I decided to stretch my creative muscles at work last week and give the company values, that we try to live by, some more personality. Working with the Jigsaw colours and with simplistic powerful old propaganda posters in mind I set out to decorate the office and help us focus on being imaginative, fearless, true and passionate.
In the past year I have moved to more towards digital design and further away from painting for no other reason than more design opportunities presenting themselves and the more I designed bits and bobs on my computer the more work cropped up. In doing so my studio has also changed to accommodate more for sketching and designing. This is what it looks like today:
… and this is what it looked like 1 year ago:
The workspace of a creative person evolves to serve three purposes: to be a functional workspace, to spark inspiration and to be a comfortable space to work (however not comfortable in the same way a living room is comfortable – these two spaces need to be separated somehow).
It’s great to have everything you need at your fingertips without it crowding your desk/studio. An amazing example of this is Casey Neistat’s studio:
I’m not so keen on the gun and weaponry which are “Kinda funny” to use in case the “pizza guy gets belligerent… you have it at the ready”. How much/often are you pissing off pizza guys Casey!?
I found this video through a blog post by artist Suffoca, who also has recently posted a few nice shots of his studio.
If you really enjoy looking at peoples studios from the safety of your own home check out Desk which also comes as an app and makes for good viewing on the iPad.
Recently I have been working on a project that involves a lot of detailed background illustration. In looking for inspiration I’ve ended up in a Google spiral of animation background artwork. From the very detailed and soft glowing designs of old-school Disney animation to the jagged screaming simple lines of Chuck Jones’ Looney Tunes cartoons sometimes we are so distracted by the action of the character we forget to look at what’s going on in the background. Rob Richards’ does some excellent work restoring old animation backgrounds on his blog and is worth a look at as the website is quite extensive. Here are a few from the blog…
… and here is an amazing old video introduced by Walt Disney explaining the technology used for Bambi to create depth in the background using an elaborate system of moving panes. The level of invention used in these early animated movies was astounding.
It’s three weeks ’til the new Superman movie comes out and I am pretty excited. I’m going to the premier in my best suit and then under that suit I will wear my Clark Kent suit and under that suit I will wear my superman pajamas suit, I may never take off the first two suits at the cinema but I’ll know that underneath it all I’m a Superman… a sweaty, suffocating Superman who will order a large Coke at the candy bar and will freak out in the bathroom when I undo 2 flies and have to wrangle the underpants I’m wearing over the superman suit.
In anticipation for the new film and because it’s fun to make movies, some friends of mine have started a web-series called Justice Lease. I contributed four illustrations for the intro which look really slick incorporated into the final product.
The series is about superheroes living together. The house is perhaps too small to contain all of their egos and alter egos.
I have an alter-ego called Chad Bunnings. He understands what all the posts are for in all of the sports, he can open the front boot of a car and tell you the machine part that’s not working, he even has names for his fists: Punchy and Phillip.
You can see Episode one of Justice lease here:
Infographics are the new wave. In the future they will replace CVs.
In the future planes will replace kites. Glue will replace honey.
ROBOTS WILL REPLACE GOVERNMENT!
Until that bleak day Infographics are pretty fun and I intend on making more.
Sometimes I create artworks for commissions and sometimes I will design a poster for a fee and sometimes I just want to see something exist because it doesn’t already and I think it would be cool if it did. This poster design is an example of the latter. I like Steve Buscemi, I like Reservoir Dogs and I like to design posters.
For those of you who are not familiar with this reference please refresh your memory with this video (below). SPOILER ALERT. If you haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs yet you really should. I’m not suggesting that you should because it’s in my top ten and I want you to like what I like. I don’t care what you like. I’m just letting you know that if you are intending on putting together a crew to plan a jewel heist this film can be used as an instructional video of what not to do. So if you are going to steal those diamonds DON’T ASK TIM ROTH TO HELP!
After winning the batman poster competition I have decided to use my powers of graphic design for good rather than evil. I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking – “Edmund, how could you possibly use graphic design for evil?” – I’ll tell ya how: I could wow a client with a brilliant design for a theatre show but put the wrong date on the poster thus causing anarchy at a small fringe festival. ANARCHY! and I would save it as a .jpg file and delete the .psd file making it reeeeealy annoying if I were to change the date to the real date. But I would not say a word, I would just let the audiences turn up to another show which may already be booked out. I would stand on a hill watching the confused crowds get mildly annoyed at the ticket booth guy and would chortle, I would chortle with absolute glee knowing that I, a lowly graphic designer, caused such anarchy!
This kind of evil only works once though, It may be hard to get a gig designing posters for a while.
