Oh, and here's a revised version of the website I've been working on. The original can be found here.

I was looking for a decent piece of type production software online when I stumbled onto this. If you're going to give advise on type creation, don't use Comic Sans...

Once again, I have freed my lance. This time I've been working on a layout for a newspaper subscription website [I think...]. I've come up with the design, and Afro is going to slice it up in wordpress to make it tick.


The text is babble, but you get the idea. Hopefully.

Oh yeah, I did this for Hannah.


And yes, I am aware that there are no contact details...

Since the last time I shared a pearl of Graphic Design wisdom on here, I've been working on a website with my friend and business cohort, Afro. Basically, we're selling sets of pre-made graphics that other websites can use to remind visitors to 'tweet' about their content. I think that's probably a pretty bad explanation, but see for yourself. http://www.retweetgraphics.com

'Opportunities' by the Pet Shop Boys is the number one song in my itunes list of 25 most played tracks. On that note, I looked up the designer behind the packaging for 'Pop Art', and found out it's this guy. Even if you don't dig flamboyant 80s synth pop, it's worth a peruse.

I got bored so I edited a photo for my Facebook profile. This kinda thing is all over the place right now - and it's really clique, but after seeing it everywhere I wanted to know how it was done.

When I get bored, I do a bit of the ol' Graphics. Hey - at least it's not smack.

Freelance ahoy. Another logo for a website, it's a minor adjustment to the 'Q' of 'Trajan Pro', since I couldn't quite visualize 'Quantum Spiritual Warrior' I tried to keep it simple.

Initial logo idea

Final logo

Website mock-up

http://www.quantumspiritualwarrior.com [Site not yet complete]

Connery's Ark

Aside the summer brief, my time has been taken up with;

- Court Proceedings
- Drink... etc.
- Watford's Social Complexities
- Eddie Izzard

I knew I'd become lost without a full, heavy, get-stuck-in brief with a deadline that makes building the 2012 stadium seem easy. [Do not complain about my referring to the current briefs as not 'get-stuck-in'. Complain that I'm not going on about it.] So, whilst still in Leeds, at about 5am, I decided I wanted to trace something in Illustrator. So here it is. Visual Language: Smoking Kills.


As well as this, I've done a bit of the ol' freelance. I ended up doing a logo for a hypnosis website. Odd is an understatement, but still, I've gotta work hard for the monies, as papa needs a new sla- nah. I won't say it.

Initial Ideas...

First idea, rejected...

Final Design. www.hypnosisinsiders.com

I Shot A Man In Reno

Just saw this online, thought it'd be positively spiffing for a title image on an 'Anatomy of Type' seminar...

Orchestral Maneuvers In The Park

CRAIG ALEXANDER LAING MANIFESTO 2009

I feel I have evolved as a designer a lot since September, it would seem as the country's financial state gets worse, I get better. When I started this course, I was a lot of things. Arrogant, confident, very fixed in the way I work, not particularly reliable and also very limited, skill wise. At least in comparison to the designer I am now. 

See? I was great.

I had very little knowledge of Illustrator, thought that doing 'hand made' graphic design was

 reason enough for a lobotomy, and generally stuck to one way of working. I liked the design I was producing, and didn't really see a need for change. When Fred said at the start of the year that if we thought we had a 'style' we should forget it, that resonates with me now because I am actively trying to approach briefs with a versatile attitude. 

Royal Mail weren't too interested

in my proposal.

I am happy with where I am now as a designer, I know there is an infinite amount of things I can improve about my work and thinking, but as is I am satisfied that I've come a long way, baby. Where I'd like to improve, work-wise, is my flexibility, I want to be able to look at a brief and find a solution that is right for the problem, rather than a solution that is right for me. 

I also want to improve my skills with things like print/book binding, photography, video (and video editing) as well as software. That said, software wise I want to become more proficient with Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash. I have a decent enough knowledge of those programs to get by with, but I want to become professional. 

As usual, timekeeping is an issue with me, and I want to eradicate it like Stalin did with his high-ranking officers. I wish I had his conviction. I do believe that I have made steady progress on this course, and that my understanding of Graphic Design, both in ways of thinking and also industry, has grown since coming here. 

Death's Payroll

It's part of being a Graphic Designer to keep up to date with current affairs, but even if you are reluctant to read the news it is hard to avoid the current furor over 'Swine Flu'. The government are set to be sending out an information pack to every UK household within three days, and when I heard this it got me thinking - wouldn't that be a great brief? Working on something like that would be a great platform for any agency to become recognised, and it's also a great opportunity to delve into some information graphics. Bit of the ol' iconography and whatnot.

It reminds me of the 'Protect & Survive' leaflet, which is an infamous piece of graphic design. I've absolutely no idea who created it (So maybe my previous point about it being good for recognition is invalid...) but doesn't designing something like this seem appealing? Not for the morbid side to it, but because of the knowledge that people will be turning to your design in their 'hour of need'? Look at the protect and survive leaflet - moments before you become a stain on a radioactive wasteland, the last thing you see is Helvetica. Typical.


The AIDS awareness print/TV campaign from the 80s had more of a threatening tone to it than the leaflet advising on precautions to take on nuclear war. Why is that? I'm going off on one a bit here, but the news that Labour are sending out a print campaign to advise on Swine Flu just got me thinking. It also made me think back to Monday when Fred asked who would work for Mc.Donalds.

I would. Definitely. In a heartbeat. It's unethical? I don't care. I'm not getting into graphic design to make the world a better place, I'm not intending to use Photoshop to earn a nobel peace prize. If you were to turn down a job like that, it wouldn't exactly cripple them would it? They'd just hire someone else. And if the price tag attached to work for Mc.Donalds is somewhere in the region of £5,000,000 - then surely it'd be a good idea to work for Mc.Donalds on a graphic design level, then use the massive profits to champion ethical causes, or donate it to an anti-child labour charity?

Fine by me.

Bill Hicks hated ad men for a reason, and that reason was this: We are meant to sell our souls to the highest bidder. That is a fundamental nature of our industry, and I'm quite happy with it. I'd work on a print campaign for a political party I disagree with for the right amount. If you are going to be picky about who you work for, then good luck.

Oh, and on a side note, regular, everyday run-of-the-mill Flu kills between 250,000-500,000 people annually. Swine Flu - Don't Die of Paranoia.

Bono Vox [End of module self evaluation]

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Well, in this module, I've developed several practical skills which I have transferred to other projects, but I think the way of thinking taught in the module will probably be the most valuable skill I have acquired in the end. The very idea of 'Visual Language' and how shapes make up images, the 'vocabulary' of pictures we use and whatnot. I use a lot of vector-based artwork in my designs, and learning to use simple shapes to explain, in comparison, complex type, proved useful.

I think, to a degree, everyone (well... most people.) in our class will have had some grasp of visual language before they started the module, and what I believe has happened for me is that it has highlighted the 'complex simplicity' of images, forcing me to analyse an image to grasp the background message makes it easier to understand how your audience might find your work confusing or overly elaborate.

That said, on the practical side I found the photography lessons quite beneficial, in that I have used some of the techniques we were shown for a long time, but getting to know how to use them professionally, and knowing the terms used to describe them, i feel, has given my work in that field more of a professional edge, and less of a 'I did it by accident, but it looks good.' vibe.

I think my attitude towards what I was getting out of the lessons has changed since the start, it's easy to look upon this module at face value, and if you stick to that attitude then you're not going to come away from it with much.

An example of where I've applied the knowledge I've gained from this module would be the 'hymen' poster I created for the don't panic brief [at http://0ugd103.blogspot.com], I managed to use near-enough iconography to get my point across and even though it was a two colour image with a simple dotted line, a single header and a scissor icon, it still managed to offend people and those I showed it to knew exactly what I was getting at immediately.

