Freelance Art Director London

Branding

SODA

B_Drum

B_Drum was founded in late 2013 by Birmingham musician Damon Cox who felt dismayed with the lack of personality and options offered by some of the bigger Drum retailers in the city. Damons brief was simple; to remain independent, personal, and to fulfill drummers specific needs with his years of knowledge. The initial target market was to focus on drummers who were in bands playing and practicing around the city by setting up shop inside Muthers Studio, one of Birminghams best known rehearsal spaces, so he was on call should anybody need spares/repairs directly out of normal retail hours. For the branding itself I wanted to create an identity that appealed to his market of musicians, with the idea he would be creating a space people felt they could hang out and chat, listen to music or try out new equipment. The B_Heroes campaign was born out of imagery from local musicians, but to keep things more personal the reverse of his business card was essentially a calling card to anybody looking for advice, to "Go See Damon".
Software: Photoshop & Illustrator.

L.A. Toy

LA Toy are an International Children's Toy Supplier specialising in both the pre-school and girl categories. The name is actually an acronym taken from the founders names, but the light hearted nature of the company lead to a tongue in cheek direction for the design of the brand encompassing an 80's inspired american style. There was also very much a feeling of getting away from the types of design competitors in the toy supplier industry commonly use, standing out by not referencing anything regarding toys in the logo itself. Very much a new company still in the early stages of its development, future plans include several sub-brands, such as the LA Girl artwork in progress shown above.
Software: Photoshop & Illustrator.

DesignaFriend

DesignaFriend is an Argos own brand toy aimed at the 5-11 girls toy market. The sister brand to "DesignaBear", DesignaFriend was an instant success when launched at the tail end of 2009. I have worked on the branding, catalogue design & packaging since launch and recently built a webstore within the Argos website. DesignaFriend has become one of Argos' most important toy brands outselling its bigger rival Barbie, it is constantly under development in this fiercly competitive section of the market. I was also part of the team that resulted in Chad Valley winning “Product Innovation of the Year” at the Oracle Retail Week Awards & "Supplier of the Year" at the Argos Toy Supplier Awards. You can view a more detailed analysis of this project in my Branding Case Study.
Software: Photoshop & Illustrator. 3D visuals created in AutoDesk Maya.

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Graphic Design

Kilimanjaro Live

Background

Kilimanjaro Live are a London based live entertainment promoter. With a roster of acts like Ed Sheran & Metallica, they also have a strong focus on the nurturing of new talent. 

The Brief

To create a style of advertising to promote new artists playing shows in London. 

The Audience

2000 or so 'early-adopters' & 'influencers' within London's music scene.

The Creative Idea

London's music scene is booming and as a result it is awash with flyers & posters. This is a very tough & crowded market, so I needed to create something nobody else was doing.

Selling bands that nobody yet knows?

The client was insistent they didn't want to build a new brand. Instead I focussed my attention on traditional forms of advertising - the use of a headline. I knew from history that there are certain shows people still talk about. The Sex Pistols playing Manchester a year before their debut album is now infamous. People who went are still saying "I was there!", whilst the rest of us missed out. All the major acts we know now played tiny venues in London at some point. So instead of selling bands you don't yet know, I sold the idea of being there before anybody else. 

The Style

Promoters rely on their gut instincts when it comes to new artists. There is no guarantee an act will sell tickets, let alone go on to sell out Wembley Arena. A 'sure thing' doesn't exist, theres always a risk, and with that comes mistakes. In a way they are trying to predict the next big thing, so I wanted to find a style that could match. I did this by taking inspiration from music and what "Post-Punk" is to "Punk". I then applied this idea to "Digital Design", to arrive at "Post-Digital". What this means is taking parts of the current trend and mixing it with what went before. So taking inspiration from VHS, Photocopiers and early Windows based computers. Breaking the grid and introducing glitches and mistakes. This is where Risograph was a perfect fit for never printing 100% accurate. The idea of "Post-Digital" for me became about putting what we knew about digital, back into print. Even the headlines themselves became based on examples of click-bait from social media. This all resulted in a big melting pot of different ideas. And it allowed me to create something unique, in a very busy market place.

The campaign launched on January 18th 2017. It is currently distributed across shows in London.

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Packaging Design

Makies Gift Packaging

"How do we sell a physical product instore that first has to be designed on an iPAD and then 3D printed?". The answer: a gift card. However; gift cards are small, don't stack up well against bigger products and as a generality aren't all that interesting to the consumer. So we developed what we called the "Gift Cube". Several amendments had to made to the existing logo creating a new design and adding some colour. As the target market was for kids we made the design more playful, taking photographs of various different Makies you could create and added a silhouette to represent the toy you were as yet to design. Rather than an empty box we also added what we nicknamed "the wobbler", a small circle of card on a spring that would hold the gift card you received when you took the box to the checkout. Lastly, a booklet was also included to cross sell all of the other products MakieLab are working on including their forthcoming iPAD game. You can view a more detailed analysis of this project in my Packaging Design Case Study.
Software: Illustrator & Photoshop. 3D visuals created in AutoDesk Maya.

CannyBots Packaging

Cannybots is an intelligent toy robot that you can build and programme yourself. One of my main jobs for CannyBots was to develop a new brand identity and roll it out across various formats. As well as creating the main logotype and selecting the sub fonts for the brand, I created and developed the little robot character. I felt what Cannybots were doing was quite ahead of its time, so I wanted the look to be futuristic, and I included a circuit diagram for use on all background material. This packaging project was developed in collaboration with Freelance Product Designer Chris Catton.
Software: Illustrator. Visuals created in Photoshop.

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3D Design

retail Design

Retail Design visuals for a mini toy shop that was built on the top floor of Selfridges Oxford Street for Christmas 2013. Working with a team of planners and designers, I created these 3D visuals using Maya for both the buyers within Selfridges and the shop fitters who were to later build the display.

Software: AutoDesk Maya & Photoshop.

Additional Retail Design Examples

3D visual for Makies 2014 Selfridges Store.

3D visual for Makies 2014 Selfridges Store.

3D visual for Makies 2014 Fantasy World Toys Store, Dubai.

3D visual for Makies 2014 Fantasy World Toys Store, Dubai.

3D Product Visuals

Miscellaneous examples of 3D visualisation for both physical and digital products.

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app UI Design

cannybots Racing app

Cannybots are a small start up based in Cambridge UK who have created an intelligent "Toy Robot" to teach kids programming skills from a young age. I worked on a variety of different aspects for the client including a highly successful Kickstarter campaign which reached its target in a matter of hours. One part of my brief was to redesign several apps they were launching with the product; from text messaging to a racing car controller as seen above. The interesting UX design problem with the controller app was the fact that you aren't viewing the screen whilst racing a physical remote controlled car. As you have difficulty knowing where your thumbs are pressed on the screen whilst not looking at it, I based the app around left and right gestures so it didn't actually matter if you lost the correct starting position. We split the entire screen 50/50 for the racing controls (forward, reverse, left, right), and designed the additional buttons that would only be activated on a single press around the outside. After completing the UI design I also created all of the Animations in After Effects which I exported for use in Xcode.

Software: Photoshop, Illustrator & After Effects.

KIDS Fashion App

App Design for a kids fashion app concept. Choose from a set of templates, swatches and patterns, designs could then be printed and turned into wearable outfits for toys.

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