Kankouran

So, I have a few new things to announce in twoducksdisco land.

Firstly, I have created a Facebook group page, where you can view pretty much all of my work in one place. You can even 'like' it, if you're that way inclined... Secondly, I went and got myself a Twitter page, where I will update planet earth with anything twoducksdisco-related, along with a bit of nonsense but that's what Twitter's all about right?

And on to some work which I recently completed for a chap called Tarek Musa, who approached me for a poster design but with one of the more interesting briefs i've had in quite a long time...

The brief was taken from a series of stories called The Atlas of Curiosities. The story tells of a village where upon a certain morning all the young male residents have to stay in their homes and await a 'harrowing' visit from a devilish spirit named Kankouran. Upon arrival of the individual homes the spirit takes a sacrificed leg and eye from each male, so that they can pass into manhood. Scary but inspiring stuff...

This project was very interesting to work on and allowed me to experiment with darker imagery that my regular approach to illustration. Plus that tale is one of those chilling stories that sticks in your head for a while, so you can tell all your friends when you stay up late telling ghost stories...

Savoir Faire

G'day

Another update today of some projects recently completed and just to wet your appetite, massive news coming next week. Well, fairly big anyway... oooh.

So, moving on quickly to a t-shirt design I did for London-based singer / songwriter Pete Hickman. This was a fun one to work on as the brief was essentially to do anything I wanted. So after listening to Pete's music and in particular the song 'The Master' I decided to go with a literal interpretation of the opening lyrics to the song due to the striking nature of the introduction.

I also wrapped up a logo for a friend and her new online zine entitled 'Mind Over Matter'.

The purpose of the blog is to allow people to post about medical experiences whether professional or not and help give support to people in similar situations.

Good stuff.

Hit the Switch

Hi folks

Another spell of quietness from me for which I must apologise but it was due to organising a massive poster exhibition as part of Poster Roast Leeds at Constellations festival. It was a lot of great fun and a photo-filled blog is being assembled to document the madness and will hopefully be presented to you early next week!

To keep your eyes satisfied until then, here are a few pieces of work that have recently been signed off, the first being for Leeds City Council. I was asked to create a series of posters for LCC who promote Christmas Light 'switch on' events around Leeds' many boroughs, including Morley, Pudsey, Rothwell, Yeadon and pictured is the Farsley version.

I was also asked by a Leeds-based badge making company called Beardo Badges to create an identity for their new badge-venture (sorry). Being bearded and having been a resident of Leeds for 7 years (alas, no more) I jumped at the task and created a simple one-colour design for the company.

And finally a company who I have worked with very closely for the past few years (because they do great charity based work) asked me to create a design for a new fund-raising promotion of theirs.

The company being We Heart Arts (I have also created their new logo on the site) have come up with the concept to print limited edition posters for local up-and-coming bands. The first band in the series are Our Lost Infantry and below is the design.

If you fancy purchasing one of these and helping out a really good cause, then follow this link and get involved.

So there are more things to come but I have made an executive decision to limit the content of these blogs, otherwise your head would probably explode. And we wouldn't want that...

Head Rolls Off

Hi

So whilst trying to better last months number of blog posts I've already succeeded with this very entry. It's a poster that I did recently for Frightened Rabbit.

It's primarily based on ideas taken from the song 'Head Rolls Off', which has references to death and religion. I wanted to create an image that would illustrate the religious undertones of the song but not come off as cheesy or cliche. I also looked to their recent artwork, which contains images of crosses and illuminating light and decided that the best way to execute such a poster would be through basing the illustration on religious literature.

With an image of the bible being the focus of the poster, I wanted to add a more personal touch, which would suit the sound of the band. The water coming from the book draws reference to the song 'Swim Until You Can't See Land' and also emphasises the themes of loss and isolation which frequently occur in FR songs.

Hopefully the design came across something like that to you. If not, then hopefully you just like it...

Bye

Tighten Up

Apologies for it being nigh on a month and no updates, moving house is a long and arduous process as many of you may know...

On to some work then. Recently I was asked to be part of The Black Keys tour poster series for their jaunt across the British Isles in which they played some rather large venues.

Obviously I accepted and here is a process (I know you love them as much as I do) of me screen-printing the batch that would be sent of to their show at the O2 Academy in Newcastle.

The first screen.

The first layer printed and waiting for the second colour.

The second screen ready and raring to go.

Whilst printing some test runs I came across a sheet of purple paper and thought that the design may look cool on it. And it did...

The second colour now printed and drying on the racks.

The final poster all cropped, signed, numbered and stamped.

The poster with human hands to give you an idea of scale. A2 is big!

Close up.

Another close up.

Massive thanks to Kate Desforges at the print workshop for helping me out with the near-catastrophic acetate scenario.

They are also now available from my Big Cartel store, so head over and pick one up today, yeah!

Many more things to be revealed soon, just need to get this house is some sort of order...

Ta ta.