An idle moment...

There's a guy called Dave Walker, who I've met a couple of times at greenbelt who has done a series of cartoons called "Cartoon Church" that look at the Church of England. Unlike me, Dave knows two things: firstly he obviously is a very close and shrewd observer of the Anglicans, secondly he can draw very funny cartoons with minimal ink on paper. You can see his work here: http://www.cartoonchurch.com/

I'm just about an anglican, and I can't draw anything that simple. I've tried, but the need to keep adding detail and tints is too important to me. Although the cartoon here was done on a whim, I'm not sure that I'll be able to let it rest. The stained glass window is crying out for colour...

Promotional pieces.

I have had three small promotional pieces I've done recently.

Firstly there was the traditional business card; although mine was a little funky as I used some different materials to make them out of.

Secondly, there were business cards, but business cards with different images on, 15 in all. I let people choose which one they wanted to have The cards themselves were printed on distressed paper; I've been going through a grunge period and this was part of that. I was very pleased with them and only realised later that the distressing was so effective that not everyone realised that this was intentional. A chance remark by one person made me realise that they just looked old and worn out.

The last lot of cards I handed out were A6 sized cards with large images on them. These were clean and bright and the image could be clearly seen. Everyone that I gave one to was told they had been especially printed fir that evening. I managed to hand out 30 cards that evening. The most popular were those with clearly and quickly identifiable images. Another learning point I think.

Branding, one random thought.

Obviously I don't get the concept of branding.

I've just spent a considerable amount of time in a large shopping mall. It was full of brands.

That is to say it was full of logos, trained staff, experiences, promises, points of difference and the rest of the marketing communities flim-flam. What is was short on, or so it appeared was good honest product. Take away the concepts, the logos, the environment and you are left with very similar products (how many different hoodies can you have) of indifferent quality only separated by the "value" that the brand adds and therefore how much you can hoodwink the customer into spending.

Of course, not every familiar brand produces indifferent product. Quite the opposite, many make fine product and the brand is built on that reputation. But for some the brand leads the product and not the other way around and it is there I think the problem may lie. That and brand extension.

Take an example. Harley Davidson make motorcycles. Their motorcycles historically were conservatively built (I speak as an owner for over 30 years) and reliable if maintained and not thrashed. They were also (1) not Japanese, Chinese or Italian, and (2) they were ridden by 'Bikers', outlaws. It was an image that Harley quietly encouraged, but also remained aloof from. In the 90s a generation who had buckled down, made some cash, and was now realising that middle age had crept up decided it wanted a motorcycle. Harley cashed in on their brand and were very successful. Marketeers realised that you could stick HD on just about everything and it would sell, and it appears it did for a while. But when you start selling cheap aftershave (I forget how many people brought that for me) - and forget that beards figure quite a bit - and all the other stuff then you become a parody of yourself.

In the end, without honest products, the brand will be exposed for the valueless component it is. Spending money on branding won't make your organisation better if the base product is just the same as everyone else. Probably your company doesn't need a logo, or image consultants if the product is good. Reorganisation isn't progress.

Our old family radio, and my 16mm projector.

Which I could suppose should be titled "they don't make them like they used to", but isn't. The radio was my first hands on bit of technology that I remember. The missing knob is to change the waveband, this radio pulled in many short-wave stations and I loved to spend hours listening to them. As a four-five year old, I would spend hours slowly turning the tuning knob listening to the weird sounds and forigen stations. I would try to transcribe the morse code that I could hear or simply listen to voices from far, far away.
On the facia you can see the BBC supplied stickers when they changed wavelengths and station names in 1967. I still miss the Home service (now BBC Radio 4). And although it still works, I don't use this radio much as it needs an external aerial and the chassis is live so there's 230 volts AC on that spindle poking out. It also make me sad as the warm, slightly muffled tones make me think of long, long ago.
The projector also works although I have managed to lose the mains lead which means that actually it doesn't. It would be interesting to put the image up against the HDTV we have here. The image quality of 16mm Kodachrome is simply stunning and it was a very sad day when Kodak discontinued it a couple of years ago. There is simply no other film like it. It was expensive. £50 for about three mins, but as a once-a-year tart it was lovely. I also have the matching camera - a Filmo 70.

WestFest - the map is finally drawn!

52 hours of my life, three sheets of A2 cartridge paper, Inktense pencils, various fine pens, glue and three teabags = WestFest map. This is the bottom corner. On the instance on my son, I did 2mm caricatures of some of the people likely to be there on the streets, plus the traditional self-portrait. Not that anyone will be able to see them.

The maps about four times bigger than this bit, although this is the more interesting corner.

I mainly used Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils for the colouring. These are waterproof once they have been made wet and dried again; so you can draw over the top without disturbing the colour below. This illustration used quite a lot of pencil, so I'm going to have to buy some more soon.

The paper I use is normal cartridge but I stain it with cold tea to give it an aged appearance before I start.

Once the illustration is finished it is scanned and then sometimes tidied up in Adobe Photoshop. I try to keep this to a minimum other than preparing it for print, in this illustration I did use Photoshop to add to the large estate on the right of the picture. I also used it to add the caricatures as mentioned above.

Working drawings

Just posted here some working drawings of images that are in progress. These are done in Adobe Illustrator. Took around three hours. Plan is to print them out onto suitable paper and then finish them off by hand. Concerned about the costs of paying someone to do this, might investigate cost of A3/A2 printer, although I didn't get monies worth out of the last one really.

Moulding ficticious fossils

Work goes on with the radioactive wireless creatures. In addition to carefully documenting the animals, although I'm increasingly thinking that this is a form of mineral based creature rather than any cellular based organism; work has gone moulding fictitious fossils. Here you can see the moulds and a shelf full of fossils carefully being dried out. Once they have dried, they will be glazed to preserve them and electricity radiation detectors fitted.