Dear diary, part four

Beat book cover design – sketches and layout ideas  Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011)
Beat book cover design – sketches and layout ideas
Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011)
'A meme that launched a millions trips' – final cover design
‘A meme that launched a millions trips’ – final cover design

For this project we had to use found images and a limited colour palette to design the cover of a book about the beat poets. My cover is a paper collage of photographs, censored texts and deconstructed poetry. The background features excerpts from the works of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs that I have retyped, rearranged, printed, torn into pieces and transferred on to paper using an acetone printing technique (the same technique I used for my book without boundaries). The acetone transfer produced a wonderful, imperfect, aged sort of effect which you can see in more detail below.

Final cover design, detail
Final cover design, detail

The diary pages are from a journal I put together for my Design & Arts College exhibition in 2012. Two years of research, ideas, word maps and sketches had to be reduced to a mere 72 pages. It was no easy task but I now have a beautiful, professionally bound diary that I’ll always treasure.

Dear diary, part three

‘Trash your ash – play the game and everybody wins’ – sketches and final illustration  Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011)
‘Trash your ash – play the game and everybody wins’ – sketches and final illustration
Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011)

‘Trash your ash’ mock-ups (billboard and installation) – ink, photography and digital Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011)
‘Trash your ash’ mock-ups (billboard and installation) – ink, photography and digital
Student project, 2011

The brief for this project was to design an anti-cigarette-litter billboard and public installation for the city council’s ‘Future Vision of a Clean City’ campaign. The focus had to be on anti-not-thinking rather than anti-smoking. For the installation, I turned my drawing of Christchurch’s Anglican Cathedral and Chalice sculpture into a pop-up board game that could be played in public spaces around the city. It was a lot of fun putting my illustration into the photo ― I wonder why I don’t do that more often?

The diary pages are from a journal I designed for my Design & Arts College exhibition in 2012. Two years of research, ideas, word maps and sketches had to be reduced to a mere 72 pages. It was no easy task but it’s something I’ll always treasure.