Howdy Partners

I've recently updated the Citizen site to include a list of partners that I work with, I'm hoping this will increase Citizen's offering and expand the size and scope of work we're able to go after.

You may also notice that we've gone from an 'I' to a 'we'.

The first person on the roster is Maria Ingram. I've worked with Maria for many years. She's a creative copywriter who's got a good eye for detail, and a sound conceptual brain. She's great for bouncing ideas around with, and then sewing a concept up with a neat little strapline.

Next up, Karen Brown. Yes my wife, but also my partner in business and someone I've worked with at my previous agency. Karen is a great help to me at Citizen, she's an incredible organiser, and solid strategic thinker. Previously Karen worked at BBH, on the British Airways and Audi accounts where she was named 'Project Manager of the year in 08 and 09'.

Finally (for the moment) Phil Sharp. Phil is a magnificent photographer, I've worked with him lots of times over the years including on the One Leicester campaign in 2009.

Phil's work had been all over the place in The Guardian, Wallpaper, Time Out and NME, and he's recently been directing the photography on some short films. What makes him such a great portrait photographer is, (along side his technical skills) his ability to relax his subjects, and really get the best out of them. I really enjoy working with Phil, the best work I've done has come from this partnership.


So, there's the basis of the Citizen team, and I have no plans to stop there. If you think you have something to offer us, please get in touch and perhaps we can create something together.

I've taken some pretty big meetings in the last couple of weeks, and I've got some interesting projects lined up, so far so good. One month in and Citizen is still standing, I'm proud of that.


www.citizenstudios.co.uk
Ben@citizenstudios.co.uk


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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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RAW Productions logo

"Simple, modern, and conveys something about what we do."

The 'A and W' represent film strip, in pervious versions they has beading along the edges to look more like film, but after some discussion we decided to drop that and go with a subtler approach.

This is the second logo born from the pad, as part of my New Years Resolution, all conceptual logos are starting life as pencil drawings. For my sins this isn't something I've always done, it's always been too easy to jump straight onto Illustrator and take it from there. It's working out nicely, one day I hope I can get rid of the Mac all together and send my client their designs in the post.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010

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.