Silver Lining Piercing approached me the other day for a flyer design to stand out from the crowd, and to appeal to their target audience of 14-25 year olds. I created a bespoke illustration piece, and incorporated it into a retro poster-esque layout, ensuring something completely unique to sit apart from the thousands of other flyers that are thrown at students these days.
I’ve just finished an Open Mic poster for the Blue Cat Cafe in Stockport. They got in touch with me out of the blue (sorry!) after finding the posters I produced for The Nook Open Mic online.
The cafe looks like a bohemian sort of place, with a focus on live music, and even has its own record label. It looks well worth a visit sometime, if I’m ever in the area!
This was a great job because I bloody love cheese. Milk Street have a regular stall on Holmfirth Market and I was referred by another stallholder for whom I have done some design work.
I kind of knew what I was going for from the off on this job. The stall already has a “Milk Street” street sign hanging above it, so it went without saying that the sign element got incorporated into the design. Over and above that I thought a nice round design would lend itself well to little stickers for sealing up the greaseproof-paper wrapping around the cheese.
The I hand drew the milk churn and pile’o'cheese illustration to give a bit of a rustic feel to the finished design.
Fairandfunky is a local enterprise that delivers creative workshops to schools and community groups on recycling, the environment and Fairtrade issues, and also sells a range of fair and funky products which all have a positive impact on people and planet.
I was asked to produce a poster to promote their forthcoming “family fun day”, and was only too happy to oblige…
I was contacted recently by a gentleman called Bill, a local musician, and member of a busy reggae band. The band – Jah-Maica, were looking for gig posters to promote themselves. I tried to create a unique style that conveyed the old reggae and ska feel, without resorting to the typical red, gold, green and black. Yes, I have incorporated all those colours but I feel the overall theme is lighter and more laid back than the oft-seen mainly heavy black artwork. Here’s the poster. They like it and I hope you do too.
This year’s Holmfirth Film Festival is running a string of events based upon it being 50 years since 1962. One of the events being run is a 1962 themed open mic night, and I’ve just produced a couple of posters for it….
A few weeks ago I was asked to come up with a design for the 2012 Holmfirth Festival of Folk programme cover. I’ve produced most of their other artwork the last couple of years (you may notice some familiar photographs sneaking in here and there), but for some reason on the morning when I sat down to produce this year’s cover I decided to completely abandon the “brand” we had and just go for something spectacular.
Yup, adherence to a brand is important, but it’s not totally necessary. Why should everything look the same? Uniformity doesn’t always reinforce your perception of an image – on the contrary it can make it sink into obscurity and mundanity.
I remember having a similar discussion when working for a previous employer, whose brand, incidentally, was all-over-the-place. I was trying to reiterate that it might not be something to shy away from. Look at Superdry. You see the name everywhere - but it always looks different. The name is the brand. It’s styled to fit in with the context of where it appears. And that philosophy seems to have been successful enough for them.
Anyway. Enough waffle. Here’s the cover. I reckon people will notice it far more than if it were the “standard brand”….
Ska Wars are like a 12-legged bouncing machine. Honestly, if you want to put on a fun gig, get over to their website, give them a call and get ready to skank like an idiot.
In fact, they’ll be coming to play at my local very very soon. I can’t wait.
In other news, I’ve just done ‘em a new poster…
This is my favourite job from On-One. Designing the livery for the new “Macinato” model – a super strong, urban fixie bike, with a classic, retro feel.
On-One Macinato Urban Fixie Bike - Side on
The Inbred is On-One’s classic steel hardtail cross-country frame. I updated the graphics for a more contemporary look, while keeping hold of icons such as the “inbred man” who has graced the frame since its inception.
On-One Inbred Blue Waffle - Frame side on
It was pretty exciting seeing the first shots of these come over from the factory in the east – then having them arrive and seeing them in the flesh.
The icing on the cake is seeing the people who’ve bought them, built them into their pride-and-joy bike, and have uploaded the shots of their bike back onto the company site to show them off to the world!
