Project: Cosmopolite Opening Spread
Client: American University in Paris

The American University in Paris has a large contingent of student published journals/magazines, collating and showcasing various papers and essays students are writing.

Cosmopolite holds its focus on international politics, and the word itself means ‘One who is at home in every place; a citizen of the world; a cosmopolitan person’.

I was asked to create an emblem that would be shown on the first page of their latest edition.

The final outcome (displayed above), a kaleidoscopic patterns created out of different typefaces - representing the different political voices and opinions coming together to create the magazine.

This was an interesting project to work on, as almost all of the design for the magazine itself was yet to be created when the emblem was made. It’s application was uncertain… it could have been a logo, it could have been just an emblem, or an adaptive logo across the whole publication (different marks for different essays) etc.

There was real potential of how the idea could have been applied across the whole publication, which unfortunately wasn’t accepted due to time constraints. If I put together a process post I’ll be sure include everything that wasn’t used.

I realise I haven’t posted much actual work recently (things are coming) - but Esperanza Spalding played a brilliant set last night at La Cigale, showcasing her recently released record Radio Music Society.

Hear her here.

More photos here. 

A fantastic show from Feist (with support from M Ward) tonight (2012-03-21) at Le Zenith.

If you get a chance to see her during any more of the tour I’d highly recommend it!

Songs For Short But Sweet (2011 V0 MP3)

1. Billie Holiday - Autumn In New York
2. Toro Y Moi - Blessa
3. James Brown - It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World
4. Matt Duncan - Beacon
5. John Martyn - Over The Hill
6. Janelle Monae - Neon Valley Street
7. Tokimonsta - Bright Shadows
8. Common - Black Maybe
9. Bob Dylan - Corrina, Corrina
10. Wilco - On And On And On
11. ONRA - Hope

Runtime: 35 minutes.
DOWNLOAD HERE.

For the last few years I’ve put together a small winter warmer of music to give out to friends as a Christmas card hopefully worth keeping. This year’s installment is now complete!

Read about the design process here.

The following is a breakdown of my process in creating my 2011 Christmas Card / Music mixtape.

There are two halves that make my Christmas mixtape- the first of which is the music and always the one to start on.

THE MUSIC

Putting the playlist together usually starts around the end of August. I aim to take all of the selected tracks from albums that have had particular airply during the year, which gives me a slightly easier place to start from. Four different drafts and variations on the playlist were made up until mid-November, which is really just me being anal and fiddling about with track flow, pace, genre diversity etc.

THE NAME

Hopefully by the time the playlist is done it has a certain characteristic or feel to it. This year lots of the tracks were under or around the three minute mark, and the mix in it’s entirety was only 35 minutes - hence ‘Songs For Short But Sweet’.
(Every mix is ‘Songs For/To…’ eg. 2010:’Songs For Driving Home’ 2009: ‘Songs To Keep You Warm’).

THE SECOND HALF… is the design of the packaging and artwork. I make 16 physical copies to give out and the rest are distributed digitally.

THE COVER

I set myself the parameter of creating something typographically. Previous years’ cards have had purely imaged based artwork, and I was keen to play around with some typography and potentially create my own rather than just choose some nice typefaces. After sketching through a lot of A4 sheets I settled on the design that sits as the main image of this post.

THE TYPE DESIGN

The type had to be very structural and tall so that the more ornate type would stand out more. It was great to design type for the first time, and the simplistic characteristics needed did me a lot of favours. I drew out a basic 4x4 rectangular grid in Illustrator and laid out the letters accordingly until I had all my words.

THE HAND RENDERED TYPE

I was keen to use a slightly more decorative, ornate, art deco style of type for the ‘Short’ to contrast against the very structural and functional look of the other letters. After a lot of playing around I decided actually the type would look a lot more ornate if kept to a simple serif with a detailed background etching.

The type was then scanned and cleaned up a bit in Photoshop, and combined with the digital type.

THE PACKAGING

In previous years I’ve produced more of a card that also happens to have a CD in it. This year was a bit different. Since moving out to Paris in August I’m in a smaller studio - and haven’t managed to get all my printing/production setup (not as exciting as it sounds) unpacked. The solution was to create packaging that could be made from one A4 sheet of paper. All I then had to do was to choose my paper stock and lay out the artwork so that I could simply print it, fold it, and attach the CD.

Once the playlist was completed the artwork and packaging process took place over two days. 16 copies were made and have now been sent off to friends.

Download the digital copy of Songs For Short But Sweet HERE.

Part of my major project last year saw a teaming up with a set of illustrators and artists to redesign a series of film posters - with a leaning toward artistry over photoshop. They did the illustrations, and I worked the type.

Tron Legacy by Archie Bagnall

Prints are available here.

See the rest of the posters here.

Part of my major project last year saw a teaming up with a set of illustrators and artists to redesign a series of film posters - with an leading toward artistry over photoshop. They did the illustrations, and I worked the type.

The Green Hornet by Anna Tabori

Prints are available here.

See the rest of the posters here.

Part of my major project last year saw a teaming up with a set of illustrators and artists to redesign a series of film posters - with a leaning toward artistry over photoshop. They did the illustrations, and I worked the type.

127 Hours by Finn Clark

Prints are available here.

See the rest of the posters here.

Part of my major project last year saw a teaming up with a set of illustrators and artists to redesign a series of film posters - with a leaning toward artistry over photoshop. They did the illustrations, and I worked the type.

Tangled by Kate Alizadeh

Prints are available here.

See the rest of the posters here.

(Source: seaoflove)

Part of my major project last year saw a teaming up with a set of illustrators and artists to redesign a series of film posters - with a leaning toward artistry over photoshop. They did the illustrations, and I worked the type.

Black Swan by Harry Tennant

Prints are available here.

See the rest of the posters here.