FORGET THE MINIONS- artwork development

I was kindly invited to do the artwork for the upcoming FORGET THE MINIONS music collective.
Dan Joyce-the creative force behind the collective wanted to set up a music collective and a monthly event
bringing together and celebrating the best in alternative, punk, indie bands in London right now.With so much creative energy, this was a dream project.
This is an insight into the development for the first poster.

-Before I even began with any visuals i went through a process of Idea Generation,
asking myself questions such as who/what/why/when/where?
Then bouncing these early ideas off Dan and seeing what we got most excited about.

-Im not going to post these as its litrally a block of text with rambling thoughts and ideas.
but thats what its supposed to be.

Once complete I move onto a rough thumbnail stage, of thinking through drawing,
the above image is an example of that.

through the idea generation I thought about all aspects,
one of them putting thought into the format itself - an A3 poster,
and how to get more from it and do something unique and different like the collective itself

The above ideas are quite simple really, 2 posters on top of each other,
with one long image that connects when put together

I thought Where are they placed, and a lot of the time in the windows of pubs and venues,
giving a unique element of sunlight coming into play,

with that in mind i thought of how the poster could intereact with the sunlight,
having something on the back that could show through to the front,
to simpler ideas of just having the poster double sided so is viewed inside and out

these are soem of the thumbnail ideas developed a little further,
the third 'launch' night idea we took further so i didnt waste any more time

the antlers into type idea is still a valid one, and none of these ideas will be wasted and can be used again for the next.

With 3 days to design and print, we decided to keep it simple, and keep to a single A3 portrait poster,
of a visual play on the idea of a 'launch' night' i set to work looking at this idea

I delved further by simply looking online at 'LAUNCH' ]as well as other band launch nights'

photo on my laptop to quickly show the client development, liked it and carried on...

Its important to see the design in real size, so printed out some simple black and white versions
and sent the photos

experimenting with type, theres LOADS of processes i love to play with
and i wanted to develop my hand written type,
i picked up a trick along the way but was too late to incorporate [but now i know! so amazing value to me!]

but the point is i wanted to try a few things out, as i wanted there to be a difference
between the poster and the flyer

Final layout development....

these final developments are all in black in white, as i need it to be black for when i come to expose the screen or make a master for riso printing.

the final event itself was amazing! 

so much creative energy involved with this, delighted to have been on board.

Sound and Vision. Shepard Fairey exhibition

im really into the texture and layers that goes into his work,
something I really want to experiment with

-Ive been looking at ways of combining my joy of collage with the joy of drawing,

into the current social comment

texture detail - love it.

this is a rubylith, something i havent seen much in the UK,
im not sure if uk printmakers ever use it. Ive read about it in the gig posters book

looks like another thing for the to-do list!

i love ephemera and i loved this, great to see,
collected and collaged ephemera and enlarged huge

dont know what its trying to say thought. 

im loving the way other prints are cut up and pasted back together,
i really want to work into and ontop of my prints too

gif test 2

file:///Users/rider_ben/Desktop/8TH-DECEMBER!.giffile:///Users/rider_ben/Desktop/8TH-DECEMBER!.gif

AMAZING retro title sequence thing/crazy moves/amazing type

OFFF Lille 2012 Main Titles from OFFF, let's feed the future on Vimeo.

Exploring Heygate estate

Its frustrating to see such large areas of housing go derelict, especially in the face of so much homelessness, extortionate rent prices and absolutely no hope of ever being able to afford a house of my own.

I agree it may not be 'safe' - but really? is it really that fucking dangerous? dangerous compared with throwing your life into the hands of the pavement every night sleeping rough, battling freezing temperatures and all the dangers of living rough to the elements, and in a modern urban environment.

Surely, we could allow a section to be given over, let people make their own choice. Do up the place if they want make it livable, give them a chance.

Im horrified at the new laws about squatting being officially illegal, i can agree with doing something about the twats who barge in a ruin homes. but empty houses, when will distinctions be recognised? not all squatters are crack heads and its just a shame on this government that such a massive zone 1 area in london is allowed to rot away while so much could be done with it if they just gave a chance. or actually gave a sh*t.

its fascinating to see nature almost reclaim its property.
one of the reasomn i find urban exploration so fascinating.

PICK N MIX ME UP // pick me up workshop

Im proud to be working closely with Andy Ioakim and Guillermo Torres amoungst some other creative greats,
to put together a proposal for workshops during Pick Me Up 2013

Out of several Ideas we came up collectively and individually, one I took further and visualised is the
Pick n Mix me up workshop: -Create a 2D puppet from our work!

This basic idea is for us as a collective to produce a series of illustrations based on our work and style
 and designed to be cut out. Participants can keep and edit our work, and produce their own new character
by effectively collaging the different elements into one new 2-Dimentional Puppet

Amoungst others heres some of my favourite Other ideas from the scrap heap:

Using Flavoured food dye - draw food and eat it.

Using a paintball gun, draw a gun

Enterprise Week Pitch

I recently pitched for a job to re-design U.A.L.'s Enterprise Week 2013,

I presented 3, My favourite concept is this one,

boiling down the core of what this week of talks and workshops is about;

to inspire, develop skills, and teach you how to succeed.

Here is my rough, as its a pitch I spent no longer than an hour putting together something to look at,

I referenced my own work, and other illustrators such as Andy Smith who work with type.

I was very honest in the pitch, as I had worked for UAL on a fairly large scale for a number of design jobs, and i was concerned about UAL using so much of my work accross their designed touchpoints, perhaps a variety of designers to reflect the variety of students and skills would be more appropriate.

I still stand by my suggestion, its works and if actioned, would look amazing having some flash illustrated type. 

Daniel Craig / James bond #sketchathon

Little White lies put out a 1 hour brief, 

at midday they tweeted the brief:

Little White Lies ‏@LWLies

Help us! Tweet us a drawing of Daniel Craig as Bond. We'll published the best one in out mag! You've got till 1pm GMT!#sketchathon

Loads of fun so I went for it! here it is-well chuffed with it actually, 

wish i had time to experiment portraying him as a cartoon character instead, but with the time, and their background of chosen work, i went for a more life like take and not be so overly james bond

Blisters Illustrated movie show posters

Im showing the show space curation first as I found that really well done, 

this was an exhibition from a competition to illustrate your favourite movie posters

A competition I regret not doing, choosing d&ad instead [never ever ever enter a d&ad competition]

But the space was amazing! i loved the textures, [but i love old things especially buildings]

I lvoed all the movie related things like the little drive in mock up with toy cars, even giving out small bags of popcorn at the entrance! brilliant.

one thing that did go down well was the flood of people coming out and going round dalston with the print club london tubes of prints!

The work itself was excellent; 

I was really pleased to be taken to this to see a different take of interpretation, thinking about interpreting music and this was amazing. it felt as if the illustrator would pick out a particular scene, or icon, or prop and as simply as that communicated the film.

Warriors - my favourite poster

Back to the future

watership down

another back to the future, i think this was one of the most popular prints.