Coast Restaurant

At Sussex Coast College, the learning restaurant approached the design department to produce an identity that would get them recognised in the local community. Due to the opening of the Jerwood Gallery, lots of different people will be coming to Hastings, which is a great chance to get these people into the college and show the new talent which is coming up through the education system.

We had to work with the colours which were already on the first floor of the college, and not fight against it. We pitched it to marketing and they were so happy with it. They will also be putting the logo on the wall outside! Another happy branding client!

So after a while...

So its time for a long, overdue update!

Things haven't really been quiet as such, its been very very busy! Heres some new work which has been produced recently...

This was a piece which had to be recognised as sheet of wrapping paper that would sell in shops like Paperchase. It involved a lot of research into the content that they sell and the way they use patterns. I decided to go back to my illustrative style of design and create a cartoon piece that would come under the category of Industry.

Poster Work!

These are some work that I have been doing recently; mostly advertisement work, and finding general visual identities for a couple of small organisations.

This is a piece used to advertise a Hastings-based youth group at Sonrise Church. It needed to work as an A3 poster, large banner and also small A5 invite postcard.

A gig advertisement for a classy night of entertainment.

A promotions company in Nottingham. They held a 'I Love Events Week' and this was the last date on their calendar.

Latest Re-Branding Project

So as I said in my last post, I've recently been commissioned to re brand The Roomz cafe in St Leonards. I pitched a few ideas to them, but this is the one that came through for them in the end.

They wanted something that was going to make them recognized as a funky place, so I looked into record sleeves from the 1970's/1980's and noticed a lot of the typography was strong and confident, and more often than now, had a drop shadow or a black outline. I think in this case the outline gives the logo itself a stronger impact and makes the 'Roomz' really stand out.

On their old business cards, they had the line 'Cafe, bar, music, art' at the bottom and most of the information was repeated unnecessarily, so I suggested bringing that in as part of the logo. One of the problems was that the place offered such a wide variety of services, it was difficult to advertise one thing specifically. So I came up with the idea of highlighting the respective word for the service it was representing, for example, 'cafe' would be highlighted on the menu.

Business cards and menus are soon to come!

My Latest Commission!

So a lot of stuff on here recently has been about re-branding, thats mainly because of my latest project - to re-brand 'The Roomz' cafe in St. Leonards! I'll keep you posted!

The Best Identities of 2010

The best Identities of 2010, some great re-branding on this page. Not too sure why the new MySpace logo is in there though... Check out the 'Worst' page as well, thats quite funny.

Inspiration for the Next Project!

The latest brief I've been set is about packaging, and in my research I found this. Its an article on the David Airey blog about minimalising packaging design. Its quite surprising how good products like Nutella can look with just their bare minimum! The question posted in the article is 'Do you side with the left, the right, or somewhere in the middle...?'

Negative Space in Logo Design

Really great collection of simple logos with effective use of negative space. Quite a few big names here too...

More Logo Design Inspiration...

This brand design for Gravity flooring by The Partners won the corporate identity category in the D&AD Awards in 2005. Very clean, simple graphics, just one problem with the spacing either side of the arrow, but still very clever and nicely laid out.

State of the Obvious

Just looking at the Identity Designed blog and found this.. genius! I love the layout of the typography, and the simplicity behind the idea, why hasn't anyone thought of this before?! Read more about it here....

Self Portrait Brief

Ok, so after reading my last post you may think this is slightly controversial... but nevermind. This piece of work needed to communicate everything someone would need to know about me, so I thought what makes up my personality...? Music, Happiness, Design. Simple. So as I said in my last post, I love working out problems with layout and producing something that works, and with this one I wanted to push myself a little more. The words are songs lyrics which I wrote (communicating my love for music) and I set them out in a way which would also get across my passion for producing satisfying layouts. This is quite different from my normal work, but I really enjoyed letting myself go and putting myself outside of my comfort zone.

Birthday Invitation Design

This is something I was asked to produce for a smart evening dress 18th party. I really enjoy producing clean cut, neat layouts, I find a certain sort of satisfaction in it, so it was a great experience designing this.

Penguin End Days Brief

One of my latest design briefs at uni was to re-design one of the Penguin End days collection. We were given a list consisting of titles such as Children of Men and No Blade of Grass. I chose I am Legend; my approach was to communicate the 2 main themes of the book, loneliness and defeat, through a game of chess. Doing this gave me a chance to work with a landscape image instead of working portrait which is something that is not easy to achieve on book covers. I also cut away the top and bottom of the image to give the effect of us looking in on the person in the book. This makes the reader feel like part of the story, putting them in the place of the new species.


I wanted to get away from the computer as much as possible, so I set up my own photoshoot in the studio and also designed my own typography for the book. We also got the chance to have our work viewed by Jon Grinrod of Faber and Faber publishing company, who said he 'would be happy to see this piece of work as a 'real' project'. That was a great experience!

Optimistic Beverages Logo

Something I love is branding, and this logo design I found is absolutely brilliant! It tells me everything I need to know about the brand in one simple illustration.

LOVE Advertising

I just really love this website, from the layout of the pages to the work that is on it! They've done stuff for Umbro, Sony and Nike, but this above piece is an advertisement from the Museum of Science and Industry's Dinosaur Exhibition. Its so simple, and a great example of what you can do with a small budget! Check out their work!