On T-Shirt and Bag Designs
Bags Detail
Here’s a little taster of some designs we’ve been working on for an upcoming fashion label, Fischer & Williams, whose website we’ve also recently designed. More designs will be added to their site soon but we just couldn’t wait to showcase our favourite design – a seemingly whimsical illustration of shoes and handbags sure to appeal to the ladies… until you notice the sinister momento mori hidden within! Do make sure to have a peek at some of the other items. Read the rest of this entry »
On Scalpel Skills
Hand Cut Wood
Looks like Dre’s not the only one who’s got dem crazy scalpel wielding skills. For one of our current projects, we decided to make a custom typeface to use for a logotype. Our idea was to create blocky, geometric letters with a wood grain texture. After realising a CNC router couldn’t turn around the woodblock within our timescale, we had a crack at making our own woodcut printing block. Read the rest of this entry »
Shameless Self Promotion
LMA Business Card Front
Hooray! Our new LMA business cards have arrived! After a bit of hair-pulling and a few times back to the drawing board, we ended up with some lush looking cards.
We chose a medium grey Colorplan stock called Smoke and our logo was foil-blocked onto the front of the card in a gun-metal grey colour. The smooth surface of the foil proved to be a nice contrast against the textured uncoated stock.
Architectural Salvage and Coffee
Old Sign
Here’s a post for those who love to fill their homes with unique items that are rich in history. Several days ago we were in Vauxhall to check out the exhibition at Gasworks, and during our wandering we stumbled upon this great architectural salvage shop, called Lassco, not far from Vauxhall Station. I had heard of this place before, but I’d never been, so we decided to have a peek. Read the rest of this entry »
On Counter-Design
A while ago I stumbled across this photo taken by Zara AKA CommandZed of Punchcut in SF, which shows a sadly typical gay-bashing* message we would expect to see adorning a placard waved by a bigot. The truly curious aspect is the rather delightful hand crafted – presumably – constructivist influenced typography. I decided it was unfair that such negative message have sole use of such typography, and crafted a counter-poster in retaliation! Read the rest of this entry »
On Loves Lost
Oh Grafik. How I’ll miss you. Like any relationship, it’s only now that you’re gone that I realise how much I cared. But it seems I didn’t care enough. When I heard the bad news I sat down with a stack of back issues and poured over them as if they were snapshots of happier, care-free times. I started reading you some time back in 2004, in the middle of your MadeThought run, and continued faithfully reading – and loving – you through the SEA days. But then something happened. Read the rest of this entry »
On The Things That Clients Say
“Are you sure the logo is 20mm wide? I checked the artwork you sent me and it looks much larger on my screen, it’s almost as large as the screen itself”
I kid yea not. Turns out he was actually holding a ruler to his screen.
Of course, this was a client from back when I was working for a London based printer. Our clients wouldn’t ask questions like this. All our clients are lovely.
On Zen and Japanese Pop Punk
Disclaimer: if you’re the kind of person who can have an office meltdown in front of others while listening to a song about banana chips, then frankly you deserve some kind of medal. And a sabbatical.
I earned my art-working stripes in a busy large format printing company in London for several years. The hours were long, the deadlines short, and in that cramped studio tempers flared with an alarming regularity. I was once asked by a visitor how I managed to maintain the air of ‘a calm island in a turbulent sea of chaos’ (their words, not mine). It turned out my secret was neither profound nor especially esoteric. I used music.
The twist is I didn’t listen to anything you might find at a spa or yoga class. Truth be told, I find myself entering a bloody-minded rage if I even see a pan-pipe, and I will merrily eat my own keyboard if I’m subjected to more than two bars of Enya. Which band did I turn to when the expletives start flying?
Shonen Knife.
Once those three minute candy-filled nuggets of bubble-gum pop started blaring out of my speakers I found it impossible to become irate – not because they’re soothing, but because you look like a complete tit if you decide to blow your top while an all-girl Japanese pop-punk group regales you with a paean to Sushi Bars.
Hello world!
Lest we be left behind as the world trundles on we finally put our collective wills together to formulate our site.