abstracted idiot

Bye Tumblr,

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 02:00:48 +0000

I’m moving on. My new blog can be found here: http://jakehollands.wordpress.com/

Currently I’ve posted some of my freelance projects done over summer, as well as the start of my 2nd year at Chelsea.

I’ll continue to post links here to new submissions on WordPress, but will eventually stop posting here altogether.

The new blog is going to be more concentrated on my time at Chelsea, with separate blogs attached containing content about my theory classes. I’ll also be making posts describing the creative process in both my freelance and personal work, and there will be personal updates too.

It has been fun here and I have no plans to delete this blog.

Summer

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 04:41:00 +0100

Hey Tumblr,

Sorry. My mind hasn’t been focused on you much this summer. In June I ended my first year at university happy with what I had achieved and looking forward to getting started on second year. I stayed in London for a while working to gain some money, went home, met up with old friends, got lazy, played too many games, went to the Lake District to climb England’s mountains, go gorge scrambling, abseiling, windsurfing and take photos (to come soon), did some freelancing, moved into my new place in Peckham with some friends, watched too many films, put up my new portfolio website, went to weddings and parties, threw a party and all of a sudden I’m back at Chelsea starting my second year.

Second year certainly seems extremely promising. Over the next few days I hope to get the work that I did over summer posted on here, then it’ll be on to university updates.

Things are looking good~

Much love,

Jake

Hi! I'm starting at Chelsea this fall and I'm so excited. I read your other posts about what you think of the program as a whole, but I'm really curious about what the graphic design course is like compared to the others (notably CSM and LCC). I know that it's a lot tinier, but that's pretty much all I know. I thought you might be able to say something on the topic, if you have friends at the other colleges or have heard things. What are all the cross-uni stereotypes and reputations of them?

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:36:59 +0100

Congratulations on getting the place! Why anon?! Such a let down!

I don’t know much about CSM or LCC’s courses but can tell you that Chelsea’s small classes are a massive benefit. Your tutors will really get to know you and work out your advantages and where you need to improve.

I know a fair few people at Camberwell (they also take on small classes), which seems to be a much more traditionally-based course - students there appear to have their graphic design history and theory down really well and projects are based more around identity, logo and traditional design. At Chelsea it seems to be based much more around idea-generation and much more crazy briefs. I’m only about to start second year though, so I really can’t talk about the course as a whole and am still working out exactly what it has to offer me.

Pick up this month’s issue of Creative Review - it’s the graduate issue and features an interview between a London-based studio and one of this year’s Chelsea GDC graduates (as well as other graduates from other universities).

A quote from the interview: “Our tutor always said it needs to be about big ideas, beautifully made. They did say the aesthetic was important, but if the idea wasn’t there, the aesthetic would bring you nothing.”

I think that this says a lot about Chelsea’s course.

I hope this has helped a little bit. Enjoy your first year, it’s great fun and Nigel’s a great tutor. I can’t wait to get into my second year - I’m sure that it has a lot to offer me.

Hope to see you around!

Hey, could you tell me a bit about Graphic Design at Chelsea? I'm looking at there or CSM, without a foundation if possible. Thanks !

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:42:59 +0100

Hey, sorry for my late reply.

I’ve had a great first year at Chelsea, and at the end of it I don’t think that I can give much advice to someone considering going there.

I’ve learnt a lot, had great fun, met a lot of lovely people, and am confident that the course will only get better and that it’ll eventually land me in my dream career. After speaking to classmates, 2nd and 3rd years though, opinions really vary on the course.

It’s an odd course with a very different approach to graphic design than other universities - whenever I tell someone that I’m studying graphic design communications I usually have to add “but it’s not really graphic design - it’s crazy”.

I really don’t know what to say about the course to be honest - I’ve really been thrown off in terms of my views of it over the last couple of weeks, but not necessarily in a bad way. I would still strongly recommend applying to Chelsea if you have a strong and passionate interest in graphic design, but you’re not sure exactly where you want to work in the industry. Also, being a little bit crazy probably helps on this course.

Here’s a more early response to a similar question.

I guess that my rocked views are based on me realising that it doesn’t matter what course you choose to work on. As long as you work hard, you’re going to be good at the work and get a good job. When you choose a university, you’re paying for its reputation on your CV and the connections that it’ll give you more than anything.

Of course, I can’t say this with too much confidence as I haven’t been on another university’s graphic design course. Maybe some of them are utter shit and will cause hard-working students to crash once they step into the industry.

