Abecedarian

Adj. Elementary, or arranged in alphabetical order.

Sale into 2013

The local shopping centre, previously a client where I work, wanted some artwork to go onto the screens inside their malls for the new year sales. I took the opportunity to do some hand-drawn lettering for it and then re-draw it in Illustrator. It was a small project but I'd have loved some more time to refine the drawing. The artwork was used on their external screen too – probably the biggest display of anything I've ever done!

Car dealership adverts

I was asked to refresh the newspaper advertising of a client at work who sells new and used cars.

The original adverts stuck to one or two low-impact colours and used graphic elements that were better suited to the web. So I opted for bright colours where appropriate, and added some strong flat graphics as an extension of the branding.

The artwork below shows the flat 'used car' advert, and the 'new car' ads in print. I was happy to see that the colours came out nice and bold first-time.

The Heist (The Maiden Heist) film

Three security guards at an art gallery in America have spent so much time around three particular pieces of art that they've each developed a strong (almost worshipful) admiration for them. When they learn that each of their beloved artworks are being bought by a foreign gallery, they take matters into their own hands. Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman and William H. Macy are surely reason enough to give it a watch.

The cover design for this DVD turned out to be totally misleading by the time I'd watched the film though. It suggests a gritty cold-hearted thriller. Thankfully, that's far from reality.

Web banners for kitchens

Some web banners I've done in recent months for a work client. It's always a big help when you have access to a bank of great images to work with.

Runner's World

Another magazine to look out for if you're a designer with or without any interest in running, Runner's World.

Although the cover is nothing to shout about (it's very busy and, although I'm not an enemy of white backgrounds, it just lacks kapow) when you look through the inner pages, there are usually lots of great infographics that use bright bold colours and some really refined creative work in the main articles. The last image below shows the title design for an article called 'The sum of your parts'. On the same spread, they've created images of bio-mechanical people doing whatever runners do when they're not running. Really interesting stuff – get yourself a copy – you can pretend you're into running and that you're ultra fit.

'Leonardo da Vinci' - Frank Zöllner

Zöllner's 'The Complete Paintings and Drawings', published by Taschen, is one of my favourite books. In fact, it's two books – one for paintings, and one for drawings – and a complete collection of everything that survives from Leonardo's work. There are apparently still lots of codices that are missing, unless they've already been destroyed.

As it's a full collection, everything from the scrappy doodles to the finished paintings is included. Modern exhibitions of his work lead us to believe he was a portrait artist who achieved nothing but perfection. So, it's amazing to see some of the more amateur drawings he produced (which we never find on display) and to notice that so many of his drawings were actually mechanical schematics which were the result of his working for Cesare Borgia and other military leaders.

The only downfall to the books is that they're presented inside a cardboard casing that isn't the best quality. If you look closely at the first image, you can see the vertical lines in the cover – the cardboard texture showing through. Not the best design decision given the price of this otherwise brilliant book.