Shy Luv - FASHION

This design was made in response to the song Fashion (if you couldn’t tell by the word ‘fashion’ in garish pink type) by the band Shy Luv. This is a band that we ran into basically by mistake at last years Live At Leeds day festival, they were playing an hour late on a delayed stage, we had gone to see a different band and unwittingly saw their set instead. It was a great experience, and another that illuminated me the importance of sometimes being in the right place at the right time.
Since then I’ve been meaning to produce work around their music for my 603 brief, but haven’t had any compelling ideas until now. Working again with animation just before christmas for the Hanbury project/trailer that I made, I started to think of these music illustrations in a more kinetic way. How would this image work alongside the song? How would the different instruments be represented? What colours are brought to mind by the song? How do the lyrics work in the context of the audi and visual mediums combined? All these questions really challenged how I would usually approach a design like this, and I feel like the final image isn’t even really complete without the song playing in the background. I’m happy with this outcome, as I sometimes find a disconnect between the start point and end point in my design process, but this time I can see all my decisions present in the final work and I’m happy with how I’ve tried to get my ideas across.

Being a small band with a still fledgling fan base, I reached out to Shy Luv to see if they may have any use for the design, and they sent back a response. They said they would be happy to feature the design on their Instagram, which I thought would be a really cool opportunity. Similar to the way I was featured on the profile of the band Ider, it’s just an engaging reminder of the way your practice can work when you see it properly in context.

Paramore - POOL

I’ve written this post over around four times because I’m trying to make it sound reflective rather than preachy and braggy. I wasn’t really sure of how this directly related to PP, but I was told that any example of work becoming known either in a commercial sense or regarding higher exposure is to do with PP, so I thought I may as well talk about it.
This is a design I made in response to the song Pool by the band Paramore, and it was featured artwork on the 29th of Jan on the Instagram account ‘Paramorespam’. Usually I wouldn’t talk about this in relation to my practice, but the post eventually got over 2500 likes, which is an overwhelming response to my work that I’ve not really experienced before. I think it exposed my work to a lot of people that have become part of my growing online audience, and I’m really grateful as it's a solid way to give some exposure to creatives with smaller presences online, and hopefully open up new eyes to my work.

Hanbury animation

This is a very rough and incomplete trailer I put together for our upcoming trip to London with the Hanbury Hall event, meeting professionals and those in the industry. The movie Justice League is out soon, and although my whole being knows it will be awful, the young version of me that read Justice League in high school still holds a small bit of faith. Some of the marketing for the film has actually been quite cool, musically and visually. Hopefully this carries over into the finished film and prove me wrong, because I never actively want anything to be bad, I just appreciate that some things definitely, definitely are.

The music here is taken from that marketing campaign, a hard hitting cover of the Beatles “Come Together”. I’m not a Beatles fan, at all, but I find the last few measures of this song to be really atmospheric and engaging, something that I think our trip to Hanbury can be and will be.
I’m trying to incorporate animation, especially alongside music, into my practice a bit more, following the Baby Driver trailer I put together over the end of summer. I really enjoy working alongside a beat, and instrumentals, as it makes me think visually in a whole different sense. Things have to move, grow, change colour, disappear or explode all at different times in different ways that feel organic, as if they’ve grown out of the song itself. I enjoy making work that can exist in this medium, as it adds a lot to the way I think about my work. Not sure what the final use of this will be yet, I’m just excited for the event, so I just wanted to make something that represents that and can hopefully arouse interest in others.

Hanbury Hall invitations

These are the final positives of the invitation sheets we have designed to be sent out for Hanbury Hall. The guests won’t receive a full version of this print, but rather a portion of it, cut into the shape of the university’s polygon logo. We thought this might be an engaging way to play with the expectations of our guests, as the invites will work almost as parts of a jigsaw puzzle, with no two people receiving the exact same image on their invite. We are basically screen printing the print at A2, and will cut it into smaller invites using what is essentially a cookie cutter method, ensuring that all the small prints are unique and distinct.

I really enjoyed working this way to make this image, as I made the digital design. The physical drawings were made by Bronte and Kieran, and I went through what they made, picked out what I thought were the most successful images and arranged them in this fashion. The inspiration was sort of a checklist of items that you might run through before going on a holiday or camping trip. Adding colour to these drawings was a good experience too, as it made me think of the work in a different light, as it isn't my drawing, so I had to consider how it works with colour in a whole different way, as I’m only receiving part of the picture. I’m happy with how these are coming out and we’re excited to get the screenprinting done with so that they can be sent out in time for January.

Hanbury - idea research

After a few meetings with the group regarding Hanbury, we’ve decided that the event should be centred around a theme of travelling. As we’re all based in the North and will be heading down to London, I think it's an idea that translates clearly and sort of portrays us as explorers, which we basically are, heading into a hub of creativity to learn and share with people from different backgrounds. We put the name up to a vote across the class through a Facebook poll, and the name “You Are Here” was chosen. This name reflects the travel theme, replicating the “you are here” icon you would find on a map. Because the event in january is focused mostly on the visiting professionals, we thought the use of “you” was also engaging, as it shows that the focus of the event is us being able to meet and talk with them about our work and practices. The idea was also floated that we could call the follow up trip in July , “We Are Here”, as that will be centred more on our work, portfolios, and basically showing off what we’ve been up to for three years of illustrating.

I’ve started to meet with some other people on the course to determine a solid visual style for the marketing materials, but I think the theme of maps and travel will be the backbone of this.

Hanbury roughs - invite sheet ideas

I’ve been working with Bronte and Kieran to start getting a solid idea of what we want to say visually with the marketing materials for Hanbury Hall. I’ve been researching images like this as inspiration. I like the grounded and wholesome feel of work like this, as I feel it links to our course being one based in the North, with a smaller and more focused outlook on illustration, rather than a super slick glossy outlook that might be had from an institution based in the centre of London. We mainly want these materials to best represent our course, how it functions and the work that comes out of it.

Hanbury group work

The group organising the bulk of the Hanbury Hall has been assembled, and I’ve found myself on the team!
This isn’t something I’ve done for a long time, I was involved in councils and meetings at high school (I was Head Boy, once upon a time), but since then I’ve always had a job outside of college or university, so I sort of stopped being involved with things like that. So I thought that this was a good opportunity to be involved again before leaving the academic landscape for good. Because I’ve started (unwittingly) to make promo materials for the event, mostly just the short animated trailer I was working on, I’m heading the marketing side of the event, which mainly includes posters, banners and invitations. I’m looking forward to working in this group, as everyone in it seems really engaged in making the event as good as it can be, which is only making it more exciting for when we go down to London in January.