Busyness Cards & Record Collecties

Here's a nice bit of work I just completed for a client from the good old US of A. The Folkman Brothers -- it's not just a snappy name, they are actually brothers!



The initial brief was to produce a design which was mirrored, each side containing the contact details of one of the brothers. After the first draft of thumbnail ideas, we decided to go with all contact info on one side, and a nice bold design on the other.




This was an enjoyable project and I'm pleased with the end result.

Here's something else I recently produced for a friend's site. The site is currently a work in progress but the idea is that it will be a resource for record collectors. The banner image is supposed to convey this idea that even when our civilisation comes crashing down in a broken heap, record collectors will still be detirmined to track down that rare first pressing of the 'Chalky and the Smash-Hammers' EP on beef coloured vinyl!



I'll be sure to give a head's up when the site is live.

I'm working on a couple of projects; updates soon...

Update Drei

So. Euro-Flatstock 4.

I sort of think there should be an addendum to the the definition of Flatstock from the API site, with a seperate description for Flatstock Europe.

In theory they are both very similar creatures (and to be fair, since I haven't attended a US Flatstock, who am I to suggest they are different at all?) but after numerous chats with some of my US poster-comrades, I am reliably informed that what the Euro event lacks in commercial returns, it makes up for in camaraderie and, most important of all, mayhem.

Over in the States, Flatstock draws a crowd of actual gigposter collectors and enthusiasts: people who's most highly regarded passion is the collection of screenprinted gigposters. They often buy 2 copies of posters they like -- one to line their nest with and the other to be archived away in the hopes that it one day be worth a million in US Sterling. Some artists actually make so much money from selling posters they suffer from "Fiscal-Flu", literally an illness brought on by an overdose of cash.

Flatstock Europe, on the other hand is a loose cannon. A wild card. A Thunderdome. A potential death-trap.

About half way through a three day event where you sit at a stall surrounded by your own work, in the middle of Hamburg's red light district, you are hit by the "Flatstock Malaise". You start to tire of having bemused passers by ask you "What is a Melvin? What do these posters mean? Why are you doing this?" and you start to question the legitimacy of your very existance. I mean really, is this behaviour becoming of a gentleman? Why are these lovely German folk buying armfuls of posters from some artists and completely ignoring others? Is it time to start drinking yet??

At this point it is vital that the Euro'Stock Artist put aside every shred of negativity and doubt. It is essential that the fundamentals of the event are understood: You might make some money, you might not make some money; but you WILL have a lot of fun.

I was lucky enough to make a few sales and come away with a very small profit; but of far greater importance was the camaraderie and good times. It was great to meet up with old friends and make new ones. Everything from the 5am drinking to the Sunday Boat-ride to the constant in-jokes were tackled with aplomb, and that for me is the real success.

I took plenty of photos and there are numerous others doing the rounds online but in all honesty it's hard to choose even a handful which will adequately sum up the experience. Here's a shot taken by Dina Howard of myself and boothmate Cameron Two Ducks Disco, whose pleasant company and tolerance of my nonsense was much appreciated!



A billion thanks to everyone involved in this year's Flatstock Europe -- from all the other artists, to the Reeperbahn Fest people, to the API (and the real API), to the boat-driver, and to the punters who bought stuff (and even those who didn't).

See you next year.

Update Zwei

The next exciting addition to the Flatstock Europe parade of goodness was the Beatles themed print exhibition which took place at the newly opened Beatlemania Museum.

The brief was to produce a print inspired by a Beatles song of the artist's choice but without using any obvious Beatles imagery, song lyrics, or anything otherwise held tighly within the giant blue fists of copyright control. The last thing we would want is Paul McCartney turning up with his flamethrower and torching the place (as we all know he is want to do)...

Being a fan of winged and beaked beasts, I chose the song Blackbird. The song isn't bad either.

The printing process went incredibly smoothly and this is one of the rare occasions where, at least to me, the final print is actually far better than the Photoshop file I worked from.

I actually photo-Tweeted the process while I was printing this, something which I hope my Twitter followers enjoyed. This is probably something I'll do again, so if following hot print action, live as is performed, is your kind of thing you could do worse than follow my Twittery goodness.

Anyway, here are some snaps of the print process (mostly using Drying-Rack-Cam):






and the final print, signed and numbered:



4 colour screenprint, signed/numbered and limited to 50.
£22 including postage within the UK -- drop me an email if you are interested in purchasing one.

The exhibition opening was a lot of fun and very well put together. There was a free bar and a two-piece Beatles tribute band played which Luke Drozd and I very much enjoyed heckling. An additional, and very welcome, surprise was that the exhibition space also contained a selection of photography work by contemporary music photographers -- some of which were by none other than my old mate Danny North! Small world and all that.

Here's some pics of the museum entrance, as well as the exhibition space. I'm particularly proud that they translated my daft artist biog into German:





The work by the other artists involved was superb, I'm sure much of it is floating round the web for your viewing pleasure. A hearty well-done to everyone involved and a big and sincere thank-you to Dan McAdams for his sterling work in liaising with the right folks to get this off the ground, and of course Monika and everyone at Beatlemania Museum Hamburg.

Thanks for reading. In my next update, we will journey into the booze-breathed maw of the Flatstock 4 beast itself!

Stay tuned...

Update Eins

I think I'm now sufficiently recovered from my Hamburg trip to be able to regale you, dear readers, with some tales...

Of course, the main reason for being there was to take part in Flatstock Europe 4 but a welcome addition to the activities for this year was a couple of extra exhibitions organised to work in partnership with the 'Stock, and with the Reeperbahnfest as a whole.

The first event which took place was the Squeegeedragger exhibition at the Galerie auf Halb Acht.

