SHAMBALA Poster illustration and design

I've just finished this, a hand drawn poster for Shambala Festival.

From the Shambala website:

"Well over a decade ago, a motley collection of dreamers, thinkers, artists, radicals and romanticists decided to get together under the stars over a summer weekend. We wanted to make a place to party, free our minds, lose our hearts, learn, discuss and be inspired and see what is achievable as a community.
Shambala is a space to play, to reinvent, revitalise and then to return to the world fuelled-up on the beauty of being alive. It’s a playground, a realm for wild experimentation and alternative education where unforgettable life skills are shared, learned and put to use.
We see Shambala as so much more than just a monumental party. It’s a haven, a think-tank and a happening all infused with a heartfelt, purposeful hedonism. So, let’s revel in being human, in all the things we do so well – the euphoric heights to tangible solutions- and see how much we really can do together."

If you haven't been before, I highly recommend Shambala festival, it's the funnest! I've been for the last 4 years and I love it. It's a magical village of joy, and a great way to see the summer out.

Scroll down to see work in progress and inspiration:

LONGER WEB VERSION (and full lineup):

WORK IN PROGRESS:

SKETCHES:

INSPIRATION! (Vintage Glastonbury... check the peacocks...)

Hand painted chair for Charlie Crowther-Smith

I've just finished hand painting this chair for Bristol based furniture designer Charlie Crowther-Smith. It's taken me a few months to complete, but I've just been doing it bits at a time in between other jobs. I'm really pleased with the result, and excited to see the results of a photo shoot on Saturday by Theo Cottle, a Bristol photographer. I will post the photos when I get them.

The chair in my studio:

Work in progress:

Before:

STARRY SKIES

Since December last year I have been working with the team that brought you Shambala Festival (best summer music festival in the UK imho :-), to create a brand identity for a NEW, more child & family oriented version of the Shambala festival, called Starry Skies. Above you can see some screenshots from the Starry Skies website.

POSTER:
This is the promotional poster for online use, for which I did the layout and typography, using Photoshop and Futura (an amusing sidenote - according to Wikipedia, Paul Renner, the designer of the typeface Futura 'was suspicious of abstract art and disliked many forms of modern culture, such as jazz, cinema, and dancing'):

MOCKUP:
This is a mockup I did early on, with a slightly different colour scheme and header to the final version:

HEADER DEVELOPMENT:
Scroll down to see the progression of the header from initial sketches to the final design, sketched out in graphite:

FOOTER:
This is the original drawing of the footer image, which can be horizontally repeated infinitely as a tile. Below you can see it in full colour, which was added digitally:

LOGO:
The Starry Skies logo, and a 'Wish You Were Here' banner which we were going to use on postcards:

FLAGS:
I have also design a series of flags which are being sewn by hand in Nepal to be used at the festival. I will post pictures once they are all sewn and ready and flying high on site!:

REFERENCE IMAGES:
(marimekko I think? correct me if I'm wrong):

FIRST THURSDAYS Bristol @ The Bank of Stokes Croft

Last night I was lucky enough to be exhibiting work in the First Thursdays project 'an art and music event on the 1st Thursday of each month showcasing Bristols wealth of music and art talent'. Held in Bristol at The Bank of Stokes Croft, a bar opposite my studio.

If you would like to buy any of these prints they are available for sale in my shop.

I showed some old work, but printed BIG (the two KUEDO images), some recent work (The DOLOR EP cover image, and the Flying Lotus image I did for Bonafide). But most excitingly for me, I got a NEW print made up that I hadn't seen printed before, the image I made for dj YO! MAFIA. It was really nice to see it in the flesh. Big shout out to the guys at NICHE FRAMES on Stokes Croft, who do all my printing, and did a beautiful job as always printing these...

YO! MAFIA project

For the past month or so I have working on a rebranding project for Melbourne based DJ YO! MAFIA. In her own words, MAFIA is...:

"...a renowned sneaker freak and hip hop junkie, M.A.F.I.A. has been killing them on the wheels of steel for over 15 years. Having grown up at the fruition of Hip Hop in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, M.A.F.I.A. became FLUORO BREAKER after falling in love with Boogaloo Shrimp in Breakin’. After winning every B-Girl competition she entered, M.A.F.I.A. hung up her knee spin for the turntables after amassing a huge collection of original pressing 12 inch wax from every musical genre known to man. Relying on her acute party savvy ears, M.A.F.I.A. quickly began mashing up sounds from her beloved Hip Hop, mixing in RNB, electro, commercial bangers, cock rock and everything in between. Her signature genre smashing sets have seen her tour and DJ support a wide range of A-List artists – Stevie Wonder, Missy Elliott, Big Freedia, Ca$h Money, Die Antwoord, Clipse, De La Soul, Kurtis Blow, T-Pain, Ice Cube, Lady Gaga, Lupe Fiasco, DJ Craze, Dead Prez, MYA, Salt’n’Pepa, Pharell Williams, Dirty South Joe, J.Period, Rahzel, Arabian Prince, Spinderella, Ghostface Killah, Dizzee Rascal, Snoop Dogg, Vanilla Ice, Spank Rock, Kid Cudi, A-Trak, CSS, Coolio, Girl Talk, Chromeo, Felix Da Housecat, South Rakkas Crew, N.E.R.D, Grandmaster Flash, Tittsworth, DJ Spinbad, Russell Peters, Schwayze, Color Me Badd, Soul For Real, Jon B and Aloe Blacc to name but a few! The go-to DJ for travelling international artists, M.A.F.I.A. also had the honour of being BIG FREEDIA’S (Queen Of Bounce – New Orleans) DJ at both her Melbourne shows in the latter part of 2012 – exposing M.A.F.I.A. to massive sold out audiences and a new demographic of bounce/electronica fans."

For her rebrand I created a portrait, which we have nicknamed the MAFIA SPAGHETTI MEDUSA, and I designed a font for her YO! MAFIA brand, with a variety of medallion / logos for her to use in different contexts.

I also designed a cover for a series of mixtapes MAFIA has created to play instore in the COMMES DES POCKET store in Melbourne that opened this year - the first and only COMMES DES GARCONS store in Australia.

Scroll down to see the medallions, a colour variation on the portrait, the COMME DES GARCONS MIXTAPE design, rough sketches, and some screenshots of the work in context on MAFIA's website and phone...

ROUGH SKETCH FOR MEDUSA:

ROUGH SKETCHES FOR LOGO / FONT:

SCREENSHOTS (from MAFIA's website and iPhone):

COMMES DES GARCONS MIXTAPE COVER:

Mural in MACK DADDY's Bristol / collab with daddison

This is a mural (part drawing part painting using spray paint and paint pens) I did last weekend, on Sunday the 10th of February 2013.
It was drawn by me and my collaborator Daddison freehand in seven hours. You can see some more of me and Daddison's collabs here, here and here.

DETAIL:

Scroll down to see photos of the work in progress:

BEFORE:

Reference images: