I’ve designed a set of bottle and pump clip labels for Amber Ales. Amber Ales are a very cool brewery based in Derbyshire with a great ethos and a bit of attitude. They wanted the core beer range to look great together but not at all corporate. I had great fun putting these together and really look forward to receiving some complimentary bottles of beer! I’m currently working on another range of five labels for Ambers Gastro Pub range. Some of which are 7% AVB. Rock n Roll.
I’m working on an international sports soundtrack for a company called Imagem. They produce soundtracks for just about every occasion and have a vast library as well as being the world’s biggest independent music publisher. I’ve just done a hip hop CD for them featuring a bear throwing money around. No I’m not featuring it on my site!
It’s been ages since I used the good old Bodoni font (Blue cover) – nice isn’t it. A real classic.
The clients are keen to have flags and/or ‘ethnic textiles’ in the design somewhere… Hopefully they don’t want both together.
I really can’t decide which way to go on this one. I like the bright colours and the font on the first one but then I also like the textures and boldness of the second one, but which is best? Only one way to find out….!
FIGHT!!
Kent Dance are releasing another ‘New Breed’ CD celebrating the best of the King label. I put together the packaging and the booklet for this release. The front cover is of a school dance in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay in the 1950′s. Photo courtesy Bert Hardy/Hutton/Getty.
It feels like I’ve been on a long journey with Marco and the guys from Superfiction. A journey that has encountered alien heads, soundwaves, abstract concepts and an Italian eye for detail. We’ve been down many roads, some of them dead ends. The SF icon that we’ve established stands on its own for a new brand that the Italian contingent hope to establish as a label, promotions company and agency.
They sent me off on a few red herrings before we closed in on the swirl SF logo and the sympathetic san serif type, whose ‘f’ reflects the icon. Below are some of my favourite memories of our long journey through time (my time!) and space.
Some of my latest work for Future Noise Music. Both CD’s are packaged in 3CD digipacks and have 20 page booklets. I’m looking forward to hearing these and seeing the final printed copies.
Posters are the flavour of the week. I’ve just done a couple of Zombie themed Halloween posters for Hydes Brewery, (I love a good Zombie), which I might put up here later, and this one for Posterity in Herefordshire. Posterity is an architectural salvage and reclamation yard with some very interesting stock. I’ve designed posters/flyers for their Vintage and Handmade Fair. I got to use some vintage fonts which keeps me happy. Apparently Santa is going to make an appearance so hold tight kids! Oh and there’s Cider and hot stew… can’t argue with that.
I’ve put my my dog drawings to good use with these ideas for Baynhams Cider. The names reflect both the nature of the product and the temperament of the breed. The designs look modern but still have a feeling of traditional country produce. I’m working on ‘Dependable’ – a labrador.
Eric Esternol is better known by his pseudonym ‘Maceo Plex’. After many years of prolific works on such labels as Treibstoff, Dumb Unit, Cocoon, Audiomatique, Modern Love, Mothership and Crosstown Rebels, Eric is launching his own label ‘Ellum’. I’ve done an identity and ‘look and feel’ for the label, using dark, rich colours and a bold typestyle. I’m looking forward to wrapping my auditory shells around new realeases on Ellum, as Eric’s influences include Moodymann, Atjazz, Isolee, and Luomo, we should be in for a treat. Thanks to label manager and golden pony boy Leon Oakey.
The epic story of the Los Angeles indie label ‘Doré’ has been keeping me occupied. A one-man operation run at street level for more than two decades, the label launched the careers of Phil Spector and Jan & Dean in the late 50s and built on these early triumphs with an extensive catalogue of pop, rock and soul 45s. Ace Records commissioned me to put together a 44 page booklet and slipcase packaging, a lovely project and a brilliant CD with great sleeve notes and photos from the era.
I’m doing some ideas for a Cafe/Bar in East London called The Hackney Pearl. I chose to use the E8 postcode for an icon that could be used on it’s own, away from any reference to the name. Typically, I’ve just found out that the premises is in Hackney Wick which is E9. Oh well, that can be changed without too much trouble if they like it.
This is the cover to the new Radioslave CD ‘Works’. Using handwritten type overlayed and at different sizes to create patterns and shapes.The inside of the digipack features another long image made out of the track titles and artists involved. It’s a bit small to make out here though. Thanks for all your ‘Likes’ and comments on Facebook for ‘Losing It’ , it makes me feel all warm inside. Sadly, the label went for something else so if anyone needs any ‘bug headed women’ graphics feel free to get in touch.
I’m doing a few ideas for ‘Get Lost’, a mix series from the excellent ‘Crosstown Rebels’ label. The brief is ‘weird, strange, twisted, subliminal oddness’, to reflect the music. I don’t know, that’s a pretty wide brief if you ask me. I’m just going to go a bit bonkers (see above!), if that doesn’t work at least I’ve had some fun and stayed away from the clichés, can’t say fairer than that.
I’ve been looking at an identity for a cafe called Salvation. It’s based near Ledbury in Heredfordshire on the site of a great reclamation yard called Posterity. Lately I’ve been collecting all sorts of unusual fonts, mostly retro styles that I’d love to use but rarely get the chance, This was my chance to use the great Circus/Funfair fonts I’ve got. The first designs I did are quite eleborate, I changed the colours to make them brighter.
I’m also working on some others with a woodblock/silkscreen feel. I’ve not finished this project yet so I might have some more designs to post soon.
Here’s what’s been keeping me busy for the past few weeks. The Ina Ray Hutton and Rockin’ Rollin’ Wedding CD’s are projects for my new client, Future Noise Music. The ‘Hey Baby’ is for Kent Records (part of Ace). I’m also looking at a George Jones CD for FNM at the moment so it’s all go. I found the art deco alphabet for the Ina Ray Hutton CD in a great book on 1930′s fonts (Dover Book Shop), scanned it in, polished it up and Bob’s yer uncle. What a great font…
This week I’ve been doing a pitch for Sony/BMG. They’re doing a series of Jazz releases and want something cool and comtemporary but with a nod to the Jazz classics. I’ve done some ideas using abstract imagery to represent the style/genre of each title.
I also did these, adding a bit more colour and introducing the idea that the abstract forms were coming from a ‘Jazz Room’. I wanted the colour palette to be a bit muted but also bright. I tried to find alternative fonts for ‘The Jazz Room’ but I love the Jazz font too much to change it. It’s called ‘Chunk’.
Then I thought it might be nice to blend the two ideas together.These might be a bit too colourful but I prefer this layout. Looking at them I think the first ones are my favourite, just really simple.
I worked on this new identity with my old friend Nick from NeuJuice. I went down to Brighton to his studio for a few days to help him out last Autumn at the very start of the project.
When companies need to benchmark their competitive performance, understand their clients or better manage their internal talent, they turn to Coalition Analytics. They supply data and business intelligence to the worlds biggest banks.
Our job was to design an identity that reflected the image of a business seeking solutions to complex and challenging problems and representing the scope of the companies activities. I designed a converging line icon that suggests the journey from raw data, through analytics to business intelligence. The accompanying serif font reflects the attributes of Coalition; trusted, intelligent, established and reliable. We worked up four very strong ideas, the people at Coalition went for this one.
You can see how Nick took it forward here
Nick worked up the final colour scheme, guidelines and website. I just did the nice bits.
Harper Collins Publishing asked me to design 14 book covers for a range of titles for Asda. Like the M&S CD titles, they had to be bright and bold and jump off the shelves. This was a great project, getting the right photos was all important. I don’t know if these are going ahead yet as the publisher was pitching to Asda. They went down well at Harper Collins so fingers crossed. If you can see the photo library watermark, that’s because the client didn’t need to buy the images for the pitch.
Rekids Record label and Luke Solomon wanted a typographical approach for the cover of Luke’s re-working of ‘The Difference Engine’ CD, something a little worn and tattered.
Instead of playing with type effects in photoshop I prefer to print out the original text. scrunch it up, hack at it with masking tape, scan it back in and repeat until happy.
