Dream 3

Now in it's 5th year, the global phenomenon that is Secret 7 returned to showcase 700 unique record sleeves and raise a whole bunch of money for Amnesty International UK.

This year things were arranged a little differently with a month long exhibition taking place at Sonos Studio in Shoreditch to whet the appetites of the vinyl-crazed public ahead of the sale, which took place on Monday 2nd May 2016.

As ever there was a cool mix of bands and artists assembled by Kevin King (thanks for having me back) to choose from, including The Jam, Chvrches, Jack Garratt, Tame Impala, Etta James and John Lennon. The track that immediately stood out to me was the gorgeous 'Dream 3' by Max Richter; an artist I'd long admired and whose album 'The Blue Notebooks' is simply one of the most sublime records I've ever heard.

When it came to designing artwork for the piece of music taken from an 8 hour "sleep aid", I wanted to make sure I captured that dream-like quality and made something which resonated with the aesthetic of the existing album artwork.

I started with the idea of duplicating a moon image, which whilst creating a hypnotic effect much in the tradition of Richter's music, also conjured up ideas of dreams within dreams. It was all getting a bit too Inception-like but I thought the idea was strong enough to run with...

And so I ended up sketching the idea to give it an organic feel, hoping to reflect the nature of Richter's music. Although liking the outcome, to me it didn't evoke the mood or atmosphere of the track. This is something that needed to have depth and the sketch just felt too 1 dimensional.

To develop the idea of repeated patterns I decided to experiment with the concept of sleep as part of the cyclical nature of human existence and that we all have patterns that we replay - our daily routine. Of course we sleep, eat, work and play (if we're lucky) on a daily basis. This is echoed throughout the week, month, year, our entire lifespan and it was interesting to explore the idea that although this sounds repetitive and mundane, in fact it's the small joys we bring to ourselves on a daily basis which gives our lives variety and meaning, and that is something to be celebrated!

In an attempt to capture that idea (and in keeping with the minimalist nature of the music) I set about painting ink onto a rotating piece of paper, which I prepared on my turntable. There were many attempts (as the above image shows - plus many more were discarded) before I found the perfect representation of my concept.

The image was mounted on an inked gradient and then mounted on the blank record sleeve.

So there you have it! A little bit of an insight into the thought process and execution behind my creation and a bit of fanboy gushing for Max - which seriously, if you haven't heard 'The Blue Notebooks', then go do that right now! Oh, and if you brought my contribution to this fantastic cause, then thank you. I hope you like it.

Age of Reason

On 19th April 2014 the needle was dropped into the groove of internationally celebrated Record Store Day for another dose of limited edition vinyl and musical merriment!

Again I was asked by the impassioned overlord of Secret 7 Mr. Kevin King to contribute a one-off record sleeve to be sold on the big day.

The charity this year was War Child and an almighty £41,500 was raised for the cause. This was great news and it brought the total Secret 7 contribution to over £105,000.

I chose to illustrate 'Age of Reason' (track above) for Brummy metal newcomers Black Sabbath and went down a more graphic-vector route, hoping to offer something different for the lads!

I also screen-printed the cover, to give it that va-va voom. Below is the final design and then the process.

Thank you to Kevin King for having me along for the journey again and on the off-chance that Ozzy, Tony or Geezer saw the artwork, I hope you liked it. Oh and if you were the person who bought it, thanks to you too.

Harder Than You Think

Remember that post where I designed a sleeve for Laura Marling's 'The Beast'?

Well, that alongside 699 other individually crafted record sleeves raised over £30,000 for the Art Against Knives charity! Here's a little video from the day.

As well as contributing a print for Laura Marling, I also designed a cover for another band involved with the project, Public Enemy. A band of whom I am very fond of, having seen them live in Nottingham when I was 18 years old.

Above is the front cover of the design, which was digitally printed for the exhibition.

Thanks again to Kevin for asking me to be a part of the show. It's always great to know that you can make a little difference to a big cause!

If you want to see all the other covers for the project, then visit the Secret 7 site, which I highly recommend that you do.

I Need My Girl

The National.

What a wonderful American band. Having just released their sixth studio album 'Trouble Will Find Me' I find myself constantly in discussion with friends and family about just how great this band are.

After purchasing the album last week I have listened to it every day. It is beautiful, sombre, restrained, complex, melodic and a whole host of other adjectives fans would adopt to articulate their praise and love for the NY five piece.

