Made With Lava

The Alien poster that I designed for the Mercury Cinema is now...

montechristo — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:19:07 +0930

The Alien poster that I designed for the Mercury Cinema is now available in print form on Society6.

http://society6.com/chrsmrtn/Alien-Poster_Print

Filthy Children

dannybuoy — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:44:00 +0930

Spent the weekend working on promotional materials for a New Weird Australia-organised event for Filthy Children, a Sydney-based collective of electronic musicians.

The brief was wide-open, and anyone who’s been in that position before will know that it’s both a blessing and a curse. You have to set your own starting point, so I just started with listening and connoting. It was lucky that I was able to get into their music really easily, and I instantly started drawing comparisons to a made-up genre a friend and I fondly refer to as ‘playstation music’; tunes reminiscent of soundtracks from games like Ace Combat 3, Ape Escape, and Spyro. A few of the artists had referenced games in subtle ways, too, so this is where I started.

I brought in the old Playstation logo and started breaking it down and reassembling it, looking for interesting structures that could be composed with the separate parts. I Played around with scale a lot as well, enlarging parts and using the artefacts/pixelation they sustained to abstract the originals even further.

I was finding this pixelation pretty interesting, but I needed to make them a bit more interesting. There was little to be done in the ways of creating visual interest just by blowing up the playstation logo. I started using the pixelation filters in photoshop on objects, then brought them back into illustrator. LiveTrace can be a dirty word in some circles, but anything can be a valuable tool if you use it in an interesting way. I used it to break down my pixelated objects into individual, often unpredictable parts. LiveTrace isn’t perfect, and I took advantage of that with Illustrator’s alignment functions.

Things were starting to look a bit more interesting now, and there were an infinite number of possible outcomes based on which functions I used and where I positioned certain objects. Unlike the file-glitching method Chris used for his Westworld poster, which is often unpredictable and difficult to control, the techniques I used here gave me a certain level of control in the position of objects and the manner they’d be distributed. It was an enjoyable middle-ground between randomness and control. I generated a few different compositions, testing out what was interesting and what wasn’t. I even got to the point where I started using the techniques on old 19th-century book scans, experimenting with uncomfortable collisions of old and new.

I eventually moved on from using objects, and experimenting with disintegrating type instead. There were a lot of interesting results depending on how many colours I used. LiveTrace picks up basic points of differentiation between areas it can separate into solid colour, so using a gradient overlay on an object meant there’d be many more resultant ‘pieces’ than if I used a solid colour. Filters played a significant part, too, as they dictated the shape and scale of each piece.

From these I started generating a number of different compositions and colour options with the actual text. In retrospect I probably could have found a better way to format the text, but in the end I felt they held a lot of contrast with the abstract title. What was tricky was weaving them throughout the title objects, whilst still keeping them distinct and hierarchical. I couldn’t really play too much with the ‘New Weird Australia presents’, because it needed to be above or before the title text, otherwise the title text was likely to be overlooked or interpreted as an image. That’s always the hardest thing about text as image I think, making sure that it’s still readable and seen as text.

What made things even harder was taking underlying identity of the poster and applying it to other formats. Along with the poster I generated a Facebook banner, a banner and thumbnail for New Weird Australia’s site, and an alternate version of the poster for web use. My final test prints had type set at a suitable size for reading in real life, but far too small to be read on screen when reduced, so the version you see above is slightly different than the printed one.

So that’s how that all went down. It was the first time I’d ever designed something to be spread across that many formats, so it was nice to experience it at a relatively small/similar range. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out overall, and responses have been pretty flattering, but again I think I really need to work on my fundamental type setting. Whole thing was a lot of fun, hope I get a chance to do something for NWA again.

Spencer Harrison - Blog: Why Crowdsourcing your logo is bad for your business and bad for the designer

mwlblog — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:40:46 +0930

Spencer Harrison - Blog: Why Crowdsourcing your logo is bad for your business and bad for the designer:

spencerharrison:

Recently in my coworking space at Hub Melbourne I have witnessed more and more small businesses looking to 99designs and crowdsourcing sites for their design needs. Time and time again I have explained to people that this is not the best way to get effective design and so thought it was time to…

How I felt this morning. joelvdk: Mind mush.

dannybuoy — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 18:50:50 +0930

How I felt this morning.

joelvdk:

Mind mush.

Live Ski. Die Free.

mwlblog — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 13:44:00 +0930

Here he is: probably the first lesson in fear for every kid who ever dared to open the ‘Games’ folder in Windows 95. Shhhh. No more tears, now.

Available at Red Tomato Design, or in store at Magazine Gallery

Ross McHenry Business Cards

dannybuoy — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:23:32 +0930

A little while ago I posted a mock-up of a business card for Ross McHenry. At the time I thought I’d have them off and finished within about a week, but it didn’t quite turn out that way.