2. What approaches to / methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Research has always been the bane of my graphic design work, I freely admit that I am not nearly as good as I should be due to this, it's not that I resent carrying out research, I am just terrible at going about it. So, with this module, I'd say perhaps one of the things I've learned to do is use a camera as a source of primary research. I've been using it more to document my work, and, for example with the book brief, I would take photos with a point-and-click of what I intended to create before taking the final shot with an SLR, just to make sure it would come out as it looked in my head.

One thing I have developed, which, although may not strictly be research as such, is at least related in terms of my design process, is the idea of quickly sketching out ideas on worksheets, all too often I find myself drawn into creating small, tight drawings at the development stage when it is unnecessary, and since starting this brief I have tried to take more of a loose attitude to my initial ideas, I think this is apparent with the last few briefs we've been set.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

This time round, I think the strengths which have become apparent for me are things like my ability to take one visual and try and expand on it as much as possible (For me, anyway...). With the sound waves/bars I've been looking at, it was frustrating working with something which I felt was so fixed and static, but I kept pushing at it because I didn't want to have a load of scattered ideas by the end of the module and no real focus. This turned out to be the right way of going about it for me, as the visuals I have ended up with look quite different to those I started with.

On that note, I believe my 'finished' visuals are of a high quality, the work I produce I am proud of, particularly any final resolutions. Given the creative freedom we have within the class (In comparison to the 'real world') I wouldn't feel valuable as a designer if I didn't personally like every final solution I came up with, and I have a tendency to really take time and perfect my finals. I also feel that recently, I've changed my work ethic with regards to the course, and this has improved my output, not just in quantity but quality as well. For example, instead of going upstairs and getting an A3 inkjet printout, I'll go downstairs and spend a bit of money getting a nice, suitable print for the work, work which I will have spent twice as much time on as before.

Mixed media is something I've also dabbled in this time, I've used paints and inks for, I think, the first time on this course. Not a whole lot, but it is for me, and it's hard to peel yourself away from a mac.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

Although I've been using my blogs a lot more lately, I feel I've let it slip a bit in terms of visual language, I set up a second blog specifically for the third module and most of my activity has been on that, so I think my research has suffered as a result. During crits, I'd look at other people's blogs and see that they'd padded them out with online research, so I'd go away from it and upload a post, but then soon forget about it after getting a new brief. Generally on the course, though it's unintentional, visual language seems to take a back seat when we've got other briefs on the go, especially as the deadline seemed so far off. I think to address this I need to maybe select a couple of days a week where my time spent at home is focused on visual language (or, whatever's next for that matter...) so that it's never too far from my mind. If I can keep up to date with my new blog, there's no reason I can't with updates for visual language.

Another thing I feel I've let myself down on with this module is my punctuation and general attendance, at this stage of the module I'm having to scour my draw and my flat for work I've done, but can't be sure I was there at the right time or at all. I tend to stay late at college, but it doesn't really compensate if I'm missing taught sessions.

5. Identify five things you will do differently next time and what you expect to gain from doing these

- Experiment more. Next time round, I think it'd be beneficial for me to explore new media and ways of creating images. Even if it starts out on paper and ends up being scanned in, I think the tools available on a mac are seeming more pre-determined to me now than ever, and thus, showing their limitations.

- Buy paper stock. So far this year a lot of my work has ended up coming out on 90gsm bleached white paper, which while functional, isn't very interesting. I've tried to include a bit more variety with my choice of paper lately but I'm aware that I can do more.

- Set up a blog for every module. I found setting up a blog for the third module made the whole idea of blogging seem fresh, so i was more inclined to update it. I think this is good practice anyway as it makes navigation easier and also allows for more creativity when it comes to layout and whatnot. Plus, I'm aware that we'll be learning Dreamweaver next year so maybe I should get used to tweaking around with HTML again...

