Just thought I’d write a quick post to mention that Blabbermouth Marketing now has a Portfolio section to our website. I’ve been fiddling with some plugins and such to get this rolling - I know it’s not bug-free by any means, but I thought I should mention it - as I am the Senior (and only) Designer at Blabbermouth, so everything you see here is work I have produced.
Just a quick post to show you some pictures from the Convergence Exhibition North in Manchester this week. I didn’t get to go, unfortunately, but I designed & made (that’s printed, laminated, mounted and cut) 18 boards for this exhibition - to go onto three separate stands.
Firstly, there’s Blabbermouth’s stand (we are a marketing agency specialising in Telecoms, so this is an ideal place to exhibit):
Next is O-bit Telecom (we’re currently on a vintage movie poster marketing campaign):
And finally, our clients, PRD (who recently launched QuickStart Billing GO and PRO products) required a stand using the newly created logo and style we developed for them:
That’s all for now. Over and out.
So, I’ve been updating my portfolio and CV… I’ve uploaded the new CV to the website, though you might not notice the subtle changes. I seem to have misplaced the original InDesign file for the designed CV in an old Dropbox account (ahem, can’t seem to log back into it)… so I’ve reconstructed the file from a PDF and then updated it. The only notable change is that my current employment is Blabbermouth Marketing, as opposed to O-bit Telecom - I grouped them together, though, as I don’t want it to appear that I have switched jobs - it’s more that the in-house marketing team at O-bit branched out to form a separate Marketing agency. This agency, Blabbermouth Marketing is focussed on the Telecoms market, where O-bit comes from, but so far (since launching in January 2012), I’ve mainly done work for companies in very different sectors. I will try to keep updating sections of the website as I do more work I am happy with.
In any case, I just updated a ‘portfolio’ of sorts - where I follow one brand, Vitrx - and the work I did for them. I think this illustrates my skills fairly well - it shows logo design, stationary and print design, as well as my wall vinyl work and a website & html eshot. Most designers do not create work in all these areas, so I think this is one thing that sets me apart. Anyway, you can download the PDF here and I’m going to stick it somewhere else on the site, but I’ve also broken it up into separate images to show you here:
I recently exercised my Photoshop skills in a personal project.. a Christmas gift for a few family members (apologies for those of you that didn’t get one - they got a bit pricey to give to all of you, but if you want to order one, I can give you some photobox details and you can have one of your very own!) As you may have guessed… that’s myself and my partner, Matthew in these pics.
I know they’re a little cheesy, but I couldn’t resist…
That’s all for now. I’m going to rotate the pics through as my profile pictures on Facebook over the coming weeks.
Hi-de-ho all,
Apologies for not keeping this blog very current. I have done oodles of work since my last post. I will try to slowly post some of the more interesting bits in the coming days/weeks. I did loads of work on wall vinyls throughout the building here at Park House, and I thought I would post you some of the images:
Here is the front of the building.. with two perspex signs out front, which I covered partially with vinyl.
…the left side..
..the right side.. (I know the outside signage isn’t fabulous.. but I stuck with certain colours, and had to feature quite a few varied logos)
…more outside signage..
The inside is much more exciting. Recently O-bit Telecom was bought by Daisy, and the building is being used by O-bit employees as well as Daisy ones - so I had to combine the two concepts, as you see here …and I was very happy they let me put grass on all of the stairs.
I carried on the outdoor theme with the cartoony signage in the hallways.
Here, you can see a bit of leftover signage from the Pin-up marketing campaign. The daisy on the right is a little washed out in the picture (you can’t quite see all the fiddly bits which made it so complicated to install!)
More daisies and a money tree for the Finance department
Here, you can see the comic-book dot effect, which is actually on all of the daisy vinyls as well - it makes for quite a nice effect when applied directly to the wall like this.
More of the Daisies, with a fabulous splash vector (with all of the staff playing ‘musical chairs’ throughout the building, this glass wall needed to be covered.
And the latest addition, the lift has been converted to a telephone booth! (immensely better than the fake wood panelling in it underneath)
A better shot of the lift (it’s quite small, so hard to get a great shot!)
Well, I’ve actually done a bit more than this, but haven’t gotten round to photographing everything just yet. Also working on a top secret project at the moment, which I’m dying to disclose and will do in due course.
Merry Christmas (just in case I don’t blog before then!) to you all…
’till next time,
siyonara
As promised, here are some pictures of the second room I have done - once again, I created the logo and imagery myself, though the logo ended up being driven by the client’s careful instruction (meaning, I presented the client with several ideas, and they came up with a specific idea of their own, only incorporating the odd idea from the ones I gave. I then simply carried out their wishes, resulting in this logo).
(once again, you can click the images to see a larger version)
So, in my current job as Graphic Designer (Print & Web), I get to operate some pretty cool machinery… my current employer has a large format printer…
A large format laminator…
and a large format cutter…
I’m a big fan of gadgets and making things, so this is a major bonus - though I must mention that they haven’t gotten around to getting me some training on this equipment. ..but I’ve spent a while tinkering, and I can now get them all to work, and I can make some really cool things (not that I wouldn’t still really appreciate some proper training). The story goes that my employer wanted to decorate the building with graphics everywhere, and got an extortionate quote from a design company - so they went out and bought the equipment to do it themselves instead.
