Had a great time doing a quick 20 minute odd talk, which went really well according to my number one fan Ajmal:

…apart from the last guy, who my and friends and I felt talked at us like were we undergraduates, and didn’t get the hint when half the audience left.

It was also another excuse to continue test-driving my Nagasaki font (watch this space, more info on this soon), and as always a pleasure seeing Simon and Aporva (once again, stay tuned for something fun as well).

Next Thursday, July 29th Glug London presents DixonBaxi at Cargo to host this month’s Glug evening. While they will be talking about their way of working they’re bringing along some friends to speak about their own work, including photographer Jason Tozer, director Cassiano Prado, and my good self.

Come along and share in some free drinks, BBQ, and good atmosphere.
Tickets are available now via the Glug Meetup group!

See you there!

Great British Identity cover

You can pre-order the book via Amazon UK and Amazon US.

ximeraLabs v10

So here we are, as I mentioned a few blog posts earlier: a new, full version of ximeraLabs. Its quite a nice coincidence that I’m updating this site at *roughly* (give or take 2 weeks) the same time period when I launched the site initially back in 2001. A lot has obviously changed since then, but one of the things that hasn’t is that I produce a lot of work that doesn’t always find a specific outlet.

In previous versions I have used the idea of “randomly” collecting freeform work and building a site around that, instead of creating editions that work around a specific theme or concept (which is how the site started its life). That idea of a ‘random’ mix of work, an online visual diary if you will is something that has stuck with me (and has proven to be a successful and thankful formula — look at TRUEISTRUE for example) — and after much to-ing and fro-ing I finally decided to use this online space as a repository, a (hopefully) ongoing archive of work that exists between freeform experimentation and client brief: the images interesting to me that might not necessarily end somewhere predetermined. For it, I decided to use Indexhibit, a presentation platform I at moments loathed (“Why do you want to homogenise everything?”) and praised (“I love how its simplicity focusses on the content”) — to take away the fact that this isn’t supposed to be a site where you’ll find snazzy JQuery transitions or Web 2.0 (*heave*) stylistics. Think of this site as a sketchbook, and like the ones I have scattered on my desk and stored on my shelves, I hope it will be filled with equal parts of nonsense and interesting ideas…

Life in 2050 exhibition — 'The Scallop Divers of Enceladus'

Life in 2050 is a forthcoming exhibition (April 22nd—May 4th 2010) at the Proud Central gallery in London as part of the 9th SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival.

Leading and emerging visual artists from around the world were commissioned by curator Transmission to imagine what the future holds 40 years from now.

I’m very pleased to announce that I was one of the invited artists to participate, and for the exhibit I created ‘The Scallop Divers of Enceladus‘, an imaginary propaganda poster if you will for the (equally imaginary) International Saturn Exploration Initiative (I.S.E.I).

More info can be found here and at the exhibition site where you can also buy editions of the print.
Larger images of the print can be found on Flickr.

This is Advertising cover

The book features (among many interesting case studies) Mother Comics/Four Feet From A Rat, the collaborative comic created by Mother London and Mam Tor™ Publishing in 2008, which was published within the pages of Time Out London.

This is Advertising is available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

VIKING Volume 1 cover

A lot of people have asked why we changed the VIKING logo. The logo worked well on the single issues, so if it ain’t broke, why fix it? There were a few good reasons why I decided to change the logo and the overall look of the cover, which I’ll explain below.

The seeds for the new logo design were sown before the series ended. Issue 4 had just been released and I was ready to start on the cover of issue 5, which would be the final issue in the current arc. Ivan wanted to signal this by adding the words ‘SEASON FINALE’ to the cover.

Cover ideas for VIKING #5

Initially I used the custom typeface to write SEASON FINALE in various forms, but I quickly discovered that the letterforms didn’t really work, and the text was overpowering the image.
At one point I wanted to redesign the ‘E’ to make it more legible, but doing that would mean replacing the ‘E’ in Nic’s last name as well — which would be a very inconsistent change to make in a last issue. As an alternative I decided on using Avant Garde, which I was using already for the issue numbering, which worked much better and contrasted nicely with the VIKING font, and with a bit of work the final cover for issue 5 was a fact.