- Set personal deadlines. I'm getting sick of it coming to the last week and having to rush around to make sure I've got everything done. I think I'd work more efficiently if I had deadlines that were closer together as I worked through the module, because I seem to snap into action when a deadline rolls around so my logic is if they happen more frequently I'll keep on top of things easier.

- Back up EVERYTHING. With this module, I've had severe technological issues with my PC at home (I shall be buying a mac next month...), the saturday before module hand in, my PC crashed, and would only start in safe mode. Then it wouldn't recognise my USB key or hard drive, so I had to spend hours and hours over the weekend trying different things until I got it running again. And for someone who relies so much on their digital work, it could've been a catastrophe which would've been quite hard to explain without dragging it into college to prove it was broken.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Attendance: 2
Punctuality: 2
Motivation: 3
Commitment: 5
Quantity of work produced: 3
Quality of work produced: 4
Contribution to the group: 5

Hoover Bags: Only A Pound At The Plaza

You may have [but probably haven't] noticed that there's been a drought in the way of updates here lately, well, that's because I've set up a brand-spanking-new blog dedicated to the third module! Try and quell your excitement, then visit this link right here to check it out. It's totally tasteful.

While I'm here, thought I'd post the work I've been doing for my mate Afro's website. He's one of them marketing types, but do not judge him.

Here's one of the logos I've come up with for his website:

And here's one of the initials I created:

I'll leave you with a graphic design tip: If you're working hard, buy a kettle for your room.

Nothing In Moderation

Prepare your eyes, for I am about to unleash an incendiary payload of 'What Is A Line' work upon your heads. I've been trying to work out the best way to visualise sound with line, I've been using music software (Reason, Ableton) to create music visualisations, and to be honest, it's quite restrictive as to what you can do, there are only so many 'wave' and 'bar' visualisations out there. One way to get around this is to layer them on top of each other, this creates more interesting visuals, and some of them end up looking like landscapes - a lot like the 'Unknown Pleasures' artwork I was first inspired by.

Anyway, I was looking into Peter Saville a bit more after that initial atomic flash of inspiration, I've read the Factory Records Graphic Album [Where I first got the idea from...] in full, and from that I've been on his personal website. Take an eyeful of this:

That's the splash page on his website, see the bars making up mountainous terrain? I saw that and though 'Wow, Peter Saville, what a guy.' And decided to play around with his idea a bit to see what I could make of it. God bless Illustrator:


Copying that single wave and layering it has made it so much more interesting, all thanks to Saville. Staying up all night while my Leeds Met contemporaries slumber peacefully, all to meet deadlines, feels less like agony knowing that good ol' Saville will have done the same thing before I was even born.

In the image at the bottom, I've shaded it in Live Paint to give it more of a 3-D feel but, I'll avoid doing that with any final resolutions because it's escaping the entrapment of 'line' - and even if it isn't, I'll feel like I'm cheating.

I've used Illustrator [Swiss Army Programme] to replicate the Saville website, I started off with a set of lines drawn out, selected them individually and moved them around to line up with the wave lines produced by 'Evil Has Never' by Union of Knives. I really love the visuals I'm getting from this, and I don't feel the need to over-complicate my work when it comes to the What Is A Line brief, embellishment is a prison in this case.

Duplex Rodeo

I did this a few weeks ago as part of my Lego research but didn't get the chance to put it up here because my computer, after suffering severe depression at the loss of my Ipod, decided to pop it's own clogs. Anyway, here is my Lego house-building video, in all it's [non] glory:

One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell

Somebody down there likes me, my computer has been fixed :D

Upon switching it on for the first time in nearly a month, my Kaspersky internet security doo-dah started updating, and when it did I noticed it came up with a download bar that reminded me of the Unknown Pleasures artwork I'm looking at for the What Is A Line brief, so with my uncomprehensible quick-thinking [much like the reflexes of a cat on speed] I whacked out a few screen-grabs to put down as research. Check it:

