CHROME PLATTED AND BURR WALNUT - CREATED USING ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR AND PHOTOSHOP
When I was a toddler our next door neighbours and my god father Uncle Stan Collard used to take us kids to Sunday school and other outings in his loving restored Lagonda Mk.1 Saloon.
THE INSPIRATION PART1, LAGONDA MK.1 SALOON
The first that I remember had metallic silver coach work with a cream leather, chrome and burr walnut interior. As a boy of about four or five I felt like a king being driven about In the big beautiful silver Lagonda.
CLASIC SEAT-OF-THE-PANTS ASTON MARTIN RACERS - ASTON SERVICE DORSET
Ivan Forsure or "Mr Forsure" to me :) another great old gent from my childhood was Uncle Stans’ partner in crime with regard to the restoration of the Mk.1 as he owned and ran Aston Service Dorset the officially approved service centre for the restoration of classic and vintage Aston Martins and Lagondas. During one of our visits I picked up an Aston Martin badge, I though it was wonderful, an eagle and a fighter jet all at once, I asked if I could have it but Mr Forshaw smiled and "NO" it was worth more the a years pocket money... Two years even!
ASTON MARTIN DB 4GT
Anyway some 40 odd years later while reminiscing about the good old days I remembered the old Lagonda and Aston Martin marques and I started to wonder how it would look if I gave the Deshok brand a Lagonda/Aston Martin theme?
"As a designer I think I'm allowed these little eccentricities every-once-in-a-while."
- THE INSPIRATION PART 2 THE MARQUES -
Basically I've kept the original brand but have given it wings. It’s a purely self indulgent mission but I am really pleased with the outcome. Just a bit of fun, a mash up of the Aston, Lagonda and Bentley wings with a bit of Deshok styling reminds me of a very happy childhood and my dear old Uncle Stan, his friend Mr Forshaw and the great old war-horse that was the Lagonda Mk.1 Saloon.
DESHOK WINGS IN CONSTRUCTION - CONTEMPORARY WITH A VINTAGE TWIST
- DESHOK GETS HER WINGS -
X2 VECTOR BASED LINE-ART VARIANTS
So now it’s not only fizzy energy drinks that can have wings, digital design agencies can have them too.
A7, 4/1, 8PP, INCLUDING WALLET, BUSINESS CARD AND
A DESHOKED CARABINA KEYRING AS A KEEPSAKE
FIA IS A MUST GO
The Farnborough International Airshow (FIA2014) is a must go every year, to keep up-to-date with new technology, meet with friends, colleagues, clients and generally hang-out with like minded businesses that love the industry too.
SOME GENTAL BRAND AWARENESS
This year we didn't go empty handed and put together these mini company brochures, along with a deshoked carabina keyring and business card. The mission was some gentle brand awareness and to promote the specialist digital agency service for the aerospace industry. The smaller formate of the brochure meant they were light and convenient to carry around but more importantly, also easy for recipients to slip into a pocket or brief case.
FINISHED ARTWORK SPREAD READY TO GO TO PRINT
2 VERY STRONG BUSINESS LEADS ALREADY
This mission was more successfully then we could have every hoped for, In the end we only managed to hand out 62 of them but a little less then 2 weeks after the show we have had 2 very strong enquiries and have meet with one of the companies already. It looks like print isn't quite dead after all. Very pleased.
FARNBOROUGH AIRSHOW SF-SPAN
FIA SPLASH PAGE 2014
If you would like one email your address to: info@deshok.com and we'll drop one in the post for you.
For more about Deshok visit the website at: www.deshok.com or google search "deshok".
Over the the past months Deshok has been going through a bit of a brand transformation, most of which is a beyond the scope of this post but as part of this re-branding exercise I decided that I would like to create a texture that can be used as a background in a multitude of circumstances.
