Cubist Sound & Vision

Here is a couple of interesting videos to some great live music visuals. Firstly the muched talked about Killers performance at the EMAs, very reminiscent of Etienne De Crecy's live shows this year (see last video). But for a truly immersive experience check out Barcelona's Kubik club, an outdoor nightclub with walls made from glowing industrial containers that pulse to the beat of the tracks.

Creative Resources

Just added another post to the MTB Blog, with a top 5 free Creative Resource sites. If you are a regular to this blog you may already have seen these but worth a look non the less.

Media Talent Bank Post

Just added another post to the Media Talent Bank site, this time discussing every new freelancers first question, 'how much should I charge?'

Plus 2008 a Visual Overview

Better late than never above is a visual guide to this years Plus festival. Only had time to whizz round for an hour or two with my camera so missed the Jonathan Barnbrook talk but all in all the event seemed to be a success, though some of last years contributors were noticeable by their absence.

From talks with some of the exhibitors, this may be due to the current crowd that the exhibition attracts, mainly students. Whilst this is great and I noticed a few coaches outside the venue from around the country, speaking from a business point of view I think a lot of local small companies are becoming increasingly weary in these belt buckling times. 

If you are spending not an insignificant amount of time and money to exhibit the main return for companies is to showcase their skills to potential new clients. Perhaps the entry charge of £15 a day is off putting to a lot of the general public and local businesses. 

I get the feeling the main thing that comes out of the event for many companies is to be inundated with CVs from visiting students. It's a shame as I'm sure the event costs a lot to put on and margins are tight but I do think the entry price a little steep to reach the broad audience the event deserves. 

Regardless of the above it's all about some great work on show. Especially from Fluid, (having done a fair bit of freelance for them recently I was very impressed with their stand and publicity material for the event, as I know how busy they have been of late). Great to see the Cov Uni stand and chat with one of my old tutors, complete with some very nice work and a selection from it's metal type vaults, takes me back to my Uni days! The Baskerville headstone in development was fascinating to watch and I was very impressed with the quality of work from Sutton College. 

The Forgotten Project

Well I had grand plans for the last month, unfortunately most went out of the window due to heavy work load. One of which was to exhibit at this years Plus festival. Started some initial faffing and then got waylaid. The title for this year was Hybrid and I started some typographical musings getting quite hung up on the word 'mongrel' and it's connotations to the modern day graphic designer; a cross breed of traditional and digital technologies and working with widening media. Anyway it got swallowed in the workload but here is some initial ideas, no idea where they were going and probably never will!

4talent Issue2

Here's a sneak peak of my layouts for the forthcoming 4Talent magazine, for an article on crime fiction from Northern Ireland. Not sure when it's due out but will post some photos when I get a copy.

SpeakOut Issue 2

Well here's one of the projects that has been keeping my busy over the last couple of weeks. Issue 2 of SpeakOut magazine will be available in and around Birmingham in the next week or so. Quite pleased with the layout of this one, helped out by some great photography by Michael Correll & Karen Strunks

Belated links from October

Sorry for my lack of postings recently had a busy few weeks, so in an attempt to make up for it take a look at my hot links from October.

Haunting photography and post production images from Oleg Duryagins.

Multicolr site lets you pick your key search colours and it searches flicker to find images with these colours in them. The best bit is the site allows you to specify up to 10 colours at a time, great for helping to create moodboards.

 

Who is Max Kerning? Find out by viewing the link, quite funny in a nerdy graphic designer kind of way.

Very good portfolio site from Mate Steinforth.

Australian Graphic Artist Justin M Mallers folio site, Superlover.