Sorry if this hasn’t been much help - my mind has been in a bit of a mess lately. Good luck with it though.

Record Sleeve Project (Final)

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:11:00 +0100

Record Sleeve Project (Final)

Record Sleeve Project (Process)

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:09:04 +0100

A POPULAR BRIEF
_2012
_REDESIGN YOUR
FAVOURITE VINYL
FORMAT 12” ALBUM
██████████████████

So, I didn’t keep my blog updated with the progress on this one. Here’s what happened…

After looking through my photography-dominated portfolio, Peter Chadwick insisted that my record cover can’t be photography. I thought this was a great idea - I needed a push out of my comfort zone, and needed more confidence in graphic design.

Before you continue, I should draw your attention to the almost-invisible, thin and pale horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of your browser window. You’ll need it later. It’s down there somewhere.

First of all, I settled on redesigning Sigur Rós’ INNI. I started by going to the band’s roots, and looked at traditional Icelandic patterns.

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I then created some covers based on them.
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ew.

After recovering from the crippling depression that those ideas caused me, I decided to get my hands dirty. I grabbed some cartridge paper, charcoal, inks, water colours, my desk lamp and my camera and macro lens, and started to experiment:
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Using the Roman-style typeface felt too similar to the original record sleeve, and the cleaner ideas appealed to me much more than the gritty ones. I decided to look at how I can use ‘INNI’.
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Clearly I quite liked the IXXI motif. It was made through duplicating and flipping ‘INNI’. After this I had a feedback session with Peter Chadwick, who suggested that I experiment further with the IXXI motif. I decided to try it with some of my initial ideas, and take it a little further.
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The 3D-like affect that the soft shadows on the last one cause gave me the idea of recreating INNI in 3D in various ways.

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I’d just like to point out how fucking tediously tiny that second one was. Each character was about 2-3mm wide. It was horrible.

After messing about a bit more, I discovered that through having ‘INNI’ twice, I could make it pop-up to form the motif, making the origin of the motif clear to the consumer. It also leaves the word ‘INNI’ behind, underlined with some lovely shadows when lit correctly.

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I could make this mechanism happen when the consumer removes the inner sleeve, pulling the motif up. After another feedback session with Peter Chadwick, I was told to develop this idea further and experiment with how to place the ‘Sigur Rós’ type, what typeface to use and to look into colour further. I was advised to use Gill Sans, and that a strong contrasting black and yellow would look good. Ignoring the motif, I tested these on a rough version of the sleeve once the motif has been erected.
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I was having trouble with the type, and felt that the black & yellow combination was putting me off. It also wasn’t giving me a good idea of what the final result may be, so I experimented further using After Effects:
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Hadn’t tried something like this in After Effects before, so I was pleasantly surprised at how bad-ass I felt when it actually worked.

During my next feedback session, I was advised to try going for more cool colours to better reflect Iceland’s climate. While the red and white had been my favourite so far, it was too strong. I cleaned up the render and tried white and blue.
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I was pretty much satisfied with this, but then realised that I had totally neglected the spine and back cover. I started working on designs for them. I was advised to base it around the negative space in the X/N’s counters.
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My apologies for the terrible image quality. These pictures are getting too big. I quite liked a lot of them, so I decided to work on the spine and pick a combination that worked.
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I chose these three to go together:
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I then printed and assembled the record sleeve, with this being my final result:
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Front:

Back:

Opening:

Open:

Full:

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Overall, I was really pleased with how this came out. The experimentation led me to places that I hadn’t expected to go, I went out of my comfort zone, and I came out with a result that I’m actually quite happy with.

Unfortunately, due to booking a ridiculous amount of shifts the days following up to the final brief, I passed out at home after 48 hours of working at events, was late to the final brief and got a D for being late! Which I actually quite like - being treated as if you’re actually working for a client. Clients should rightfully be pissed at you if you’re 5 hours late. I was told that it would have been a B if it had been handed in on time, however.

If you’ve read this far, whoa.

We had to design a letter each to be laser cut as decorative...

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 22:08:00 +0100

We had to design a letter each to be laser cut as decorative letterpress blocks. I was given an N; the final design is above, with a few of my original ideas below it.

Last year’s can be seen here. Check it out, they’re beautiful. Hopefully ours will be done by the time we start our second year.

In small groups, we had to create a short stop-frame animation...

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 21:55:00 +0100

In small groups, we had to create a short stop-frame animation based on one of the world’s biggest brands. We were given Nokia, and decided to create a short history of their products.

To end the crazy golf project, each group had to photograph...

