When Day Chokes the Night

Hello. A while back I was asked to do some design work for a new pub that is opening in Brixton later in the year. I came up with some rough drafts and turned out they love wolves and were happy with what I'd sent them, which was cool. So today I was in Nation of Shopkeepers (a rad little bar in Leeds city centre) when on picking up a little zine / listings I discovered that very logo on a half page spread, sick! So that was a nice little surprise before I went and spent a small fortune on groceries in Sainsburys...

That's it for now, hopefully soon I'll be able to show you something I've done for everyone's fave Kingston-based rapscallions, Tubelord.

Over and out.

Dreamer

Good evening folks. So things have been traditionally busy over here at twoducksdisco studios including getting hacked and robbed (again, sigh) but retrieved (hurrah, woo)!!

Things have been poster heavy these past 2 weeks, as i've completed things for Magnolia Electric Co., Sunset Rubdown and Tiny Vipers. The latter of those can be seen below.

I'm holding off on the MEC and SR ones as they'll be appearing as funky-ass screen-prints in the next month or so. But if you do want to see them, just pop down the Brudenell...

Just a small post today but I figured it had been a while since the last. I've just signed off another poster that I'll put up next time, plus a logo for Rest is Noise, which will be appearing across various bits of promotion for Field Day... killer!

Catch you later my brother.

Oats We Sow

Hello there. So i'm back up and armed with our familiar friend the Internet after my move deeper into Leeds' Hyde Park last week. So now I am able to show you some things that got signed off during the move.

Firstly is a t-shirt titled 'Cat Beard' for Luxembourg's indie-poppers Miaow Miaow, which essentially does what it says on the tin. Next up, the cover for Dinosaur Pile-Up's summer smashing EP. The brief behind this one was to make it look shit and nineteen-nineties, hopefully its just that.

Also to round things up, I just finished the artwork for my good friend Alex Hel. He's just about to release this debut mini-album, which promises to be loaded up with mega-pop... goodtimes!

Until next time, have a banana!

S Is for Evrysing

Hello there. So apparently I'm getting better at these blog updates, latte's all round!

Firstly, i'm part of this lovely little collective known as Feral and last week I did a quick Q&A for them. You can read that here, if you like.

I have just finished a new t-shirt for Pharaohs. They're from Otford, they're really nice and sound like a poppier, brasher Bloc Party. I also recently finished a poster for a gig that promises to be a blinder.

And that's it. Currently working on things for Big Box Little Box, Alex Hel, One Of Twelve, Sam Isaac and Spaghetti Anywhere. Or alternatively; very busy...

Just Kickin' It Like A Wild Donkey

Hello. Yes you are reading things correctly, two updates in one week! Hopefully this will keep the ever brilliant Elle off my back, haha... (oh, in-jokes don't really work on the world wide web).

Anyways, i've been really quite busy recently and out of that comes these two new posters. One for Collisions and Consequences and t'other for Trespassers William.

The Trespassers one should be emerging as a limited edition screen-print for their tour which goes down in October, more on that soon.

I also did a few designs for Leeds band Loose Talk Costs Lives a while back. They're rad, sound kinda like Maps and Atlases. You should probably go and check them out.

New things on the horizon for Grammatics and Blue Roses, which'll be nice. Plus a t-shirt for Pharaohs and still to come, the elusive Dino Pile-Up EP.

Party hard!

My Lady's House

Good day all. Hope lovely weekend's were had by dudes...

Quick update of something that has been done for quite some months but has picking up some online-press momentum as of late.

So, above is the design that I did for t-shirt company Pandy Cane and over the past month or so Tom (Pandy Cane founder) has sent me links to props that the design has been receiving, which are always nice to read.

There is one by Pop Culture Tees and another from Hide Your Arms. Lovely stuff.

Also, last week I completed a quick poster for Lisa Hannigan. She of Damien Rice accompaniment fame has rather gorgeous subtle and rustique folk tendancies of her own and i'm rather happy with how the poster worked out.

Stay fresh!

Yeah Sapphire

Hello

So i've realised that i'm pretty poor at keeping up to date with things that I do here. I can't promise they'll change but maybe...

Anyways i'm listening lots to The Hold Steady at the moment, so thats keeping me positive. And i've been working pretty hard on lots of things that are creeping along steadily.

