carl-mitchell.comPart 1, talking about making the posters for this show, can be read here.
A couple of months after the posters were completed, I sat down with the show’s producer to work on the programme. Having made the programme for Maskerade last year, and doing a bunch of layout work at my job, I had more experience at it this time around.
For a start, I asked the producer how many pages it was going to be, and what the basic layout was. This is the very very first draft:
Don’t laugh, it’s useful!
The Bradford University Society of Operettas and Musicals – BUSOM for short – performed their 2015 main show last week. Moby Dick! The Musical sees a St. Trinian’s-like girls school (complete with headmistress played by a man in drag) putting on a musical version of Herman Melville’s novel to save their bankrupt institution; hockey sticks for harpoons and all.
BUSOM’s staple poster creator has graduated, moved away, and become very busy. I was picked to work on the main show this year. That meant it was up to me to get that ‘play within a play’ message across.
First up, posters for the cast auditions. Over the post-Xmas holidays I came up with the below pic, for the production team to surround with the relevant text. This was the birth of Audition Whale, drawn with Illustrator’s standard but useful Charcoal brush.
Audition Whale quickly gained fans.
This year’s Valentine’s Day celebration / penance wasn’t cards for selected individuals: It was a benevolent lucky dip for everyone at work. Here’s how it came together…
The first task was learning to make an origami heart – these are the instructions I followed.
I bought a roll of red paper, cutting it into 7cm squares.
Why a roll of paper? There needed to be one heart for every member of staff present that day, plus a few spares.
I assembled 121 of the things.
Another year brings another February 1st. I’ve completed Hourly Comic Day 2015; my fifth. It was quite eventful considering it was a Sunday.
This was my third year visiting the Thought Bubble Leeds comic art festival. Usually I will do a lap to see what’s there, then second time around buy items and get them signed. It took longer to get around this year: Firstly, they’ve gone from two large rooms to three. Secondly, I was taking notes…
Picked up a heap of stuff. Click that photo for artist names and details!
There’s the old stereotype of guys who are always ‘working on their novel’. For me, it’s a comic book. Three short comics, actually. There are plans to get them done, self-published, sold. Those plans are currently like clay plonked on a mat; going though a lot of moulding before they’re stuck in the oven. So I talked to the experts attending and selling at Thought Bubble. The guys with book deals and large hardback editions, and the new starters, their baby fresh off the work photocopier. Picking up tips on process, production, contacts. Here’s a few simple pieces of advice gleaned…
There’s a chap who calls himself Grickle, who I discovered via his work on the Puzzle Agent games. Have you heard of recent film The Boxtrolls? He helped create the titular creatures.
One day, he tweeted the below swamp creature, with the hashtag #sketch_dailies.
Sketch Dailies (website / Twitter) tweet out one drawing suggestion every weekday, around 5:30pm UK time. They help lead an event called Inktober, where you do one drawing every day for a month (or you can do one every two days, etc.). You can take on Sketch Dailies’ proposal, or do your own thing. Despite the name, it’s not strictly limited to ink – People use their tablets, watercolours, whatever they please.
…said the March Hare to the girl wearing a pinafore. Lots done, and lots to do.
The Bradford University Society of Operettas and Musicals (BUSOM) hold their 24 Hour Show this month. They enter the New Bradford Playhouse on October 10th, learning that evening what musical they’ll be performing a scant 24 hours later. It’s exciting, it’s team-building, and it’s funny if the actors mess up due to sleep deprivation (in a charming way).
There’s only a handful of ways to do a logo for a 24 Hour Show, and they’ve all been done a dozen times over. Being original is hard, but worth having a crack at!
The perilously perched Motorhome is introducing another thing wot I did at work… I put together an infographic / illustrated stats which cover the last few years of Caravan Guard’s motorhome insurance claims.
You can see the whole thing on the company blog here, via the below image, or on visual.ly. You can click it again in the C.G. post to go super-big. I’ve chopped the full-length preview of what awaits you into three, so you can see it at a reasonable size: To soak in all the graphical fineries, though, you should just click through already!
In February I started working for Caravan Guard (and it’s sister company Leisuredays), a medium-sized, family run insurance company. It’s no secret: My CV’s available on this website, after all. I’m in the Marketing department… as a Graphic Designer. Last month I moved to ‘Permanent contract’ status.
I’ve been doing a huge amount of wonderful stuff, both straight-laced and silly, for both the Leisuredays re-branding and more general tasks. Making the sky blue on overcast photos. Adding and removing signs. Removing people. We’ve got new and updated booklets, flyers, folders, tiny stickers and big banners into production. I’ve made a truckload of icons, graphs and graphics, while correcting and refining the existing sets. I even got talking cows into a milk-bottle shaped mailer.
A couple of friends had their first child this week – a baby boy – and there was much rejoicing.
This card came together around Easter-time, hence the theme. The main decoration is felt, with pen for the eyes and mouths. Kids love felt. Lightly concerned that kids love to eat everything too, considering UHU binds it together. I rounded the corners at least.
The process of construction was roundabout…