#GoHomo

As a creative grad, I naturally filled out countless copy tests/applications that featured pretty oddball questions. One of which asked to create a campaign to convince a straight person to be gay.

Challenge accepted.

I created #GoHomo, a campaign that focuses on the advantages of same-sex relationships over mixed, spun toward promoting respect - and a degree of desirability - for gay and lesbian people on behalf of the charity Stonewall. Taking inspiration from the popular slang term "no homo" (meaning "not in a gay way"), #GoHomo is a positive declaration of what people would "go gay for".

By cheekily uniting genders in a battle of the sexes, the campaign calls for people to Tweet their responses of what they would #GoHomo for - whether it be the drawbacks of the opposite sex or the benefits of same sex. The approach unifies gay and straight men as well as lesbian and straight women (typically the pairings which can clash) rather than further alienating sexualities by highlighting differences.

d&ad little white lies - black swan.

So, one of my 83746783 odd projects this semester was D&AD's illustration brief which challenged us to pick one of Little White Lies' favourite films of 2011 and (re)design a cover for their magazine. This was the result:

It went in several directions, but this was the route I was most happy with. I think I may use one of the other concepts for my minimal movie poster series (well, two posters).

This idea is pretty self explanatory, it's a visualisation of the conflict between light and dark, white and black, reality and fantasy, and innocence and corruption, that are explored throughout the film.

dexter + beyond.

Over the last week or so I finally got around to watching Dexter. Two seasons down, and yes it's amazing. It reminded me of these posters I was shown earlier this year, created by Ty Mattson. I love them. Slick, original and striking.

Taking it to the next level, the posters were animated into a title sequence for the show with equally great results. I love the minimal, Saul Bass-esque 40s/50s motion graphic approach. The style seen elsewhere in Kuntzel and Deygas's work with Catch Me If You Can, and Pixar's The Incredibles and Monsters Inc, to name but a few.

Wish I had more time this year to explore the ideas inspired by it all. Alas. Will need to wait.

diamond wedding anniversary invitation.

Diamond wedding anniversary invitation design for my Grandparents.

I wanted to create something that contrasted with the overtly feminine, flowery visuals that typically frequent such events. I think the result successfully achieves both an appropriate and personal approach, whilst remaining a slick piece of graphic design that stands out.

Congratulations to the happy couple and happy clients.

minimal movie posters.

Perhaps a cliche, but by no means less enjoyable ongoing self-directed summer project to visualise some of my favourite films in poster form. I'd quite like them to keep a degree of consistency throughout to form a 'set' of sorts.

Inspired by how the character of Derek Zoolander bears shame for not being able to turn left on the runway.

Visualising Juno's pregnancy, but also representing her romantic interest and father of the child through his love of orange Tic Tacs.

rorschach inspired ink/photoshop experiment.

The original piece of work was for a 'Basic Elements' coffee table book project we had in 2009, representing the element of 'chiaroscuro' (extreme light and dark). Inspired by Rorschach's ink blot tests, it was initially about making marks rather than an illustration, but I decided to revisit it and take it to another level using photoshop. I only added a few new elements (tree's and birds) but it's given the piece a narrative. The ink blot is subtly coming to life, painting a picture of what you see within it.

I've always been drawn to this concept, ever since seeing Gnarls Barkley's video for 'Crazy' when I was younger. I'm glad that I finally got the chance to give it a go, hopefully I'll apply the newfound skill to future ideas.

abc.

"Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? The guy who wrote that song wrote everything."

This is another re-visted first year piece. It began with rearranging the alphabet in order of usage, and developed into this abstracted typographic piece. This was my first venture into using photoshop in such a way, and I'm pretty pleased with the result. Room for improvement, as always.

the art of looking sideways.

After re-visiting the 'visual communication' project we did in first year, I decided to extract some of my favourite ideas and give them a new lease of life as stand alone illustrations. The brief was to create bookmarks for Alan Fletcher's book 'The Art of Looking Sideways', with each design taking inspiration from the chapter they were to mark.

This piece was inspired by the quote; "If you walk around [Tokyo] nowadays you may notice that the space between some new buildings is just about wide enough to stick your fist in."

Combining the fist with building took various forms over the development, but I think this is the strongest visual I came up with. There is power, humour and wit behind the image of the punching skyscraper. I'm unsure of which background works best for the piece, either the original black or the manila paper. I think I'm warming to the latter.