NonStop

I know I haven’t posted any recent work lately, but I’ve had my hands full to say the least.

Not so busy that I missed this gem. I’d seen this footage before from a skate video called ‘Fully Flared’, which featured the track ‘Heaven’ by UNKLE. After seeing the vid, UNKLE and Spike Jonze decided to re-edit the footage and cut a new clip from it. This is the end result.

Amongst the trend of high frame rate footage that’s going around at the moment, this music video really stands above it’s peers. Have a squiz.

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.

This award winning short was created by filmmaker Bruce Branit, widely known as the co-creator of ‘405′. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. Branit is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City.

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

It’s occurred to me lately, that wordpress really is a great blogging platform, with version 2.7 about to be released.

Obviously, this folio is based on wordpress, and I am also currently working on another site for a local academic / artist / poet, and thank god for wordpress as a content management system!

I’m sure many designers will be horrified to hear it involves a horizontal scroll, but with a little CSS and wordpress knowledge, it’s shaping up very nicely. Also, wordpress is simple enough to write and manage posts, that clients can easily manage their own content.

Love it.

Thank you, wordpress team!

I came across this article from GoMediaZine today, discussing some tips to avoid the dreaded ‘Designer’s block’, and it’s definitely worth a look. Being able to switch that ‘creativity’ switch on is a fricking superpower in my mind, so I’m kinda obsessed with tapping into that creativity.

As ’self help’-ish as it sounds, Zen Habits is another good blog to keep an eye on. In their own words, Zen Habits is about “achieving goals, productivity, being organized, GTD, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, getting a flat stomach, eating healthy, simplifying, living frugal, parenting, happiness, and successfully implementing good habits”

Wow, what a feel good thursday. I feel like Oprah, dishing out helpful life tips here.
http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/10-tips-avoid-designers-block/

Recently I entered a national competition run by Vibewire, “…a project of non-profit youth media and arts organisation Vibewire Inc and is designed to provide young Australians with a forum where they can comment on matters pertinent to their lives.”

The competition was to raise awareness to the Victorian Government establishing a Charter of Human Rights, a first for Australian states. What’s more, I was lucky enough to take 1st place with my entry ‘Human Rights Are More Than Just Words’ being printed and distributed by Avant Card, and also scored free tix to Semi Permanent 2009 and a subscription to Empty Magazine!

Stay tuned over the next week, as I try and upload some new work to the Portfolio.

I’ve done a lot more personal work, and even won a national competition about Human Rights, so that’s a plus!

And what’s more, I’m finally going to enable comments on all posts / pages through out the site, and maybe even rework the site’s theme overall…

Sooooon.

Like every blog on the ‘internets’, I couldn’t help but mention Google’s new browser, Chrome. I’m a little pissed it’s not available for Mac just yet – seems kinda lame to me…

Anyway, for more info (albeit slightly geared towards nerdier types) about Chrome, check out the introductory comic, drawn by Scott McCloud.

Without sounding too dramatic, I really hope Google’s effort to shake up the way we access the internet works. Kudos to them.

I’ve only really just started using Chrome, at the moment, but I’ll post my verdict on it later.

It’s awesome to see when people get a simple idea, and make something that just works, visually.

Plus, kudos for choosing MGMT as a soundtrack.

Fireplays from Jon Thomas on Vimeo.

Create a Colourful Abstract Wavy Ribbon at Spoon Graphics

For as long as I’ve been toying around with Illustrator, there’s been one question that no one could ever answer for me – oh, i tried!

Basically, my question is “how can i make a ribbon / rainbow of 2 or more colors, and twist and manipulate it, to give shape and dimension in Illustrator?”

and randomly, tonight, while i was just browsing through design sites, like abduzeedo.com, psdtuts, cult-foo, & iamneato, i stumble across Spoon Graphics and a tutorial to solve my ribbon mystery! of course it was amazingly simple (like all problems that haunt you) and i thought I’d give Chris Spooner some well deserved credit – not only does he have a blog that answers my mysteries, his portfolio is definately worth a check!

Safe Hands are a Hardcore / Screamo / Southern Rock band from Newcastle, Australia that I was stoked to work with lately. Safe Hands just wanted some promo shots taken, ready for any press, and to prepare for the release of their upcoming EP. I worked together with a friend, Tom Hancock, on the project, from original photography, through to fairly heavy post-production.

