Soil Association Brochure

This advert was on the front of the brochure we received at home with our organic fruit & veg box delivery.

I thought it was a really well executed idea. Using the veg to make the face of the pointing figure from the war time "your country needs you" posters. Amusing and striking. I read the other pages too, so it clearly did its job to get the viewer interested.

Vagabond - Self Summer brief

I decided to make a small brief for myself during the summer. Short and sweet I decided that, should one day I be lucky enough to run my own graphic design company, what would I call it. It is a question that had been knocking around in my head for a while, so for a bit of fun I sat down one day and came up with this:


It is hard to think of a name that encompasses all aspects of design and to call it simply James Roberts Design Studio would be a bit crap to say the least. I took the name "Vagabond" from a Bob Dylan track I was listening to on my i-pod whilst running. I came home and looked up the meaning of the word. It derives from the Latin word 'vagari' which means to wander. Also, "leading a carefree life" "having no settled home". I liked the sound of the word and also the meaning. It has derogatory connotations too, mostly western associations with tramps.

So, I decided to call my imaginary company "Vagabond". I wanted to make a fresh logo design, that was simple and using mainly typography. I chose the type face Myriad as I liked the way the V was so similar to an upside down A in shape and it also had a modern feel to it, essential for a modern design company! Just the type on it's own wasn't enough though, so I decided to knock the bar out from the cross section of the two A's which made them look even more like the V and V, A and N all looked a little like arrows pointing in different directions. I then reversed the N so that it appeared backwards to give it a quirkier feel but still kept its legibility.

I then put a grey gradient colour on it as I thought this would be easy to reproduce for letter heads, business cards etc and under the word Vagabond I wrote the words that I would like my company to transmit, "Fresh" "Design" and "Ideas" I chose to put this in orange to give some bright and fresh feel to the graphic, also the associations of orange are summer, sun and the fruit itself, with happy and fun being amongst its connotations.

To bring the design together, i drew a line underneath and another breaking eitherside of the three key words.

I am quite pleased how it turned out. It is exactly what I was looking for, although when I look at it now I see the design linked more closely to a surfing/clothing brand than a design company...maybe I'm in the wrong business! I realised shortly after completing it that there is a band by the same name currently on the play list of Radio 2, so now it looks like the most unoriginal name for a design company. I might as well have called it "Oasis Design"!

Moon

After visiting London again this week for what seems like the 50th time this summer, I kept on seeing the film poster advert for a new film by Duncan James, I watched the trailer and thought the photography and imagery used was stunning. I'm not really into Space and all the Sci-fi genre but the film looks fantastic.

The Moon always looks great with a dark space like background, but on the poster instead of going for an obvious look they decided to use continuously decreasing circles to represent the Moon which really catches the eye. I think using an image of the Moon alone would have maybe made the film look more like a documentary. But this simple black and White image with a graphic Moon, really made me want to see the movie.

more here

This week I have mostly been looking at...

Whilst using the excellent local library (otherwise known as Borders) I was flicking through some books and fond work by Klas Ernflo. What caught my eye at first was his simple graphics with some really great type. I checked out his homepage and found myself looking through all of his work and I don't think there was one thing I didn't like. I think it is his simplicity but also quirkiness. He is based in Barcelona, which I had no idea of until I checked out his site.

http://www.klasherbert.com/

I saw these adverts for Star Wars convention and thought they were ace!

There are more here.

First Commisioned Work!

This summer has seen me produce my first piece of design work that I will be getting paid for. I must add at this point it was done for my girlfriend for her new business and payment consisted of her taking me to dinner, but I'll take all I can get!

The business id for an Image consultancy, where people are unsure of how to dress and act when going to a new job or just in their private lives. Working with someone as a client and a partner can actually be very demanding, as I was kind of finding my own way as I've never produced a branding design before.

It took me about a month of evening work from start to final print and I learned a huge amount about what needs to be done to produce something like this. Its not a case of designing something and that's it, I had to oversee everything from early drafts through to printing.

I don't know who is more pleased, the client is delighted with her "look" and I am too for the experience. I produced a business card, paper and compliments slip. Here is the business card.

Summer stuff

I'm doing evening classes in Graphic Design as well as my Uni course and I've just finished it. It's been a bit of a slog to be honest, the standard isn't too high and as a result I lost interest around Christmas time, but as I'm a stubborn bugger, I wanted to see it through.

My final project was to produce a poster themed around Sanctuary. After doing all my research etc., I decided to do complete it on the War and Remembrance Day. This is my final poster. It doesn't really rank amongst my greatest achievements but I think I executed the poster well and it also helped me gain some new Photoshop skills too :-)

For some reason the colour has inverted during the uploading process...hmm...will leave for now and try and again later.