Inspiration

The Cat Piano



This is the latest short film by The People's Republic of Animation. Narrated by Nick Cave. Directed by Eddie White & Ari Gibson. Produced by Jessica Brentnall.

Its use of of delicious blues and charming animation make this my current favorite animated film. It's a pleasure to see Australian talent being internationally noticed and appreciated. Nick Cave's narration fits the short perfectly, he has this funky drone that a cat would if it could talk. Anyway, Watch it.

Smokin' prop design

My friend Nick, an insanely talented film maker, has written and is shooting a film based in the 1960's. Looking at the lighting test shots and the working script, reaffirms the blistering heights he will reach with his passion.

This is why I was honoured when he asked me to design a cigarette packet to feature in one of his scenes. He wanted something influenced by the Lucky Strike packets; simple, minimum colour scheme and bold. Here's the response:


This was also one of the funnest projects to research, one can very clearly tell the evolution of women's rights in cigarette ads, particularly this one.


mmm easily one of feminism's finest moments. Have a look at the rest of them here, they're all beautifully executed although the subject is fairly questionable nowadays.

Coming up next is my poster design for the film, we're currently working on it.

Cheers!

Furry Curiousity

Generally, my attempts at 3D model construction end in abysmal failure, fortunately this was an exception. The assignment given was to create a 3D space to advertise, or appear at the entrance of, an exhibition of your choice. The selection was wide as some of us exhibited insects whereas others displayed secrets. Mine was an exhibition of Happiness.



The idea was inspired by Stefan Sagmeister's theory that "Design = Happiness". In a way this is true, one the happiest moments of my life occured when I was in Brussels with my gorgeous girlfriend Brooke. We were cuddling in the Grand Place, holding our unforgettable hot chocolates and watching the most magical lights show we'd ever seen. You can click on the link but it's no substitute for being there.

But the combination of lights, sound and classical architecture, created one of the happiest experiences of my life, hence came the idea for the scattered, colourful, fuzzy plants. One the the things that make me happiest is my home city of Melbourne, the city of a thousand cities. The best thing about it is finding a surprise each time you go, a new street, bookshop, anything. So to play on this, I superimposed my fuzzy creatures around Melbourne to appear as 'happy accidents'.


This combines my idea of happiness with music, something I could've got around to if I had more time.

The use of colour against a grey space creates the sudden splash effect when you walk past.

The brief requested that this space is a traveling exhibition so it had to be adaptable to any space possible, hence why each furry plant is separately placed on its own island of fake grass.

I want to cuddle one of these things.

Inspiration

Hello everyone, it's time again to show you what's been making me tick lately:


Allah wouldn't approve, but the treatment of colour in this is magnificent. It's by an artist of Flickr, does some interesting stuff with food


Ogilvy & Mather (Singapore) created these astonishingly good advertisements which were made entirely by hand. Surely one massive incoming trend is that people will start turning away from technology and instead seeking creativity in more boutique areas of the arts.


Maschinen Leuchten is the awesome lighting series designed by the German artist Frank Buchwald.I love the way that steam punk is being integrated with Art Deco.


Artist Jason de Caires Taylor created the world’s first underground sculpture park. Moilinere Bay in Grenada is now home to sixty-five of his works covering an area of 800sq metres. His aim is to highlight conservation issues and ecological processes.

The Footloose Program

The final piece of the footloose puzzle, the program. This meant unrequited love stories with printers, musical directors and photographic subjects. In keeping with the theme I've been using from the start of this project, the work is completely based around an industrial town to reflect the storyline.

This was only possible with the help of producer Sarah Doherty and photographer Ryan Ponsford. Sarah, between all the dramatic episodes involved in producing a show with 25 teens and a co director in quarantine, always had time to speak to me and crack a cynical joke or two. And she was more than prompt in supplying the content for the program. Also, she was kind enough to meet at my house before I told her I was about an hour away, she came anyway. Overall, a pleasure to work with.

I was extremely lucky to have Ryan on board, I literally called him while he was involved in a professional shoot for 'Freedom' furniture. He donated more time than was necessary for the final piece and if it weren't for his ingenious gift of photography, the program would not have had half the impact that it does. His eye for colour, pattern and composition is astounding and I see him going a very long way with his passion.

So here are some of the the spreads that stood out to me.


The front and back cover, I love the greens and it basically sets the tone for the show; rusty, electric, grungy.


This is my favorite spread, the tree mixed with the chicken wire, newspaper and factories; it encapsulates the whole teenage love story thing perfectly. Also happy with my type setting here :)

One of the main reasons why I took on this job was to gain experience in type heavy pieces such as this. Each page had a 4 column grid so the spacing was even and clean, which some extra room for Ryan's photos.



Not as text heavy but still a bit to deal with. Again, the photography just gives it so much depth. All the images have this human presence via absence vibe going on; it's evident that people have been there, but it still looks slightly eerie.

The type and general page setting was inspired by skating mag Monster Children and Blanket Magazine, check them out, they're beautiful.

If there's one thing I learnt from this job, it's that the final product, although imperative, is secondary. The most important thing is to be easy to communicate with throughout the entire process and always keep the client up to date.

Make friends basically.

Inspiration

Hey guys, as part of one of my units at uni (DIS2105), we're required to upload things that inspire us on a weekly basis. I feel it's a great idea, so let's begin:


This is a photo I took on the train to Flinders St Station, the light shining onto the window made it look like two wheelchair people intertwined. They a symbol that could look like something from an other worldly alphabet.