Soon after, we started discussing the design for the hardcover collection, deciding to shift tactics in the design process. Instead of designing the cover after Nic had created the art (which brought with it certain restrictions), I would take the lead and art direct the cover from scratch, working in tandem with Nic, who would create the artwork based on the design.

The first thing on the agenda was the logo. I felt that it had run its course on the single issue covers (there’s only so many ways to tilt a logo) — it had become too rigid compared to Nic’s very dynamic and mixed media artwork. I proposed to Ivan to redesign the logo and establish a new, much more intense graphic treatment for the book, something that would thematically be a closer fit to what Nic was doing.

Initial logo explorations

My first attempts at redesigning the logo were quite subtle and were more an evolution instead of a clean break. However it was immediately clear to me that this wasn’t working, and wasn’t even close to the concept I was aiming for.

Hand-traced letters

Then, while I was doing research I stumbled across a typeface in an old issue of Avant Garde which, with modification, would be a perfect fit for VIKING. I discovered quickly that the typeface wasn’t commercially available anywhere and so I grabbed some tracing paper and traced a few of the letters I needed with a fine black marker pen while reconstructing the ones that were missing.

Assembled text with applied texture.

I assembled all the words and names, applied textures to it and ran the result a through Illustrator tracing the outlines, printing it, scanning it again and repeating the process a few times, until I got the right roughed up, photocopied look I was aiming for. Adding distorted geometric shapes to work as a framing & support device I started working on the cover design.

Initial text & framing cover concepts.

Working primarily with 100% cyan, magenta and yellow (and black) I set out to create intentionally bright designs, enforcing the traditional ’4 colour’ world of comics, but juxtaposing the colours to create high contrasts and dynamic shapes — Comics as an Electroclash Pop object.

Unused cover concept using skull art by Nic Klein.

Exchanging ideas with Nic the design for the cover started to come together. We tried incorporating B/W art in the design, but felt it was too overpowering. Midway in the design process, Ivan decided to change the name of the collection from ‘CRIME OF THE CENTURY’ to the more appropriate ‘THE LONG COLD FIRE’.
Now, with the main design finalised I created a template for Nic, who could now start on the art.

Front cover framing design.

First pass of the cover.

Nic had created a series of images — key scenes and characters from the story — to create a movie-style montage all held together by the central graphic. He had added textures to the design as well. Now that we had a good idea of where all the elements would be placed, I could start fine-tuning the design. Nic’s cover version was fairly dark so worked up the design elements and text, to make everything stand out more.

Not-so-final cover.

While we all agreed we liked this cover design, it was perhaps a bit too powerful a statement, and getting too far removed from the series. Even though the new design fitted the book, we couldn’t move away in such a drastic way that it’d be unrecognisable. We kept working on the cover, meticulously fine-tuning the design, colours and artwork until we reached the point where everything was in perfect balance.

The final cover design.

The final cover design (a bigger version can be seen on Flickr) signals both the end of the first VIKING season, while announcing what will hopefully follow in the future — when this much more dynamic and malleable design can be rolled out across the single issues.

The VIKING Vol1 hardcover ‘THE LONG COLD FIRE’ is out now in all good comic and bookshops. Alternatively, you can buy it from Amazon US or Amazon UK.

Hellomuller LongLunch poster at event 32 in London.

Event 37: GLASGOW
Thursday 6th May 2010
— Mackintosh Lecture Theatre, Glasgow School of Art

167 Renfrew Street
Glasgow G3 6RQ

Doors open 7pm for 7.30pm start
Tickets £8 / £6 (NUS) available via LongLunch.com

I had a blast doing the talk in London and I’m looking forward to speak in Glasgow. I might even bring some surprise giveaways.

Hope to see you there!

'The Scallop divers of Enceladus' detail

Poster — Edition of 10, signed and numbered. Available next month. More info soon.