Early highlights include 'Fireproof', 'I Should Live in Salt' and 'I Need My Girl', the latter of which I have decided to artistically interpret using magazine cut-outs, acrylic paint and colour-transparent overlays.

'I Need My Girl'

Mixed Media (2013) with frame 33.5 x 28.5cm

Not sure whether to sell the piece yet, if there's any interest then I'll put it up in the twoducksdisco Big Cartel shop. Or email me at twoducksdisco@gmail.com

If you haven't heard the album yet, I suggest you do so. Here's a live version of 'I Need My Girl'. Enjoy.

Scottish Winds

I was recently asked by Frightened Rabbit to design a tour poster for their Highlands Tour, in which they played intimate venues in small Scottish towns.

I love the thought of a band on a major label making such an effort to play to their fans who might not be able to get to their shows, which often take place in the major cities of Scotland.

People who know me will know that I'm quite fond of FR; I consider their second album 'The Midnight Organ Fight' to be a genuine modern classic. So when it came to inspiration, I had a lot of ideas at the ready.

Firstly I wanted to have references to their lyrics and themes tackled across their albums; the sea, isolation, faith and lack thereof and combine it with the idea of the band heading up into the unknown wilderness to play these shows.

Here is a quick printing process of the day I spent screen-printing them.

Firstly, the screens are coated with a chemical called Azocol.

Here are the transparencies, which will make up the two layers / colours of the poster.

They are transferred to the screens, using UV light.

The screen is then clamped into the bed place and the first colour has been pulled through with a squeegee.

Hanging out on the drying racks.

The second screen in place, with the imminent brown to complete the print.

Here is the final cropped version of the poster, which I think came out pretty well.

I printed 130 in total, 100 for the band and 30 for me. They're now available in my online shop and if you want one, then get to it, as I understand they were pretty popular on the tour. Also, for one week only I'm offering free p&p within the UK.

Big thanks to the band and their management for letting me do these and also to Alice Munks, who helped get the ball rolling with the band about 18 months ago...

Flatstock 33

About a month ago I was privileged enough to travel to Austin, Texas to exhibit at Flatstock 33, which runs alongside the world famous music festival, SXSW.

Flatstock is a gig poster event run by the API, as a means of showcasing the work of the gig poster artist in a series of exhibitions.

As a little promotional item for FS33, I designed an A5-sized postcard with a parrot on.

These were printed by Manchester-based Marc the Printers on their spot colour risograph. The process of which is not too dis-similar from screen-printing, where each colour is printed separately but using an actual printer.

Also, before heading out for the event, I was requested by the UK Trade & Investment to produce a poster design for a UK-based show taking place as part of SXSW and presented by Huw Stevens.

Of course since Huw is Welsh I had to include a dragon and since SXSW is in Texas a BBQ was the next logical step. I bumped into Huw whilst out there and he approved and that was all I wanted...

I also got to visit the venue where Huw's showcase was going down and saw that my design had been adapted for a giant wall poster, which was nice.

So, onto the main event and here is a picture of me at the UKPA booth, standing before my wears.

And here is a picture of the threads that the UKPA had for sale too, featuring the old family favourite 'Cat Beard'.

And here is a long animated GIF of nearly all the artists who exhibited at Flatstock 33.

The whole experience was a real eye-opener for me, as a gig poster artist and a freelance illustrator. I was able to meet a lot of like-minded designers and hopefully managed to leave a little twoducksdisco shaped stamp on the world poster scene.

Huge thanks to the UKPA and the UK Trade & Investment teams who helped provide me with funding for the event. Cheers to all the Brits for the support, whilst being out there. The Americans, Europeans (and one Canuck) who were very welcoming and kind. And finally a massive thanks to everybody who bought a poster / print / t-shirt from me - I know a few of you read this.

On and On

Here is a new t-shirt that I designed for Leeds-based folk-rock dudes Fossil Collective.

The specifications for the design were to include a stag and that was about it, so it was a fun project in which to interpret in my own style. I decided to develop the stag's antlers to create a constellation, adding a grand feel to the design - reflecting the grand sounds of the band.

Here is the video for the track 'On and On', which was put together by Broken Pixel, who has recently collaborated with my good friend Graham 'Army of Cats' Pilling on this Opera North promotional short.

Myself and Graham will be running a print workshop in November at WYPW, Mirfield. More details on that to come soon.