Trees in the City

I’ve been meaning to put this up for ages.
I designed this book of poetry back in the spring, here’s just a few sample pages.
This was a v simple and elegant typographic solution.

Amar

buy it at amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trees-City-Action-Climate-Change/dp/095561130X

The good ol’days

My home town have recently published a new website: http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/swop
Its a collection of photos from days gone by, I’m intrigued by the way the town looked before my family emmigrated here. And of course i couldn’t help noticing the old cars…seeing classic cars in their REAL environment is kinda special.

Also the picture below shows a crash at a particular junction near to where i grew up, it’s interesting to see way back in 1939, the residents were facing the same dangerous junctions as we did in 1989 – only after a fatal collision did they put traffic lights up.

Anyways ‘nuf of me talking about Happy High Wycombe and town planning!

I’m BACK

It’s been a few days since i’ve posted, but had few days of from EVERYTHING!
I have a week booked at GQ, which should be interesting, it’s defo something i’ve wanted to do for a while…

I’m free for freelance bookings after then, so if anyone out there has any work for me give me a shout. My CV.My CV

I came accross this article and i LOVE cars. I love fast cars, slow cars, old cars, new cars, square cars, round cars, english cars, european cars…you get the picture? I’m also really interested in alternative fuels, the article is interesting ‘cos it discusses a company converts gas-guzzlers into green-fuel-sipping- this in itself is nothing new BUT the difference is the cars that are converted are cool (…in america). I love the fact there are people out there doing this, but i still have questions…

1. Can we do it in the UK?
2. If so, is there a steady supply?
3. Why do manufacturers of main-stream green cars think drivers have no taste? pig ugly cars are NOT cool, and they are SLOOOOOOW!

Anyhoo i’m off, hungry and time for a screen break.

2006 A recap. part ii

Once InsideOut was launched the mag was beginning to find its identity. We were commisioning great illustrators and photographers and the mag was looking btter with each issue. Fast forward a few months and dare i mention my nomination for the Press Gazette Magazine Design Awards under the catergory of Young Designer of the Year, it was quite funny cos i only SCRAPED through as ‘young’ – if the deadline was 3 days later i would have officially been un-young! but hey ho…

(i will put up loads more pics of InsideOut once i get to grips with this and get a lil’ more time)

So in November, in preperation of the awards i bought myself a spanking new suit, precision tailoring does a hell of alot for self confidence! i don’t usually get nervous and the build up to the awards was no different, i wasn’t really too fussed, was well chuffed to have been shortlisted. When was reading out the nominations thats when i got a lil’ nervous…once he said my name out loud the nerves vanished. The team were right there and made me feel fab, this gong was for all of us – Debi, Jo, Phil and Michael – and of course the brilliant and ever supporting subs team!

Few months after the awards i began to think about my next move…and InsideOut was also becoming less and less interesting to work on, i was all interior-d out and the direction of the mag was heading somewhere i didn’t want to be at.

Throughout the year i had been working on my own freelance clients too, one of which is Zenzeni Noodle Bar, for whom i designed EVERYTHING! It was great, we launched the restaurant, created the identity and designed all the promo material. That took up most of my weekends but it’s great to see them doing well and the brand having a strong identity.

that pretty much was 2006 for me…

Worked with fab people at insideout and on ‘06 was a good year…roll on 2007!

-sorry if this is all sounding like a diary…

2006 A recap. part i

I started work on ‘InsideOut’ at News Magazines in November 2005 and we were right in the thick of it. It was great, had a fantastic launch design desk, headed by Debi Angel. The brief was to create a brand new interiors mag with a more hands-on section as its USP.

‘Foundations’ was that unique section, my section. The section was going to be an information led and full of ‘how to’ guides and tips and advice from various experts. Foundations was printed on different stock, a matt stock which re-inforced the more hands-on idea. I created the graphic elements of the section, the roof, the border and the side bar all to re-inforce the more masculine hands-on feel of the section. Once we were all happy with the look and concept I worked closely with Jo Cochrane to get the section tightened up and ready to template, Jo is a genius at this!

So Foundations was born, allbeit living within InsideOut, we were working flat out and produced a mag without doing a relevent dummy. We had a research dummy which was created WAY before any of us had joined the company, so was out-dated and some major ideas had been re-thought. Away we went. We launched the 1st issue in March 2006 and had a TV and press campaign behind us, the mag had a fresh look in a crowded market place and we did make an impact at the beginning.

Pics will follow…

First few posts

I am putting up some older news, it may not be in any real order, so i will try and put them in some order…

Current status / So London

I have been at a new mag called So London since last week, it is a nice mag, the original design comes from www.estersonassociates.co.uk It is a glossy weekly lifestyle mag aimed very much at socio-econmic group AB.