Same sort of thing I want to do, only I want to use sound as the source material for the imagery. I was thinking of getting an album I like, taking sound wave bars from each song and doing it as a set of posters. Like a visual interperetation of the album. Feedback on that would be nice [hint hint.] But yeah, then I whacked the three of those images together in Photoshop and adjusted the gradient to make it look a bit more like Unknown Pleasures. See:

The Lord Likes Drum And Bass

[Aka: End Of Module Self Evaluation]

What practical skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

In this module, I have had a lot of time to play around in InDesign, an area where I previously felt a bit weak but I'm now more confident with the programme on a whole. If I hadn't decided on my final idea so late into the project I would've liked to have really gone overboard in InDesign with the layout but I am happy with my final design all the same. 

What approaches to/methods of problem soling have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I'm happy with the way that I have ended up with a final piece that is totally different to the initial research I carried out on my subject, I feel that in this project I took more from the group crits and applied this to my design process, though I do realize that I could've gone much further with it and probably ended up with a totally different end piece, removed from my initial ideas. I've been finding it easier in this project to put ideas to paper than in the previous module, though I'm still not as good as I'd like to be at thinking visually. 

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalize on these?

I'm quite surprised at the quality of some of the photographs I took in this module, and feel more confident with a camera now than I had done before. Also, this is the first time I'd tried stop-motion animation for a project and I was quite happy with how my videos came out, though I think that without the stimulus of Lego I wouldn't have approached working that way. Having said that I do plan to get more involved with video in the future given the results I got this time round. 

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

Again unfortunately I feel that my research and development work will be the part that lets me down in this module, and that is integral to the brief. I find it really hard to put my ideas down, and am stuck in the mindset of think it>do it, without explaining how I got there or where my idea came from. I've no idea why I work like this in comparison to my peers here but I know that it makes marking my work difficult, I think I do a small amount of research and then jump straight into working on the development/final without giving it enough time to grow organically, and next time I think I need to assess my time management to allow time for that to happen.

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1 -  Create an action plan from the start, set realistic deadlines within deadlines and stick to them, using things like post-it notes and google calendar for reminders. This should allow me the time I need to get the initial foundations of the work done.

2 - Back up everything I produce onto disk, this time round my home PC's graphics card failed and I haven't been able to access a lot of the work I'd done up til around the 3rd/4th week. 

3 - Although I feel I've used the blog more effectively this time round, I still feel that I could really exploit it, use it as a constant online critique of my progress and try and use it to gather feedback from my peers.

4 - Keep a visual record of the work I produce and not only post it onto the blog but print images off and stick them in a sketchbook to accompany my work.

5 - Try different media, this time round I saw people using the woodwork workshops, print workshops, etc. and towards the end I felt like I'd let myself down by not using the available tools to my advantage.

How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

5=Excellent, 4=Very Good, 3=Good, 2=Average, 1=Poor

Attendance - 3

Punctuality - 4

Motivation - 4

Commitment - 3

Quantity of work produced - 3

Quality of work produced - 4

Contribution to the group - 5

Hear Me Now, All Crimes Should Be Treasured If They Bring Thee Pleasure Somehow

What is a line - stop bugging me about it, I don't know. Given my initial ideas and research on the subject, I now intend to follow the audio-visual route, I want to stay far away from the idea that a line has to be a 2D entity, instead I want to be quite abstract. I'm drawing great inspiration from the Unknown Pleasures artwork and from that [given that it's 100 recorded pulses from the first recorded Pulsar...] I intend to look into astrology and sound recording, but also to see if I can create some interesting visuals using plotted star maps and different readings, ie: gamma, radio, etc.

