Brisbane Marketing made contact earlier this year to produce series of illustrations for their upcoming Brisbane meeting planning and venue guide. Art director Mark Freeman approached metagraphics after checking out our illustration folio and graphic design portfolio with a clear goal and visual direction born from ideas around flora and fauna illustration with a contemporary feel and a sustainability and renewal theme.

“As Australia’s new world city, Brisbane is rapidly emerging as a diverse, sustainable global city, a leading destination for business and investment, conventions, tourism, shopping, art and culture, major events and international education.”

Brisbane’s proximity to key Asia Pacific markets makes it a major hub for businesses embracing our strong consistent economic and population growth, highly skilled and creative workforce, competitive costs, leading educational institutions, world-class infrastructure and highly respected research and development communities.

“A vibrant, centre of innovation and enterprise, Brisbane is renowned for its relaxed lifestyle and subtropical climate so it’s no wonder it is home to the busiest airport in Queensland and the second largest international arrivals in Australia.”

As both a popular tourist destination and gateway, Brisbane offers a wide range of holiday attractions, events and cultural activities, world-class exhibitions and an emerging live music scene with the natural splendor of Moreton Bay and Islands and the beautiful Scenic Rim and Country Valley on its doorstep.”

With this in mind Metagraphics was inspired by Brisbane’s natural world and most exciting venues, producing watercolour illustrations that were composed in photoshop.

“The cover pays tribute to the city’s vitality and abundance of flora and fauna. Along with the cityscape views are sights familiar to the parklands and backyards of Australia’s new world city – golden wattle, hibiscus, jasmine, the Red Backed Fairy Wren and Eastern Yellow Robin.”

Metagraphics has just produced the graphic design and illustration components of RECONciliation BEATS! marketing and promotional material. The work included poster design and illustration, street press advertising, signage, website design, logo design as well other printed material and was completed with only 3 days between brief and deadline. Not much sleep that week!

RECONciliation BEATS! is a new music festival Saturday 9th JULY 2011 proudly supported by triple j live and loud from Musgrave Park Brisbane. It is a collaboration between Musgrave Park Cultural Centre and Colman Ridge Presents and aims to bring young people together through affordable access to the music they love.

In 2011 RECONciliation BEATS! offers a showcase of Australian hip hop as well as emerging folk, funk and rock acts from both indigenous and non-indigenous artists on the one stage. The festival will also offer food from many Brisbane tribes and free show rides all day.

The lineup this year includes Urthboy, Jessica Mauboy, Muph & Plutonic, Busby Marou, Indigenous Hip Hop Showcase, Golden Sound, The Medics and heaps more great acts. The event is supported by triple j and was initiated to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of NAIDOC (National Aboriginal Islander Day Observance Committee) but will become a new annual music festival for Brisbane.

Event promoter Colman Ridge says:

“This is the most exciting new music festival in a long time and will go on to become one of Brisbane’s great gigs, creating many important friendships. Get ready for ozoriginal culture, live and loud!”

RECONciliation BEATS! Saturday 9th JULY 2011 Musgrave Park Brisbane, $25 OZTIX, proudly supported by triple j !

I don’t know why but I sometimes find it hard to hand my initial illustration concepts to a client.

When I was studying I remember a lecturer forcing me to redraw my ink illustration 8 times. Every time I finished the piece he would say, “great! now do it again.”

It did my head in but I guess I learned a valuable lesson – that my first draft is never as good as my 8th. So ever since that freaking annoying lesson, my illustration portfolio has never contained the first draft of anything I’ve done.

I often work and re-work illustrations to death until I get the results I’m after. For example the hand drawn logos in my graphic design portfolio would have been created after writing the name in pen and ink at least 25 times.

But I’m starting to second guess my lecturer (It only took 15 years).

After reviewing last weeks post about CD music packaging, I went and had a look through some old design files at previous music related work I’ve done and then had a look through the draft folders to see what was in there.

I found some initial illustrations for some logo concepts and remember that at the time I was totally unsatisfied with them and re-worked the crap out of them late into the evening.

Funny thing is, looking at them now… I kind of prefer them to the finished illustrations. Or maybe that isn’t so funny considering the extra time I had put into the finished images.

There is something raw and honest in a first drawing that conveys whatever is being represented in a much purer form and it is extremely hard to re-capture and successive illustrations… unless you’re looking for clean vector illustrations.

Sometimes I think it’s a good practice to unlearn some of the things you have been taught and rely on your own intuition.

Although developing the confidence to trust your instincts and ignore your teacher is a skill you don’t tend to pick up in university.

Built From Sticks do!

Or did… and I would like to do lot’s more of it – I think designing for musicians is almost as good as drawing for yourself. At least that’s been my experience so far. In general, the brief from artistical musicallity types so far in my music packaging portfolio has been “yeah just do whatever you reckon – I trust you.”

Which is nice – it’s rare to be trusted in a world full of corporate design micro managery types who feed on the fear of those illustrator types.

So thanks Jamie! I Just finished up a CD wallet for a demo CD for Jamie and am stoked with how it came out – I can’t wait to see the finished product which will be printed on recycled card similar to the CD artwork I created for Monster Monster.

Jamie sort of did have a few guidelines though. But they were pretty fun ones. The music all ties back to personal dreams of Jamie’s and he gave me a list of snippets of dreams and said to go for it, interpret it how i like.

The other stipulation was to give it a raw aesthetic… nothing too polished or slick… which pretty much gives you a license to scribble cartoons and marks all over the CD… which i did.

Jamie should be having an album launch so I’ll make sure to update with that info when I get it. Oh – and th album is called Built From Sticks – Wish You Were Here.

So if anyone else out there needs any illustration or packaging design for CD or vinyl album art contact us cause we would love to help you out.

I’m pretty excited about the new Tintin movie coming out. Especially after seeing the first Tintin teaser trailer on Empire Online this morning. I’m also super excited that both Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are involved in the production and both the trailer and still images look amazing.

I couldn’t resist writing a post about my favourite comic of all time.

Tintin has been a huge inspiration for me as an illustrator and even as a designer. I love everything from the bold colours to the detailed plots. Mostly though I love Herge’s unique style ‘lineage’ drawings. Perhaps you can see some of his influence in my own illustration portfolio. Especially in some of this comic style illustrations

This image from Tintin in Tibet captures something about what I love about Herge’s world. There are probably more interesting and developed images but something about this one has always grabbed me, even as a kid.

How cool is that little puff of cloud in the top left. Genius.

Here’s a video of Herge himself at work drawing everyone’s favourite character, the drunk sailor, Captain Haddock.

I think the other influence the work of Herge has had on me, beyond simply style is a desire to create something cinematic.

I’m definitely looking forward to this one.

Dan Sweetman, Marketing Director for MS Queensland recently contacted me to create a logo design, marketing and branding collateral include email headers for templates, certificates and nomination forms for a recognition program they are running, MS Heroes.

MS Heroes is a recognition program developed by the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Queensland to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of Queenslanders who are heroes to the multiple sclerosis cause.

By nominating an employer, HR manager, carer or family member who is doing great things for you and your MS, you recognise their actions and MS Queensland are eager to reward these hero’s by showing an expression of gratitude for all that all they have done.

It’s always great to work with an community organisation like MS Queensland that contributes to society by providing opportunity and support to specific communities. In the past having worked for a profit for purpose design studio I was able to work almost exclusively on cause oriented projects like this so it’s great to be able to provide a service in this area to add to my own graphic design portfolio.

If your employer, HR manager, carer or family member is doing great things for MS why not nominate them for the recognition program.

Nominations close on Friday 13 May 2011. You can download nomination forms from the MSQ site or if you have any further question I’m sure they would be happy to answer them for you.

Jake is the creative head behind Runamuk Visuals and is doing a lot of really cool stuff for around surfing and skating at the moment. I especially like this short video he made about a surf trip to Mexico via a children’s orphanage.

Rad stuff.

For some reason Jake wasn’t offended by my office antics from back in 06 and he was still keen to work with me. He was keen to get me to create a simple black and white shirt graphic based on a similar style to the goofy drawings of random stuff I used to do and stick up on his wall when we were working together at Billabong.