This texture could be used as cover for brochures or the background for a business card, computer and website wallpapers or even wrapped around a Mini! I had a little play with visuals such as sheet steel, rusty metal concert and carbon fibre in the end I settled on camouflage or to be more specific, MultiCam. This is the bang up-date-to-date camo that is currently issued to to the British army in fact it is issued to all major armies keen on keeping their personal safe.
So how did I do this?
Firstly and using some genuine MultiCam as a guide, I drew out all the elements of the camouflage in AI, creating a layer per colour, 5 in total. This was longest part of the project but I felt important to get right.
You will notice that I have included the Deshok brand to some of the colour layers.
Above is quite close to the original MultiCam colour ways. This didn't seem right for my purposes.
Next? colours.
To start with and so I had visual base to work from I used close to the original colours. The finished item did not look right for my needs at all so in the end and after much faff I decided on subdued olive green hues. This works very well with white Deshok brand and the orange of the Deshok skills icon set and the Gut "N" Glory crest.
As this was produced as a vector based AI illustration I can enlarge and scale as much as I need and it will always look great. Like -wise, it can easily be dropped into Photoshop and saved out as .jpg .png . eps etc for use on line and off-the-page.
Above a test piece to see how it will look in action.
Find out more about genuine MultiCam visit the MultiCam site at the link below.
In celebration of National Bed Month and to raise some exstra money for Julia’s House the Dorset Children's Hospice. Staff over at BoConcept in Bournemouth pulled on their pyjamas for a slumber party on
Saturday 9th March. Customers were invited to get comfy, try out the
beds and enjoy a yummy hot chocolate and cupcakes.
Donations for Julia’s House were gladly accepted and there was a raffle to win one of three fantastic BoConcept prizes.
1st Prize – Ferrara chair,
2nd Prize – Collector’s espresso gift set (Design competition) 3rd Prize – Menu Fondue set
I have to be honest, sometimes, on Monday morning I can find it quite hard to get up to speed, you know creatively. So to warm up, I start off with a couple of easy little jobs for Deshok. I play around with marketing ideas, new lay-ups for websites and recently I have been having fun with the Deshok logo. I
think I have it mind, to product some give away items, that I can leave
with you the client, when I come-"A"-knockin. hopefully something a
little more interesting, than a calendar or a coffee mug coaster?
We love getting parcels:
A parcel arrived at offices offices this week, containing the new Deshok business cards for 2012/13. I am really pleased with how they have turned out. The business cards are printed full colour, front and back, they are gloss laminated. The idea being, that they stay fresh in my clients wallets once I have presented them.
Custom QR code:
I found last year that, utilising the white space on the back of the card for a custom printed QR code, was really useful. I see QR codes as a really convenient way for my clients to access my website, without having to thumbling around, keying in a web address. Especially on a smart phone.
Get your own QR code:
If you want to try this for your business cards, my friends over at: Free QR CodeTracker can provide you with a custom QR code, along with on-line tracking and analytics so you can see how many people are using it etc. Its a great service and absolutely free!.
£100? cheep @ half the price:
I still can't get used to how cheap it is to have items like this printed now. Around the £100 mark from RCS the printers. I remember when cards like this could cost £500, you just wouldn’t have entertained the notion.
The best time:
I don’t’ think there has ever been a better time to be setting-up a small business. However small your business, you can now afford to have marketing materials that are every-bit as professional as bigger companies.
I guess the only problem is... Now your customers and clients kind of expect it. : )
More info: A parcel arrived at my offices in Charminster this week, containing the new Deshok business cards.
I have to say, that I am really pleased with how they have turned out. The business cards are printed full colour, front and back, they are gloss laminated and have a custom cutter to give them round corners. The idea being, that they stay fresh in my clients wallets once I have presented them.
This time, I am going to utilise the white space on the back of the card for a QR code.
I can produce these as stickers and apply to the cards as and when I think appropriate. I can also produce different QR codes, to point at different web pages or a mobile site.
I still can't get used to how cheap it is to have items like this printed now. Around the £100 mark. I remember when cards like this could cost £500, you just wouldn’t have entertained the notion.
I don’t’ think there has ever been a better time to be running a smaller business. However small your business, you can afford to have marketing materials that are every-bit as professional as bigger companies. I guess the only problem is... Now your customers and clients kind of expect it. : )
Client: deshok.com Project: A new corporate I.D. for 2011
Info: Social media has been a huge part for the Internet for years and now it is becoming an even bigger part of business on-line marketing and SEO.
Over the past year deshok has been working on an integrated programme, that starts with the company blog and then automatically feeds the company Facebook page, Twitter and linkedin accounts for the purposes of greater discoverability online and within these networks.
This post is supposed to be about a new corporate I.D. for deshok.com so how dose social networking fit in? Well this was the main reason for the redesign. Something that could be used across all networks, would be consistent and look great in all. Clean very simple, looks good when reduce and conveys an almost Puritanical attitude that the company i.e. Deshok is not important what they do for the client is or to put it another way, there is no time for their own brand other than what you see, because they are to busy designing great brands and award winning websites for their clients. So in-a-way, the client and the work is the brand, that is the I.D.
Having said all of the above - it took months, to make the logo look like it had been designed in the lunch hour, on the back of a napkin : ) The colours? Black and White the font? Deshok modified; Helvetica Neue, regular and bold.
So the design concept is; Deshok, the shock being represented by a five pointed star. An actual star in this case, was considered a bit twee so it as been reduced, refined and minimised to a single point of what was once, a 5 pointed star, in the top left hand corner of the capital void. This theme was carried through on a subliminal level, to the ascenders of the Deshok logo type.
Creative consultancy has always been a service that Neil Stevens @ Deshok has provided, as part of the whole design process. Over the past few years it has grown to become potentially, a business in its own right.
What is Creative Consultancy?
Creative consultancy is the deliberate application of creative ideas, in a graphic, idealistic and administrative form, for the direct pursuit of better business success. The plan is usually presented to the client as a Bible, an instruction manual that the client and their team can refer back to as the project gets underway. The Bible is backed up and reinforces with regular face-to-face meetings, where ideas may be tweaked and honed to achieve the best possible performance.
A resent and successful project was for Water Feature designs, who achieved over £22,000 worth of new leads, based on the ideas for website, search engine, optimisation and search engine marketing that came about from just such a consultancy process.
So-far, everyone concerned, is very pleased with the new attention that Water Feature Designs is attracting and as part of the ongoing project, the next step for Water Feature Designs is to find and analyse, weaknesses in their conversion approach and how to professionally convert these new leads that are coming from larger corporate construction companies and developers.
The recession is over, according The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) estimates that Britain’s gross domestic product returned to growth in April and May. Official GDP figures will be published in July, but the institute thinks that the recession bottomed out in March. Read more here...
I don’t feel qualified to comment on the state of the recession in Dorset or England let alone the rest of the world but for Deshok.com in Bournemouth, the recession is all but over. Several major projects were confirmed this week, so we decided to to seize the moment to celebrate with as much style as we possibly could. Thank to all at the Print Room restaurant in Bournemouth for looking after us.
Now lets get to work:
Emma Wimhursts’ Business mentoring project continues to gain momentum and she has placed a substantial commission with Deshok which will keep me busy for the next couple of months and one that I am really looking forward to starting early in July 09. B.EC. Group plastic engineering:
I had another very encouraging meeting with Mark Elvy of B.EC. Group plastic engineering fame. We are discussing the new incarnation of the B.E.C. Group website. Work for that should start in September 09. Until then I have quotes to prepare for current website up-grades, HTML Email e-drops, and a brochure. What’s with all these off-the-page projects that are coming out of the woodwork at the moment? More X factor for Glass Exchange:
Glass Exchanges the double glazing maintenance franchise, are taking their first steps to up-date their company brand. Advertising is first, closely followed by branding and van coach work. To be phase-in with newer franchise first.
