james and the giant peach

A childhood classic, James and the Giant peach, has it's look re-imagined. This design gives the book a more contemporary feel whilst encapsulating the themes of escape and magic.

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round 3!

Ok, third shot. Colour change and adjustments to the type, let me know what you think...I will let you no that staring at that pink on screen for a while really messes with your eyes! Enjoy...

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100 years of solitude: round 2

So, this is my second attempt at this book cover. It is radically different to the first, but different is good...right? Anyway let me know.

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100 years of solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude appears to be a very strange book from the reviews I have read of it. This is a draft of one of the ideas I had for the re-design of the cover...got a crazy pattern going on, let me know what you think of it.

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life in the, very, slow lane

"Hey Matt, what is life like at 2000 frames a second?" I hear you cry, metaphorically obviously. Well this promo vid for the Canon 7D shows you. The footage on this is insane, I'm not talking about the lame BMXers, just check out the rain it looks amazing.

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P.s. I know I have been posting a lot of videos and animations recently as opposed to actual graphic work. I am looking trust me, plus some of my own work will be going up soon I promise. But for now, just enjoy the awesomeness I am trying to provide. Much love.

the new Rodney Mullen?

As you can probably tell I'm not getting too much done today, other than playing with my new phone and nerding out on the internet. Regardless, I came across this video and I was simply stunned. For any skateboarders out there, this is for you. Additionally, any random Rodney Mullen fans will either be incredibly impressed or possibly resentful of this guy. I present to you the new Rodney Mullen, Killian Martin.

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just a quickie

A quick post for you guys now, considering I'm meant to be doing work. Came across this on a friend's twitter post ( @Hyperkraft check it). Never been a massive fan of the band really but this interactive video is insane...don't be afraid just leap in and do it you won't be disappointed, I promise. HTML 5 just doing its thing!

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something for you to enjoy

You think I may be becoming slightly obsessed with French animators but you must understand that I just came across it and thought you internet people would enjoy it.

It's creepy and a bit scary but beautifully executed with quite a nice twist at the end. Watch and enjoy..

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just to fill you in

It has been a little while and for that I apologise. I have been quite busy, so you must excuse me. Anyway, bit of a re-cap, the Uni project I was talking about is now done! Sweet. The group's outcome looked pretty damn swish I must say. But not all is quite over, we still have to present our work. The presentation is on the 4th so wish us luck.

Corridor Using Our House Style

And now we move onto the next project...Site. This task asks us to take an everyday object or area and make it extraordinary! My object you ask? It's my Xbox controller. The first stage, as in most projects, is research. So questions I asked and I created a couple of graphics to explain some stuff.

Ronald McDonald as the master villian, sounds about right

Picture the scene, I was scouring the internet the other day (probably avoiding some manner of normal life) and I came across this little gem. Created by French animation collective H5, this excellent short film uses huge brands as the basis of characters, buildings and many other ambient elements to essentially show the worlds end. A tad "consumerism will end us all" but nevertheless fantastic. Superb animation, wicked story, slightly long but definitely worth a watch. Happy viewing.

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3 in a day...bit much? probably but I'm catching up

Ok so last one today I promise....unless i see something particularly cool. What is the topic for this little post I don't here you cry. Well, on Wednesday night, as part of the Cardiff Design Festival, there was a design battle. If you are wondering what a design battle is consider the following...2 macbook pros, 2 projectors, 2 wacom tablets, 4 teams and the geekiest couple of hours you could wish to witness. In essence it was awesome. The way the battle worked was 2 teams go head to head to design a CD cover. The name of the band, album and the genre are picked out of a hat by the two teams, then in a tag team fashion each member of the team takes it in turns to create the 45 minute masterpiece.

This competition was organised by the design company Burning Red (click the link, check them out...they are very good). Anyway, long story short a friend and I got roped into this competition due to people dropping out. We were not looking forward to it. However, during the first heat we got into it and really enjoyed it. Miraculously we won the round with a rather over the top hip-hop cover (it's what to expect form hip-hop right?). The final loomed, the tension was high...not really, we were drinking and having a laugh. Nevertheless we were there and had drawn our band, album name and genre. It was punk...time to grunge the crap out of it. Time passed and beer was drunk; then the final whistle. The crowd voted and for the second miracle of the night we won, again! Dumbfounded, we smiled away, completely surprised by the outcome. All in all a very enjoyable, if not unexpected night. Massive thanks to Burning Red and the Cardiff Design Festival for setting it up and of course the crowd who carried us to victory.


The team hard at work. Left to right Dan, Matt, Jon & Matt



Work in progress

it's year three and we've got it all to play for

It came to that time of year again when Uni lurched in. I must admit being back in the student life is wicked, I cant fault it...except for the lack of money but that's a way of life these days isn't it? Anyway that's enough of scary money talk and back to scary 'Uni's starting' talk. Our first project is to create an experience for Cardiff Airport, now I don't know if you people of the interweb have ever been there but trust me it's pretty bleak; like über clinical, please don't take my spleen when I'm not looking, bleak. But the people there seem friendly enough.

This is a, kind of, but not really, live brief with Elmwood in London. They came up with the brief and set us to the work. The strange thing with this project was at the beginning we weren't exactly told what we were meant to deliver, this was frustrating to say the least. However, 3 weeks in and it seems that people know the score, partially anyway, even if some people didn't get the feedback they were looking for. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with, should be interesting.

so it's been a while

I know, I know, I made a promise to myself to start a blog...and in fairness, that's what I did. Unfortunately, it was maintaining this blog I have let slip. But never mind onwards and upwards.

So here it goes...catch up time. Over the summer I had an awesome work placement with the Brand Union in London. The experience was great, the hostel we stayed in wasn't but that's not the point. Working in a professional studio was somewhat different to student life, nevertheless it was interesting, exciting and for a small period of time scary. I am pleased to say that the placement went very well and I learnt quite a lot, mostly about how a big studio works and finishing early on a Friday to have complimentary beer and pizza is awesome.

 

This is an introduction leaflet I was asked to produce for the studio. I liked it at the time but I'm not quite so sure now.

Other than that the rest of my summer was spent either working(ish) or just chilling out so nothing too monumental to report.