How I got my first design job
I first wrote this a couple of years ago and it’s been lingering on a blogger site. I’ve been asked a few times recently about how I got into the industry so thought I’d repost here for your reading pleasure. Note: there’ll be a part 2 next week about how I successfully became a full-time [...]
CIO Connect magazine issue 37 – winter 2011/2012
Here’s a quick look at the Winter issue of CIO Connect. It’s a quarterly magazine for Chief Information Officers (top IT bods to you and me). Normally the cover feature photos are taken by the talented Mr Martin Burton. Unfortunately this issue the interviewee didn’t have time for a photoshoot so we had to use [...]
Fat Tuesday
Everyone loves a Mardi Gras… …and I was very happy to be asked to design the brochure for Cardiff’s huge annual event. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend this year’s party but have been assured that a fabulous time was had by all. Peacocktastic I wanted to create an image for the cover that would [...]
Design of CIO Connect magazine – summer 2011
Just a quick post to show you the latest issue of CIO Connect magazine which I’ve been designing now for eight years – ever since I went freelance full-time. The cover star is Sunny Lee of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, so I made a little racehorse for his feature. Neat, huh? Here are a [...]
Great expectations (and how to manage them)
Frustration comes from expectation. Remove the expectation, you remove the frustration.” – Sister Shelby Hellbound I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations lately. Not the real, tangible, obvious ones (a client asks me to create a logo for them, I agree, therefore they have an expectation that that’s what I’ll do), but more the sort [...]
What have the Romans ever done for us?
I’m on holiday for ten days tomorrow and my brain has given up work already, so instead of some clever-yet-groanworthy dad-pun of a title, you can have a Monty Python quote, as I couldn’t think of anything else. This post was nearly entitled “Romans they go to the house”, but I feared it was too [...]
Lovely children’s activity booklets
I received a very handsome surprise package in the post today. Handsome surprise packages always light up my life, but the contents of this one made me hop up and down with joy. Within, you see, were bundles of printed file copies of a couple of lovely jobs I’d just completed for the National Museum [...]
I love magazine design
Yes, I do. It’s possibly my favourite thing to do. It’s all about retaining a united look for the whole publication, but differentiating articles from each other. Tis a fine balance. My general rules of thumb would be: • choose a few key fonts. I’ve cut down the amount I use for each publication over [...]
A more modest proposal
I’m always doing a big song-and-dance about CIO Connect magazine, for the simple reason that it’s a dream to work on. The editor is top class (I understand he was recently named as one of twitter’s top 100 journalists to follow – number 91, if you credit that sort of thing) they use a wonderful [...]
A Sad and Cautionary Tale of the Fabulous Logo that Never Was
I’ve held back posting this story in the dim hope that the matter would be resolved. I’m one of those bouncy eternal-optimist types who believes that every story has a happy ending, etc etc. But it looks like I’m never going to get paid for this job, and as the client is apparently broke, I [...]
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