I’ve just finished putting together this Doris Troy Anthology for Kent Records. The CD comes with a 24 page booklet. Designing it is a bit like doing a jigsaw, it all comes together in the end. Kent records supplied plenty of great images and the text is everything you need to know about the career of Doris Troy, or ‘Mama Soul’ as she’s known. The label asked for a seventies feel for the cover. I chose ‘Windsor’ for the main font, it doesn’t look like a seventies cliché, it’s a classic font in my (humble) opinion.
Brave New World are a film production company who specialise in unique animated stories, They produced the award winning animated version of Dylan Thomas’ ‘Child’s Christmas In Wales’. The identity reflects the global nature of the company with a small nod to HG Wells futuristic vision. It was a treat to see this come up on TV at the end of the film.
Here’s something I’ve been working on this week. It’s a new CD from Luke Solomon (Aka Digital Kid) I did a Digital Kid cover for Classic (See Classic Recordings) using noughts and ones a while ago.
This takes the idea a bit further. I was lucky to have some great photos to work with, they need to look good as bitmaps for this idea to work. It’s not got a title yet and the colours might change but Luke really likes it.
It’s going to come out as one of the first releases on the revamped ‘Classic’ imprint next year.
More work from the lovely Ace Records label. The Goodees cover and CD on body and some pages from The Rumblers CD. Both classic anthologies of great groups from the sixties. As usual with Ace Records there are plenty of great images and lots of information about the music.
Saucy! are a great little company in Brighton making… you guessed it… Meatballs!. They wanted their labels to stand out and be a bit different. It was a pleasure to do food labels for a change. I used quite muted colours here but they’re still fun.
This month I was lucky enough to be asked to put together a couple of CD’s for the marvelous Rekids label. I’m pretty sure labels boss Matt Edwards is the man behind the moniker ‘DJ Maxxi’.
The label sent me some brilliant artwork from Syd Mead, an illustrator with a cool, futuristic style. Syd desribes himself as a ‘Visual Futurist’ – I can see why.
The font I’ve used is called ‘File’ - I was really looking forward to using this font and this seemed like the ideal project to do so.
Our original design was based on some loopy type and a spaghetti western feel, this has been put aside for use on T shirts.
Make It In Music is a great site for anyone who wants to find out the best ways to succeed in the music business. The site has a huge following and offers all sorts of advice to artists on how to get ahead, with or without a major label behind you.
I’ve been doing some ebook designs as well as re-jigging the whole site so that it’s easy to read and navigate. Once I’d come up with the overall look and feel, Ian (the man behind MIIM) sent me some photoshop plug-ins that make these book covers and CD’s really come to life.
I stuck to the light blue, red and black we’d used on the site and used different weights of Gill Sans on the covers. If you’re in a band or just want to find out the best way to get your music heard, check out Make It In Music, it’s all the advice you need and there’s lots of comments from musicians and fans.
Here’s a selection of CD covers, some I’m working on now and some from the past.
Sony BMG asked for a range of CD titles to be designed for Marks & Spencers. I like doing these as much as the smaller labels. They have to jump off the shelves in a big store and that’s a challenge.
Into University provides local learning centres where young people are inspired to achieve. Often working with inner city kids, IU wanted their literature to be bright and bold. It had to appeal to the kids it was targeting and benefactors/parents/local authorities. We also updated their not very attractive font on the logo, thanks to Hugh for not taking offence when I said it was a bit nasty, I wasn’t to know he designed it.
More fun and games with an off beat record label. Music For Freaks released quirky experimental music at a time when it was hard to come by. We were encouraged to have fun with this label, there were no guidelines or restrictions. The cinema image for the cover of The Freaks first album was shot at the Barnet Odeon. We took lots of shots of Luke and Justin in different costumes, sat in different seats and then morphed them together later. We nearly didn’t get all of the shots we needed as an usher came in and said we needed to leave as they had to show ‘The Muppet Xmas Movie’ in twenty minutes time. 
