What was your lockdown project? Mine was to renovate my 1996 GT Vertigo BMX. Sat rusting in the back garden i restored this trusty steed back to its former glory. 🤘🤘🤘
Off the back of this i got looking at old BMX frames and designed some prints around the classic British made Raleigh Burner an 80s icon.
“Blue thunder shall ride again!”
Back in ‘94 my local Chinese take away, the Win-Wah House got in the new Street fighter II arcade cabinet. Myself and school friends at the end of the academic day would spend the remainder of the day playing Street fighter until we were either kicked out or ran out of funds. either way i think we kept that place open on 50 pence pieces for about 18 months.
These are pixel perfect renditions in large format of the original game characters. This is a technique i developed through Photoshop and Illustrator to make pixel accurate renditions of video game sprites. My next step is to animate them as they would have been on a 16 bit console.
Hadouken!
Jupiter was at its closes point to Earth for many years last night. I managed to capture it along with 3 of its moons!
Last summer i sat in the garden with my camera, tripod, shutter release timer and some beers. Here's the result.
Having a re brand. i try to do this at least once a year. If find it hard to design for myself as I'm my harshest critic. Keeps me busy and sharpens my skills though!
Growing up in coventry i always felt the city had it's own individual sound. We would always as a family, go into the city centre every Saturday afternoon In the precinct there was a news paper seller who shouted 'city final!' so much it became one incoherent string of vowels.
Along with the sound of people footsteps and chatting under Peeping Tom square and the rev and hisses of bus engines at Broadgate. This cacophony of sounds played like sound track to each of these regular visits.
All of these sounds would reverberate of the megalithic walls and bounce down the claustrophobic narrow concrete walkways, all adorned with extractor fans and pigeon spikes while stalactites of rain water drummed on hour heads.
In coventry you were audio incubated in concrete.
It's hard to escape it's stark architectural skyline. since Coventry was bombed during the war it's ruined city centre was flattened to make way for a more progressive layout and style. Although brutalism is hated by some, a lot of people love it purely for it's nostalgic value. I for one do.
The fuckyeahbrutalism.tumblr.com/ is a great place to view global Brutalist architecture.
You can follow The Brutalist Appreciation Society on Facebook here.
The This brutal house Twitter is worth a look too.
I had a great two days last week up north in my university town of Hull working with video production house Slate & Mortar producing promotional videos for The University of Hull. Interviewing ten students describing their experiences of gaining a University place through the clearing process. I managed to take some behind the scenes shots during production.
It was great to see how Slate & Mortar work as well as visit a town where I spent some very happy times and made some great friends. Hull has really come on as a city (It was always great to be honest) and has really embraced the City of Culture status.
Ever since the days of my paper round listening to 90s hardcore and rave on my Walkman (I was too young to drive round the M25 hunting raves) i have always loved the sound of the squelch of the Roland TB-303 and the rhythms and beats of the Roland TR-808 and TR-909. These Synths are synonymous with Acid House, Techno, Rave and dance music culture.
About 10 years ago i re discovered Acid House and re kindled my love of Techno. There is no way i could afford a Roland Tb-303 or its counterparts so i sat down a drew them.
You can purchase a poster of these 3 synths in my shop as A2 full colour prints. If you love Techno, Acid house feel free to comment below telling me your favourite track that uses a 303, 808 or 909!
Astley Book Farm
Bedworth is a town north of Coventry that has for years suffered a reputation of being rough and and dead end. Once a vibrant community, it's town centre has been slowly eroded away into charity shops by 2 large Tesco super markets opening close by.
However, if you travel out past the Woodlands area west of the town towards Rabbit Lane (once mentioned by George Elliot in one of her books) You can find the Astley Book farm. A barn converted into a second hand book shop and cafe.
In here you can find a library of second hand books for sale ranging from rare first editions to paper back pulp and old comics.
I find this a great recourse for inspiration and has an amazing selection of old science fiction books. If you go make sure you sample the sandwiches. They are awesome!
Some recent purchases...
Creative block or the graphic design doldrums is not a nice place to be. Recently i could not find a creative itch to scratch. The wind my sales had dropped and i was stranded in a sea of procrastination and facebook.
When ever i get like this a tend to go out into near by cities like Coventry or Birmingham. Just to walk around soak up some inspiration.
On one of these trips to the Birmingham i went for a wander around Digbeth and a nose in the Birmingham Waterstones shop. Here i found a fantastic book on logo design called Logo Modernism by Jens Muller. A vast collection of modern logos from 1940-1980. Ranging from media outfits to retail giants and anything in between.
Since i was child i wanted to be an astronaut, i spent most most of my youth obsessing over space, astronomy and space travel. If you look at my works page you can probably guess that i am a proud space nerd. As i got older, i began to realised fast that 5ft 7' asthmatics tend not to make the rigorous selection process for NASAs space program.
However, the visual impact of NASA, it's heroes and heroins, space shuttles and rockets have been burnt into my psyche over my impressionable years. Some of my earliest memories are snap shots of the space shuttle program and the missions they undertook broadcast of the BBCs Newsround.
although NASA has since had a rebrand the older brand is still my favorite. The older logo known as the 'worm' seemed to carry a style reminiscent of 70s science fiction illustration, it wouldn't look a miss in a Peter Elson painting or a book cover by Chris Foss.
Recently a .PDF of the graphics standards manual of the old NASA brand circulated online through various design blogs. Thankfully a Kickstarter was launched to re issue the manual for general sale. I couldn't resist.
The book shows high resolution scans of the original design manual and comes packaged in a silver foil bag as you'd expect from NASA.
You can pick up a copy here from these guys who produce re issued graphics standard manuals. They also do some really nice books through there website....
If only they would do a British Steel re-issue.
They're coming!
During my time a a lecturer of art and design at an East midlands college it was decided that the college building was no longer a suitable space for teaching art, design and technology. During the transitional period before moving into a new bespoke building for art and design we the staff had a lot of equipment to sort before moving it over.
It was during one these sort out is when discovered an old dusty cardboard tray with around 300+ projection slides. Many of these slides depict different areas relevant to Hinckley which was famed with it's rich history or hosiery and textiles, the college was originally a centre of education for it's surrounding factories and businesses.
I have had these slides in my possession now from about 2010 and have been itching to do something with them. Many of these slides show the complex mechanisms used in modern weaving and the types of weaves they create. some show the contemporary interior designs from 60 years ago.
I have devised a way of photographing these slides onto my Iphone as a visual record of these slides and what they represent. The BLPA is a visual blog recording these slides. I have also thrown in a few experiments with photography, audio and video.
You can Follow the BLPA here:
Instagram: britishlostprojectionarchive
Facebook: @theBLPA
twitter: @_BLPA
Tumblr: the-blpa.tumblr.com
Thank you for visiting lune79.net, this feed is where i will be posting various projects to keep you up to date with works in progress, collaborations and all design based things.
await updates.
