As my third week at Red C draws to a close I can only look back and wonder how it’s gone so quickly. Nonetheless after relocating to Manchester, finding a new flat, and establishing an acceptable groove in my office chair, I thought it was about time ‘the new boy‘ contributed to the agency’s ‘We Like’ page.
So I thought I’d share the work of the satirical sculptor Maurizio Cattelan, (like you do). To say I’ve been a fan would be a bit much but I can definitely count myself among his many admirers.
Back in 1995 I saw a film that simply blew my mind. The film was pretty good, but the thing that blew me away about it was the opening and closing credits. The film was the thriller Se7en, and everyone I knew who was into design at the time was instantly inspired by it. It was from this point I began to take more notice of title sequences in films, which soon introduced me to the work of Saul Bass and Stephen Frankfurt… who created the superb title sequence to ‘To kill a mockingbird’.
Fast forward to today and I have to confess I still love a good title sequence, in fact sometimes it feels that the actual title sequence is better than the film (as was the case with this title sequence from the movie Sahara). So it’s probably no surprise then that one of my favourite places to visit on the web is the fabulous site www.artofthetitle.com.
At Red C we love letterheads. Which is probably a good thing since we’ve designed quite a few over the years. In some cases, a letterhead is the first thing that many a customer or client sees when dealing with a business, so having one that is aesthetically pleasing, impactful, memorable and professional is incredibly important. It’s safe to say, though, that designing a letterhead for a business is relatively a straightforward design challenge.
So imagine, for example, if instead of a business, we were tasked with designing the letterhead of say… the leader of the Third Reich. Or maybe a scientific genius, a film director, an animation company, a master magician or the Prime Minister. I wonder how we’d go about designing then.
When I was a kid I used to absolutely love spending time on the sofa, headphones firmly stuck to my head, listening to a wide variety of LPs that were stacked in in the corner of our living room. I’d spend hours listening to a wide variety of music staring intently at the album covers as the music drifted into my ears and allowed my mind to create stories influenced by the pictures on the album art in front of me.
Now… I’m not going to confess what albums I used to listen to as a child, although am sure if my sister read this she would happily divulge the musical crimes of my youth (Mr Roboto by Styx may appear in that list of crimes), but one of the many album artists that had a profound impact on my imagination growing up was the incredibly talented Storm Thorgerson.
Saul Bass was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century, but also the undisputed master of film title design. With a career spanning over fifty years – which included collaborations with Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese (among others) – the work he produced was consistently innovative. While always of the moment, Saul Bass’ work is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago as it continues to appeal to the audience’s emotions and intellect. Read more…
Can a picture really paint a thousand words? Well, yeah, if Noma Bar designed it. A modern-day master of the ‘less is more’ approach to design, Noma’s ingenious use of negative space gives his work a startling subtlety that creeps up and smacks you between the eyes.
Throw in some incisive wit in his creative handling of current political and cultural issues, and you’re looking at one of the most prestigious designers of the minute. He’s hot stuff. And once you’ve seen his work, you’ll know why. Read more…
Confession time. After a week striving to produce fabulous concepts and design work for our clients I sometimes like to unwind by looking at fabulously bad concepts and design. One of my favourite places for this is a wonderful blog called Awful Library Books, the brainchild of Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, a pair of public librarians from Michigan who catalog the outdated, weird or just completely insane books gathering dust on library shelves across America.
We’ve had some pretty big books in reception over the last couple of weeks, so thanks to Tracey Gibbs and her fab collection of photography books… we have a tiny one this time. But don’t let the size fool you… these photographs are as amazing as any of the ones you may have seen in those big books!
Mick Williamson makes small, intimate photographs; with an intuitive feel for light, contrast and texture, he captures the fleeting moments of everyday life, finding beauty in the smallest scenes and details.
You get a great feeling of pride when you see your work appearing in a book. It’s like that nice feeling you got when your Mum put that picture you did at school on the fridge for all the family and relatives to see. I knew when I received my copy of ‘Touch this, Graphic Design that feels good’, that I had a piece inside it… it was only when I flicked through the pages that I was amazed to see three pieces of work I did with my then Art Director, Simon Rowlands, had been chosen to appear in this fabulous book.
Compiled by Designer Scott Witham, who has worked for global clients including Sony, Virgin, Orange and the Royal Bank of Scotland, ‘Touch this, Graphic Design that feels good’ features intriguing projects that incorporate a gamut of “you can’t print on that” materials, including pleated, Issey Miyake type forms and razor-thin metal business cards; X-ray film; heat-sensitive inks; ceramic tiles; and carpet samples. In short, there are design solutions in this book that use any and everything, except plain paper.
After a few fun, intense days of editing I’ve just uploaded my entry to the Getty Mishmash Music Video Remix Competition. From the moment I heard about this competition I knew I had to enter as it gave me the chance to dabble in two of my favourite things: music and film. There was also the small matter of a shiny new 17″ MacBook Pro with Final Cut Studio installed for the winner. Phwooar. The rules to the competition were delightfully simple: make a music video using Getty footage and music. Er that’s it. After whiling away a few hours sampling the delights of the Getty film footage catalog and music collection an idea began to taken shape. You can see my video ‘The Devil & Mr Jones’ here. I’m excited about the result although i’m up against some stiff competition from those pesky professional film directors/editors. Feel free to post ego massaging comments after you’ve viewed it. Thanks.
As my third week at Red C draws to a close I can only look back and wonder how it’s gone so quickly. Nonetheless after relocating to Manchester, finding a new flat, and establishing an acceptable groove in my office chair, I thought it was about time ‘the new boy‘ contributed to the agency’s ‘We Like’ page.
Confession time. After a week striving to produce fabulous concepts and design work for our clients I sometimes like to unwind by looking at fabulously bad concepts and design. One of my favourite places for this is a wonderful blog called 
We’ve had some pretty big books in reception over the last couple of weeks, so thanks to 
You get a great feeling of pride when you see your work appearing in a book. It’s like that nice feeling you got when your Mum put that picture you did at school on the fridge for all the family and relatives to see. I knew when I received my copy of ‘Touch this, Graphic Design that feels good’, that I had a piece inside it… it was only when I flicked through the pages that I was amazed to see three pieces of work I did with my then Art Director, Simon Rowlands, had been chosen to appear in this fabulous book.
