“It would be foolish … to pretend that the second part of reading, to judge, to compare, is as simple as the first — to open the mind wide to the fast flocking of innumerable impressions. To continue reading without the book before you, to hold one shadow-shape against another, to have read widely enough and with enough understanding to make such comparisons alive and illuminating — that is difficult; it is still more difficult to press further and to say, ‘Not only is the book of this sort, but it is of this value; here it fails; here it succeeds; this is bad; that is good.’”
Read MoreNo Sudden Move
Designed this just in case Steven Soderbergh needs a new poster for his fab new movie No Sudden Move. Interesting article here about his deliberate use of intense anamorphic lens distortion; a little disorientating to start with, but gives the film a really distinctive look that I borrowed for the type.
Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive is twenty, so for my own amusement I ripped off Akiko Stehrenberger’s Funny Games poster. Could’ve done with a better quality pic … but then again, Stehrenberger worked magic with a crappy low-res screenshot, so I have no excuses really.
Case Study
New work for Saraband, the cover for Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Case Study. A fantastic book, good to see them giving this one a big push – it has its own minisite and everything! Jolly nice hearing feedback on my design on BBC Scotland; tempted to make Janice Forsyth saying “fantastic cover” (around the 2:21 mark) my new ringtone.
Common art
Some accidental compositions found within flickr commons results. Simply a case of search, scroll and screenshot. An incredibly addictive and satisfying form of procrastination – I’ve completely forgotten what I was looking for when I found these.
Untitled
Popped into the local charity shop and found a couple of small but chunky photography books (Phaidon’s The Fashion Book and Taschen’s Fashion Now), so naturally I decided to hack them to pieces and make some pretty squares. As ever, the internet robs work of any sense of scale – these are each no more than a couple of inches.
The Fens
This cover for Head of Zeus was an absolute joy to work on, as I got to play around with Fred Ingrams’ incredible paintings of the Fens. Spoilt for choice, I put together a lot of options! Although it wasn’t the final cover, I reckon this one – featuring Fodder Beans, Cock Bank, Whittlesey – is my personal favourite. Just look at that colour.
Untitled
Another collage composition experiment, throwing around found images until something unexpected happens. There are some great colours in this one that I’ll no doubt lift and reuse at some point.
Witch
Unused cover for Rebecca Tamás’ poetry collection Witch, published by Penned in the Margins. In case you were wondering, that’s a very tight crop of Love's Shadow by Frederick Sandys, 1867.
Don’t Look Now
I asked on twitter for film poster requests, and somebody suggested Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, so this happened. Took an awful lots of willpower to not include an obvious splash of red in there somewhere.
Foucault in Warsaw
Recent cover for Open Letter’s new translation of Remigiusz Ryziński’s Foucault in Warsaw. Don’t look directly at it, lest it devour your soul. UPDATE: it’s been listed as one of the best covers of the year by AIGA Eyer on Design, which is jolly nice.
The Swan
Inspired by the incredible work of digital colourist Marina Amaral (get your hands on her book The Colour of Time if you haven’t already), I’ve been learning how to colourise black and white photographs, with some pleasing results that have found their way into other aspects of my work. For example, once I’d brought this Leigh Wiener portrait of Grace Kelly to chromatic life, I had to go one step further and turn it into a poster for 1956 film The Swan.
Being John Malkovich
Simply couldn’t go another day without making a Being John Malkovich poster from Sandro’s incredible Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich portraits. So many to choose from, could make a whole series of these.
Carl Sagan
In the UK, it’s World Book Day (which almost explains why my son’s playground is full of kids dressed as Pokémon). A good excuse for this fantastic insight from Carl Sagan:
What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. One glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years.
A good reminder that books are a bizarre, brilliant, surreal and in no way inevitable invention.
Amélie / The Witch
I designed this poster for Jean Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, then by some bizarre cinematic happenstance found an almost identical shot from Robert Eggers’ The Witch. Now there’s a double bill for you.
There Will Be Blood
Another week, another poster! With these designs I’m treating them as real briefs for promoting films rather than fan artwork for those already familiar with them; hopefully striking a mystery/intrigue balance beyond wink-wink recognition. Hopefully that’s how this one works. I reckon this oily-bath idea would also work rather well for Under the Skin … might give it a go.
Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron wrote this about blogging in 2006, back when everybody was at it:
One of the most delicious things about the profoundly parasitical world of blogs is that you don’t have to have anything much to say. Or you just have to have a little tiny thing to say. You just might want to say hello. I’m here. And by the way. On the other hand. Nevertheless. Did you see this? Whatever. A blog is sort of like an exhale. What you hope is that whatever you’re saying is true for about as long as you’re saying it. Even if it’s not much.
It’s startling how quickly we’ve taken for granted this incredible new freedom to publish something, anything, nothing. I’ve fallen in love with blogging again; my own little corner of internet that I can spill my thoughts into without fear of them being washed away by the social media tide. Most of it may be inconsequential whatever, but it’s my inconsequential whatever.
A Streetcar Named Desire
Despite being knee-deep in homeschooling (see my latest Creative Review column), I’ve found time to play around with some more poster designs. Rather happy with how this one for A Streetcar Named Desire turned out, incorporating a fabulous Marlon Brando portrait of by Philippe Halsman. More of these to come.
The Thing
I decided what the world desperately needed this week was a new poster for The Thing, so I assigned myself the brief and put together the above. Lots of nice feedback, but still no telegram from Mr Carpenter. I can wait. In the meantime, I’ll throw myself at other films, see where this path takes me. Cinema + rectangles = the dream.
Untitled
More cutting and pasting … my desk is a mess right now! Enjoying working in squares rather than portrait rectangles for a change. Rather pleased with how this one turned out. More of this sort of thing on my instagram.
