featuring The Thing, and some superhero-of-the-month. For some reason the colours were always brighter, the villains bigger and the stories more outrageous than their counterparts. And the covers were always a mash-up of character logos, cover blurbs and the classic corner box with the heads of the main protagonists - so you immediately knew who you were paying for… Sadly, today’s comics have done away with this. I think we’ve become to cynical to enjoy the sheer over the top drama of a good old-fashioned comic.