2010-01-26T13:07:26Z

23 Terra Luna terra-luna

2010-01-26T13:07:26Z

2009-10-11T19:29:17Z

21 Apex Predator apex-predator

2009-10-11T19:29:17Z

2009-09-20T17:48:40Z

Triple S is a new creative space on North Street in South Bristol. Based in an old hair salon, the idea is that people working in the creative industries rent a desk on a long or short term basis, and then when they're not there the whole space becomes an exhibition venue, a tiny tiny nightclub, a lecture theatre or whatever really. It's mental. Anyway, creatively, the idea is that the logo acts as a window into whatever's going on inside - its form is the space, and its fill is the content, if you see what I mean. To that end, its content will change regularly depending on who's just moved in or whatever the exhibition is at the moment or maybe it'll just have a big picture of LL Cool J in it. The point is, it's adaptable but recognisable. Aside from the logo and S patterns here, I'm also doing a website, collateral and store branding. It's been pretty hard work, if I'm honest. Not least because what exactly Triple S is <a href="http://www.literalkid.com/categories/17/posts">keeps on</a> <a href="http://www.literalkid.com/posts/2009/8/16/one-that-got-away">changing</a>. That's why it's taken 6 BLOODY MONTHS. It's been emotional. 20 Triple S triple-s Brand exploration and ID for a brilliant new thing coming soon in South Bristol.

2009-09-20T17:48:40Z

2009-07-18T17:41:12Z

Plastic Trickery's a DJ who knows good design when he sees it. Shame he came to the Kid for his graphics then, ha ha. This here is phase one of an ongoing project - just an semi-wildstyle throw-up* for his mix cds and flyers. Once he's got some momentum behind him this ID will evolve with different fills and colours to represent the different strands of his work, which'll be slap-tagged all over the city. Eventually, when your record collection's full of his works, you'll be able to tell which records are in which genres just by looking at the covers. Plastic Trickery and LiteralKid - saving you the trouble of reading stuff since 2009. *It's not real graffiti by the way. Stay legal, kids. 17 Plastic Trickery plastic-trickery Branding, ID and collateral for a DnB selecta.

2009-07-18T17:45:44Z

2009-05-07T19:51:22Z

I've done stuff for Jemima from <a href="http://www.shetellslies.com">She Tells Lies</a> before, so when she asked me to do her new album cover I jumped at it. She wanted something that would reflect the album title - Mad March Songs - but I thought it'd be good to focus on the subtle, sinister madness of her songs rather than traditional 'I'm mad me' madness. I found the picture in a book about science from 1958, in a section about making perfume. Apparently in Italy they grow giant fields of flowers just for mashing up to get the smell out of them, mental. I tinted it for that old-school vibe and then basically boshed a great big black circle into the middle of it, like a giant heart of darkness in the centre of a beautiful springtime image. The album's not out yet but you should all buy it when it is. All three of you. 16 She Tells Lies LP she-tells-lies-lp An album cover for a singer-songwriter, who decided to write a song a day for the whole month of March, and nearly succeeded.

2009-05-19T20:46:13Z

2009-05-07T19:31:10Z

This is a massively pretentious illustration I did about the tendency of things towards esemplasticity (convergence) in our heads. The idea is to show the three potentialities of existence - impossible, possible and real - and their relationship to each other. The triangle's an impossible shape, so that's the impossible centre of our irrational thoughts, which has at its base the possible but unreal mountains - our hopes and desires - and acts as a lens on the real, distorting how we view the facts of our lives and environment. I made this after listening to 'Projection Esemplastic for White Noise' by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joji_Yuasa">Joji Yuasa</a>. It's made out of filtered recordings of the writings of mad people. Have a listen, it's mental (literally): <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.literalkid.com/blog/audio/player.swf" id="audioplayer1" height="24" width="290" style="margin-top: 8px;"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.literalkid.com/blog/audio/player.swf"> <param name="FlashVars" value="playerID=1&soundFile=http://www.literalkid.com/blog/audio/joji_yuasa_projection_esemplastic.mp3"> <param name="quality" value="high"> <param name="menu" value="false"> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"> </object> 15 Projection Esemplastic projection-esemplastic An exploration of the relationship between the real, the unreal but theoretically possible and the impossible.

2009-05-19T18:46:10Z

2009-05-07T19:20:45Z

I quite enjoyed making <a href="/projects/literal-kid-1982">Literal Kid 1982</a> (if you haven't seen it, it's what I'd look like if I'd been born a record instead of a boy), so I decided to make it into a series. This one's inspired by old computer games mostly, and also a bit by early jungle albums, although of course they weren't about until 9 years later. Artistic license, isn't it. Fact fans - I made almost all of this using layer styles in photoshop, so I could carry on editing the gradients and stuff right till the end. I also used a desaturated, halftoned version of the whole thing as a multiplied overlay for a bit of cheaply-printed character, combined with a colour-burned old piece of paper to give it a nice warm, aged look. Because sometimes late 80's retro-futurism's just a bit too cold, know what I mean? 13 Literal Kid 1988 literal-kid-1988 Part two of the occasional series, 'Literal Kid Through The Ages', this time from when I was six.

2009-05-19T15:24:56Z

2009-05-06T12:35:07Z

Dan Church used to be the drummer in Cousteau, but now he's a session player and a singer songwriter. He asked me to do him a <A HREF="WWW.DANCHURCH.CO.UK">new website</a>, but I persuaded him to let me do an ID as well. Literalkid doesn't do things by halves, yeah? Anyway, I wanted to reference old amps and drum kits, and give him a bit of sparkly rock glamour, hence all the dark wood and chrome foil. He's also pretty flashy, so I boshed some electric blue highlights and fancy motion transitions into his site. Brilliant. I'd like to think that if he was a website he'd look like this. That might not be true though. The site's got all sorts of clever bits in it - there's content-managed video, audio and photo galleries, and the back button works even though it's all in Flash. That nearly killed me. In retrospect, I'm not sure it was worth it... 11 Dan Church dan-church I made a new ID and website for pro drummer Dan Church. He needed some high-quality vintage. Unfortunately he got this. Ha ha.