During the process I managed to overlook the simple fact that when printing digitally, light ink doesn’t print well on dark surfaces. I had a couple of options, one being to use a white foil print, but that’d be getting rather expensive. My other option was to get them screen printed, but having never done it myself I was unfamiliar with how finely the screens could print. I got in touch with Jake Holmes over at Tooth and Nail and he was pretty enthusiastic about how they could turn out, so I ordered my paper and we gave it a shot.

I had no idea what to expect, so when Jake called me over to the studio with the finished sheets, I was pretty amazed at the result. Jake was able to shed some insight into the process to me, and we were able to discuss some pretty interesting ideas and experiments for the next run. I’m increasingly finding that collaborative efforts are invaluable to the design process.

With the sheets back in hand, it was now up to me to cut them. This had to be done manually, for a couple reasons. One was that I had made the cards a little too wide, so I had to go in and cut an extra 5mm or so off the running edges. The other was that registration can be tricky when screen printing double-sided, and whilst Jake did a brilliant job, it’s always best to cut with caution. I’m also pedantic and dumb.

Following this ordeal, I then had to pin holes into each card individually with a thumbtack. This was to create the starry effect that goes with the planetary layout of the text. I had tested the stock before getting it printed, and it didn’t take anywhere near as much damage as other stocks I had tested whilst mocking it up, so I was pretty pleased about that.

This might all sound like a chore, but I consider being able to make something by hand a bit of a blessing. Each of these cards is different from the others, they’re all different sizes and their stars are unique. I want to create things that people will enjoy; that they’ll want to keep. I find that I’m constantly inspired by games, and the idea of play. I love the ‘ahh’ moment, that brief moment where you discover something new, or how something works. Just interesting little things that, even if for a second, make you feel good about yourself.

And things are always better when they’re gift-wrapped.

wicked stuff. picked up one of your stickers in magazine today

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:35:04 +0930

Cheers! Glad at least one person is taking them :D

Well Played

dannybuoy — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:00:27 +0930

Questions of whether or not video games are art are tired and vague. What we need to be doing is examining their value and meaning. Games, like any other form of design, have the power to communicate, educate, and transform, as well as entertain. Criticisms such as the worth and narrative functionality of games need to be examined in order to gain a greater understanding of their potential.

Well Played is an online and print journal dedicated to the closer study of video games; how people play them, how they communicate, and what their role is in a greater cultural context. Each issue is released digitally for free, but is also available for physical purchase.

This is one of my favourite essays, by Nick Fortugno. Shadow of the Colossus is often regarded as a game of great poetic value, but is rarely discussed in any depth. Fortugno analyses the relationship between dramatic storytelling and interactivity and how the idea of ‘futile interactivity’ becomes a core component in the game’s narrative.

On another note, if you’re yet to grab the latest Humble Indie Bundle, I strongly recommend getting on that shit right now. It’s worth getting for any one of those titles, let alone all eight of them (plus the soundtracks oh goodness).

Westworld Glitch

montechristo — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 11:18:00 +0930

Here’s the third (and probably final) poster in the Future Imperfect series for the Mercury Cinema. If you haven’t seen the film, Westworld is about a robot cowboy that starts killing tourists in a futuristic theme park (the itchy and scratchy world Simpsons episode was based on this film)

I used a glitch art technique to create distorted line effect. Glitch art is where you open a .jpg file in a text editor and start messing around with the code. Rob Sheridan used this to great effect when creating the social network soundtrack artwork.

I went through the code and removed a single character every 50 lines or so and it ended up creating an amazing rainbow pattern. I quite liked the coloured result but decided to green-ify it to keep it consistent with the other posters in the series.

Will definitely be experimenting with this technique more in the future, got some really crazy results and it’s lots of fun.

Wood & Wire

dannybuoy — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 22:39:28 +0930

Wood & Wire is a digital record label, promoting experimentation in Australian music across all genres.

The label is a project from New Weird Australia, an initiative designed to promote and support new eclectic and experimental Australian music.

A minimum of two releases are added to the Wood & Wire catalogue at the beginning of each month.

W&W just launched yesterday, but there’s already four releases (including an attempt to make a ‘better’ version of Metallica and Reed’s infamous ‘Lulu’, and some 80’s synth inspired film dissonance by newcomer Emily Grantham) up on their bandcamp store. Anyone with a passing interest in the sounds coming from NWA will get right into this. It seems to me like a continuation, or successor to their already well-established ‘Editions’, which can only be a good thing. The time between Editions has been growing steadily over the past several releases, and I was concerned that the program had been dropped, so this is a sight for sore ~~eyes~~ ears.

Heath Killen is behind the visual systems again and everything’s looking pretty rad. He’s developed a pretty thorough brand which seems to revolve around a selection of simple shapes and triangles. The covers utilise a system that works well in a digital environment; recognisable at varying sizes, yet still visually stimulating. There’s no back cover or spine so names are featured systematically in the top corners. I’d love to scroll through these in cover flow. Contributors to NWA’s commons flickr stream will probably benefit from this system as well.