Along with other smaller projects we should be busyuntil the new year... a relief.
Long may those green shoots keep growing.
A couple of weeks ago I received a phone call from Ben Rayner, Creative director
at chsCREATIVE. “We’ve got a little problem with a Flash project we’re working on, can you come and have a look at it”?. “I’ll come right now, let’s get it done”!
chsCREATIVE is a multi purpose design agency and conveniently, with-in walking distance of my office. On arrival I was introduced to the team involved and sat down to look at the problem. The project was a website for Dominos Pizza the main sponsors for this years (2009) Britain's Got Talent TV show on ITV1. In the end it was a relatively easy fix, that just needed a fresh pair of eyes to see. It only took me a few minutes and was really just an idea. For me, it was great to be able to help even at a very small leave so I declined Ben’s offer of payment. As I walked out the door, I probably said something corny like, “I always wanted to be a Super Hero but I guess that will have to do”
Anyway the next day there was a little knock on my office door, it was a rather pretty girl holdings a bottle of Rioja reserve 2004. She said it was from CHS to thank me for my work the day before. Funny, I’m not really a big drinker but I really appreciated the gesture. I was totally surprised and just didn’t know what to say. But thanks to chsCREATIVE and please do call anytime, it was a pleasure to meet you all.
The chsCREATIVE website that coincided with Britain's Got Talent 2009.
I have decided to sign-up to Twitter, I've been Twittered!I have been following Twitter for more than a year and couldn’t get my head around it.
None of my friends or clients are on Twitter so I couldn’t see it working for me. And then I realised that, for want of a better term, it is an open source, i.e. everybody can read your Tweets. So unlike FaceBook someone who wants to see what you have been up to doesn’t need to be a friend or part of my network. So I can point people at my Twitter and let them get on with it.
As yet I’m not sure how I’m going to use Twitter, how useful it will be to me or whether it will fit into my life very well, for now, to be honest I just like signing up to these things : )
After along beach holiday by the looks of it, ShokBot is back and by popular demand.
ShokBot was a device that we created at Deshok to embody the friendly and approachable face of technology. In this case computers the internet and websites.
ShokBot was used in advertising campaigns and website promotions back in 2004 –2005ish and we believe played a big part in helping us win the website awards for the site, he was featured in www.deshok.com/archive/shokbot. and not to mention, new clients from over seas.
Clients have rallied to his cause and have asked Where is he? Why don’t you use him any more? And, “Don’t you know that it was the robot that made us want to call Deshok”!So he is back and featured on the new Deshok Work / Portfolio site. Lets just see how he performs?
On the 26th of April 2009 I ran the London Marathon and I actually enjoyed most of it.
In training I could only manage 16 miles so I didn't expect to be-able to run all of it but thanks to “Jelly Babies”, I ran the lot in 5hrs ish, I am very chuffed.
I am going to write a decent account of my experience, for those who are interested and sponsored me.
But until then, here are the stats:
I finished 20,101th
I was 2,478 for my age group “45”
I ran it in a time of 5.10.24 secs
My average pace was 11:50 per mile
I only lost one toe nail
And so-far I’ve raised £1,154,21 for my charities which I'm relieved about.
If I had known all this information, was going to a be available for people to see, I would have tried harder : )
Thank you once again to everybody for your support.
Ready to go:
I am running the London Marathon this Sunday, the 26th. The training is done, the carbs are being loaded and I ma ready to go.
A big thanks:
Donations for the good causes are going really well and I have raised over a £1000. There
is a little way to go to reach the target, so if you haven't sponsored me yet, get in there! : )
A big thank you to all who have supported me, especially in the last couple of months and thanks to everybody for your sponsorship. The Stroke Association and Ward5 Bournemouth hospital are two good causes that need all the help you can give.
15.5 seconds of fame:
Look out for me on telly, on Sunday morning. My number is: 48373 and I think I’m going to be the only one, dressed as a runner.
