Barthelona

Travel guide book covers. My guides are aimed at 20 somethings who enjoy skating and surfing in the summer and skiing/boarding in the winter; active, adventurous people who don't take themselves too seriously. I didn't want to make the covers too cliched, as in looking extreme/ energy drink-esque, so I tried to evoke the idea of movement through dotted lines. The lines represent paths of motion undertaken during a sport, i.e, the half pipe action on the Barcelona cover. 

My favourite aspect is that when the books are lined up next to each other the dots line up so that there is one long continuous line of motion.

The protective top cover of each guide is made of acetate to be water/snow/street proof...

now time for EASTER! Might lay off the graphics posts for a while...

Rawr

Logo, letterhead and envelope for a Safari Park.

1936 Olympics Book

rings v shackles

athletics symbol or swastika?

jesse owens

death march hidden by athlete olympic march

Berlin olympic stadium/auschwitz

ANOTHER graphics project, i know, but this is what I've been doing with all my time! For this project we had to pick a subject and an audience out of a hat which proved for some inneresting combinations! I picked "1936 Summer Olympics" as my subject and "businessman" as my targeted audience. SO I decided to try and sell the olympics to a businessman by highlighting positive things about it but leaving elements of the reality of what actually happened (The beginnings of the Nazi regime in Europe). It's always hard when you've got to design for a subject that is sensitive and still has certain taboos (Nazis/holacaust) but hopefully I haven't offended anyone!!

TB. Ted Baker not Tuberculosis

Just a cheeky sample of some the work I did for the YCN Ted Baker brief. The brief was to create an integrated campaign for one of Ted Baker's product lines, e.g shoes, watches, glasses, fragrances. I focused on watches and the idea of the Ted Baker store as a Natural History Museum; "Ted captures time". Above is a suggestion for an instore poster, an attempt to capture the 'irreverently British humour' that Ted Baker is famous for.

Quixotry

I just heard today that I have been selected to participate in a design workshop run by the founder of Designer's Republic, Ian Anderson.  In order to covet one of the 14 spots in the workshop I had to complete a brief set by Ian Anderson himself: Rename Ian Anderson. I had to think of a way to rename the designer as if he were a product and his name was reflective of his functions or characteristics.

It was quite a tough brief to get my head around as I have no idea of what he is like as a person...I decided to settle on the word "quixotry", the highest ever scoring word in scrabble. This fact obviously means that the word has value, but it's meaning as well as the situation it was played in makes it even more worthy:

By definition “quixotry” means an act that is idealistic or ambitious yet impractical. In competitive scrabble, players would usually drop the letter Q as although it is high scoring, it is not very compatible- the player who waits for the miracle word loses. Cresta (the man who scored with quixotry) held on to the elusive Q throughout the game, dreaming that he would soon pick up a T and a Y. In a 513/1 chance, Cresta picked both a T and a Y in the same turn and played the legendary “quixotry”. His actions are perfectly reflective of the word’s meaning. 

Ian Anderson explained he was looking for designer's with the ability to THINK and solve problems, so for the duration of the brief I was more concentrated on the idea rather than the design itself. But at the end of the day, I am happy with the quirky outcome. Graphic design is tougher than you might think peeps! 

Unlikely Coalition II

A magazine insert/ fold up poster I made to promote the 'verses' festival. A mash up of bieber/swift/jay z/kiss.

unlikely coalition

This is just one of a series of outcomes for a week long group brief to promote an unlikely coalition. The week was crazy intense as we had to try develop a strong idea conceptually, visually and physically! We used the filter of an event to promote an unlikely coalition; a one time only music festival that would involve musicians of contrasting genres coming together to perform on the same tracks. For example taylor swift and daft punk! We managed to think of some pretty weird and wonderful collaborations, cliff richard and slipknot was a personal favourite of mine. We were inspired by musical mash ups (thank you Glee) and named the event 'verses' a musical play on words of 'versus'- musicians are kind of pitted against each other.

So this device to promote the event is essentially a stack of posters wherein half of the poster can be torn away to reveal posters underneath. This results in a mash up of musician's names reflecting the mash up of the festival performances! Some of the mash ups were pretty funny, I definitely enjoyed 'daft spears'.

