Many many months, a few haircuts, and a new job later, I’m back! Yes, I’ve been a busy boy… And what better day to start getting back into my blogging habit than the strangest day of 2010 – 110110, which has a lovely binary ring to it. Strangest until October 10^th anyway. (Not that I had built up much of a habit, but I was working on it )

I spent a lot of 2009 wishing to work for people I liked, creating work that I was proud of. I was searching for an opportunity to design, be creative, and develop my skill. I was lucky enough to get this opportunity! Since late September ’09 I have been working as the principle print designer at Mac games publisher, Feral Interactive. In this role I am now responsible for the design and artworking of all printed items and the odd digital/web work. This includes corporate and consumer marketing pieces, e-newsletters, sales brochures, DVD labels, sleeves and boxes, disk icons, folder backgrounds and the occasional in-game graphic or screen. If you’re an owner of the recently released BioShock port, or are a fan of MacFormat, then you may have seen some of my work already. I’m thoroughly looking forward to the release of the first title I’ve been involved heavily with, Rome: Total War – it will be a real thrill to see a product I’ve worked on ‘in the wild’, so to speak.

Other than that aspect of my life, my freelance web and design work is going fine, having redesigned and upgraded the CMS on a Scottish Labour Party MP’s website and launched a new college website for a school on Oxford Street.

I’ve also been having a think about a new design for this site, which I’ll come back to in a later post. I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seat for that one

Until then, I hope you all enjoyed the snow if you’re in the UK (great fun, even if it does cause transport havoc!) and hope you had an excellent Christmas break & great new years celebrations.

As I always say, “I intend to post more often now”. Maybe in 2010 this will turn out to be true! I promise there’ll be at least one more before I use the header 111111*.

Thanks for reading and feel free to say “hi!” in the comments…

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

*November 11^th 2011 for anyone who doesn’t get it

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Bill Dan touching his work

I thought I would make my first real post about something that wasn’t necessarily related to design or technology.

On my usual travels to work via train and bus into (and slightly out of) London, I often have a flick through the daily offerings of the Metro – a free morning paper (for those who don’t know). This morning something caught my eye.

Up and down the coast of San Francisco a sculptor named Bill Dan has been using his natural approach to art to build ‘uniquely beautiful’ structures. Admittedly, I haven’t quite explored the entirety of his website, but from the snippet in the Metro I became inspired.

For me, it awoke my inner artist, taking me back to the days I used to spend in my art room at college chipping away at breezeblocks creating abstract forms, allowing the method and materials to dictate the outcome. It occurred to me that this might be a good approach to take with design from time to time. The tried and tested method that we are all taught – researching our brief, planning our designs – may not always be the most suited to the task at hand. Could it really be a bad thing to dive in, forgetting all the planning stages and starting to get our hands dirty from the get go?

I can hear in my head a lot of bad points to this. After all, proper planning can save a lot of time and money. However, if you find yourself in a situation where the client is open to ideas and a little more partial to creativity than your average businessman, then maybe it would be OK to throw caution to the wind.

More mind boggling examples of Bill Dan's art

If you want to see the original article that sparked my interest, please navigate your browsers here.

(Both images are sourced from the Metro website and property of their respective owners)

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