Lillias & The Puffin

Lillias H chose a puffin as her animal theme for her Standard Grade Lighting Design unit. After initial investigation drawings, she experimented with materials to create a piece of lighting for Edinburgh Zoo. As you can see, Lillias’ development page includes cheap Ikea lights to show her experiments with opacity and colour and her final sheet displays her design in light and dark, showing off her use of fiber optics. This was a project I had tried with S4 Intermediate a few years ago. I was worried that it would not be possible for S3 Standard Grade, that the techniques and materials would be too complex and that the time frame would be too short to complete. Lillias shows that I was entirely wrong to doubt her. Beautiful work.

It’s Not Always A Success…

I have had a few successes, working with/for artists and musicians that most would consider famous or have achieved the right amount of respectable attention, though it’s not always been pure sailing. For the small amount of projects I could brag about and get your attention, there have also been a multitude of designs that haven’t gone exactly as planned. I thought I should feature some of these below, to show you that you should never give up. You will be ignored and rejected a lot (well… I am), but sometimes you’ll get it just right and art is all about the little wins.

Above is a never used cover for the indie band ‘Language of Flowers‘. I spent a long time creating the right feel. The root system lettering alone took around three days, though Shelf Life Records ended up going with this atrocity. A lot of the time, good designs will be pushed out just to feature a picture of the artist, it’s always a safe move for the record company, but it’s incredibly boring. Below you’ll see a completely rejected redesign of Vic Rattlehead for Megadeth. It was developed for a competition ran on Deviant Art, getting into the shortlisted stage I was able to get a comment from Dave Mustaine (singer, lead guitarist) stating that ‘it was incredibly cute but way off for the branding of the band’ [paraphrased, I can't remember the exact comment, but that's the jist of it].

The cover below was for Fiona Apple‘s 2005 comeback album. She had been incredibly big, especially with her single ‘Fast as you can’, then took some time out to re-invent herself. Her ‘Extraordinary Machine’ album was very quirky, slightly Tom Waits, very unusual. I thought this modern cover would have been a great addition to her lyrical intention. Focusing on computers, analog machines, humanity and her. I worked hard to get an image of Fiona onto the cover and then Epic Records went all left field and chose this?

I really liked the logo below for the band ‘armaeda‘. I decided that it would be interesting to make a typeface out of the exact same character. If you look closely, all the letters are the same character, rotated and faded. Unfortunately for me, the band quit before they had even begun and the logo was never used. The same thing happened to ‘Son of Shrimp‘ below. I am usually quite proud of the work I pass on, so it’s a shame to never see it getting used.

The NIN (Nine Inch Nails) cover below was for the album ‘With Teeth’. There had been a call out on 99designs and I thought I’d give it a go. I don’t really like this cover at all, though I feel it is very NIN. They ended up going with this idea, which is a lot better than mine…

I am a huge fan of Karl Pilkington and have followed him since the first podcast with Gervais and Merchant.  I had emailed them a few times and got some replies, so when I heard that he was getting a book together I thought I’d try my luck at sending them this idea (not finished, it’s just a low res. thumbnail) for the book cover. I never got a reply and they ended up going with some photo of Karl sitting down… so safe, so boring.

So there you go. Just some of the tries and fails that I have experienced in my long and torturous career. I’m slightly depressed now… What was my point again? Oh yeah… Don’t give up… Get frustrated and go demented over rejections and endless workloads… like me.

Animalware

This week’s Artwork of the Week comes from Eilidh G (S3, OLSP). I have never seen any of Eilidh’s work before, but after seeing her tiger fur drawing and machine cog sketch for a CD design she is currently working on, I’m yearning to see more. Eilidh’s sketching style is both intense, but on the side of freedom drawing (drawing carefree). I don’t know how she manages it, but I love her stylistic approach. This can only be achieved through very keen observations and great focus. You can’t fake this talent. Great stuff Eilidh! I’m sure we’ll see a lot more of her work on here.

Black Box Poster

 

You can also stream, download or comment on the theme over at Soundcloud.

Artwork Invoice

Becoming A Professional Artist / Designer – Part 2

As promised, please find an Artist’s/ Designer’s invoice available for download below from the ‘box’ (bottom of the right hand column). This invoice will let you see how invoices are laid out, to help you create your own, or you can download it, print it out and fill in the details. It is completely free for use. I can’t take any responsibility for the success of your work, your job or the passing of funds, though this should help those who are just starting out, or those that never knew how to invoice properly. As with all exchanges of money, you will need to clear such funds with the tax office and it will be likely that you will have to pay tax on the amount if you earn more than £5000. There will also be National Insurance Contributions to be made. More information on Self Employment and contributions can be found here. This always sounds a bit complicated, but it needn’t be. Most employers will automatically take contributions and tax from you before you get paid, so you don’t need to claim again or you’ll earn so little when you start off that you’ll be exempt from tax. It helps to know how to stay on the right side of the law though.