I want to record people saying 'Line' and words relating to it, and bring up wave bars from the audio which I can then trace and manipulate, although it would be tempting to create an animation with them since they move anyway I want to try to limit myself here, because I think that'll force me to squeeze more potential out of the subject. Maybe limit my colour palette as well or something, I dunno. But I want to create a series of posters from

my research, and I don't just want them to be pretty images I want them to represent some of the data i gather. Maybe some weird pictoral form of graph or something. Anyway, time will tell and all that yeah?

Maybe get into a bit of the ol' scientific theory and see how the linear structure of time could possibly be bent?

Lovely bit of Graphic Equalizer there.

Pulsar waves. Pretty eh?

Airship Design For The Promiscuous

Bloody Hell, my third blog update of the day. Clearly the stars have aligned to have allowed this to happen, you lucky, lucky people.

Anyway, after the crit I just had, thought it'd be incredibly wise of me to post up here what my project is all about, to clarify the point and audience and all that malarkey.

So...

My book, The Big Book Of Lego Suicides, is meant to be a sort of coffee table book for the 18-30 age group, I want to make a comedy book, something to laugh at while you're waiting for your mate to come back from the chippy. I want to make it loose-leaf so that the reader can choose to take their favourite picture or suicide note and pin them up, the thinking behind this was that as a student, I'd like to have these images up on my wall so that I'm not staring at a blank space. See, I'm considerate like that.

I've taken inspiration from the books 'The Bunny Suicides' and 'The Big Book Of Death' - which I've blended together in my Graphic Design cauldron to create what can only be described as a Frankenstein-esque hybrid. Or mutant.

The suicide notes I've come up with are meant to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous, and that's where the real content lies, I feel. I didn't want to create a picture book, because I haven't been able to wop out a bit of the ol' creative writing in a while and I see making a book as a great opportunity to do so, I'm making the kind of book that I'd like to own.

I know the content may seem a bit on the morbid mc.goth side, but that's just how I roll, yeah?

This bloody blogger thing is tramp's pants, keeps screwing up the paragraph layout on the composition screen. Pain in the ass.

Vegetarian Gravy - What's The Point?

Since I last updated [what, an hour ago or something?] I've edited yet more suicide photos. Once again, for your eyes only, behold:

I know, I know, I'm incredible. And you're merely mortals. That aside - I've also been working on the ol' suicide notes, tell me what you make of these tasteful entries:

"How many times do I have to say it?

Male heads go on Male bodies, I'm not a fucking transexual."

"It's not a cult. Honest."

"They threw me in with the Duplo and now I don't fit,

haha - guess I'm a dead Epileptic..."

Lemme know if these offend anyone, and I'll promptly make the text larger. Much love.

Coconut Latte And A Bag Of Vegetable Crisps - Three Pounds.

Thought I'd upload a couple of the ol' Lego Suicides photos i've been editing, taken them into Photoshop and used my Christ-like skills to make them look fantabulous. Behold:

I'm starting to think that maybe 100 photos of a Lego Man committing Suicide may be slightly ambitious. Ambitious like taking up smoking with the attitude of 'They'll have cured lung cancer within ten years.' might be ambitious. So perhaps a change of plan is in order. To those who view this blog [and I know you do, because, well, you bloody well have to...], I might take 50 photographs of Lego self-destruction and have 50 accompanying suicide notes to make my 100. What do you think? I could probably get 100 photographs if I dug deep, but I'd rather have 50 good, semi-plausible ones than 100 mediocre photographs of the same formula applied over different scenarios. GIVE ME FEEDBACK. Please.

Do They Still Put Crap Jokes On Ice Cream Sticks?

I've been shifting more Lego men off the mortal coil, and I thought I'd better put some evidence on here to prove it. Feast your eyes on the demise of the Lego Man. Yo.









It's harder than you might think to think of ways to bump off Lego men. I need some inspiration. Maybe I should watch Man Bites Dog again.

