This Is Love - illustration

Hello again,

I also thought I would post this illustration inspired by the delightfully whacky yet creatively dark Polly Jane Harvey. I might do some other versions of this and create a new desktop/wallpaper for my downloads section on my webste.

University Show

Hello Dear Reader,

I thought I would do a quick post about a little project I worked on last week.

I was asked to design the logo for The University of Lincoln's CML [contemporary lens media] degree show 2010.

Here are some of the designs I submitted. I will post about final design and how it is implemented in to the show and related promotional items nearer the time of the show.

click on the images below to see them full size.

What I does love this week

Hi there,

Here are a few bits and pieces I have seen this week that I have enjoy and felt inspired by.

I hope they bring the light of creativity to your world also.

BBC Winter Olympics 2010 film, commissioned via Red Bee Media, agency: RKCR/Y&R, prod co: Studio AKA, director Marc Craste click here to see it...awesome!



Brollies generally mean bleakness, because if you’ve got yours up, it’s probably raining. This ace number, though, from Beyond the Valley, will help you turn that frown upside down. Why? Because it changes colour when rain hits it, that’s why, which makes it ace. It costs £30, but it CHANGES COLOUR.

Marina & The Diamonds - Hollywood (click to see the video here)

Love this song, and Marina isn't bad to look at either.

Dom, this link is for you. It's about the death of Polaroid film and how NB Studio made a memorial to it. (click here)

Saw this awesome picture by Giacomo Brunelli. I love the ferociousness caught in an instant.

Here is another image I love by Guido Mocafico, it is from his series called Guns and Roses. It's the darkness of the image that sets off the lustrously dense red tones, it's beautiful.

Well that's all folks.

See ya soooooooon.

Five Ways the iPad Will Change Magazine Design

The new iPad from Apple, presented in typical Steve Jobs fashion as game-changing, will, in fact, revolutionize the way we read magazines. Combining the rich visual content of a print publication, the ever-changing immediacy of a website, and the portability of an e-book reader, the iPad is something new.

A reversal of a decades-long trend

“For as long as I’m been alive, publication formats have been getting smaller. First, oversized magazines like Life and Esquire either disappeared or switched to conventional formats to save money on paper and mailing. Then editorial content started moving online, shrinking to fit computer screens and then even smaller for PDAs and 140-character tweets. The iPad represents the first time this trend has been reversed. Instead of smaller, more low-res content, we have the chance to get bigger, brighter, sharper content. Designers used to making it smaller may have trouble learning to go the other way.”

The end of frequency

“Say goodbye to the idea of monthly magazines, or weeklies, or dailies. Print publications, already under siege by the Internet and 24-hour news cycle, will have to learn to adapt to a world of instantaneous updates. This is most obvious for news and business publications, but it’s just as true for fashion, entertainment and specialized titles.”

A reset on advertising

“The mean little conventions of online advertising—banner ads, pop ups, and so forth—aren’t popular with readers, with advertisers, and certainly not with designers. The iPad’s a new medium that will create a whole range of opportunities. Once people start exploiting what it can do, we may see the kind of creative renaissance that will deliver the next George Lois or Lee Clow. People will start subscribing to certain i-mags just for the ads alone.”

A new way of telling stories

“Editors have been telling us for years that people won’t read long stories online. Yet they will read 1,000-page novels on their Kindles. What will they be willing to read on their iPad? I predict the return of long-form journalism. At the same time, visual storytelling will take deeper, richer forms. Information design will be more important than ever. Something like New York’s Approval Matrix that was designed back in 2005 by Adam Moss is popular in print but will really come to life in this format. Some people might subscribe to it all by itself.”

A new role for print

“If digital magazines with rich, uncompromised, real-time content corner the market on delivering what you need to know right now, what’s the point of print? I think that the publications that end up enduring will be the ones that exploit what print alone can do. The best ones will be things that you want to save, not toss in the recycling bin. They’ll project a sense of craftsmanship and permanence. And each one should be an object that just feels terrific in your hand. If you’re spending most of your free-time holding an iPad, you just might welcome a change of pace.”

By Editorial Design, New York, Luke Hayman

Work

I just had to post something to stop me looking at the same images and layouts over and over again, I had stopped focusing on them, that kind of distant stare that says this person is only a high powered rifle and a bell tower away from the headlines.

I have so much work on at the moment I can't actually get my head it. I'm numb, bored and indifferent to deadlines as there is too much to contemplate.

So I'm going to steam ahead and tackle one job at a time, earliest print deadline first, and not get stressed out. Or possibly I should treat my work load like a loud drunk on public transport... if I stop paying attention to it maybe it will just go away on it's own.


Here's to happy and more productive posts soon.

Ashley

New MP3 Format

A new music file format has been unveiled by some of the key figures behind the development of the MP3.

The new file, MusicDNA, can include things like lyrics, videos, artwork and blog posts, which will continually be updated, as well as the music.

It has been created by Norwegian developer Dagfinn Bach, who worked on the first MP3 player in 1993.

And its investors include German researcher Karlheinz Brandenburg, who is credited with inventing the MP3.

British record company Beggars Group, whose labels are home to Vampire Weekend, MIA and The Strokes, has signed up to use MusicDNA, as has US label Tommy Boy.

But no major labels are currently on board and the MusicDNA files are likely to be more expensive than current music downloads.

It will also be in competition with Apple's iTunes LP, which gives users added content including bonus tracks, lyrics and video interviews.

Dynamic updates

Speaking at the Midem music conference, Mr Bach said: "We can deliver a file that is extremely searchable and can carry up to 32GB of extra information in the file itself.

"And it will be dynamically updatable so that every time the user is connected, his file will be updated."

MusicDNA is launching a beta, or test, version this spring with a full roll-out at the end of the summer.

Mr Brandenburg, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology in Germany, said: "I think it brings together a number of ideas that have been around for a long time.

"I remember 10 years ago, a lot of people were saying that we need to enrich the user experience, that legal access to music has to give the customers more than just music, and this is certainly one very nice way to do it."

I like the sound of

Quick Update

Hello Hello Hello,

It's Sunday, it's cold and so I have spent the day update some online work.

Check out my website (www.ashleyclark.co.uk)for some updated images in the Trailer Trash! section. Seeing as I have done several of these events now I thought I should show a selection of images from all of these nights.

Also, I now have my first item in the download section. I am hoping to keep adding wallpapers over the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

And finally, I have added the new images to Rosy Carricks web site (www.rosycarrick.co.uk). The Brighton based performance poets site now has new pictures for each area of the site. The images were shot back before xmas but I have only just finished editing them and getting it all in-place to go online. If I had had more free time this would have been completed some time ago, but better late than never. Let's hope that they get a positive response.

On a different note, and I'm not sure if I should be admitting this, but I watched a bit of Glee. I've been hearing about it endlessly for 2 weeks and kept telling myself that I would not be assimilated into something that seemed to mimic High School Musical. Now that I have seen an episode I actually found myself enjoying it... the sense of humour is a lot darker and self aware compared to something so sugary sweet as High School Musical. Plus the music is reasonably good. So, if I watch Glee does that make me Glay?