This is the work of amazing illustrator, Kevin Dart. His line work is so jazzy and I love his use of shadow to create atmosphere, check out his website.


At the moment, I'm loving Iron and Wine's music. The cover of this album is beautiful, the use of colour is delicious, the pinks and yellows give the image so much warmth and bite. This is the work of Samuel Beam, also the lead singer of Iron and Wine.

Kick off your Sunday shoes

Footloose! A musical from the 80's, can you think of anything better? I've been given the pleasure of working with the Monash Univeristy Musical Company (MUMco) on the artwork for their current production of this groovy show. Currently, we have posters and postcards going up all over the place, it's so exciting. Here is the poster:


The idea was to 'un-dag' Footloose. The show is often perceived as a hollow "let's dance and sing!" show and as accurate as that may be, there's a lot more to it. I chose to focus on the element of young rebellion, the excitement of being naughty in a normally stilted life. The imagery is reflective of the American 80's industrial town which is where the story is based, so the colour palette is limited and the font is quite straightforward. I combined the grunge and anger of 'Billy Elliot' and the glam of 'So You Think You Can Dance'.

This is the front and rear of the postcard, which is along the same lines:










The front has the Who and What whereas the back has When, Where and Why. In my opinion, this is pretty successful. With postcards, you have about one second to persuade the viewer to pick the card up. Hence, the front is very red and bold with minimal info while the back has the details for those who want to know about the show.

At the moment, the producer and I are working on the program, desperately collaborating content to go in. Namely the biographies of the performers, but I think we're going well. Tomorrow we have the head shots so hopefully by the end of next week we should have a program ready to print.

Nobel Prize Layerrrrs

The Brief:

Create an A2 poster that illustrates the evolution of any aspect of history (music, politics etc.) between the year of your birth (1988) and a year randomly chosen for you (1903).

I originally chose music but it seemed too obvious. Then it was barber shops, I was so sure that this would be a great idea so I started with that. It was a short journey because it really didn't give enough scope. For the poster, I wanted something more abstract and psychedelic, something I'd want in my room.



So I chose something I knew very little about, the Nobel prize winners of physics in 1903 (Antoine Henri Becquerel) and 1988 (Jack Steinberger). Both were involved in the research of phosphorescence, which is basically how crystals create brilliant colours when light is shun upon them. The things you learn :)

I was looking at the line work of American cartoonist Charles Burns and Taiwanese artist Feric and thought I'd experiment with that. The idea of layering, I felt, was an efficient way of portraying time in a still image.



I created the work on nine pieces of tracing paper. On each layer, I drew stunningly complex physics equtions in which have more meaning than I'll ever know. I was originally going to scan each layer one by one but realised how beautifully tracing paper interacts and fades. Therefore, I scanned all nine pieces together.


Finishing touches involved layering a few colours to refer back to, what's that word we learnt again? Phosphorescence! yay.

Benjamin's 21st Present

When Ben turned 21, I wanted to do something really special. But creating artwork for a close friend initiates a plethora of seemingly reduntant sketches. Issues such as 'that looks nothing like his nose' and 'should I draw him holding playing cards? Does he even like them that much?' constantly orbit around an artist's head.

I started by looking through an art book by French illustrator Arthur De Pins who creates charismatic, sexy and cute digital cartoons. He captures the energy of youth with an amazing sense of fun eroticism and humour so perfectly, I highly suggest taking a look at his work. Ben is a perfect example of De Pins' work; he's cool, quirky, knows awesome card tricks and the ladies love him, so I went down this path.

This is what I came up with...




I really wasn't a fan. Conceptually, it's pretty cool but I just found the execution was way too generic. I did this with copic textas and fine liner and although they create bold and colourful images, the whole thing looked forced and a bit kiddish, I think it was the shaky line work. The expression on Ben's face reminded me of that blank stare Crash Bandicoot does, however I like the pose. And the redhead on the left shows some beautiful, saucy character which I like but the rest of the girls just look like they weren't drawn with a lot of confidence. Plus, I don't like spending more than an hour on a final illustration, this took me about four.

I really wanted something that showed Ben's goofy, laid back character, so I visited the good old Derwent pencil box. What I love about colouring pencils is their openness to error. Although every movement of your hand is seen, it really adds charisma and movement to the work, which I love. I stuck with the cute, quirky De Pins style and magic card tricks. After about 45 minutes, this is what I created...





This one has way more character, it's free flowing and the composition is simple but sophisticated. The pose and expression are way more like Ben too, what do you reckon?





Happy birthday man :)

Self portrait

Hey everyone, how you all going? I'm feeling a bit ill (not swine flu) today so I took the day off work to recover and thought I'd use my spare time to do some blogging.

This is a self portrait I did in a subject called conceptual illustration in semester one this year. The whole idea was to capture how you see yourself, whether it were a conventional, painted portrait, a sketch or a metaphoric object.

My response was a mixture of collage, Indian ink and watercolour. Here I portray myself as a naive boy crossing a chaotic highway, enchanted by a mythical looking tree. Deep. The idea was that I see myself as somebody who has such an intense amount of focus which is great but also very dangerous.

It's fantastic because I often produce work I'm really happy with and find beautiful if I focus hard enough on it. It is also a bad thing as I often neglect things like friends and family when spending too much time working. There's a bit of immaturity in that, hence the boy. What do you think?

In other news, I received a letter from Vic roads telling me I need to renew my license. However, I am receiving an $11 discount as I have not lost any demerit points, BOOYAH.