Attack Of The Mega Bra

Right, as I predict everyone else in our class has, I've decided to go for the 'last-minute-panic' approach for the What Is A Line brief. First up is a little idea I pieced together where i've tried to think outside the proverbial cube, looking at Line as more of an idea than an actual 2D image. So yeah, i thought of using thickness of line as a way of documenting, so basically a timeline, where the thickness of the stroke corresponds to a particular activity. Gaze upon it with your eyes like:


Next is a little video I found [because it seems oh-so-fashionable to have videos on here for this brief...] based upon barcodes, it's stop animation, which means there's a slight chance I might even be able to replicate it, and I thought it was quite quirky:


I want to keep to the idea of line with this project visually, try and keep it as fixed and linear as possible, rather than try to manipulate line to create complex images, though this may change as I live my life and all that. An example of what I mean by this would be the work Peter Saville did for the cover of 'Unknown Pleasures' - a Joy Division album. If you don't like Joy Division or don't know who they were, switch off your computer, buy a couple of disposable barbecues, seal all ventilation in the room, light them, and wait. Only kidding, have a cup of tea or something.

Anyway, without further ado, here's Unknown Pleasures:


Apparently it's the reading given off by a star exploding, looks nice though eh? Anyway yeah i also came across another Video [Wow, yet more moving pictures!] which was based on this artwork for the song 'Disorder', really like what the guy's done here with this, if you think of it as basically starting off as a flat image like a barcode and all the possibilities that spring from there, it's quite impressive:



I'm not trying to turn this project into an Ian Curtis tribute or anything by the way, I just found it relevant and that. I think it'd be just spiffing to take something like that found anywhere in life, like for example someone's furrowed brow or the lines on a chisel and used that as a starting point to make something psychedelic.

How Can I Describe It? It's Like Sticking Your Foot Into A George Foreman Grill After Watching Fantasia Backwards On Loop For 9 Hours With No Sound.

Behold - for I am updating. I'm sad to report that last weekend my computer decided to take it's own life, I came back from the place I had been beforehand and there were two empty cartridges on the floor, a smoking shotgun, and as I had so gruesomely predicted, my computer had shot itself in the face. Alas. I'm waiting for a technician to come and resuscitate it like. 

Anyway, that said, I've come up with a new idea for my book, and it's amazing. I'm going to create a book of 100 Legoman suicides. I had to face facts, a book based purely on the colour spectrum of Lego pieces wasn't going to tantalize anyone's cerebrum, but I know that mankind has a built-in morbid curiosity with Death, and everyone loves a bit of Lego. So everyone's a winner, even the goths. 

The idea, as you may well have guessed, was inspired by the books of Bunny Suicides, which I don't particularly like, I thought 'Well, I'm a Graphic Designer, I'm allowed to steal ideas from people, it's the law.' - the main difference between my take on things and the original Bunny Suicides book is that the former is illustrated whereas I'm going to actually photograph Lego men killing themselves in a variety of different ways. Still haven't worked out 100 different ways to despatch them, but I'm sure it'll come to me. Emma showed me a book that was in the possession of Fred -  Graphics Overlord, which was basically a load of little model people in a variety of different setups, ie: a miniature man stepping in a life-sized piece of gum, a guy using a shotgun to blow holes into a Bee, etc. And this, my friends, was why I decided to avoid the Illustration route and go with photography.

Anyway, I've been having a little play around with the ol' camera and whatnot, and here's a selection of some of the Lego Suicides I've been documenting...

Obviously they're not gonna make it into the final book itself, for that I'll use an SLR instead of my frankly inadequate point-and-click. But yeah, should give you an idea of the direction I'm heading in. I want it to be a quirky little coffee table book, and for the actual book design itself, I intend to make a box, to hold 100 loose leaves, on one side I'll have the photo of the Lego man topping himself and on the other I'll have a corresponding suicide note, like "If I can't have the kids, I'd rather jump into a toaster..." and whatnot. Should be fun. 

Well, that's about it from me. Except this:

Now available on t-shirts, mugs, stationary and canvas prints.