Cool, cool, stuff

Last Sunday afternoon (whilst I was nursing a Burns Night head), my kids were playing lego and had built a mad structure, a kind of cantilevered house over a river with drawbridges and rooftop rooms. There was a garden and animal enclosures. For more inspiration, I showed them all the architecture pages on The Coolhunter site. All they could say was 'Wow!' and 'Is that really a house?'. At the end, one of them said 'It does make you think that our house is really, actually, like, quite boring.'

Burns Night

Today the Scots celebrate Burns Night which we celebrated with friends last night. The traditional meal of Haggis, neeps and tatties was served and whiskey was drunk. This got me thinking about tartan... I Googled tartan and this fun site came up. Have a play on it. See my version above.

Spring Tulips

I seem to be getting a lot of inspiration from nature at the moment, despite the wet, rainy weather. The boys and I walked through the garden the other day and saw snowdrop shoots poking above the ground. We were trying to remember the order that the bulbs come up in the garden. First snowdrops, then crocuses (or should that be croci??) daffodils, tulips and then in May, bluebells in the woods.

Moleskine

As it is January, I have been thinking about diaries and stationery lately. Actually, if I am honest, I think I think about stationery quite often, I am slightly obsessed. The most famous range of planners, notebooks and diaries has to be the cult Moleskine range. I have recently discovered that their website proves that I am not the only one obsessed... People use their moleskines for the most amazing range of projects. The blog Moleskinnerie is where they all hang out. There are even customised Moleskines on show at Etsy.

This year it is the 5th anniversary of Moleskinnerie and a competition has been launched to design a limited edition cover design to commemorate the event.

Winter colour inspiration

I love working with colour and start any project thinking about the colours that could theme it or that would be appropriate to the task. At the end of last week, I was working on a job and it was at the stage of checking the cmyk print colours before final print. Everything that I was looking at was on screen (rgb) and proofs were on inkjet (rgb). I was being pestered by the dogs to go out and as I looked out it way grey, cold, windy and very January gloomy outside. No colour inspiration at all. However, as I walked and being already tuned in to colour, I saw it everywhere, grabbed a few pics and have sampled a surprising winter rainbow. The colours that are missing are pale yellows and strong reds (although I saw 3 dried up holly berries looking like a tired, past-its-sell-by-date christmas decoration). I love seeing a palette of colours pulled out of an image and use this as a way to colour type against images in brochure design. This is why I am addicted to Kris's color stripes blog.

New look newsletter masthead

I have just received this sample (not the best photo) of a newsletter that I designed whilst freelancing for an Agency. The client had an existing advert which used some vector graphics combined to make a funky collage. I selected a couple of these vector images and incorporated them around the new publication title 'Plugged'. I chose a chunky font and removed the letterspacing to give a solid feel against the free graphics. The format is an unusual 4 page narrow A3 size that folds to A4 (ish). I established a 2 column grid for the text with 2 wide cols and an assymetric margin to give some space and interest to the layout.

Brick House Farm

Here is the first glimpse of a new brand I have designed for a smallholding offering accommodation, produce and home produced meat.

Corporate Identity Design

This is identity for an Chambers and Company, an accountancy firm in Brighton. I have applied it to a range of stationery items and am currently in the process of designing a new website.

New corporate identity and website design

I have recently completed this corporate identity design and website for a business consultant. It looks as though I am just designing in blue at the moment but you can see more identity designs in other colours at earlier posts here and here.

New Website Designs

Mark Griffiths is a woodworker and talented craftsman who makes beautiful things in wood.
He asked me to design a website for him as a showcase for his work and skills. The holding page is live, the remaining pages are currently being worked on. See it so far here.