Archive for April, 2009
Lots of good stuff this month. In no particular order:
• Gantz #4
• VIKING #1
• No Hero #5 (wrap cover)
• Gravel #10 (wrap cover)
• KICK-ASS #6
• B.P.R.D. — The Black Goddess #4
• Doktor Sleepless #12 (wrap cover)
• Ignition City #1
• The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft #1
• Incognito #3
• Hellblazer #254
• Astonishing X-Men #29
• Buck Rogers #0
• Batman #686
• Detective Comics #853
• I Am Legion #3
• Unknown Soldier #3-6
• Air #3-6
• Ashley Wood’s Art of METAL GEAR SOLID
Comic Book Resources has a glowing review up for the first issue. Its especially cool that they acknowledge the cover design:
“Viking” caught most people’s attention, I’d imagine, by the easily discernible greatness of its design. In all the solicitations, its bold logo and cover design made it look fantastically appealing. It was unmistakably modern, but Klein’s panting style also had a Bisley-meets-Brereton grit to it that lent just much organic style to the ordered and clinical freshness of its design. It was, to be sure, eye-catching.
You can read the full review of the issue at at their site.
Some quick updates:
One: VIKING #1 by Ivan Brandon & Nic Klein has been released this week and is available in all good comic shops worldwide. That is, if its not sold out yet (it is selling out fast in some places!). I did the logo and cover design for it (and it looks like I’ll keep doing those) and even though I still have to get my hands on a copy, I hear nothing but good stuff about it — so I can’t wait to read it myself!
Two: This Friday, I will play another game of Coudal’s Layer Tennis. A few weeks back I participated in their pre-season game which was a great warm up and eye opener (the stress! the excitement!). This week I’ll be playing against the awesomely talented Kevin Dart (seriously, check out his stuff) — so see all you layertennis heads tomorrow.
UPDATE: The game has been played – Kevin was an excellent opponent! For those of you who missed it — here is the match layer by layer.
Random (and by that I mean carefully selected so you have no idea what exactly it is you’re looking at) screenshot of something I’ve been working on the past few evenings and weekends, a collaboration between my brother Tim and myself. He is taking care of the 3D wizardry while I’m designing the whole thing whilst messing around with After Effects.
More soon.
Over at Newsarama’s blog (one of the major online US comic news outlets) I’m talking about the design of the Eisner-nominated Comic Book Tattoo. Not a lot of new info for regular readers of this blog — but nice nonetheless!
Today the nominees for the 2009 Eisner Awards were announced, and I bagged a nomination in the Best Publication Design category for designing Comic Book Tattoo with Rantz Hoseley as art director.
The book also received a nomination for Best Anthology.
I received the news last week but had to keep quiet until today, but still — now its officially a big deal. Really honoured to have made the grade so to speak, and as a life long comic geek (a badge I wear with pride) this is one of those things to strike of the fanboy wish list.
Anyway. I hope Liz and I can make it to San Diego this year!
In February last year one of the art directors at Wired Magazine got in touch, offering me the opportunity to work on the cover feature for an upcoming issue. The feature would focus on the human brain, and they wanted me to provide a set of 5-8 illustrations (including the opening spread), visualizing mini essays in the article. Cool! I’ve always held Wired in high esteem, fondly remembering their groundbreaking magazine designs in the 90s, and wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to a) work with them, and b) as a result have my work seen by a lot of people (I think they have a circulation of 500K/month).
The only problem was that it was due at the end of March, which meant I needed to work during my wedding holiday in Malaysia! Never one to shy away from a challenge, I gladly accepted the project…
Continue reading…
Almost forgot about this one until I was going through my backup drive…!
At the beginning of last year, my good friends Ash & Von who operate Umeric (if you’ve never heard of them, go check out their work) asked me during one of our IM chats (where we usually profess our knowledge of JC Van Damme flicks) if I wanted to help them out with a project they were doing for MTV Australia. They were in the process of designing a series of idents for them, and wondered if I could have a look at the design of the channel on-air graphics. MTV had just done an in-house overhaul, but were willing to change it if Umeric, as part of their project, could come up with something better.
Continue reading…
Another month, and that must surely mean another issue of .net magazine… This time the cover feature focuses on that old chestnut of refreshing existing sites — go with a full redesign, or gradually tweak and update as you go grow?
Not as controversial as last month’s “Ban IE6!” article, but interesting nonetheless. In the article I talk about the work Kleber did (and still does) for Columbia UK and how we keep the site up-to-date and relevant in the always rapid changing world of the wide web.
Late last year I completed a nice identity project for Volta, a Canadian-based visual development studio (which means they create concept art and IP for the games and entertainment industries).
A relatively young company, Volta already boasts an impressive client list and is doing some amazing work for the games industry, all they lacked was a coherent company identity. And that’s where I came in.
Continue reading…