CD Cover Made From Reused Cardboard.

CD Cover by Hannah Leonard.

Hannah's Cd cover uses a cardboard box design with an unusual diagonal hinge. It is not clear whether she's re-using old cardboard packaging , but that could very well be the case.

 

 

 The title and track listing of the CD appear to have been produced specifically for the occasion, but again reusing of old material could also be a very viable option.

Recycling And Illustration.

Two illustrators who use recycling as part of their work are Paul Thurlby and Gary Taxali. Both Taxali and Thurlby often work on  found paper, card, old books, newspapers or advertising material, in fact anything that catches their eye.

 

 

  



 Paul Thurlby's prints are accentuated by the distressed nature of the "canvas" upon which he prints.The scuffs and tears of age are as much part of the design as the print itself and the imperfect nature of the print helps to create a complete image and not just a new print on re-used material.

In a similar way Gary Taxali also uses found material as a canvas, but he also collages other found material into his work, postage stamps, old shopping lists and notebook pages play as big a part in his work as the printing ink itself.

 

 This way of re-using  material, which looks back at least as far as the Dadaist, appeals greatly to my mindset, it seems a much more beneficial and ecologically sound way of recycling, as opposed to making a new sheet of paper out of old paper. That's also a good way of recycling, but not as good IMHO.

 

Freak Show Posters

Freak Show Posters.

The freak show, now pretty much a thing of the past, was once thought to be good entertainment for the whole family.  You paid your money and were treated to an array of medical. biological, scientific natural and unatural curiosities. Usually the specimens were alive, sometimes the preserved remains were exhibited by their "owners".

 

Such wonders as tattooed women and men, drawves, midgets and giants all vied for attention alopng side the more exotic sounding Lobster Boy, Alligator Man, Mule Face Woman, Jojo The Dog Faced Boy and of course, Joseph Merrick, the famous Elephant Man.

Posters for these more unusual exhibits often grossly exagerated the phenomenom, with fantastical portraits that more often than not bore little relation to the reality.

These freaks shows, once a regular sight at fairgrounds and shows, have drastically diminished in number  in our more enlightened times, but the art of the billboards and posters advertising such shows lives on  and has become highly collectable.

Today, I believe the freak show ethic lives on in TV programmes such as Extraordinary People and Embarrassing Bodies

Logo Design and Development (Part 2)

Logo Design and Development.

More ideas and designs from my sketchbook.

 Some logo variations on my CW initials, including an attempt to create an anarchy A style letter C. Unfortunately, it just looks like a sketched copyright symbol.

The design that really caught my eye was the one at center bottom. I liked the way this one looked and I have tried to preserve its hand drawn sketchiness in future developments.

 Four variations on the basic design, with a variety of line thicknesses.

A solid body, with a sketchy outline. I think it could do with mor sketchiness.

 A double image of the logo, the image seems to have been clipped.

A version using a large halftone dot. I like this, but don't think it's right for what I want at the moment.














 Three variants set in a circular field,
   
  I think several, especially these last three have possibilities, for use in different situations. I like the idea of using varitions of a logo for different circumstances.

Logo Design and Development (Part 1)

LoGO DesIGN. 

A few pages from my sketchbook.

 OK,  so essence of Chip; my initial ideas were centered around a perfume or aftershave type packaging. Essence Of Chip would smell like a mixture of tabac, amber and sandle wood hopefully.
 The Treebus comment is my self description comparing myself to compulsive horder and hero of the Life Of Grime tv series Edmund Treebus. My hoarding connects with my urge to upcycle, recycle and reuse found materials. I wanted to use some found materials in this project.






 Another page of early ideas, still playing with the aftershave idea and the branding it Chi(p). There are a few notes about Chi and  a couple of  rough ideas for a pictogram  of a dragon using the the letters chip, although they ended up looking like ducks. The orange stain is from the curry I was eating whilst working, it blends in quite nicely into the matchbox drawing.

 Another couple of pages from the sketchbook. This time showing some ideas for logos based on my CW initials



Several non-starters here , but one struck me as having some potential,

 



I worked up this rough, but more logo like version. It reminds me of a bacardi logo.









  There are quite a few on here that I like. The flowing Cola style logo is a particular favourite, but as I say, it's very similar to the Coca Cola logo.

 The sketch on the lower right of the center, with the C and crown W, I thought had potential. 

Below are some variations on this idea.











Working on the idea.

 Another variation.

Logo Workshop.

Logo Workshop.

Sketchbook pages and some cleaned up designs from the logo workshop.

A stark logo using the intials of a friend, unfortunately it immediately brought to mind the logo of the NF or National front.

Another MF logo, lt's a lot less fascistic in this version, the intials are not immediately recognisable, I feel it has a touch of the chocolte box about it.

I like this a lot, the torn out M appeals to my "punkier" tastes and the juxtopsition of the clean cut F suggests a more organized thought proces. Add to that its position on the black background field and the amount of unused black space in the logo and I think I've created quite an eye catching design.

A logo created using my own initials, as with the previous logo, I think the spaces around the intials make this more interesting. Through development the black areas surrounding the logo have become more abstract and create another eye catching design.

Smoking Is Cool!

It'll kill You. But it's Cool!

The opinions expressed in the this article not necesearily shared by anybody, not least the author.

I love these and the irony involved, maybe it could be used for other stuff that's bad for you, guns  erm drink driving, glue sniffing, I don't know.

A Lighter Or Spoon by Jeff Goran.

Jeff Goran's take on cool smoking takes its lead from Warhol's art and then reverses his own idea. Simple, funny and collectable, to smoke or not to smoke.