Past Work: Circles in Evolution

Profission Circles

Back in 2004 whilst at Kleber I was asked to create a site for Italian composer and producer Ferdinand Arno, promoting his studio; Quiet, Please! The concept had a special pre-requisite – the site was to have no descriptive words at all, so we’d need to look at an alternative way of communicating the concept. What started with that concept then evolved a couple of times over the next few years!

Back in 2004 whilst at Kleber I was asked to create a site for Italian composer and producer Ferdinand Arno, promoting his studio; Quiet, Please! The concept had a special pre-requisite, and not a particularly SEO-friendly one either, but Ferdinand didn’t really need the positioning. The site was to have no descriptive words at all, infact the only words that appeared in the whole site were in the navigation and the listings within the music library. And a restrained few on the contact form.

In order to present the methodology of the studio we needed to come up with a set of visual assets to communicate what the site, and the studio were about. Tom (Muller) and I came up with a sort of pulse-based flash intro (yes this was still acceptable then) that illustrated the intro music through the use of varied circular elements, blurred and in a small gamut of colours. The gentle bloom and undulation of these assets across a letterbox canvas picked out the audio and shaped it into something we could then translate to other elements of the site.

Later i took these assets and worked them up for a series of flat poster graphics that comprised a Magnasoma mini-series called Fluorescent Dialogue with ideas foraged from research into radial interfaces.

When it came to producing a series of eight abstract elements to accompany our service areas for the first Profission website and in printed collateral the same underlying concepts worked equally as well. Expressed as a series of brightly coloured circle elements in arrangements over black, these distinctive assets proved themselves to be a crucial component of what made the original site quite special. Later Alex and I looked at producing a colour-inverted version of the site to make portfolio presentation a little easier but other projects intervened and there was never enough time to produce the site, so they lay in template unused. I’ve always been quite fond of them so its nice to see them again.

Magnasoma

January 12, 2012

Mark Brunswicker

I just want to quickly illustrate Mark Brunswicker’s work on The Vision Paper. Great use of type over imagery and really messing about with the grid creates a sophisticated layout where the editorial appears to float over the page. At once constrained, but delightfully capricious.

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February 16, 2012

Ben Jeffery

Leeds-based graphic designer Ben Jeffery has an incredible eye for layout and has recently worked with Rankin on his newest magazine project The Hunger. In all of his projects you’ll find a well considered, incredibly tight presentation that effortlessly communicates the editorial in as minimal and achingly sharp method as i think its possible to produce.

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February 11, 2012

Riitta Päiväläinen

Riitta produces ghostly psuedo-sculptures by wrapping linens around, and arranging clothing in, trees and scrub. By presenting her work as photographs she can use the environment she’s working with as part of her piece, giving her sculptures an environment within which to live; suggesting the passing passage of time and a record of events that have already happened.

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February 8, 2012

Monolith 2

This beautiful photo was shot by James Cambourne at Saunton, between Exmoor and Dartmoor on the coast. The original has been beautifully graded down and is presented in very wide 2.35:1 format. Taking the original photo, and another from the same set to work into the Monolith’s reflection, i’ve kept faithful to James’ grade but have had to slightly increase the height to display the Monolith fully.

Magnasoma
February 6, 2012

Neil Kellerhouse

Graphic designer Neil Kellerhouse is responsible for some of the most arresting and important movie posters in recent years. Based in Los Angeles, Kellerhouse has spent the last year working with directors such as Fincher and Soderbergh.

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February 1, 2012

Feric

I bought one of Feric’s red-crowned crane prints a couple of years ago; a whimsical and elegant take on using engineering drawing practice in a very original way. And since then Feric has been busy…

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January 30, 2012

DepotVisuals

Modelling digitally with reference to real-world materials like plastics and wood, German studio DepotVisuals build informational installations and imagine constructs that are just slightly too perfect and too whimsical to exist in the real world. Amazing stuff. Take a look at their work.

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January 26, 2012

520 Ways

For her birthday late last year i created this poster for Shon; it is the dialogue from my phone of the few text messages that went into arranging our first date, then the first month of our relationship afterward.

Magnasoma
January 23, 2012

Carol Prusa

American artist Carol Prusa works with acrylic globes and domes, illustrating incredibly detailed mathematical structures on a unique and subtly three-dimensional construct. Take a look at her portfolio of work.

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January 20, 2012

The Monolith

I had wanted to create a piece for a while that nods towards one of my favourite films; 2001, and the visual simplicity of the film’s Tycho monolith with its silent, constant presence is obviously a perfect starting point. This is the first of (hopefully) a set of three prints and illustrates the moment immediately following the tragic impact of a small body against the large, omnipresent object.

Magnasoma
January 13, 2012