Below is the CD cover that I did for this rad little zine called Backlash and that should be coming out soon. Its going to feature personal faves Tellison, along with The Paper Chase, Fake Problems plus some other hot stuff!

I also realised that I never poster my effort for Tapes volume 2. I got lumped with My First Tooth and came up with what you can see below.

If you want to see more of that you can head here, where you'll find the podcasts of vol. 1 -3 plus all the e-zine's too!

Cheers for reading. Coming soon, new Dinosaur Pile-Up EP art! Lightning Strikes!!!

London is the Reason

Hello, so I mentioned in the last post that i'd be putting up my poster that I've completed for Gallows. Not only am I going to do that but i'm going to show you how I printed it aswell.

It all started when Chris '3D Glasses' White (a sexy chap from Landan tan) asked me to be involved in the Gallows tour poster series volume 2, to which I was more than happy to agree to. After contributing to last year's series I quite fancied following on a theme within my posters, so I had a rough idea of how my poster was going to end up.

I wanted the poster to be based around a silhouetted character, much like my previous effort for the Manchester Academy 2 date. So I popped over to their MySpace in order to gain some inspiration for the visual. This first sketch was done before I'd investigated album articles and stories and was based around the idea of a wolf stalking the streets of a London that has reverted back to looking old and dilapidated. The album is a pissed off bookmark in Britain's current crisis with regards to politics, the economy and society and so I wanted something that better conveyed what the album is screaming about. With constant references to death throughout the album 'We are ready to die' it seemed more fitting to exchange the wolf character for the grim reaper. This added a more sinister angle to the poster, as it shows death prowling the streets of London, ready to collect his debt.

With the album being called 'Grey Britain' it would have been an obvious choice to use that as a colour and theme guideline. To make the poster appear more striking I decided to add a sunset, which would help set the scene and create a more menacing atmosphere. After adding a blackletter font for the show details I was pretty happy with the outcome and ready to print them up. So I printed the acetates and took all my materials and equipment to the West Yorkshire Print Workshop, where the poster was to be screen printed.

With the screens prepared, I had to go about printing a 'split fountain'. This process involves printing 2 colours on one screen but through spreading the paint in the way illustrated below, I was able to achieve a smooth blend and create a skyline that resembled a sunset.

In order to achieve a successful 'split' the paint needs to be pulled through the screen numerous times, allowing it to mix and blend.

Once i'd experimented enough and was happy with the blend I began printing onto the Snowden white 300gsm paper, which I would build up the individual layers and thus creating my poster.
Here they are on the drying rack.

Then I printed the second layer... the blackening. This worked well as the black boldly stood out from the blended layer before, creating a striking contrast between the 2 layers and creating the perfect scene in which I wanted to depict.
After cropping all the posters down I was ready to sign and number.

Now they are sitting in my room, waiting to be unveiled at the gig at Rock City on May 12th and needless to say, I can't wait for the carnage!
So thanks for reading, I hope that offered a nice little insight into how I go from designing a poster to printing.

You Are Free

Hello. So things have been busy over at the twoducksdisco camp recently. Mainly my time has been taken up with the epic packaging for Sam Isaac's debut album. I don't think I can show all of it yet but I can tell... and its going to be awesome. 16 page booklet (all hand-written), moonpack packaging (whatever the heck that is) and lots of stars and constellations. Here is the front cover...

I also got a couple of t-shirt designs signed off last week for the awesome Mutiny on the Bounty. They're from Luxembourg and sound a bit like a proggy Cap'n Jazz... Anyways, they went with a natural disaster vibe.

New things to come soon including a new screen print for the mighty Gallows and a t-shirt version of this poster that I designed for an exhibition that i'm... well, exhibiting at.

History is made at Night

Sup. So, in a previous blog i'd mentioned that I was doing some recording with Sam Isaac and The Old Romantic Killer band plus others. It was for an exciting podcast and e-zine project thing that i'm doing with my chum Ash. Well, that went out today and I must say that i'm very impressed with it all. If you go here, then you can download it and that'd be nice. To co-incide with the podcast there is a downloadable PDF featuring original artwork by a bunch of artists including myself and here is my offering for the Old Romantics.

I also said that I was going to post another little somethin' somethin' for a new zine called Feral. My effort is a 2-page spread that features Ken, an unruly orangutan with an eye for mischief. Here he has just eaten a lemon. Like I said... unruly