I share with you today a relatively old project, in that it was over in the first half of my degree, last year. Of course, one may also say that it was just three months ago, but that does not convey the depth of my realisation toward my end at the Cambridge School of Art, and that this end is nigh. More on those musings later.

This ‘Independent State of Mind’ brief got us thinking on a smaller-scale, and — much like the Circus Poster brief — to adopt or make use of pre-existing visual language. Of which I must add I am awfully fond of.

Although I cannot exclaim much enjoyment for talking or responding directly to myself, I do appreciate the opportunity to view myself in the most light-hearted ways. Hence, for this, I appoint myself as Chairman of a fictional Northern-European island whose main export is fine knit wear.

I mostly enjoyed taking dictatorial portraits of myself because of course, on Hibbend, my people celebrate my position and the jumper I wear all the time, so why would they not want my face on their expensive stamps and small portions of the pattern from said jumper, too?

It was on this project that I acquainted myself with the University’s laser cutter. We cut things together with much precision from imported Illustrator documents and forego aching wrists from extensive scalpel stroking. We are in love. As much as any organic and synthetic partnership could be, anyway.

The point being that we made extraordinarily good stamps together, even if ‘precision’ does not extend to 1:1 relationships between measurements from the documents to output. We just won’t talk about that.

Well here’s what I did for that Christmas project. Funny thing about sequences, is that you’re supposed to keep them aligned with each other. You know, like, looking similar. I definitely developed my idea of what they should look like as I went along.

Maybe I’ll redo the first one.

There are some photographs over here.

As I have said, I’ve been doing some work. This is one drawing in a set of five inspired by the work of M. R. James and a story in particular titled The Ash Tree. The brief: to illustrate key moments from the story.

Thinking about it, this image may be a spoiler.

Might add some smoke and more flames to this, and when the five images are complete, I’ll get them up here.

I’ve been watching a lot of Jackie Chan’s films this week while getting through this brief. Today I looked up at Mr. Nice Guy to see a koala, figured I should take a note.

Look forward to sharing the real work with you.

About a year ago now, I made this box, for a brief to repackage a dull item found for under a pound and make it a little more enticing. To make the undesirable, desirable.

I found a shoehorn, which I believe to be a complimentary gift from shoe seller Clifford James, which I paid way over the odds for, a whole fifty pence.

Drawn to its ridiculous inscription, “Compliments of Clifford James,” I decided it needed ironic treatment, an exaggeration of its class, or to at least transplant in some of the class it lacked.

I spent a long time thinking outside the box, failing to come up with anything interesting whatsoever. It was through obsessive handling of my horn that allowed to reach the seminal moment, devising this mechanism.

I liken it to the silver dome on a silver tray that ones butler may bring food to them with. Dinner is served, and, your shoehorn, sir.

I like pop-ups, me.

The video was shot on an iPhone 4S, in low light —you’ll notice the horrible grain— and the music is by this band called World’s End Girlfriend, whom I recently discovered and am enjoying very much.

Alongside collaborative partner, Mark Kenny, the last three weeks have been spent mostly animating this short film for its premiere held yesterday, 6th December.

So, the brief was to make some puppets and perform a show, or make some puppets and do moving image. As much as I love to put on shows, I chose to do moving image – I just feel it’s better in line with my practice. I like a bit of stop-motion, and I like a bit of film.

Restauranto is the story of an incident that did occur…not including everything. Based on a true story, then. But the purpose of the film is to put the viewer at a dis-ease, to convey how uncomfortable I get when a dirty person asks dirty-ly for my food that I’m eating outdoors. I’m just into hygiene, I suppose.

I should note that this bloke didn’t steal anything.

Of course the opposite effect is possible, the sheer contrast between the two moods of the piece could certainly be humorous and put the viewer at complete ease — it took me several views to ensure I would not laugh at its premiere — but this of course, is up to you, dear viewer.

Might do a ‘Behind the Scenes’ post, but might not. It has been a lot of fun. I hope to keep the animating, and its standard, up. Watch this space…or alternatively, watch my space on Vimeo.

Tell me what you think, eh?

Anybody following this blog will realise that my updates were few and far between over the Summer. Handy then, for all my experience, that an illustration competition of the theme ‘Self-Motivation’ should land on my news feed.

The brief from LMNOP Shop: to produce a 3-colour risograph-ready 190×190 image based on the aforementioned theme.

I’d like to say it was easy because the concept did hit me as I was reading the brief through — of course, that could also mean it was a well written brief — but for the previous few months I had been trying to push myself to create a self-motivational poster to no avail.

No matter, it was a winning entry. I like that. I don’t often enter competitions for various reasons of indignation, yet this one seemed fair and I had a good feeling about it. Win-win.

So here you can see the final product, and buy it, if you like. It’s lovely though, glad I’m getting two free copies.

Note to self: Must research Risograph, I love it.

This photograph was taken for the first brief in the module ‘Ideas Through Design’, a module that looks and sounds to be the one I’ve been waiting for.

Quick personal update, I’ve been suffering the dreaded Man Flu for the past week but otherwise thoroughly enjoying the second year of this BA in Illustration. Popped to Seville for a week (and should probably upload some drawings from that) and feel like I’ve been pretty proactive since I’ve been back, which is nice, and a far-cry from the rut of the summer. So, good.

More to come, soon, my poor neglected blog.

I’ve spent the last few days mostly figuring out media queries for the age of Responsive Web Design. For a long time I’ve stayed away from elastic- or liquid-layouts because they seem more hassle than they’re worth, not to mention I’ve never seen a nice typographical outcome in any situation that I’ve seen them at work.
With JAR Renovation‘s website I will be building my first website designed to shift content depending on the screen size. Not only do I believe in a ‘one web’, but mobile stylesheets intimidate me. To have the help of Andy Clarke’s 320 and Up has helped me find the best way to tackle the issue of smaller-screened-web-devices.

Just building that navigation bar was challenge enough, so I’m excited to have the opportunity to learn these new ways. I hope to share more, perhaps even some tips, as I come across the problems I solve; providing I solve them successfully!

So, although my progress with programming still largely revolves around setting up a framework for making a game that works, I’ve tried to keep up my patience and inspiration by preparing my character. Ian lives!

I’m still a long way off writing my game, there a few example games I think I need to code up before I will have a reasonable idea of how I’m going to go about making a substantial release to the iTunes app store. It scares me a bit, perhaps because as of this moment I am understanding mostly what I am writing, but haven’t a clue how to transfer it to my original idea. I wish I’d bothered with programming a long time ago.

I hope that this little animation entertains – for now.