2009-05-19T21:46:39Z

2009-05-06T12:26:11Z

Some things are just too beautiful for this world, they have to leave it before they get tarnished by the daily mundane horrors of life. Also, <a href="http://www.goldenhandshakes.co.uk">The Golden Handshakes</a> split up. Ha ha ha. As soon as I knew it was time for them to go, I decided the only reasonable course of action was to eulogise them with a new website. This is the result - more of an animated flyer really, that collects together all the songs I made as a Golden Handshake in case anybody ever wants to hear them again. You never know. Over the years I did quite a bit of design for the Handshakes. You do when you've got a band but you prefer drawing pictures to making music, it's just how it is. Shown here as well as the eulogy are the artwork for our stillborn first single on <a href="http://www.multiverse-music.co.uk">Multiverse Records</a> and the <a href="http://www.goldenhandshakes.co.uk/sunshineinstructions">viral game</a> (remember them?) that went with it. 10 Golden Handshakes RIP golden-handshakes-rip The Handshakes are dead! Long live the Handshakes!

2009-05-19T14:58:42Z

2009-05-06T12:09:24Z

I'd drawn this mental jellyfish after looking at old Victorian marine biology books, and I wanted to use it for something. I also had Mohammed Ali in my head, and was wondering what he'd have been like if he was a pacifist. As you do. Anyway, the two came together and the rest, as they say, is history. Jellyfish float, but in a really ambient, mellow way (not hectic like a butterfly), and butterflies don't sting at all. So if Muhammed Ali was like that he'd have been a rubbish boxer but maybe more of a positive role model. Except no-one would know who he was. This one's part of a series - a couple more are <a href="/projects/yes-no-maybe">here<a> and <a href="/projects/butwhynot">here</a>. 9 Float Like A Jellyfish float-like-a-jellyfish This is from my still-unfinished book, Notes to Self. It's about the modern confusion between assertiveness and aggression, and a solution thereto.

2009-05-19T21:01:51Z

2009-05-06T12:03:41Z

I found this competition through <a href="http://www.dontpaniconline.com">Don't Panic</a>. It was supposed to be an ad for a modem in a 'street art' style but I got carried away and did a bit of a 2001 Starchild-holding-a-planet thing. Somehow it managed to get into the final 8 (I think my Mum voted for it loads of times, thanks Mum), but something much better won. If I had won, I think I would have had to recreate it live in Shoreditch using only spraypaint or something. So it all turned out for the best really. Although the entry obviously didn't really answer the brief, what with not being 'street art' (whatever that is) and all, I was a bit disappointed not to win. I thought maybe I'd be able to subvert the growing graffiti cultural hegemony from within. Why does everything that's 'edgy' and 'youth' have to be either (a) pretend graffiti or (b) Helvetica with the holes in the letters filled in? Anyway, I was fortunately able to sidestep my vague feelings of inadequacy/irrelevance by reusing the planet and some of the nebulas in <a href="/projects/literal-kid-1988">Literal Kid 1988</a>. What a laugh. 8 Freedom Fingers freedom-fingers A somewhat misguided competition entry, based around the emancipation potential of Three Mobile's 3G usb modem things.

2009-05-19T16:27:27Z

2009-05-06T11:40:04Z

Indecision is like a cancer on all our lives. Sometimes it's so hard to decide what to do in the simplest of situations. Should I go and make a cup of tea? Should I have a biscuit? Should I still be in bed watching TV at 12:38 in the afternoon? Actually that last one's definitely a no. But anyway, the point is, often the things you're most indecisive about really don't matter, so you might as well just say yes to everything. Or no. Maybe. It took me ages to get the drop shadows right on the letters. If you think about it they're not right, because they're only cast on other bits of the letters and not on the background, but it just looked a bit weird if they were on the background as well. Artistic license really isn't it. I bet Picasso never worried about how accurate his drop shadows were. 7 Yesnomaybe yes-no-maybe This is from my perpetually on-the-back-burner book, Notes to Self. I thought it'd help me acheive, but seeing as the book still isn't finished it clearly hasn't worked.

2009-05-19T16:22:34Z

2009-05-06T11:16:13Z

I like old stuff, so I thought it'd be good try and do something a bit early 80s. I used the power of maths to divide a square according to the rules of the golden section, and then used 45 degree angles to divide the new subsections, and then just sort of coloured bits in. Which is all design is really - making stuff line up and then colouring it in. Brilliant. 5 Literal Kid 1982 literal-kid-1982 A bit of self-promotion in which I imagined myself as a record cover from the year of my birth. I'd probably be 50p in a car boot sale now.

2009-05-19T16:19:06Z

2008-07-18T18:53:07Z

It's easy to look for reasons to do something, not find any, and just sit on the sofa watching horse racing instead. But, what's even easier, is to look for reasons not to do something, not look very hard, and then just go and do it. At least, that's what I decided in October 2008, after just over 25 years of not doing stuff whenever possible. It hasn't really panned out that way - for example, I'm still thinking of reasons not to finish the book this was originally supposed to be in. At least I tried. 18 But Why / But Why Not? but-why-but-why-not An illustration for a book I never finished, about the problems that beset my existence on a daily basis.

2009-07-18T18:55:00Z