How to waste a Sunday afternoon as a Menzingers fan

For the last few months, well the last year really, I haven’t been able to stop listening to The Menzingers. I’d say it’s verging on musical obsession now, especially considering what I spent several hours doing this afternoon…

So because I’m a sad and slightly obsessed Menzingers fan, whenever I listen to them I like to play a game of ‘Greg or Tom?’. This basically involves trying to work out who the main vocalist is for a particular song. They both have pretty distinct voices to be fair but sometimes they both sing at the same time and it can be difficult to work out on some of the older songs. I’ve even seen comments on You Tube where people have said they didn’t know that band had two singers!

What did I work out? At least if my own ears and YouTube observational skills are accurate enough. I’m sure I may have got a few of these wrong (No We Didn’t in particular, I had to listen to several times and I’m still not certain it’s Greg singing).

• Overall, it seems that Greg sings more songs but that’s more because Tom has a lot of songs where Greg joins in for the chorus, which doesn’t seem to happen so much the other way around.
• They both sing at the same time in a lot of the earlier songs, particularly the choruses if not the whole song.
• Tom sings a lot of the earlier stuff including when Greg sings a bit (A Lesson in the Abuse of Information Technology and Chamberlain Waits). Whilst Greg has the majority on the latest album (On The Impossible Past).
• If you count the songs that are ‘Mostly Tom’ as just being Tom and the same for Greg, they sing an equal amount of songs… But then maybe that’s just how my ears worked it out.

And that’s how to waste a Sunday afternoon as a Menzingers fan – and a graphic designer.

Coffee Pot

Alex Turner has a certain way with words… at least I thought he did, until I looked up the lyrics to I Wanna Be Yours and discovered that he didn’t actually write them – John Cooper Clarke did. Anyway, he does have a way with words in other Arctic Monkeys songs. I saw them live for the first time last night and it was great so I felt inspired to make this…

Maus

I’ve mentioned before how I’m really disappointed that I didn’t properly study history at school – stupid “humanities”. But I am really quite interested in history in general and it’s better to be interested than interesting (said someone, who I’ve quoted before). Unfortunately, I feel pretty ignorant about most things. Even something as significant (and horrifying) as the holocaust, I learnt very little about at school.

Maus has long been on my book “wishlist”, although mostly because it’s considered to be a classic graphic novel rather than specifically the subject matter. It’s actually a biography of sorts, which I didn’t realise until I started reading it, and tells the story of the graphic novelist[Art Speigelman]’s father. So although the Nazis are represented as cats and the Jews as mice, it’s actually a very real story.

I’ve just got one remaining chapter to read and it’s genuinely been a brilliant read. If you can call something with such horrible subject matter such as Auschwitz a brilliant read. This person has written a better review than I could even attempt to do, so read their blog.

I am recommending you read this, whether you like graphic novels or not – this aint no super hero story.

Friends of Bude Sea Pool

“The Sea Pool at Bude was created in 1930 to provide a haven for safe swimming for local residents and the thousands of people who visit the area each year.

The Sea Pool was threatened with closure and demolition following funding cutbacks. A local charity, the Friends of Bude Sea Pool took on its management in 2012. FoBSP must pay for the Pool’s staffing, restoration and maintenance from memberships, donations, sponsorship and grant funding.

Please join FoBSP and help to save Bude Sea Pool!”

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on re-designing the Friends of Bude Sea Pool’s leaflet and membership form. As a keen sea swimmer I have visited the sea pool at Bude several times – after being introduced to it by my [university] sea swimming club, in 2012.

I offered to help them re-design the leaflet – for free of course, it’s a good cause! I wanted to make sure the leaflet was visually appealing and eye-catching on the outside, as well as functioning well as a form inside. They provided lots of great photos for me to use, many of which can be found on their Facebook page.

Above is a poster version of the front of the leaflet, and below is the leaflet when viewed flat.

Outside

Inside

And as the leaflets haven’t been printed yet, I’ve attempted to simulate it (badly).

Join Friends of Bude Sea Pool today!

Super Graphic

I ordered this book a good month and a half ago on Amazon, unfortunately it was out of stock for a while. But when it did arrive this week it was well worth the wait. As both a comic book fan and graphic designer – therefore an appreciator of infographic design – this book is perfect for me. I’ve learnt a thing or two as well.

