Erm, 'Drumming up Business'

I was recently interviewed for the Freelancing site PPH, here's a link to the article. It's been pretty good for my profile, and a few people have been in touch to say they've seen it, or they'd like my advice on starting up, it's really nice when people make the effort to appreciate your work.

I do regret sending that photo in though, to say I've got a Moon Face in it is a huge understatement. I know I was happy that day but it's no excuse. 

I'm a little more conscious of my 'Moon Face' these days since we took our 2 year old Archie to the Space Centre in Leicester at the weekend, and bought him a little Space Shuttle. I carried Archie out of the museum after lovely day, on my shoulders, and on the way out he kept trying to say (in his broken baby English) "Land, shuttle, on Daddy, Moon Face." I mean he's 2, so he can't lie. 

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes... Interview, yeah, it was good, have a read.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010

Contra Versum Poster

This was a nice brief I won through PPH, movie posters are kind of the ultimate career goal for me and this is the first one I've had a chance to do. I think it's a 'One Sheet' which I'm informed is something a writer takes to a pitch to help them sell the script.

It's made from an illustration I did about a year ago for Paul Weller's album 'Wake up the Nation' which he didn't use, and went on to have one of the shitest covers I've ever seen (it wasn't designed by me BTW).

I'm really happy with how the artwork came out, but would have liked more access to the actual film visuals, and more logos and cast information to typeset on the poster, just to give it a more authentic feel.

Still Weller's loss is someone else's gain, I'm sure he's gutted.

N13 Logo

I'm very busy currently working on the New Cassettes album and single artwork, (which is looking really great, and I can't wait to share with you on here,) we're working with N13 Music in New York. Everything was progressing nicely, until, we got to a point where the pack art was finished and it was time to drop the logos on, and they remembered they didn't have one.

No problem, Citizen do logos.

And that's how it happened.

Plugged in and switched on.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010

Back to the drawing board

As mentioned previously I'm trying to work more and more from paper beginnings. Especially with logo design I'm starting to explore the relationship between the letters and words more with a pen; rather that darting around in Illustrator.

I think my lack of formal training has meant that I've never really done this, and the need to get jobs done quickly has always been a barrier. Since the start of the year I've done 5 different company logos and all of the best results have been from paper to screen. (Not that these are the ones that got chosen).

I wonder how many designers really work like this anymore? As stated previously, it's my aim to bin the laptop and send all my work in the post by the time my laptop (which feels like it's on the way out) dies.

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Glasgow Wedding Collective

This was a nice little job that I got through our Wedding Tea Towel contacts, the brief was really well constructed and GWC sent me so many ideas and references that I really got a good flavour of what they were looking for.

The basis of the logo was a font called 'Handmade' and from this starting point we worked to embellish it, creating a decorative 'Rococo' feel that works well in the industry while at the same time eluding to the companies 'collective' nature.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010

We Are Low Culture Poster

Low Culture's a new web site launching in West Yorkshire, it's all about music and the arts. It's not online yet, but check out the Low Culture Facebook site the real site goes live in October and it will be www.wearelowculture.com.

The brief for this was pretty laid back, I wanted to work something around the idea of 'Low' and 'Underground', and started work on something that was quite a direct take on that. I'm actually really proud of this piece because rather than coming from a starting point of something I'd seen or a piece of stock photography it all came from my head and a blank sheet of paper.

I wanted the objects to all represent a part of the sites focus and culture, some of them are obvious like the instruments and comic (American Splendour - my favourite, RIP Harvey Pekar), but others like the Viewfinder and kite hopefully offer an insight into the idea of writing styles and perspectives of the contributors.

Each layer was built up with textures blended on top of one another, the sky was drawn in, and the grass was created using a Photoshop brush. All the objects were found on Google searches and I chopped parts of them away to make them look half buried, then shaded around the back of them and Vivid Lighted the shade to tone it all back in.

I'm also pleased with the 'lead line' on this, it happened quite naturally, trailing from the kite down to the logo was a bit of a happy accident:

I love making artwork that's creating something from nothing but an idea like this, I'm really happy with the finished poster, I hope the people of West Yorkshire tear it down and blu tack it to their bedroom walls.