Process work.

This piece of work was an identity that I had to draw from scratch due to the customer not having any good quality images to scan or any eps, tif's either. Easy peasy huh? Well it was process work so to get the colours right as well as redrawing the text as vector turned out to be ......time consuming to say the least. Everything was drawn as a vector in Freehand 10 and then imported into Photoshop for colouring and finishing touches.
I think it turned out really well in the end. On a trip to London this year I actually saw this logo in etched glass on a railway station, how cool it looked and it made me feel that all that work was worth the effort in the end.

I love a good wedding.

For wedding favours at my wedding in 2005 I designed, recorded and printed some Cd's using the Coudal Brothers Jewel Box system. Now this system may not be the cheapest you can find, but let me tell you they are the very best bar none. The quality is excellent and the customer service is fabulous. I am UK based as opposed to Coudal which is US based. However when I mailed them with an urgent delivery request they were right back in touch and boy did they sort out my delivery for me. Much respect to Coudal.
So my Cd's turned out really good and everyone was well impressed (so impressed that every time I get invited to a wedding now I get requests for producing Cd's. I swear I only get invited to weddings these days to create the favours). Now my Mam asked me to create some for her wedding last year and I think for a very simple design they turned out quite elegant. Not too sure on some of her music choices mind (although Al Green - Let's stay together is an outstanding choice, but then again it was my contribution. As was George Michael).

Apologies

Hello and first off I must apologise for my lack of posts this week. It's been very bust at work (due to me finishing for Christmas tomorrow) with lots to get finished.
Good news as well, I have sold my very first t-shirt. Well actually I sold a jacket not a t-shirt so that's even better again. Thank you Chappers, thank you very much.
Anyway tonight artwork/illustration is something I drew up and used as a background image on a customers job. Personally I thought it was too good just for a background image and therefore thought I'd add it here. All the illustration was done in good old Freehand 10 (as is most of my vector work).

Invites.

This illustration was drawn up after a friend asked me to create some invites for her 39th birthday. She left all the decisions to me but did say she wanted something fresh and funky. I drew this up in Freehand 10 and then created a separate background and typography with the venue details.
When I first did this I was quite pleased but now looking back I think it has dated quite a bit. Still I thought I'd share it with you. You never know it might work out well as a t-shirt I suppose.

Newsletter.

Recently I have been producing a bi-weekly newsletter at work to help the division maintain focus and to allow for better communication and networking. Cheesily called LEADing news it centres around the lead generation culture we now adopt and how we can promote this amongst the teams within the division.
There have been some big changes lately and may I say they have been for the better, if nothing else I've been a lot more creative at work lately. Embrace change it's good for you.

Impulse-Tuning

Remember I mentioned Impulse-Tuning.com in an earlier post? Here's a visual I created for Impulse's launch of website. These were flyer's which were handed out and placed on windscreens around recognised "cruise" sites in the North East. I also did some vehicle graphics which were given away free as a marketing exercise to increase interest in the site. They seemed to work well as we were getting hundreds of hits even while we were finishing the site off.

Happy Christmas.

Deck the halls with bows of holly fal-al-al-la-la-la-la-la-laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
It's nearly that time of year again when old Santa will be coming to leave all us good boys and girls some Chrissie pressies under our trees. Talking of trees I've been drafted in at work to produce some visuals for around the office to bring in some Xmas cheer (not to mention revenue). So I came up with this little guy. He hasn't got a name just yet, maybe you can think of one for him?
The original sketch was drawn up using good old pencil and paper and then I re-inked him in biro. Once I was happy in the scanner he went and into Photoshop to draw in the bold outlines and fill the piece with colour. I even added a shimmer to the lights just for realism.
I hope you like him, enjoy and Merry Christmas.

Cobble Craft Driveways.

After producing some business cards for a friend word of mouth spread a bit and it wasn't long before a friend of a friend wanted some cards doing too. Cobble Craft Driveways ID was then born. There were particular hurdles around this design I wanted to overcome and I think I did this in the finished design.
Firstly laying driveways is a very heavy labour intensive and dare I say it masculine job. The driveways that the owner Bryan laid were also very beautiful and bespoke to each customer. No two drives were the same. They included various different materials as opposed to the traditional tarmac, blocks and concrete you would first imagine.
I wanted to create Bryan something to match. Something bold and yet beautiful, something that all his clients would associate with. The company initials were used as the ID and placed on "concrete blocks" created in Photoshop. This side of the card was the powerful side, the masculine side of the business. The reverse however was much softer with a nice classic font and some classic images to finish it all off.
Bryan was very pleased with the result as was I and the cards got some good feedback from his customers too. We went on to produce flyer designs and other literature using this image on all of them.

The Trilogy.

Some of the rough ideas on brand ID I had for Alphalima were pretty decent (they say that some of your favourite/best work never gets published), so seeing as though this is my space on the web I'm going to publish them.
These were early concepts which were disregarded in favour of the "stripes" logo shown in the stationery and logo design posts.
I think the Russian military-esque star turned out particularly well and was a very bold design. The red bleeding a is also a very strong, powerful image both came very close to being the chosen ID. In the end though I think the stripes definitely won for the right reason and just portraid a slightly more classy image if you will.

Alphalima Stationery.

After my post the other evening about the Alphalima logo I found, I dug out the stationery I produced for the same company.
The stationery was designed to be very plain apart from the obvious impact of the logo itself. The stationery turned out particularly well in my opinion showing a very modern image and a lovely "clean" design. Theres no unecesary clutter like addresses, telephone or faxes just pure white space.
It really is a shame that Alphalima disappeared as I did some nice work under it's banner, more of which I will show in another post.

Identity.

Here's an identity I created for a company called Kart Parts. They are suppliers of racing go karts and spare kart parts.
The logo was drawn up in Freehand 10 and turned out quite nice. The typography is quite modern and clean. The racing stripes that form the background of the logo also suggest the feeling of speed and motion.
The logo was then used on the corporate website as well as some other printed materials.

Winter time is here.

Well the weather has fairly changed here over the last few days, we've gone from mild to down right awful. Strong winds and bad rainfall as well as the usual chill in the air.
Don't you just hate trying to wake up in the morning when it's pitch black still. Then you go to work all day and come home in pitch black all over again. It's horrible, where has the sun gone?
I'd love to live somewhere hot where the weather is nice all year round, then again I'd probably complain I missed the snow.

Now where's that extra pair of socks at?

Alphalima

Found myself going through some of my old online images last night due to the fact I was so very bored and came across an old image that made me smile.
I created this for a friends site which unfortunately isn't up and running anymore. We ran the site to try and get some design work on the side (you know just to make ends meet and all). We got a couple of little jobs, one of which was a huge website incorporating an OS Commerce shop for a then friends car tuning company by the name of Impulse Tuning.
Ah the good old days, funny how you stumble on these things and they take you back.