Animated UI EffectsThese phone screens were green screen - my role was to mock up animated graphics for a make-believe screen and mirroring software. This shot appeared in the film, 'A Dirty Weekend,' where the lead character's wife suspects him of having an affair. My joke was to have the slogan for the software 'Ruining affairs since 2017.'
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Flange Juice - fictional engine productThis is another still from the 2019 film, 'A Dirty Weekend.' Here the character is caught off guard when an eccentric car mechanic is aggressively selling him an engine product that he he had previously never heard of. Given the nature of the film I went for a design with subtle(ish) sexual undertones.
The white text reads, 'For those of us who are running on a dry flange.' It is funny. Honest. |
Timed 2D Animal Graphics
This was a personal project I set myself while on a long coach trip from Prague to Munich. My now ex-girlfriend would suggest an animal that I would have to create a 2D graphic of using only geometric shapes using a basic illustration app on my smart phone. I was timed to complete each graphic in under 5 minutes.
KathyAthy Lifestyle BlogThis was a really nice commission. A young lady had recently moved 200+ miles from the North West to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in order to study a Psychology degree. In leaving her friends and family for uni she decided to start an adult-learner lifestyle blog as a means of something to occupy her down time. Her late grandfather was a published author who wrote a short children's story about a friendship between an elephant and a giraffe - which inspired the logo graphic I was commissioned to make for her blog. Sadly she didn't manage to keep up with this and the blog is no longer live.
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PU ClotingA friend of mine was going through the motions of starting up a clothing brand company called, 'PU Clothing.' As part of his business plan and pitch for business grants and funding I worked with him to create potential logo. As is the way with so many start ups it didn't take off as a company - but the logo I did was pretty cool - so its staying in the portfolio.
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Heads-high pixel charactersThis was a fun one. When teaching Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to adult students for an evening Graphic Design class I wrote and delivered a session on proportionate character design. I covered how using the head of a character to generate the ratio of the rest of the body parts can give the character a place on the "cuteness scale." As part of the practical Adobe Photoshop demonstration I came up with a 3-heads high character reminiscing on his adolescent body-building 2-heads high days.
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Alba Nights debut album cover artAlba Nights are a Sunderland, UK based rock band. In 2017 they had their debut album set for release, Soliloquies. I was commissioned to do the album cover whereby they briefed me with, 'something British and of Sunderland.'
This was the final design where I played with a mix of graphic design and photography. The photograph is from a park which at the time was being hotly disputed as to whether it should be a site for a new housing estate. The idea of putting a character as a stubborn fed-up sitting protest in the park drinking tea from crockery which would usually be for indoors in the park was a little in-joke on my part. |
Fruitbat VeganFor this project I was commissioned to design a illustration depicting a girl called Katie and her miniature dachshund, Frank for use on her blog where she shares with the online communities her journey into Eco-living and veganism.
I was able to spend a bit of time with Katie and her very charismatic adorable sausage dog and really got a sense of her style, charisma and mannerisms which were captured in this graphic I designed using Adobe Illustrator. |
Digital Illustration Simulating Depth
While working as a teacher of graphic design and illustration one of the workshop lessons I wrote and delivered was how to use photoshop to simulate depth. Nicknamed 2.5D these were 2D illustrations that have a 3D effect on them. For the sake of the session I used the popular Marvel character, The Hulk - the original line-drawing taken from the internet with colour and shading added in stages.
Biker Illustration
This illustration was made for a theme of the marketing materials for the 2019 feature film A Dirty Weekend. In the film the protagonist is stalked on pushbikes through the England/Scotland borders countryside by an eccentric cruiser bike riding oddball.
Stills from the film of the character were used to base the illustration on. |