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 21:54:00 +0100

To end the crazy golf project, each group had to photograph themselves with their hole. We were asked to use John Hinde’s postcards as inspiration for our attire.

Mass update tonight.

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 10:58:29 +0100

I promise.

Not too long ago, I was thinking to myself, “why have I...

Mon, 14 May 2012 04:00:00 +0100

Not too long ago, I was thinking to myself, “why have I never seen an unsigned band brave enough to step into Muse’s territory?” shortly afterwards, Death in Texas contacted me inviting me to photograph one of their gigs.

As someone that adores Muse, their influence was easy to pick up on in Death in Texas’ music. They have put a twist on the style though to keep it their own, and thankfully are in no way trying to become a clone of the legendary 3-man band.

Although Death in Texas’ music has a lot of room for growth, it’s definitely worth checking out. They’re taking on a challenging genre, and that’s something I want to support. You can download their EP for free here, I recommend checking out ‘Dancers’.

On a related note, I’ve pretty much scrapped all work on ‘Abstracted’ so far - I had gotten distracted from what I wanted it to be, and after some research and working out exactly where I want to take it, I’ve been frantically scribbling page-after-page of new ideas. I know that I should just get the ball rolling on it as soon as I can, but I want to make sure that I’ve got the foundations just right before I start building on them.

Death in Texas are another example of the type of band that I want Abstracted to be made for.

Oh dear, I haven't updated in almost a month. Update incoming...

Mon, 14 May 2012 03:41:16 +0100

Today I realised how awesome my life is.

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:04:07 +0100

Over the last couple of weeks, I spent time hanging out with my family playing games at home and discussing creative ideas. I also met up with some home-friends and it was just as good as it’s always been, and we agreed to get into mountain boarding in the summer which is a sport that I’ve wanted to get back into for ages.

Then I came back to London, a city which I love in anticipation of starting a new hobby (yet to be revealed), but first had to work on a project that I love on a course that I’m still blown away for getting onto. Then I spent last night working on an essay that I found tedious, but enjoyed doing because I still managed to find it interesting and have the motivation to better my design work. I didn’t sleep because of it, and in the morning the fridge light turned on for the first time in months. It felt much more amazing than it sounds. I went into university where I was given a new brief to go along side the already awesome brief. The new brief was so good that I felt like a 10 year old repeatedly being told that he’s going to Disney land.

Without sleep, I went to work where I worked hard with lovely people that I’ve never met before - like most shifts - and made more new friends. When I got back to my station after a draining shift, I climbed the long flight of stairs rather than use the escalator like everyone else, cos it’s fun sometimes. Every time I do it, I look behind me to see that 1 or 2 people decided to follow me up there rather than be lazy. I haven’t seen my London friends in almost a month because I’ve been too busy doing things that I love, and when I find the time I’ll be able to join the party with them.

Tomorrow I’m working at a totally different interesting place, Friday another awesome university project begins, Saturday I go to a lecture by my favourite designer, Saturday night I get paid to photograph a band. That is being paid to do something that I love to do, and do anyway for free on a regular basis.

On Monday, more awesome university and I work at a Porsche showcase in Reading. On Tuesday I work at a Porsche showcase in Hatfield. Both of these will be with new lovely people that I’ve never met. The following weeks will be full of more crazy shit, until I go to Cardiff to see my best friend. I then come back to more awesome shit and do that until Summer, when I go to Plymouth with other best friends, and get onto mountain boarding.

While doing all of this, I get to remain physically fit, I get to learn amazing stuff, I get to do my own creative projects, I get to do this new unannounced hobby, AND I get to be in a country where the general public aren’t being slaughtered by their own government.

Shit is awesome.

I’m totally aware of how badly written and formatted this is, but it’s raw thought and pretty much written as a lovely reminder to myself.

Since my new and lovely job as a waiter pays two pence above minimum wage, I’ve been pushed...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:18:10 +0100

Since my new and lovely job as a waiter pays two pence above minimum wage, I’ve been pushed to finally test the scary waters of freelancing. Being someone with terrible business sense, this wasn’t easy for me.

So far I’ve only seen through one project, and it was a lovely one. Canadian band The Socials wanted a new logo. Here were my initial proposed ideas:

Although received nicely, it wasn’t what they wanted. After some feedback, we came to this conclusion:

I’m so pissed that it ended there though! When I finished it, I was in a rush amongst other projects and had gone without sleep for far too long. I just wanted to get it out of the way. If I had more time, I would have made the sizes of the characters work more smoothly, worked out how to make the line weight look consistent, wrapped the crest around the type more tightly, and so many other things. The band loved it how it is though, so no harm done. I’m still quite gutted though. Lesson learnt - it’s all experience.