So here is an example of my powers of graphic design being used for good:
This is a birthday present for my brother-in-law Joel. He is a marine biologist and bicycle enthusiast and aquaMAN did he love it.
With Kevin Bacon as my spirit guide for Dry July I have abstained from drinking for twelve days now. I knew things would get tough so I have re-labeled all of my booze with photos of Kevin. I get to the fridge, grab a beer but before I crack open the cold, bitter, refreshing ale I catch K.B’s deep, glowing blue eye and I see his furrowed waxy brow and his slim tiny mouth says to me “No. You’re doing this for cancer Ed. If it were for something bullshit like animal rights I might let you have just one beer, but you need to put me back in the fridge and do something else. Why not watch a classic movie like Footloose or something?”. Thanks Kevin. I didn’t know you were an animal hater but I guess your name isn’t Kevin “Fair-trade” Bacon.
Two more friends have helped me get through this Month. Fuzzy and Priscilla both made donations to my Dry July Profile so they both receive a peronalised Kevin Bacon artwork. If Kevin Bacon can be my spirit guide helping me out when I’m not drinking, he can surely help you guys up when you are drinking. I’ll post you a signed print in the mail. Enjoy.
If you want to help fight cancer and receive one of these artworks just donate here
https://www.dryjuly.com/profile/edmundiffland
I’m ten days in and Dry July has me cooking some serious Bacon. Lucia Giuffre was the first to donate so she receives the first Kevin Bacon artwork. My Dry July team mate is award winning playwright: Jessica Bellamy. Jess is offering to write fan-fiction for every donation she receives. When Lucia donated to both Jess and myself she requested Jess and I collaborate on a Kevin Bacon/slasher fan-fiction creation involving David Attenborough and the underground cave systems of Mexico. The story is pretty saucy, I’m not going to lie, I haven’t been this aroused since I met Richard Wilkins at the boner factory.
Meanwhile, Dry July may be helping me raise money for adults living with cancer but goodness I REALLY WANT A BEER! I had an alcohol free beer yesterday, it was like renting out Death At A Funeral and realising it was the bullshit American remake with Martin Laurence. WHY DID THEY REMAKE THAT MOVIE?! IT WAS ONLY THREE YEARS OLD AND IT WAS ALREADY IN ENGLISH.
Anyway here is the erotic fan fiction that is helping raise money for cancer:
David Attenborough had never had such a small tour group.
Normally when David Attenborough ran his dedicated ‘no customer leaves unsatisfied’ tours of the intricate underground cave systems of Mexico, his tour group was filled to the brim, leaking and bursting with desperate, over-keen fans, all of them trying to bring in extra family members and lovers, all of them dying NOT to miss out on the great Sir David’s 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Sir David loved running these tours. He loved the thick bushy entrance to the cave’s inner recesses. He loved the long dripping stalactites that littered droplets of cold liquid over his upper lip, and brought out sweat on his wrinkled forehead.
The Mexican underground caves begged him, every day, to come inside them and explore.
And explore he did.
But today was puzzling because instead of his usual thrumming, jostling, over-eager crowd, there was just one man. One cool, calm, collected man, acting as if this excitement was no big deal at all.
It was Kevin Motherfucking Bacon.
He stood tall and proud in his double denim. He brushed a hand through his wavy brown hair. His eyes were sharp blue, an azure like the gushing lakes of the inner rivers of the cave they were soon to explore. And I do mean explore.
David moved forward to say hello, one arm outstretched, and Kevin pulled him into a firm, manly, loving hug.
He smelt like cinammon and glory.
“Hi there,” said Kevin, softly into David’s ear. “You might wonder why I’m all alone here today.”
“Yes, I did wonder,” mumbled David, willing away a burgeoning semi.
“You see, I’m studying for a role in my next blockbuster film. The character is a guy who does a personal tour with David Attenborough. And then has sex with David Attenborough.”
David bit his tongue in surprise.
“And also…” Kevin continued, “I hope this won’t alarm you, Sir David. But I am a method actor.”
And that was that. The tour began.
They explored the caves together – all sorts of beautiful caves. Warm and dark caves, with long leaking stalagmites and certain recesses that were very stalac-tight, and they lay each other down on the banks of the longest flowing river in all of Mexico. It was so blue, and so warm, despite being metres underground, and the two very different men held each other tight, and they touched doodles, or however gays like to do that sort of thing because I skipped those lessons in Year 10 PDHPE, and Kevin fully, AND I MEAN FULLY, inhabited his character.
And Sir David had a pretty good time too.
EDMUND IFFLAND 