Monkey Magic!

Born from an egg on a mountain top. Monkey was funky and couldn't stop.
Were those even the real words? Who cares. Let's journey to the East with Monkey.

Brighton Socialising

I designed a logo for Brighton Socialising. They never went for it so I'll seclude it here as I think it turned out pretty good.

Girl on a kelpie

Can it really be a month since I updated this blog? Where does the time go? It's been such a busy few weeks, although thanks to NDAs I can't prove it, you'll just have to believe me. Oh well, here's a picture of a kelpie. Hopefully I'll post more than one image during July.

Jubileats

It's Jubilee weekend here in Blighty. 60 years of the Queen reigning over us. I like this and I was fascinated by the amount of products in the supermarket that were packaged in Union Jacks (I know it's Union Flags unless it's hoisted at sea but Jack is a much better term for it). I was thinking of just trying to survive  for a month on items that were just packaged in Union Jacks and blogging the results but obviously I couldn't be bothered in the end.

I did however start on a masthead for the blog and here, is the essence of it.

The sad thing about all this is that slapping a Union Jack on your product is considered a bold move by marketing companies. Product packaging has reached an all time low. What happened to the exciting crisp and cereal packagings of my youth.

I was talking to a marketing person at Walkers about this when I was whinging about how the company could do so much more with the Monster Munch monsters. I was appalled at the packing of their new Baked Stars. Have a look at the branding of this product, it looks like Walkers has just given up but the lady I was talking to was sure it was the cutting edge.

It was very exasperating conversation as she seemed to think it was the pinnacle of branding. Too me it seems like a cheap use of clipart and looks like a generic rip off product from the pound shop rather than the national institution that is Walkers. Who does this appeal to? It's to bland for kids yet skewed to young looking (albeit terribly executed) for the slimming lady crowd that Special K (which I love) always goes for. I don't understand their thinking at all.

Check out the website too - it's just like a selection of images from a company power point presentation. I don't think that future generations will hold as much affection for the childhood brands of their youth as there just isn't anything there to catch their attention or to appeal to them anymore. You can't even get stickers or toys in the bags anymore. Oh Walkers what has happened to you?

Rant over - God save the Queen!

Vintage Timperley Childs

I'm as good as my word - As I promised yesterday in my last post I found an old postcard of Timperley Childs and scanned it in - hence the quality. I can't believe I forgot the goggles though....

The return of Timperley Childs

I was talking to a friend the other day who was saying how much my style had changed in the last 10 years or so. I like to think he implied it was for the better but he refused to be drawn on the subject. So I thought I'd take a character I designed when I was working for him back at the turn of the millennium when the British video games industry was at its peak and compare it with how I'd draw it now. Sadly I couldn't find this character on my computer but I know I have it somewhere on a postcard and will scan it in when I find it but luckily she is burnt onto my mind so I can easily remember how she looks. It is, of course, the amazing S.P.A.N.K. agent Timperley Childs.

Also as an extra bonus I can show you the various stages of the design process as people often ask me how I create such amazing characters (of course they never do). You can follow the stages and even see a couple of different types of shading styles right down at the bottom there.

Octopus

I went to the Sea Life Centre yesterday so here's an octopus.