Organised by good Northern lad Nick Rhodes - Switch Open, the brief was sent out to various poster designers and print makers to paint, decorate or otherwise customise a squeegee handle -- the wooden fella that is used to pull ink through the mesh during the screenprinting process.

Now, confession time. I found this a bit of a struggle. I haven't physically painted anything in quite a while, and my current style of quite crisp shapes with plenty of texture is not one easily replicated in paint. But after a few false starts, I'm pleased (read: no longer horrified) with the end results.

The most important thing is that it challenged my otherwise normal creative process and that I got to contribute to a worthwhile endeavour. And that there was plenty of beer at the opening.

Without further ado, here's some snaps of the exhibition opening as well as the piece I contributed:





These photos were taken by Nick Rhodes, (you should check out his workhere) and you can see more pics of the exhibition and opening night on this Flickr page hither.

Mega-thanks to everyone involved in the show!

More Germany updates to come...

Auf Wiedersehen

I'll be back in a week with tales of Euro Flatstock 2009, taking place at the Reeperbahn Fest in Hamburg, as well as an exhibition at the Halb Acht Gallery, and to top it off another exhibition at the Beatlemania Museum.

See you in a bit. x

Satellites

I recently did a spot of work for local singer-songwriter Daniel Pearson. Daniel commissioned me to come up with a logo and cover for his soon-to-be-released record, entitled Satellites.

Once budget and deadlines were all agreed I got to work on some ideas for the logo. I also produced some very quick thumbnails of possible directions the cover might take -- at this very rough stage, this was just to see if anything jumped off the page in terms of concept, colour or composition.



Daniel had given me some insight into the themes of the record, mentioning that 'communication' was a strong one. For me personally, I liked the idea of the circular telephone motif, as it was indicative of an orbiting satellite without taking the too-obvious route of actually using an illustration of a satellite.

As luck would have it, Daniel liked this design also, so I set about refining the idea:



While I would have been happy with moving forward with any of these designs, as soon as I had mocked up the black on red version I knew I'd found my favourite. More and more, I'm finding myself attracted to the idea of refining something by removing the elements which don't contribute to the overall idea -- leaving only the idea or concept behind, with no distractions.

Knowing that the record was being released digitally, it made even more to sense to have a bold but simple, almost iconic, cover which would really stand out at the sizes it would be displayed in the iTunes store.

I always try to be as sensitive and diplomatic as possible when outlining my own opinions to a client. Obviously I want to create work that I'm happy with but at the same time ensure that the client is happy and that the choices are made as a partnership rather than me dictating the direction of any particular project.

I think that when the right design is there, however, there is no need for discussion! Once again, I was chuffed to have Daniel share my preferences and give me the go ahead to produce the final cover design:



In terms of the process from initial ideas through to final design, this was almost a model project from start to finish -- delivered on-time and to-cost!

Daniel was a pleasure to work with and you can check out some tracks from the record on his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/danielpearsonofficial

Kane, Ku, Lono, Akua!

Night Marchers posters are printed!



Here are some photos of the process in all its hot printing glory:


Taking a quick iventory of my inks.


Your most humble host for this session!









This is a closeup shot of the wall inside the washroom room, which is almost entirely splattered with ink (and a good example of why I could never run a screenprinting setup in my own home!)




Pretty loose and dirty registration -- just how I like it.

A chunk of these will be winging their way to the band and the rest of them will be for sale just as soon as I can sign & number them.

More work very soon!

Finally Marching...

Firstly, here's a quick photo of the exhibition space from the Holbeck Music & Art Festival which was pretty well attended and had some varied and cool work on show. The space was pretty large -- look out for a follow-up exhibition sometime in September.



In other news, I'm happy and relieved to be preparing to print the design I did for the Night Marchers gig back in October of 2008 -- finally! I'm printing these primarily for myself and my friends who put the gig on, as a souvenir of an awesome evening.

Here's how the seperations are looking thus far:



I hope to do the actual printing sometime in the next couple of weeks.

A couple of Eventfuls

Some of my poster work will be appearing in two places in the country, simultaneously, this weekend.

HOLBECK MUSIC AND ART FESTIVAL
Saturday August 1st, 1pm - 9pm

Taking place near the Cross Keys and Midnight Bell pubs in Holbec, Leeds -- you know where I mean? -- this is a FREE event with music and art and very likely plenty of good beer (try the Leeds Ales in the 'Bell, and the Organic Cider in the 'Keys, respectively).

Click here, to have a look at the Facebook Event listing for directions and more info.

...and also...

SERIPOP
A weekend of printmaking, illustration and live music
Friday 31 July – Sunday 2 August
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

Canadian super-art-ers and noise-rockers SERIPOP (Chloe Lum and Yannick Desranleau) have joined forces with guest curator Sophie Brown to bring a weekend of design, print, illustrations and live music to BALTIC.

Somewhere in amongst the extensive list of fantastic stuff going on will be a few posters by me.

For more information, click here.

This promises to be a great event, and it's a shame I'm unable to make it myself. The BALTIC is a fantastic looking building -- just look here!

For anyone else who plans to attend either of these events -- or if you plan to attend neither, and perhaps just stand outside in the rain, cursing the skies -- have a good weekend, all.

On Your Wall

Some of my HIDDENS prints are on display this forthcoming weekend as part of Leeds Met Gallery’s On Your Wall event, an exhibition & art sale featuring the work of 25 carefully selected artists (or should that read 24 artists... plus me?).

There will be an opening drinks event taking place this Friday 3rd July, 5 til 7pm. I will be there, feel free to come and join me.

The event continues over Sat 4th - Sun 5th, 12-4pm each day.

For further information swing on over to: www.leedsmet.ac.uk/arts/whatsone.htm