The On-One 456 is a classic steel MTB frame, designed for long travel forks. The Summer Season is it’s silly cousin – with slack frame angles for pointing even longer travel forks downhill…
The style was intended to evoke those now very retro-looking classic bikes of the 80s.
On-One 456 Summer Season Mint Sauce Green Frame Graphics - Frame side on
The Sonic Happening poster
The brief for this one was “Something like the 1960s, San Francisco, Psychedelia scene”. That’s a bit of luck – it’s the kind of thing I like to do. So, this was the result. Actually designed and artworked while sitting in the local pub, and fueled by that great mind-altering substance – ale.
World cup at the Wardrobe
I hate the world cup. Or, more accurately, I hate the rubbish that goes with it, and what it brings out in people.
However, The Wardrobe in Leeds asked me to do them a poster for the England matches they’ll be showing. Being a nice sort of place, they wanted something a bit classier than the usual football-fayre. Cue the monochrome and Helvetica.
Hexa - Open mic
This month’s open mic was looming and I’d simply been too busy to do a poster. Thought I’d be honest, and let everybody know!
It’s really good to have HEXA back, and I didn’t want them to be un-billed. I think they liked the poster as it turned out… They stole a few away with them anyway, which is always a good sign!
The next 3 months...
We were in need of another poster to bill the next few months of bands, and so James and I had a collaborative session over a couple of ales to come up with this. It’s good to get someone else’s input and bounce a few ideas around. The ‘Communist Propaganda Poster’ theme was chosen, and then embellished upon with progressively more bizarre ideas… Welly boots, dead birds and bananas. All good fun.
Open Mic Poster - Christmas Special
This one took a while. The guitar illustration mainly, which was inspired by the artwork at the Hand Drawn Creative. He’s done a series of guitars, and has a great vintage style. Thought I’d tribute my Fender Jag for Christmas…
Cow Town poster
This month’s band are Cow Town. For some reason in my had that translated into a Saul Bass-esque redition of cow-parts. Here it is….
The Jam Room - This way
We want to make the Open Mic a bit more free and easy – allow people to relax and not have to stand up in the limelight if they don’t want to. Anything to encourage the music. With this in mind, it seemed like a sensible idea to host a Jam Room in the back room at the same time, where people can just sit and play together.
Obviously, we were in need of some serious signage. I had to get busy.
There are three posters in this series, I’ve only included one here because they’re all pretty much the same. One just says “Jam Room”, while the other two variants are a right-pointer, marked “this way”, and a left-pointer, marked “that way”.
Briggs and Oliver Antiques - initial design
As a result of the Open Mic posters, they guys at Briggs and Oliver invited me to have a crack at designing them an Art Nouveau style flyer. To the left and below are an initial concept, in a couple of colour variations.
Briggs and Oliver Antiques - initial design - alternative colourway
Open Mic Poster - May -October
With a bit of a departure from posters for individual bands – mainly due to not being able to find the time to produce them – I decided to go for a single poster to fill a few months of bookings. Here’s the result.
Open Mic No. 4 - Old Man Pie
Old Man Pie are are asking for a comedic poster design…
Open Mic No. 3 - Breaking The Illusion
Band Number 3 is Breaking The Illusion, and here’s the next poster in the series…
Open Mic No. 2 - Mi Mye
Another one in the series of open mic posters
Open Mic No. 1 - Hexa
The first band-specific poster for the Open Mic Night
Piestock Ad
After they saw their poster design for the Open Mic Night, Old Man Pie asked me to design a small space ad and poster for an event they were hosting called “Piestock”.
Typically, the old Woodstock poster had to feature somewhere, but was given a twist in this instance, based upon the theme.
Nook Open Mic - Generic Poster
I’ve been putting on an event in a local pub recently which required some publicity. The event takes the form of an open mic night, with a different headline band each month.
To the left is the generic poster for the event, and in following posts you’ll find the individual designs for each guest band, as they are created.
The posters are designed at A3, but must also work when reduced to A6 for flyers.
To the left is the generic poster for the event, and below you’ll find the individual designs for each guest band.
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