Archive for February, 2009

New Work: Varsity Rebranding

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

varsity icehockey poster

RIGHT NOW, I am in the middle of rolling out the re-branded publicity for this year’s series of varsity sporting fixtures between the two universities in town. For the last few years, they have been using a design based around cartoon characters. It was nice, but a bit too cute for the epic gladatorial bloodsport rivalry that is the varsity contest.

So this year we decided to give the promo material more edge - focusing on the confrontational aspect of the series by using photos from previous years clashes. And clashes is the right word - when I was selecting the photos to be used in the posters I went through thousands of images depicting blood, sweat and tears; but mainly blood.

I kept the orange, black and white scheme from previous years as it is an established identity, then added dramatic images cut out from the photos and re-coloured them to add some extra punch (no small task against the loud orange background).

The combination of bold colours, simple layout, stark type and dramatic image creates a poster with plenty of impact and communicates the information nice and quickly, as all good posters should.

There is a whole series of these covering ten events in the pipeline. I’ll add photos once they are back from the printers.

I’d be interested to hear from any other designers who have worked on varsity or sporting tournament publicity - give me a shout in the comments.

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Posted in Work, graphic design, posters | No Comments »

Exhibition: Our Style Is Legendary

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Our Style Is Legendary Exhibition Poster

I am currently busy organising and curating Our Style Is Legendary: The Art of LeftLion, an exhibition celebrating LeftLion’s five years as the cultural cornerstone of Nottingham. The exhibition will feature prints and canvases from an archive of artwork by the cream of Hoodtown’s illustrators and photographers, as well as video installations and sculpture in the gallery space.

We will also be showcasing new work by artists who responded to a brief of representing the left lion in Nottingham’s market square as a meeting place and human interaction in the city (this being the initial idea which inspired LeftLion’s existence). Judging by the pieces I have received so far, things are shaping up nicely with some fantastic canvases and a great film turning up in the post this week. I’ll add more details in the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled for a little taster of what will be on display.

The opening night is at the Malt Cross on Thursday 5th March, starting at 7pm with live bands and performance throughout the night. The artwork will be on show in the gallery space until Saturday 15th March, then a selection of prints will be on display at the Golden Fleece from Thursday 20th March.

Work will be on show by artists including Rob White, Nick Chaffe, Rikki Marr, Simon Mitchell, Alex Godwin, Dom Henry, Simon Raven of Backlit and lots of other artists who are way too studio-bound to have anything as unnatural as a website. Come down, have a beer and check it out, just watch out for the metal animals which will be prowling around.

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Posted in Illustration, Miscellany, Photography, Work | 1 Comment »

New Work - World Map

Monday, February 9th, 2009

World Map Illustration

I recently completed an illustration to be used on a poster representing the societies which are available for students at a local university to join. The brief was to create an image using the world map to represent the idea of inclusion, and to incorporate elements which relate to the various societies on offer.  I came up with this composite illustration in black, white and shocking pink. It was the first piece of illustrative work I had done for a while and took a fair bit of penwork, but it was good fun - especially except for all the scanning and cropping - and looks great on the A2 posters which were printed.

World Map Detail

Here’s a detail from it. You can see a larger version of the full thing here.

If I could go back to it, I’d probably add some white design elements to break up the pink a bit and add further interest and depth. Maybe white text denoting the societies and laid out like placenames on a real map, connected to their respective graphic with a white line - I think that would really make it sing. What do you think - let me know in the comments.

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Posted in Illustration, Work, graphic design | 2 Comments »