Isle of Man TT Poster

Other than design, one of my personal passions is motorcycling. Growing up, my father rode motorcycles and I have always been around them. I have vague memories as a young child of going along to motorcycle shows at the NEC in Birmingham, loving being surrounded by all these fantastic machines. Along with this hereditary love for motorcycles has come a great interest in racing of the two wheeled variety. When it comes to bike racing there is one event that stands head above the rest, the Isle of Man TT.

The Isle of Man is the oldest time trial road race, dating back from 1905. The heritage of the race interests me greatly. I am a huge fan of racing from yesteryear, loving the simplistic style of the bikes both mechanically and aesthetically. This combined with my love for vintage graphic design, shortly following an exciting weeks racing from the island inspired me to create a poster design for the event.

My aim was to create a design that was reminiscent of the great road racing of the 1960’s. For me this era yielded some really beautiful looking bikes and brilliantly simple design. I wanted to create a poster that looked authentic from the period, emulating the airbrushed style of the time. This posed the challenge of creating simplistic shapes, emphasised by subtle shading hinting at detail. Applying filters and textures helped greatly to age the piece and hide the digital methods used to create it. Typographically I have tried to be faithful to design of the time, using a block sans serif alongside a hand styled script adding flow and emotion to the text.

As Fathers Day is just around the corner, I am planning on getting a nice framed print done for the old man who passed on the obsession to me.

MōVI short film

I was really taken in by this short film. It may be a little lacking in narative, but as a purely visual piece it really is beautiful. What really struck me was the fluidity of the shots, actually achieving seamlessly smooth follow filming that rivals that of a major Hollywood film. The pacing of the film is fast and energetic, featuring a lot of running shots, all perfectly stable. It really is stunning to see action, but with composed serenity while maintaining involvement.

It wasn’t until I saw the behind the scenes footage that it all came together. The short is a promotional piece for the new MōVI camera stabilisation rig. I had seen the rig elsewhere and was impressed with its reaction to harsh movements, but it wasn’t until I saw a product of the device that I was really blown away by it. For me this is something that has been a long time coming, a light portable rig that allows run and gun film makers to achieve seamlessly smooth cinematic shots in a range of usually awkward scenarios. The introduction of DSLR’s into video has given amateur film makers a very powerful tool to work with and really given anyone the opportunity to make fantastic short films on a small budget. The cumbersome nature of DSLR’s for moving image is their biggest drawback, but with more and more projects like the MōVI being created I think this is a really exciting time to be involved in film making.

Bonobo – The North Borders Deluxe Boxset

The release of Bonobo‘s new album The North Borders is something I have been looking forward to for some time now. Being fan of his work for quite some years I always excitedly anticipate new releases, interested to hear the development each new album has taken. Every time being taken on a journey in a new direction. Something Bonobo is great at is creating a narrative which builds track by track. This latest album is no exception.

Besides thoroughly enjoying this fresh album musically, I was also blown away by the artwork for The North Borders Deluxe Boxset. Music in general has become very difficult to sell with illegal downloading so accessible. Physical format sales have been hit particularly hard by digital music. However this delux boxset gives a great incentive to support the artist. It really is a beautiful package, containing seven 10″ records a CD and three posters (and of course digital download) housed in a presentation box. The artwork throughout is fantastic. Beautifully simple and clean geometric design combined with analogue imagery and physical textures. Its great to see something a little different being done, this is exactly what needs to be done to make tangible formats attractive to consumers.

If you haven’t heard the album yet, check it out in full here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYU4qFWm4zc

Then go and buy the Delux Boxset here:
http://bonobomusic.com/shop

Mechanical meets digital

The guys over at Instrument have used an interesting juxtaposition of new and old to create this unique 1973 Honda CB750. The CB 750 is no stranger to the cafe racer treatment, but this inspired take on classic motorcycling is something else. Their aim was to bring an air of Apple to the old girl. The little details are what makes this bike, this is where the inspiration comes through. The creation of a bespoke app used on the Apple iphone taking place of the clocks is something I haven’t seen anywhere before but is perfectly fitting for this project.