I’ve done lots of compilation CD’s for Sony BMG. They asked us to do a couple of series featuring the greatest names in Jazz. It meant that I got some free Miles Davis CD’s too.
Health Exchange is a quarterly publication for health workers, NGO’s and charitable organisations. Every issue campaigns on a different subject and brings expert knowledge together.
The Sutton Trust is a charitable organisation/thinktank that campaigns for higher education for all. They commissioned Stylus to create a brochure that outlined the Trusts ethos. We used a great photographer called Nancy Honey. She made students and school children feel very relaxed, almost as it the camera wasn’t there.
The RNIB asked us to design fundraising brochures for it’s Sunshine House School and it’s Soundscape Centre. We had to stick within the guidelines, 12pt type and clear readability of course. These were a great success, mainly due to David’s photography.
During it’s tenure, Classic Recordings released some of the most innovative music around. Label bosses and internationally renowned DJ’s Luke Solomon and Derrick Carter only put the type of music out that they loved. Often experimental, sometimes spell binding, always original, Classic became one of the best labels in the UK. I think David and I did about eighty twelve inch releases and probably ten CD albums for them. We used a simple house style and made the most of the 12″ format.
Some artist were happy to let us do our thing. Others were very specific about what they wanted and that’s cool. Phil Asher pleasantly explained that he wanted a wolf-man on his ‘Woolph ‘ release. That’ll be my body and a wolf head then Phil, werewolves of London on a Classic budget indeed!
The Tiefshwarz cover photo with the little Nepalese boy was taken by my friend Nick when me and him conquered Everest (strolled the foothills) years ago. Lovely photo.
Also below is Home & Garden’s’ ‘Live on the G Line’. Classic label boss Ian was going to New York for a week. I asked him to photograph the subway when we knew we were doing the Home & Garden release. He can’t take a photo to save his life. He pulled out his camera, waved it at an oncoming train, took one shot and got a brilliant picture..
This was for the last Classic CD ‘A Classic Decade’. We stuck loads of our Classic 12′s covers on a wall and took a photo. Underneath this are a few examples of the 12″ sleeves.
We had lots of fun doing these, my favourite is the Rob Mello one below, we dressed him as a gangster and made him smoke a cigar (most unlike Rob!) There’s a rumour that Classic will be releasing new material at the start of 2011.
This is a bit of a blast from the past but I think it’s worth showing. When Oliver Peyton was introducing Absolut Vodka in to the coolest bars and hotels in London, his company asked us to come up with some images that stayed true to the Absolut advertising campaign but were specific to establishments in central London. That meant we had to incorporate the iconic bottle shape.
We based the ‘Absolut Metropolitan’ (The Met Bar), on Fritz Langs’ ‘Metropolis’.
For the Absolute Berkeley images (Berkeley Hotel), we took hundreds of photos at the hotel. It’s one of the few hotels in London with a swimming pool on the roof so we got some shots and then did some playing on Photoshop.
The Orchid Pub Group are revamping hundreds of pubs across the UK. They asked David and I (Stylus) to design some identity work that would look good in a couple of colours and could be translated in to menus and other point of sale material.
My favourite is the Dove and Dragon, the only one they didn’t go for!
Here are a few examples of Identity work I’ve done. I like doing identities, it’s great to concentrate on a company name or a product and work on a single icon that will be just right. Not everyone needs a ‘logo’, sometimes a typestyle with a little twist is enough.
Ace is the leading reissue record company in the UK, specialising in rock’n'roll, soul, funk, blues, jazz, R&B, garage rock and punk. They are a brilliant company to work for and all of their CD releases come with 24 page booklets that have a proper history and discography of the artist, band or musical genre in question. I was lucky enough to work on ‘More Miles Than Money’, a CD compiled by Garth Cartwright, who travelled around America seeking out the best of ‘real’ American music.
There are lots of great tracks on the album and the CD booklet offers a short biog of each artist. The CD has had great reviews and is available from Ace Records. I was really pleased with the finished product.
As always with Ace it’s nicely printed and the music glides seamlessly between folk, country, blues and rock.
There are lots of great photos too and images of most of the original record labels.