In any case, I have begun to carry on where my predecessor left off and decorate the many bare walls in the building.. I thought I would post photos here as and when I complete these. Most of the work is done as vinyls - I print on vinyl in the printer, then I laminate the vinyl, then I feed it through the cutter. This all sounds quite straight forward, but I can assure you it’s not. Just preparing the file properly in Adobe Illustrator takes quite a while, but, now that I know how to do this… it’s actually the easy part. The tricky bit is when you get something several meters long.. and the laminator starts to go a bit askew or it gets bubbles, or folds or traps hair or dirt from the carpet under the laminate… and anything over a couple of meters long tends to get a bit off track in the cutter… so the simpler the design, the better.
I’ve done a couple of rooms so far… but have only properly photographed one. As you can see from the photos below, it is for Vitrx (as mentioned in my previous blog post, I created this logo and created Vitrx’s website I created these vinyls using the imagery I created for the website):
(apologies for these being so small - I am restricted by the width of my blog layout.. if you want to see them a bit larger, just click on them)
Anyway, more pictures coming soon…
Over and out.
Hello again, all of you out there in internet-land.
As you may have noticed, this blog does not get updated nearly as much as it should… but I find this is just a natural side effect of being employed full-time. I have already posted here about Josh McKee’s new venture, By His Stripes, but I thought I would post an update here. I have been helping him get the illustrations I created for him in just the right format for him to print onto t-shirts. This has meant that some of the pictures have lost much of their detail, but he has the original files, so I’m sure he’ll make use of them in the future. In any case, he has started actually printing the designs onto shirts now, and has some photographs on his facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ByHisStripesClothing. He is currently working on an ecommerce website to sell the shirts, but for now.. you’ll have to contact him directly!
In other news, the company I currently work for, O-bit Telecom has been bought out by Daisy… This has cause all sorts of turmoil in my current job, all much too complicated to relate here. Suffice it to say that, as a byproduct of this event, I have been working on several new ventures for a newly formed company called EpicCo. The first of these ventures is Vitrx, an IT Reseller company recently launched by my current boss and Vince O’Hanlon. Here is the logo I designed for the company:
I have also set up a Joomla 1.6 based website for the company here, and had been researching the possibility of starting up a Magento (ecommerce) website as well. I also produced various stationary designs and word/excel/etc. templates for the company.
There are several other ventures I have been involved in, but as some of them haven’t officially launched, I think I should remain discreet and not publish the logos and other designs I have created for them. Though I am regretfully no longer working on these projects (as mentioned before - it is way too complicated to begin explaining how and why this is the case), I will try to publish here if/when these elements go live or are mentioned online in the future.
My professional life is slowly getting back to a more normal, even keel, and I am planning on using my spare time on some personal, artistic endeavors for the time being. I will try to keep you posted, even if it isn’t very frequently.
…in case you are wondering what the new
link on my website is all about…
I stumbled across it this morning on boingboing (an excellent blog, if you don’t know of it already). Rather than pretend like I know more than I do about it, I will just link in the Wiki page and briefly summarize that it turns any webpage you are on into a game… so you can do this with any webpage. All you have to do it go to the page you want to use, then paste this code
javascript:var i,s,ss=[’http://kathack.com/js/kh.js’,'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.1/jquery.min.js’];for(i=0;i!=ss.length;i++){s=document.createElement(’script’);s.src=ss[i];document.body.appendChild(s);}void(0);
into the location bar, like you’re going to navigate away from that page… instead it does fabulous things. I have added the code to the new link on my site it will do the same thing. This seems to be the official page with the code, and explaining how this ‘hack’ works.
I have a feeling it might be slowing my site down a bit… or confusing it or something. Please let me know if its giving you any adverse effects.
And I really do recommend you have a look at the Wiki page… it seems to indicate there’s a nice, fantastical tale associated with the game involving the King of all Cosmos.
(Update: I can tell already that it seems to be making the whole site run very slowly… so it won’t be staying as a link on the main site for long…)
I have worked on many projects since posting back in 2008 - so I thought I should really get you all up to date with some of my freelance projects. Last year, I created a logo & business card for:
I got this job through Paul Irvine - who recently left O-bit Telecom, because he was working on the website… It doesn’t look like the site is live yet - the only thing I could find online at the moment is this. Very curious. Anyway, this was a fun project for me.. as I used to be a pastry chef! It made me want to stop designing and go back to decorating cakes instead. Speaking of running off and creating pastries, it also reminded me of an excellent BBC storyville episode I saw called the Kings of Pastry (no longer available of BBC, but possibly available elsewhere?) - about:
“Sixteen French pastry chefs gathered in Lyon for three intense days of mixing, piping and sculpting everything from delicate chocolates to six-foot sugar sculptures in hopes of being declared by President Nicolas Sarkozy one of the best. This is the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition (Best Craftsmen in France). The blue, white and red striped collar worn on the jackets of the winners is more than the ultimate recognition for every pastry chef – it is a dream and an obsession.”
It was an excellent program.
Anyway, enough about that.
Most recently, I have been creating t-shirt illustrations/designs for Josh Mckee’s soon-to-be-launched t-shirt company, By His Stripes. I have created a logo here (though Josh had very specific ideas about how this would look already… I simply made it for him):
He’s also currently using a lion picture I created as his twitter pic:
I made both of these on the computer - using vectors. I found a nifty app called idraw for the ipad, and I got an ipad ‘pen’ for Christmas last year.. so I actually drew the lion using the ipad. I then took it into illustrator and fiddled around with it. It was really interesting to work this way.. and I found drawing on the ipad easier than using a pen & tablet with a computer… even though you can’t rest your hand on the ipad when you move the pen… and idraw doesn’t have any zoom in or zoom out function (something I’m still puzzing at). I’m working on just a couple more designs for Josh, but some of these will be done with plain ol’ pen and ink.
You can find the By His Stripes site here, but it won’t be officially launched until April 2011.