You should always clear with you client about what they are purchasing. Are they getting complete rights to the work for use and reproduction or are they buying a one-off piece that cannot be tampered with. As with all good invoices, I have left a rights and reproduction line for you to delete as appropriate, though this should not be considered as a contract, that may also be needed to protect your agreement.

I hope this helps some of you out there. Good luck and if you do use it, successfully or unsuccessfully, let me know.

Artwork For Friends

Becoming A Professional Designer – Part One

I’ve recently been working on a friend’s band album art and t-shirt design. It’s always incredibly difficult to work for friends, deciding if you should charge them, what you should charge and if you give away a freebie, will you be stuck providing freebies for the rest of your life. As an ex-freelance designer, I used to find it difficult to say ‘no’ to work, no matter if it was free work or paid. Every job is an opportunity to sell yourself, every job is another step closer to getting the perfect job. Though I have learned to say ‘no’, I can now pick and choose the design jobs I want to get involved in. I don’t need to prove myself, I don’t even need to do them anymore financially, teaching pays my mortgage.

As an ex-freelance designer, I always have time for my friends. Lots of the artists turned professional, that I know, forget about their friends awfully quickly after they’ve had a little bit of success or fame. They start to believe the hype pushed onto them and when that dies down, the fall is so much greater and without your friends there, there’s no one to catch you on the way down. I always have time for my friends, for their ideas, for their trust and for their loyalty in asking me for my talents.

Always make time for your friends, do the best job you can for them, if they are a friend, they’ll see the work and they’ll pay you in whatever way they can. If you’re wondering what to charge, I’d always charge a friend rate of £80 (usually for around £20 an hour for 4 hours work), it’s not a lot, but it’s a little gauge of the work that you have put into it, especially in your spare time. Most of my friends who I have invoiced end up paying more for the work anyway, they don’t want to offend you for paying you pittance for your talents. Friends are friends and time is money, you’ll have to find your own compromise.

If you do the work and you’re not happy with the feedback or payment, next time, just say ‘no’. You can’t feel forced to involve your talents for something that annoys you.

I have been doing these Clay covers on and off for over ten years now, I enjoy pleasing my friends and giving them what they what, while staying true to myself and producing something I’m still proud to attach my name to. It’s a tough thing to do in design. It’s a very fine balance to keep.

This week I’ll upload some forms to help you handle your design work professionally. Tomorrow I will start the whole thing off by featuring an invoice form for claiming your cash.

Heroine

Congratulations to Sammy M (S2, OLSP) for winning the Booxfactor Superhero design competition. She impressed judge and comic artist, Gary Erskine, who picked her design out of hundreds of entries. Sammy received her super-hero ‘Super Hairy Sea Weed Mel’ framed along with an original drawing of Spider-man by Erskine.

Sammy was awarded the first prize, Kyle H (S2, OLSP) claimed runner-up and five other pupils were awarded commendations.

Up, Up And Away

Some of my S2 pupils have been designing a Superhero for a competition run by the library service of West Dunbartonshire. The competition winner will win an original piece of artwork by artist Gary Erskine, as well as have their idea enlarged and framed professionally. I wish everyone who took part the best of luck. Some examples of which are below, I’ll discuss each one in detail, show you more and credit the artists later on this week.

Tasja’s feLINES

This week’s featured artwork comes from Tasja (S3, OLSP). She’s working on her initial drawing for her design unit. She will take her chosen animal and design three dimensional forms and patterns with it, but it is this first drawing on her investigation sheet that the judges will see.

Tasja hasn’t exactly captured her resource, though I’m glad she hasn’t, she’s added more of her own self into the drawing and that is much more interesting to me that an exact duplicate. Looking at the style, I can see that she is interested in graphic/comic style art, the Cheetah’s face is almost human, it’s protruding chin and sculpted face, it resembles a male human face.

She focuses on details of pattern and width of line. By changing the thickness of her line, she makes her drawing interesting to look at, as well as making her drawing easy to look at by varying her lines. Use of dynamic curves (thicker lines on the bends or curves of lines) gives her drawing an air of action. The animal is standing still, though looks like it could pounce at any point. A great piece of work.

Post A Bargain Revamped

There has been a bit of interest into the post a bargain job that I had been working on, I don’t know why, I thought the Ipod Cases were more interesting, though you can never predict what people will be interested in. Below are the final designs for the website revamp planned later this year.