I was stoked. As well as being an all round legend who has survived heart surgery and a coma, I’ve always respected Jake’s keen eye for film editing and production.

I‘m still surprised he wanted to work with me considering that once after work I mistakenly hopped into his wife’s car thinking it was my wife who had come to pick me up. I still remember the look on her face when I sat down beside her and said “you’re not my wife.”

Funny stuff.

So this is a crop of the artwork created for Runamuk Visuals. I’m hoping to work together with Jake in the future on some logo designs.

This piece was lots of fun and I’m stoked on how Jake’s idea has turned out… looking forward to wearing it.

I’ve been busy crafting some graphic design collateral and some watercolour illustrations for Bleeding Heart this week.

Bleeding Heart is an art gallery, cafe, gift shop and event space in the middle of Brisbane City. I have been fortunate to be able to contribute to the visual identity of the brand from the initial stages of inception in 2008 while working for human ventures alongside Dan Babler (who developed the logo).

As well as operating a sustainable business, they:

“like to think of ourselves as a “social enterprise hub,” essentially giving people a place and an opportunity to start self-supporting businesses, exhibit emerging art and products and to participate in positive social activism”.

From the beginning Bleeding Heart have regularly held events, functions and art shows that raise money for a variety of charitable organisations.

I really like that they invest a lot of time supporting other charitable needs as opposed to trying to establish their own agenda. With the amount of competition amongst charities for support for their important cause their seems to be a gaping whole in organisations that support organisations. As far as I can see anyway.

So if you are interested in supporting this organisation while enjoying a drink in the beautiful School of Arts building located at 166 Ann St Brisbane, come along to the Hearts of Gold 5 exhibition Friday the 5th of May.

I will have a few illustrations for sale in the show too.

Here’s the winning entry. Cool hey!

MASScanvas makes me think of Andy Warhol and his pop artwork, which played on the ideas of Mass Production and its effect on society. I have created a Warhol-esque screen print that plays on this influence. Warhol was famous for his a association with beauty, and nothing is more beautiful to me than a bird

The idea and how it all works i similar to threadless and design by humans. They also contribute a percentage of profit to a charity, PS Arts, Dedicated to improving the lives of children by bringing arts education to underserved public schools and their communities.

So out of gratitude for Mass Canvas throwing money at me I thought I would give them a plug and show you my winning entry. The shirt I designed was composited together from a series of drawings and illustrations of Crows I had produced earlier.

I always enjoy shirt design. If your interested check out some more t shirt illustration work that I have done.

Also, if you’re keen to have a look at the design comp and enter, you should do it before word gets out and the competition gets crazy.

Also if you want to buy some new threads then head over and check out Mass Canvas’ shop and buy a cool shirt!

Break the Cycle is a cycling event that raises money for kids who are all messed up and stuff… or something. Put it this way… they are advocates for the poor.

Like the good people they are they encourage adventurous bike riding in the name of justice and kicking the crap out of poverty. And like the good person I am I have helped them out this week with some graphic design services for a fundraising event.

Good friend, spiritual mentor and cycling ninja Tim Burns accompanied by Dan Brown (not the Da vinci Code dude… I don’t think?), Aaron Close and Reid Anderton are taking a cycling adventure across South Africa.

In their own words:

“Although the journey will be tough and the challenges unknown, our mission is to create a platform for the unheard voices of orphans and vulnerable children for the rest of the world to hear.

We hope that the children of Africa will have a greater opportunity to reach their God-given potential in life’.

- Tim, Reid, Aaron & Daniel

They’re going to be riding 5700 km. Cycling through Southern Africa. On Mountain Bikes
In 28 Days. Crazy.

But fun if I know Tim… I’m looking forward to hearing some good stories.

Speaking of stories… if you want to hear a little about these guys, their passion and maybe help support them, they have a fundraising lunch coming up soon.

So if your’e keen and in Brissy…

Join the boys on Thursday 5th May for a mouth watering lunch at Kingsleys Steak & Crabhouse to hear the story and join
the cause…

The cost is $50 for a superb lunch and drinks at the award winning steakhouse ‘Kingsleys’.

RSVP by Friday 2nd May to Tim Burns – timb@brbc.org.au