Have a peek for yourself, grab some tunes.

http://woodandwire.com.au/

Photo

montechristo — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 16:33:19 +0930

A flyer for Free The Robots, in his words ”Info on flyers...

thadlava — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:18:29 +0930

A flyer for Free The Robots, in his words ”Info on flyers is sooo last season.”

Ctrl Alt Delete is a great album, check out the man below.

http://freetherobots.tumblr.com/

Melbourne / agIdeas

dannybuoy — Sun, 27 May 2012 16:51:00 +0930

BBC Four documentary on Krautrock, the experimental music scene...

thadlava — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:41:01 +0930

BBC Four documentary on Krautrock, the experimental music scene that burst straight from the ruins of post-war Germany! Do yourself a favour and become acquainted. If you missed Michael Rother’s Neu at Barrio (Adelaide Festival) this will clarify what all the fuss was about (and have you kicking yourself).

The Drone’s interview with author Simon Reynolds about his...

thadlava — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:29:49 +0930

The Drone’s interview with author Simon Reynolds about his book Retromania, an affliction that visual communication is just as susceptible to as music. Is this referencing and remixing of the past a bad thing? Or should we be challenging ourselves to create a new aesthetic?

For lots more food for thought (and music) read Simon’s blog here. The book can be purchased here.

Alien Poster - Process

montechristo — Sun, 13 May 2012 00:04:23 +0930

This is the first poster created for the upcoming ”Future Imperfect” season of classic 1970’s Sci-Fi films at the Mercury Cinema.

I thought I’d use the blog to share some of the thought process behind it and talk a little about how it was made.

Before creating the poster I re-watched Alien and the title sequence instantly grabbed me. (Designed by Richard Greenberg, you can watch the title sequence over at one of my favourite blogs: Art of the Title.)

Screengrab from the Alien title sequence.

I’d forgotten how this beautiful title sequence perfectly sets the tone and pace for the film. The way the segments of type fade in and come together really stuck with me. The same effect is used in the original Alien trailer, and more recently the trailer for the upcoming “prequel”, Prometheus.

Screengrab from the original Alien trailer, featuring a planet like egg as the type fades in above.

Originally the poster was just the type (created in Illustrator) on a black background. I liked the result but after leaving it for a few weeks I came back to it and felt like it needed something extra so I experimented with adding the eclipsed planet (also featured in the title sequence).

The background was created in Photoshop by layering lots of gradients with various blending modes, then adding noise to create the graininess. At one point the document was around 2GB which made saving it quite painful, but at least I caught it and moved the file before it uploaded to dropbox!.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the result and I’m looking forward to seeing it printed in A1 and hanging in the foyer.

keeping busy

dannybuoy — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:01:50 +0930

This is a mock-up of a business card for Ross McHenry I’ve been working on for the past week, whenever I wasn’t doing printmaking homework or getting my Japanese assignments horribly, horribly wrong.

Ross is a composer, producer, and bass player, and also fronts The Transatlantics and Shaolin Afronauts. He has a pretty strong fixation on the mythos of Sun Ra and science fiction, so I went on that tangent. The letters in his name are arranged as a group of planets, and I tried to keep a sense of musicality and movement to them. For extra fun, I’ve also poked holes in the card, so that when you hold it to a light you get a star-field. Fun things are great, even business cards.

This is a hand-made-pasted-together-shit-stick-mock-up, so it’s looking pretty trashed. It’s also a lot thicker than I intend the final print to be, so I’m hoping that with a lighter weight, wholly black stock, it’ll be more difficult to see the holes without a light. I’m also hoping that I don’t get arthritis, because I need to pin the holes in each card individually.

petersteineck: Goodbye from the Clubhouse. This is a 10 minute...

dannybuoy — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 01:14:58 +0930

petersteineck:

Goodbye from the Clubhouse.

This is a 10 minute video of a loop I animated for my project about cartoons. It kinda changes by the 2 minute point.

Skittish bleak … a few years ago, yet so many in front.

thadlava — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 02:33:41 +0930

Skittish bleak … a few years ago, yet so many in front.

Jim Rockwell AKA Probs of End of the Line, a street art...

thadlava — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:09:00 +0930

Jim Rockwell AKA Probs of End of the Line, a street art collective based in the East End of London, recently tackled four panels on Great Eastern Street in a single day producing a remarkable homage to Ridley Scott’s original Alien film and the exceptional concept art and design of HR Geiger. You can check out Probs in action over at vimeo.

With Prometheus looming and a screening of the original film at the Mercury Cinema on Thursday the 24th of May, it is definitely time to get reacquainted with a sci-fi universe that is nothing short of a genre classic.

Keep you eyes peeled for some Made With Lava/Alien related activity too!

All images from End of the Line.