Click here for more on Safe Hands

Well it’s kinda taken longer than I expected to get the whole site up and running, but it’s almost there. It wasn’t really the sort of job I could do on a weekend in between other paying jobs, so it keeps getting held up. But soon!

I love Gnarls Barkley – I’ll admit that straight up. Part of the reason, though, is because their visual work (film clips, album art, promotional photos etc) is just as good.

The new film clip for ‘Run’ off their new album ‘The Odd Couple’ proves they’re not slowing down, just getting better.

If you haven’t seen the clip for Crazy, you’re missing out… and maybe you were in a coma or something.

Every time they play live, Cee-Lo, Dangermouse & the whole band have a different ‘theme’ of costumes – eg. Star Wars, Navy etc. Check out Chewbacca playing the drums!

On top of all of that, the promotional photos provided to the media, promoters etc, feature Cee-Lo & Dangermouse as famous Duos from the Movies. Any particular reason? Just cos it’s awesome… I’m so impressed that someone is actually pushing the creativity in the music industry which seems to be suffering from the same old shit over and over again. Check out more photos at http://www.starpulse.com/, the new clip ‘Run’ and below, the Star-Wars-tastic Crazy performance.

A hypothetical program for the Annual Sydney Design Festival. I have been trying to expand my skills lately, and a brochure seemed like a nice change, and I wanted to create something simple, but also drawing on some current trends. The artwork used throughout the brochure is also some of my stencil work, which can be viewed on my flickr page.

3 Magazine ads designed for an advertising class at University, to promote the Tivoli Model One FM Tuner, to a nostalgic, older audience, who can appreciate the products value, and also afford the price tag.

This cocktail menu was designed for Chill, a local cocktail bar, updating the old menu and keeping in with the bar’s blue, dark and classy style.

A hypothetical identity created for the Australian airline, Qantas. I decided to focus on the already established ‘Qantas red’, and introduce the graduated dots, inspired Indigenous Australian imagery. I also chose to heavily decorate the undercarriage of the airplane, which is generally the most visible section.

Although it is a departure from Qantas’ ‘kangaroo’ identity, I feel that pushing Qantas as a more modern & fresh brand would help compete against other carriers such as Virgin Blue.

Amongst all the new music that’s coming out at the moment (particularly Gnarls Barkley’s ‘The Odd Couple’ – super fricking excited), one album that almost passed me by was a compilation called “Beat Studies: Lesson One”, from 2007.

Track it down – it’s worth a lot of hunting. The album harks back to the casual style of Hip Hop similar to groups like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and early Black Eyed Peas. Featuring tracks from People Under the Stairs, Speech Defect, Starving Artists Crew, and many other artists that I hadn’t heard of before.

Not that I’m saying that you shouldn’t chase down ‘The Odd Couple’, just get this while you’re at it!

This book cover was designed as part of my work at University. I chose to incorporate an existing photo (source unknown) of Miles Davis, and introduce some texture to my folio.

The use of scanned ink blots / splashes was intended to draw on the often forgotten stories of Jazz masters such as trumpet player, Chet Baker, who abandoned a life of women, fame and riches in favour of Heroin, which eventually led to his teeth being broken by an angry drug dealer. Without teeth, he never really played again. Even Miles Davis suffered through a Heroin addiction.

Of course, being a trumpet player, myself, I enjoyed this brief.

FINALLY!

Yeah, finally things are coming together in the Portfolio!

This was a series of conceptual billboards for Duracell, promoting the day-to-day uses of AA Batteries, and the frustration that is caused without AA. Intended to be a 24-sheet billboards in metropolitan areas around australia, these works echoed Duracell’s current image, but issued a colourful, and humourous message that pushed the AA battery’s day-to-day value into consumer’s minds.

This was a cover I produced for the Newcastle University student publication, Opus, while I was studying. Intended to be bright and boldly different from the prior covers which followed a softer, text based aesthetic.

Yeah, I know, I know, you’ve already seen this filmclip and you think it’s wicked. BUT, just in case someone hasn’t stumbled across it yet, check it out – it really is that good. Then you can be all like ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you haven’t seen it!’ to other people…

This poster was designed as part of a competition to promote the community of Jesmond. Encouraging harmony between International Students from the nearby University with local residents was the goal for the project, and the finished size was A2.

Tasked with creating a 21st Birthday Invitation that represented the evening’s fun, but classy nature, I created this DL sized invitation in just a few days. Love those last minute jobs!

This is a few stippling artworks on did somewhere in 2004. My theme was Jazz, and consequently, the subtheme was eye strain.