I made a lot of mistakes, in my mind, in my mind

Collectable flyers, also for the Topman Chicago brief. I designed 6 flyers each brandishing a letter from the word "topman", a set to entice people to want to collect all 6 and learn more about the store. They need a lot of tweaking but I like the concept; throughout the brief I stuck to the idea of ways to entice people back into Topman to spend all their monies. 

I was in love with the place, in my mind, in my mind

This little design was created for a recent brief to hypothetically promote the opening of a new Topman store in Chicago, USA (in Autumn, or should I say FALL 2011). Since the Windy City (I've done my research) was practically the birthplace of the skyscraper, I wanted to concentrate on expressing structure/architecture through my designs. Thus, the pyramid invitation was born! My aim was to design something that could be easily reproduced and handed out, yet would be memorable and draw people back into the store. The pyramid folds out into an invitation to the store opening. It was ridiculously easy to make, yet comes together so nicely.

After a solid two weeks of hearing Sufjan Stevens' "Chicago" in my head whenever I even thought of the word, I am glad to be moving on!!

Restriction Project

The aim of this project was to create 4 double spreads inspired by one of a list of 10 words. The requirements of the brief included only using 2 colours, sticking to Helvetica typeface as well as a word limit for each spread (0, 10, 50, 100). The word I chose from the list was "submersion". What first came to mind was brainwashing and a lack of control due to utter submersion of the mind, (slightly creepy I realise). This notion led me on to exploring cults who use brainwashing techniques, and of course what instantly sprang to mind was Charles Manson... 

I was inspired by how Manson managed to control people's thoughts and actions using drugs like LSD as well as music by The Beatles. Manson's "family" committed a series of murders in the Hollywood Hills in 1969, but he was not actually physically involved in any of them. These murders became known as the "Helter Skelter" murders, as that was what was written on the walls of the murder scenes in the victims' blood.

I decided to depict how Manson used mind control techniques that led to the Helter Skelter murders. The spreads are quite enticing and attractive ( I hope), only subtly highlighting elements of danger. The hypnotic, circular shape is a constant element in all the spreads; it emphasises the lure and appeal that Manson exerted toward his "family".

These digital versions of the spread actually look different to the final prints. I printed on "cool tan" coloured paper which I definitely prefer. I shall post a sample of the final prints laterzzzz.

summer alphabet

So for the last month or so I have been traveling around the UK, moving into a new house and taking on an already hectic workload from uni- seriously busy! Unfortunately my little blog has been neglected during this time :( but on the bright side I am settled and ready to blog frequently once more! The craziness of September is over, and as my favourite month begins there is a lot to look forward to...my 21st next weekend in Paris, friends' birthdays, autumn wardrobes and costume madness at Halloween.

To sum up the end of summer I have posted an image of my summer project. The brief was to create a concept using the alphabet to describe your summer experiences. My process was to take inspiration from Islamic design in architecture, i.e mosques, and create an alphabet inspired by this. I made an alphabet influenced by the traditional geometric shapes of islamic patterns. Once I had a foundation for this I then filled it in with a photograph I had taken of the city of Tangiers, Morocco. Finaaaalllly, I printed my design onto a dish dash (traditional muslim clothing) and presented it as a garment. 

This project was just an introductory/icebreaker to the 2nd year of my course, I am sure there will be much, much more to come! Love

Radcastle Rachel Rivera

T-shirt Graphic Design for TNA

Space & Time

Cycle

Get Over It

Don The Beach Comber

French Braids Spring Flings

Twinz

So on the way back from Cambodia to Dubai we had to stop off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 12 hours, during this time I watched Inception in the cinema (awesome)and bought a book. "Fashion Graphics" is about graphic design in fashion and focuses on design, packaging and advertising. I am reading it sooooooo slowly as I like to research designers on the internet whilst I look at their work.

My fav so far is Rachel Rivera for Radcastle. I love love love how she combines traditional black and white images with futuristic patterns, it's really current to recent trends no? I especially like "Space & Time" as the Aztec (?) temple reminds me of the ones I saw in Cambodia.

All images sourced from:

http://www.radcastle.com/cm.htm

http://radcastle.tumblr.com/