Photos from The Social’s Facebook page:

A POPULAR BRIEF_2012_REDESIGN YOURFAVOURITE VINYLFORMAT 12” ALBUM ██████████████████Choose...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:52:21 +0100

A POPULAR BRIEF
_2012
_REDESIGN YOUR
FAVOURITE VINYL
FORMAT 12” ALBUM
██████████████████
Choose your favourite 12” album cover (it must be vinyl format not CD). You will be required to redesign and art direct this chosen cover in whatever way you choose i.e. typographic, illustrative, screenprinting, photographic - whatever treatment you see fit to answer the brief - I will require you not only to redesign the cover but also the spine and back cover. You should use all the text, logos, legal text and the barcode that are found on the original sleeve and redesign the whole sleeve (front, back & spine). This is an exercise in creating a strong cover solution, layout, grid and artwork skills & typographic treatments.

Peter Chadwick is leading this project, and I can’t wait to get on with it. It has come at a good time - I’ve just recently gotten myself a record player and fallen in love with the vinyl-format. So far I’m having difficulty deciding between Sigur Rós’ INNI and Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.

I’m torn… I’m completely in love with Wish You Were Here’s cover, but honestly - their music doesn’t mean that much to me. Sigur Rós however, have changed the way that I look at and listen to music, and have helped me to take a different approach to life. The cover to INNI is lovely, but not quite as brilliant as Wish You Were Here.

I think I’ll have to go with INNI in the end - I’ll have much more fun if I love the band I’m doing it for.

I should be posting more updates on this throughout the week. It’ll be an interesting one for me - Peter has insisted that the final result for my piece cannot be photography since I want to become stronger in other areas.

Home makes me lazy.

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:08:59 +0100

But I’m getting on with the updates now.

The last project of the term at university was to create our own mini-golf course based around bad typefaces. We were divided into groups and given a typeface - ours being Curlz MT

yum.

When I was about~ 14 or 15 I used this sexy typeface on a “logo”. Brace yourselves, the grunge brushes are coming…

Dat glow.

Dat stock certificate.

UNNGGHH, dat silhouette.

‘Sugar Rush’ was our genius of a business. We bought sweets at Sainsbury’s and sold them at school for twice the price. We got shut down by the school for undercutting the canteen’s prices.

Bastards.

Anyway, now that I’ve made sure that anyone skimming over the images in my blog thinks I’m completely retarded, back to mini-golf (which makes me look so much more sane).

I proposed that we include an elevator, half-loop and slingshot in our hole, but the idea didn’t go down too well. We based it around the letter ‘S’

Photos by Josiah Jones and Saori Masuda

I think that we were given about a week to come up with an initial idea/sketches, another week to build small scale models out of foam board for idea proposals, then a week to build the actual hole.

Photos by Josiah Jones and Saori Masuda

I planned on making this post full-blown in detail, but my head hurts and I have stuff to do. More rushed updates incoming!

Fixed my keyboard by attacking it with a needle.

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:43:02 +0000

Fixed my keyboard by attacking it with a needle.

Just gotten home from university for the easter holidays, and my...

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:37:16 +0000

Just gotten home from university for the easter holidays, and my ‘g’ key seems to be fucked so those may be missin occasionally for a little bit. Have set up what’s important though.

Haven’t updated in a while oh reat my space bar is a bit fucked too. How did this happen. Haven’t updated in a while - I’ve been very busy with my exciting part-time job and have been dippin my toe into the freelance pool. It’s a pretty cold pool, but I’m ettin the han of it. I’ll be updating probably over the next couple of days with the shit that I’ve been up to - it’s been a pretty cool, stressful, sleepless couple of weeks, and I’m so glad to be back.

I don't know his name but he had a big beard? He was really nice & he liked my work too so that's a plus haha

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:13:10 +0000

That may~ have been Paul then, he’s great. Well, good luck!

Thanks :) I think the interview went really well & the guy who interviewed me was really nice, so I'm hoping I get an offer haha. & I don't use tumblr for my work, just fashion/inspiration ;D

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:59:04 +0000

*Last answer was meant to say good luck, not get luck ahhah. Edited it now.

Who interviewed you? Everyone I’ve had teach me there so far has been lovely. And ahh fair, well if you ever want to stop hiding behind Anon feel free to ;P.