After much deliberation and extended printing deadlines, i’m proud so say that issue 13 of SuperSuper finally hit stores early last week (massive sigh of relief)
Apologies for the late uploading of the Blog we are well into issue 14 at the moment. Below are just a few of my page layouts, you may have trouble reading the text as these are super low quality PDF’s for web viewing purposes, but you get the general idea.
Besides if bothers you that much go out and buy a copy innit.
PEACE!!!
SALUTATIONS!!! Sorry we haven’t spoke in a while, been crazy busy putting together the music section and a few other bits for issue 13 of SuperSuper, which will hopefully go to print either today or tomorrow (fingers crossed). I’ll upload some of those pages within the next few weeks for your viewing pleasure, after I survive the chaos that is London Fashion Week.
Anyway I have an interesting story to share, which involves yours truly and a major sporting label.
While we were putting this issue together in August my boss and mentor approached me about doing some basic mock-ups for a comissioned advertorial that Adidas wanted to run in the issue. Basically we were given free range to come up with a concept that promoted their autumn/winter range. My boss sat me down and pitched a concept to me about creating an Adidas inspired world that was quite bright and colourful and had a children’s animation type of theme, in which we would cut out the models and place them into this bright fun filled landscape. I went away done some research, a few rough sketches and really threw myself into the project. The advertorial would run across 3 double page spreads so I came up with the notion of breaking each page up into different times of the day in our so called Adidas World: sunrise, noon and a night time setting.
I pitched my idea to my boss and presented him with these illustrations and i’m proud to say he loved them, as well as everyone else on the SuperSuper team. It was a real special moment for me being this new-bee on the mag and being presented with an opportunity like this on my first issue, not to mention having everyone from the team gathered around my computer commenting on and supporting my work.
The next stage was to shoot the models, get the high-res images then cut them out and place them on to my backgrounds.
With the exception of photography and product credits, this is pretty much how the advertorial would have run. We dropped these pages into the rest of the magazine layout and we were all really pleased with the outcome.
HOWEVER!! Once we sent the proofs off to Adidas to mine and everyone else’s complete and utter dismay, their product manger was not as receptive about the feature. Although they had given us free-range creatively they did not like the theme and the overuse of their logo, they even disliked the look of one of the models we had selected. With this being said we were way too close to deadline to make the necessary changes and in the end it was axed from this issue and put back to our next issue out in November (BUMMER!!)
For me it was a weird and exciting experience. On one hand I got to deal with one of the biggest brands in the world, I put a lot of time and effort into completing the project and I did, so I was more than proud of myself. When it was rejected yeah I was a little down but on the upside this is my first issue, I feel I have learnt so much just from this one experience alone, most apparent the importance of strong levels of communication between client and designer, and even though the word free-range may be included in the brief to still remember the nature of your employer and to make sure that your vision is in sync with theirs.
So I walk with my head up high stay proud of my efforts and look forward to the next time my path crosses with the legendary Adidas.
PEACE!!
VIZ.
New poster boyz of ‘Hipster-Rap’ The Cool Kids’ drop their album “The Bake Sale” this Monday, check out my boy Ian’s review to see if it’s worth your hard earned cash at 3 BAR FiRE.
This took me two days to complete, DAMN i’m getting good (lol).
IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME I SHOULDN’T HAV LEFT U WITHOUT SOME DOPE PICS TO FLICK THRU!!
That’s right peps like Superman i’ve returned. Apologies for the unexpected leave of absence, your boy’s been off battling aliens in the far off reaches of outer space-whilst at the same time homing my creative skills and building some solid foundations for the next step.(exciting stuff)
I also managed to land a position on the design team at style mag SuperSuper (very exciting stuff) which you’ll no doubt learn more about as the month progresses.
August promises to be a very busy month indeed, I have a lot to achieve in a very short period of time-but i love a challenge and am excited by what lies ahead. Let’s just hope i haven’t checked myself into rehab before the end of it.
Peace & Love
chat to y’all soon
VIZ.
This is an illustration I did in response to my good pal Ian’s review of the new Giant Panda album, posted on the 3 Bar Fire website.
I’m looking for different ways to keep the creative juices flowing in between commissioned work , and this is certainly one of them. I’m going to aim to do at least one illustration a month in conjunction with a review written by Ian.
3 days of solid fun!! Check out Ian Hsieh’s review of the new Giant Panda album here.
This is a project I completed about a week and a half ago, it’s my entry for the Manchester Urbis division of this year’s Diesel Wall competition. I had some real fun with this image and set myself quite a challenge bringing together a lot of different elements in a short space of time. I stepped outside my comfort zone in terms of colour and whatever the outcome of the competition I’m proud I achieved all the goals that I set myself for this image.
The style of my work has kinda come full circle as I am applying some old skool Bauhaus notions (with a VizCom twist of course), concerning the relationship between colour, composition and geometrical shapes that I learnt as a young pup back in the day studying Art GCSE. (Ahhh a simpler time)
In February 2008 two creative minds got together to discuss the plans that would go into motion to introduce the world to Tokyoyoyo. Now a good few of you who have kept your ears close to the street will already be familiar with this name and will associate it with some DAMN GOOD MUSIC!!!
Now meet the FACE behind the music….
More yoyo art work on it’s way, in the meantime for all upcoming gigs and the latest yoyo news check out
www.myspace.com/tokyoyoyo
PEACE.
So I took some good advice from a good friend and finally decided to jump on board with the whole on-line community thing and create my own blog.
I aim to use this platform to showcase most of my work, to help motivate myself, keep you up to date with the goings on of my career and to give y’all some insight as to who I be.
Enjoy!!