I've wanted to run the London Marathon for a long time and now it has become something that I want to do, to achieve then tick it off my list. I’m not in for a race or competing, I just want to take part, run the whole thing with no walking and raise as much money as I can for my chosen charities. The Stroke Association:
I approached the The Stroke Association, they seemed fun and friendly, they accepted my application and so here we are. I also wanted to run for a more local good-cause and one night at a BBQ at a friends I got chatting to another friend called Ali and she told me that she was a sister on Ward 5 Bournemouth Hospital and that no one ever donated any money to them and that they were quite forgotten. “OK” I said “I’ll run for you then” To find out more about the great work The Stroke Association do, visit there website: http://www.stroke.org.uk Ward 5 Bournemouth Hospital:
Ward 5 doesn't have a website, so I will have to tell you that I think they are an under funded and over looked and hard working ward, that looks after elderly and psychologically vulnerable patients.
Give them your support:
The way I like to look at both of these good-causes is that there is an outside chance that we might need their services one day. I know its not a very cool thing to think about but I see supporting them, almost like insurance, so get behind them and donate as much as you can.
Do you want to give? Here’s how:
I'm still thinking of clever and out of the box ways to raise money. Below is my list so far:
Client:Deshok.com Wesite Design & Marketing Project: Clean, simple, easy to use portfolio site.
Info: Over the last couple of months, Deshok.com has been developing and building the new Deshok client, portfolio website. It is a very simple presentation with one mission. To show off your website and Deshok projects, in the best possible way.
Deshok.com now enjoys over 300 page views everyday, from all over the world and is seeing that traffic goes to your sites, via perspectives clients, wanting to see samples of Deshok work.
This information, been followed up on to give the Deshok visitor exactly what they want. Basically a big fat portfolio, right there on the home page. Easy to find, easy to navigate.
The goal here is this, If we are going to beat this crunchy feeling and work our way out of this recession, working together and scratching backs is the way forward.
Simple put, anything Deshok can do to improve your traffic, is going to be beneficial to us all.
MARINE BOY 1966 There are a lot of things in this world that I like and I'll get around to writing about them eventually but this week, I want talk about Japanese Manga and Anime or, if you like, Japanese comic book art and animation and what a statement in design it is.
WHAT DOES MANGA MEAN?
Manga, basically means "whimsical pictures". The first of these "whimsical pictures" came into use in the late 18th century with the publication of such works as Santo Kyoden's picture book "Shiji no yukikai" (1798), and in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa's "Manga hyakujo" (1814) and the celebrated Hokusai Manga containing assorted drawings from the sketchbook of the famous Ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. The first use of the word "Manga" as its modern usage was by Rakuten Kitazawa.
RAKUTEN KITAZAWA
Rakuten Kitazawa was born, 20 July 1876 in Omiya, Saitama, Japan and had the pen name of Kitazawa Yasuji. , Kitazawa YaKitazawa Yasuji was a Mangaka and Nihonga artist. He drew many editorial cartoons and comic strips during the late Meiji Era and early Showa Era. He is considered the founding father of modern Manga because he promoted many younger Mangaka and animators. He also was the first professional cartoonist in Japan.
ANIME:
Anime is basically just comic books and other Japanese stories that have ended up animated and broadcast on television, DVD or film. Anime has a massive following in Japan with many multiple part series being shown on many channels, every day.
When I was very young I used to enjoy an Anime cartoon Called Marine Boy and although I didn't know it then, this was my first introduction into Anime. My friends and I all thought Marine Boy very cool, he could breath under water with the help of his OxiGum. He had propellers in his boots to help him swim and a boomerang he could use under water and it would blow any thing it hit. All great stuff. There were other Anime that I used to enjoy as kid including Battle of the Planets, Ulysses', Thunder Cats and others and this set me off trying to create and design my own character, although at the age 4 I soon got bored and turned back to my Lego.
