Posts written during 'June 2012'
Check out all of the posts written during 'June 2012' below. If you still can't find what you are looking for, try searching using the form at the right upper corner of the page.
Semi-Permanent Sydney - 2012
20/06/12
You’d think that sitting in a room surrounded by 2000 other creatives, (well 1999 plus me) would be daunting. Thousands of creatives flooding the market with ideas to change the world just like you and I. Throw in 15 proven, successful well-known figures, photographers, artists, production companies, advertisers, designers and illustrators talking about their work and the industry over two days with the odd coffee break and there you have it, Semi-Permanent Conference Sydney, held at Sydney Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour.
My own personal favourite was actually the speaker least related to what I do, but most related to my interest in film. Roman Coppola, Music & Film director featured in a live webcast, part of Google Hangout Sessions, along with a few of his friends, his mum, cousin and a real leopard!
Showcasing videos and letting us in on some tips, tricks and real life snippets. This is the guy responsible for Daft Punk, Fat Boy Slim & Mansun music videos. His sister Sophia Coppola is the director of Lost In Translation, one of my ultimate top 5 films. His Dad is only Francis Ford Coppola, so it doesn’t get cooler than this! See for yourself with the highlights right here.
Follow that with paper engineer Benja Harney, designer Vince Frost, typographer Luca Ionescu, and photographer Derek Henderson to name just a few and you’re bombarded with inspiration, drive and ambition.
What I really learnt aside from work practices, new ways of thinking, and how to fold a paper aeroplane with extreme precision is that as creatives, we need each other. We’re a team, we thrive on being around great ideas, sharing stories, experiences and influences.
Its not daunting at all, its actually really exciting and totally inspiring. Roll on Semi-Permanent 2013!
Above images by Frost Design, (top row), paper engineer Benja Harney, (second row), and Luca Ionescu, (below).
Lisa Hastings, Australian office
The Queen's Jubilee tour comes to Nottingham
14/06/12
As part of the Queen's Jubilee tour, Her Majesty the Queen visited Nottingham yesterday accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The royal party arrived in the Lace Market at around 10:15 BST and we were lucky enough to see the convoy as it headed towards the Old Market Square where the royals would appear on the Council House balcony to acknowledge the 10,000+ crowd. Andrea of our artwork team managed to take the photograph above just as the Queen waved to the hundreds of people lining the streets. The picture below shows Karen, Zoë, Emily, Libby and Andrea eagerly anticipating the royal arrival.
The Queen also unveiled a plaque at Vernon Park, which has been granted Queen Elizabeth II Fields in Trust status.
Ben Lavender, UK office
Jubilicious!
06/06/12
Last Friday, we joined in the national Diamond Jubilee celebrations in style with a themed Jubilee lunch with red, white and blue food and Union Jacks a plenty!
Everyone wore red, white and blue outfits and Karen even made a special hat and a cake stand from old vinyl records! After toasting the Queen with rhubarb and custard pop, we launched into the afternoon’s work buzzing with sugar and e-numbers!
Vanessa Christian, UK office
Thom Yorke painting (part finished)
01/06/12
Whenever I can I like to do my own illustrations for projects. As well as helping to push my skills further, it makes a nice break from the day to day design process. You can plug your headphones in and immerse yourself in a slice of creativity for a good few hours. A lot of my previous illustration work has started with a pencil sketch which gets scanned and then redrawn in Adobe Illustrator to create a nice, easily scalable, vector illustration. But, one of my latest pieces required something with a more 3D feel to it, meaning it needed to be done in Photoshop.
To help speed up the process and allow me to work with a much more natural feel, I managed to get a new toy to play with at work – a Wacom Intuos 4 graphic tablet. After the geek-gasm of unpacking, peeling off the protective plastic (the best part of any gadget unpacking according to Howard from Big Bang Theory) and installation it was ready to go. I can’t show the final results for that project yet, but with a new tool on my desk, and the new bristle brushes in Photoshop 5 now available to use at their full potential, I couldn’t help but try it out some more.
So, over a few lunch breaks I started my first digital painting. It’s of Thom Yorke from Radiohead. It’s not finished, but the result so far is this…
Here’s part of the process, firstly a sketch with a pencil brush....
Then blocking in some light, dark and colour...
Then, bit by bit, more detail....
As I said, it’s not finished yet, but I think I could have just found a new hobby. The combination of a Wacom tablet and the Photoshop bristle brushes has certainly created a much more natural look and feel to digital painting, and hopefully one that I will be able to take advantage of in future packaging design projects.
Sam Masters, UK office