Love Chocolate, Love Thorntons!

I am over the moon with my purchases from Thorntons! Not only am I chuffed to bits that I bought around £50 worth of chocolate for £16 (£20 including delivery), but I also impressed at the awesome presentation of my purchases. I'm loving the graphics displayed on the shipping box and am loving even more the graphics displayed on the chocolate boxes and the menu cards; especially the continental boxes. It's clear that great attention has been paid to every aspect of the presentation. Great job from the designers at this company. Not to mention that the chocolates are delicious! I would love to say that I plan on sharing them, but they taste so good I'm not sure I can make any promises.

My Very Own Birdseye Polar Bear

I really am starting to worry that I'm an advertisers dream... but for now who cares because I'm the proud owner of a Birdseye Bear. He's called Patrick and he's adorable!

Very clever advertising from Birdseye, loving their promotion advert and I'm surprised I've only seen it on the television once. So incase you haven't seen it yet, please enjoy this link.

Birdseye Advert

Frame Wall

The center piece for the frame wall at work is all finished, printed and framed. I am very excited to finally see my design printed and framed, can't wait until the rest of the frames are up on the wall. The numbers on this designs correspond to all seven frames which will surround this centre piece. They are examples of the different design works carried out by Picture This.

Motorhead Gate-Crashes Frame Wall

At work we are in the process of designing an inspirational frame wall. We're about half way through and I have been allocated both the main central frame and one other, fairly large frame. For the fairly large frame the design is finally complete. The theme is 'typographical image' and as I had this song in my head all day I decided to design some 'eye candy' for it. The central frame is almost complete but still has a bit more work before it goes live. I can share the non-central piece now. Once the central piece and the frame wall is done I will post photos.

Steve Jobs Tribute

It is very sad to wake up this morning to the news that Steve Jobs has passed away after losing his battle with cancer. It's at times like these when we can see that life is truly precious and we should value every moment of it. Thoughts go out to the families of everyone who have lost loved ones to cancer and to those who are still fighting the battle.

Poor Neglected Blog

Time has been running away recently so a schedule has been drawn up to allow enough time for some personal design time outside of work design time. Some posts should be arriving shortly of some new designs, plus some post of designs I've been observing and collecting over the past few months. Finally got around to signing onto Google+ this evening. So far it seems very good. Easy to navigate and very user friendly in communicating the site functions etc. Very pleased.

Yarn Bombing

During the writing of my dissertation about graffiti, I was intrigued to discover this form of knitted graffiti called yarn bombing. I don't recall having ever seen it out on the streets and really wished I would stumble across it. I was thrilled to bits, therefore, while on holiday near Canterbury when I saw two bikes outside a shop which had been yarn bombed. They're so beautiful it almost makes me want to learn how to knit so I can do a bit of yarn bombing myself. This might take a while, so for now I shall have to leave it up to the professionals.

You wan'a piece of me?

I love to be drunk

Now that university is finished I plan to set myself at least one design brief every week to remain in the swing of design while looking for paid work. Today I began with designing some posters which have a pun or comical connotation to them.

The first is shown below, the second is a slice of cake with the type reading "You want a piece of me?". The second poster is still in progress but will be posted once it is finished.

Next Batch

As of June, we are the next batch of Graphic Designers to be unleashed upon the world. To mark this occasion we have organised an end of year show to demonstrate our talents to everyone. We have self funded part of this and organised fundraising activities, an open mic night and a cake sale, to generate the remaining funds; both of which were a huge success.

Our work will be displayed at the University Campus Suffolk for two weeks from Thursday 9th June 2011. The private show is Wednesday 8th June, this is invite only due to the allocated space. We look forward to see all those who can make it at the show and hope you enjoy our display.

Please follow the link to our website for more information.

Next Batch

 

The Pantry

From the latest and final university project. I chose to design a store which has an accent theme of the 1950; to combine 2010s recession with 1950s rationing. The store aims to encourage people to bake for themselves at home while also buying freshly baked cakes in store. The main focuses of the project were simple 'how to?' movie's and recipe cards which corresponded with the cake you bought; so carrot cake = carrot cake recipe.

The movie uses simple graphics to illustrate step by step instructions to baking a specific cake; the storyboard shown in second image

The recipe cards are part of the take-away box. The folds of the box are perforated so the recipe card can be detached from the sides; please see the second to last photograph for this.

Gift boxes were designed so a cake or muffin can be bought as a gift. They do not contain recipe cards, though they are finished with a decorative ribbon.

Finally, packaging for ingredients such as flour, sugar and baking powder were designed.

All of the packaging design can be see in the final photograph below.

Harping On

Apparently there is to be a Royal wedding this Friday? It's come as quite a surprise really, I mean, you'd think someone would have mentioned something by now? Oh no wait, they did, roughly every five seconds for the past month. Ironically including my post, but its for a good reason as it points out that it's not all bad and there is at least one good thing which has pleased me from this occasion; that is Charlie Brooker's report on Ten O'clock Live last Thursday. He showed a clip from a BBC program, documenting how Catherine Middleton came from a family of coalminers. In response to this program Charlie Brooker commented,

"Hmm... Yes... Incredible. Apparently the early Middletons were a species know as homoplebeous. Primordial, primordial northern slug folk who lived in holes and foraged for mud, but now thanks to generations of cross breeding with more advanced, more southern humans they’ve evolved into a life-from that can mate with a royal without contravening bestiality laws. If only, if only Kate can make it down the aisle on her hind legs without defecating we’re in for a magical day."

I must admit, even a week on, I am still laughing to myself every time I think of this. Please follow the link if you would like to see the whole sketch. Some parts are liable to offend, but it is very funny.

Charlie Brooker clip from Ten O'clock Live

In line with the conclusion of that clip, I am tempted to buy one piece of Royal Wedding memorabilia... the faithful vomit bag ready for the special day. These screen printed bags are beautifully designed and are the most practical thing you can buy ready for Friday. Personally I prefer the purple and gold, shown below, compared to that national rail red and blue; which seems to be the allocated colours for some reasons. It doesn't really say 'Royal Love' to me; though the below seems more fitting for the event.

Family Tree

I've always known I have a fairly big family, but I wondered just how big? So I decided to graphically represent everyone and find out; only counting from both sets of my grandparents. I counted blood relatives and their partners they are married or in life commitments with today; so divorced or separated spouses are not included even though they may have children with a blood relative. Deceased have been represented with an outlined circle.

I was very surprised to count there are one hundred and fifteen people! Deducting those who have married into the family or are life partners, a total of seventy-six people have directly descended from both sets of grandparents. In the past eighty to ninety years since my grandparents were born, that's a lot of people... almost one every year.

Treading the fine line between work and play

It was a risky thing to do, but I just couldn't help playing around with a few rebranding idea's for my friends company before actually telling her what I was up to. Half way through setting myself this project, I suddenly realised that she might actually hate what I've done and take great offence to this rebranding gesture. Thankfully though, after humbly approaching her with the ideas she loves it and isn't at all offended. Though she would like to have a rebrand which keeps certain elements to her current brand, she has said she'd love for me to take this project on. It's a good start and I'm looking forward to continuing with this project.

Aled Lewis

Without a doubt, this work by Aled Lewis is the funniest I've seen in quite a while. The genius use of toys and comical quotes, taken from real life and films, are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Would love to have them framed and hanging on my wall.

Aled Lewis