My interest was kindled again much later when I was working at Generic Marketing. I was asked to design a Manga style robot for use as a POS (point of sale) etc for Creative Labs Sound Blaster cards. I bough some videos and magazines as resource material and my interest was re-inspired.
Don't get me wrong i'm not a nerd or rather I don't think I am. I don't have rooms full of videos and DVDs I don't have character models everywhere and I cant remember the last time I watched an Anime. Let's just say when I stumble across it or have to work with it I really appreciate it and that's, that.
BATTLE OF THE PLANETS: This was another one of my favourites from the late 70s
Ulysses
THUNDER CATS: This was an excellent example of popular anime animation making in to mainstream western television. Thunder Cats, as I'm sure some of you will remember, was very popular in the 80s and still enjoys a huge cult following even now.
BUBBLE GUM CRISIS: This is an introduction to the new show. This was aired on Japanese TV.
I believe that Bubble Gum Crisis never made it to British television and so was only available on video in the mid 80s. This, the original Bubble Gum Crisis, was almost like six pilots to a TV series the was never made. Although superior to the 26 part animated series that was eventually made in the very late 90s/early 00s, I feel that it was just a taster of what was originally planned.
BUBBLE GUM CRISIS: This is the opening sequence to an episodes 1980s. I think that what the animators have achieved here is just great and infinitely more ambitious than anything the American studios were doing for TV at the time.
An absolutely stunning Gundam illustration featuring all the characters from the TV series.
It looks to me that the illustrator here was so confident with their ability that it is hard to tell were one robot starts and another finishes.
The main focus of this illustration is the pilot of the powered suit ejecting himself because the suit is damaged, but just look at the work that has gone into this illustration. The point of it is almost lost in the dented and twisted metal and yet it still works and I believe it's enhanced because of this.
Gundam. With a clever use of hand drawn, computer based vector and Photoshop, the Illustrator has archived a photographic quality to this Illustration. Remember all of the Gundam pictures here were created before 3D modelling was available, these were drawn by hand!!
This is an excellent rendering of a popular Anime character I'm sure I don't have to point out to the visitor that the intensely skilful use of light form and space makes for an erotic illustration.
The design of the suits impressed me very much I find myself needing to look very carefully at this illustration to understand what is going on.
Attention to detail impressed me with this illustration. The girl watching on while holding on to the wire fence. She could easily not have been included but I'm glad she is. this detail says a lot about the artist love of there work.
The Japanese have a real thing for "Maids" I'm not sure what that's about all I know is all those frills and lace would take a long time to draw. I feel that the detail is beyond the call of duty.
This illustration must have gone over budget but I guess the illustrator wanted to see it so here it is.
Like seeing an ugly fat guy in a porn film I like this illustration be cause it gives me hope that I might one day be able to produce something like this.
Ski, clouds, perspective and an excellent lens flair, beautiful.
I talk about this illustration later in this post but this does like like a great place for a picnic.
WHY DO I APPRECIATE ANIME & MANGA?
From the illustration I have included in this post it would be very easy to say that I like Manga because it usually involves cute young women wearing powered comate armour blasting the hell out or monsters and aliens. Ok that is all very cool but as a frustrated comic book illustrator, designer I really do appreciate the style design technical and hours and hours of time that most go into the production of this art. I believe that the character design is way-in-advance of anything that western studios have to offer and I see this creative attention to style and detail & discipline something something to aspire to. The mundane and down to earth and illustration is the better I like it. Have a look at picture 12. in the little collection here. A beautiful young lady walking in an Alpine meadow, just take a look at the flowers at her feet the blossom blowing in the wind a slight gaussian blur makes them look them look 3D and the sense of movement is unbelievable I think this is just beautiful and it makes me happy that there are people in the world with the talent and were-for-all to produce such pieces of art and at the same time it makes me feel a little sad that I could never produce anything as good. But that's not going to stop me trying.