I don’t think I could have taken crappy photos of the pages if I’d tried, so I will direct you at this post by Creative Review for some slightly better images and more of a detailed write up.

And this one is the best:

Joe Wilson

I have come across illustrator Joe Wilson on more than one occasion in the past, yet for some reason I’ve never blogged about him before. At least not directly. He is actually the illustrator behind one of my favourite book covers – and that I have posted a blog about (a whole three years ago). Sadly I didn’t reference him in that post though, so I’m going to make up for it now.

It’s Nice That posted about his film posters today, which sure are great, but I love his whole portfolio.

“Joe’s a UK-based illustrator and film buff working in a style that’s reliant on a phenomenal attention to detail and precision draftsmanship. This boy can really draw. Working in pencil, ink and digital colour, Joe creates rich, complex illustrations that evoke vintage movie posters, pulp novels and comics from the 1970s but with a contemporary feel (often the result of Joe’s digital colour palettes).” – It’s Nice That

Some great stuff on his blog too.

The Tree of Life

This poster is beautiful and clever – my favourite combination. I’ll be adding it to my mental wishlist of nice prints for my future home.

“This unique poster aims to highlight the responsibility we have in letting animal species thrive in their natural environment—we have a choice whether or not to preserve nature and let it grow. Specially designed to assert this crucial message, it forms the basis of social attitudes towards Mother Nature for the many people out there who want to make a difference in our world.” – Tree of Life by Gary, Aaron & Khairul

Screen Actions

“Screen Actions is the extraordinarily talent-rich youth bash that has sprung up beside its parent event, Cornwall Film Festival, and is run in partnership with Falmouth University’s School of Film and Television. This young person’s festival does what all the others try to… it makes a school trip extremely cool.” – Screen Actions, 2013

Having worked with Cornwall Film Festival to produce their branding and promotional materials for 2012 and 2013, I was asked to design a logo and create a visual image (to go on posters and the programme cover) for Screen Actions. I had good fun playing with pictogram-style imagery. There may be more to come…

For some reason the pink won’t show the right colour, despite being saved in RGB. Hmmph.

 

 

Far Away is Close at Hand in Images of Elsewhere

Today I went to London with Harry, who is a big Radiohead fan, to see Stanley Donwood’s latest exhibition at The Outsiders in Soho. I’m not particularly much of Radiohead fan – I like them well enough but don’t own much of their music – but I am a fan of Donwood’s art/design. And obviously, I particularly like his latest series of works that almost all feature trees.

“Radiohead's in-house artist Stanley Donwood returns to The Outsiders London with a haunting and hugely appealing exhibition of artworks in September 2013. Far Away is Close at Hand in Images of Elsewhere showcases Stanley's ambitious ink and pencil pieces featuring hidden country footpaths, known as Holloways, and other arboreal scenes.” – The Outsiders, London

And some of my own poor iPhone photos:

The Real World

So, I’ve been in the real world with a real world job in graphic design for a whole year now. And I love it. Thanks emc design!

Rebranding Feminism

I read this article on Creative Review today on my lunch break – “Elle magazine has approached three advertising agencies – Brave, Mother and Wieden + Kennedy London – and asked them to rebrand feminism.”

Obviously, as a female, I support feminism – are there actually any women out there that don’t? But it’s only recently, I think in the last year or so, that I’ve actually really considered myself to have some quite strong views regarding it. Although I say strong with a bit of a ‘pinch of salt’ because it’s not as if I’ve campaigned about it or anything. Mostly I just get more and more annoyed by the lyrics in songs that are played on the radio…

Anyway, I don’t read Elle or follow what they do at all but I appreciate this. Wieden + Kennedy’s interpretation is the best in my opinion. But why oh why did they use pink?

“Wieden + Kennedy and Vagenda have created a press ad that addresses the many stereotypes that women have to field, cliches that are arguably propogated most by women's magazines, which of course include Elle.”

The chough is back… again

And this time he’s eating 2013… or holding it in his beak at least. Either way, I’ve designed a poster – in a selection of colours – for this year’s Cornwall Film Festival. Following on from the Call for Entries design I did earlier this year. This year, the festival is taking place in two venues – Redruth and Newquay – visit the Cornwall Film Festival website for more information.

 

The white space at the bottom of the poster is for sponsor logos, by the way.