For more information visit: http://weareinstrument.com/blog/all/instruments-honda-dcb750

Stone Glass Concrete & Gravel – Poster

A self initiated poster design influenced by the lyrics of Jamie T’s The Man’s Machine.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meta_design/6903257072/

PressPausePlay – A Truely Thought Provoking Documentary

A close friend of mine, Tom L recommended this documentary to me. It really got me thinking about the creative industry and creativity as a whole, especially our dependency on technology. It makes the point that technology in the current age has freed up at to everyone no matter how skilled they are, and as a result there are many more people making things, which is brilliant, however does make it harder to stand out and get noticed.

Its a brilliant documentary and has certainly got me thinking and more importantly wanting to create thing!

Toy Factory Package

So I was in Bristol a little while ago and picked up this beauty of a package in local skate shop 50-50. Sat in amongst the free magazines and fliers sat this intriguing brown paper envelope. The cover art sold it to me, for the very reasonable price of nothing!

Sadly the majority of the contents wasn’t so beautifully illustrated, it comprised mostly of fliers advertising up and coming nights. However there was one double sided poster inside that raised my hopes again.

New Website!

To go along with the recent new logo I have also made a new website!
The website was built to continue the new brand that I am currently building up. It is much more clean and user friendly than the previous site and easier to maintain, meaning it will be updated more frequently!

So get yourself over to www.metagraphics.co.uk have a look at my portfolio and let me know what you think.

New Logo!

A little while ago I felt the Meta Graphics brand needed updating. So I spent some time working on concepts and sketching, trying to come up with something that is clean sharp and professional.

I wanted something that shows the kind of design I do, and this is what I came up with.

 

Long Awaited Return.

So, I havent updated in a long time, things have been a little hectic over the last year.

In that time I have studied the final year of my degree, exhibited in the college Summer Show and at New Designers in Islington, London, and of course recieved my final grades.

Lets start with the final year of my degree. About this time last year I embarked on the end of my time studying at Plymouth College of Art, five years to be precise. Over that time I realised my love for design and been shaped into the person I am today. During the final year I got to work on some exciting projects covering Commemorative design, Direct Mailing, Hand Made Gift Ware, Business Plans, Interior Design / 3D, Package Design, Branding, Promotion, Hands-on Construction, Screen Printing and many more that I have probably missed.
Quite a lot of areas to cover in a year isn’t it! Its defiantly been interesting, and hard work. Many of these examples can be found on my website. There has been a massive learning curve over the past year and hopefully that is just the beginning!

Exhibitions! Now these were fun, after a year of working tirelessly on many projects that had remained hidden from view, except to examiners it was time to show it all off. Starting with the Summer Show there was a lot of work that went into the construction and fabrication of the exhibition space. I love to get hands on when ever I can, the opportunity to be productive away from a computer always grabs me! Once the show was built there was little left to do than open to the public and celebrate. What a turnout we had!

So after a good week long exhibition it was time to tare it all down (after carefully removing all work!) and get ready to do it all again in London.
New Designers was a great experience, the set up was frantic within the one day period we were allowed but it all came together just in time. The exhibition itself was fantastic, a huge turnout of 15,500 visitors across the duration and around 3,500 fellow exhibitors and graduates. It was a great place to get people from the design industry to look at your work and also brilliant opportunity to get to see what other graduates have been producing from around the country. The whole experience was hugely inspiring, not only looking at graphic design, but illustration, product design and spatial design. So many things to stimulate you!

Ok the final section of this post. Phew!
So after all this work I received my grades. I am ecstatic to say that I now have a 1st class BA (Hons) Degree in Graphic Design!
I am just awaiting the final Graduation Ceremony in early October.