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  • Currently listening:

    Reso – Ricochet

    Four Tet – Pink

    Every time I die – Radical

    Global underground #46: ANNA – Lisbon (this one has been on HEAVY rotation for at least two months)

  • todays listening:

    • Supergrass – In It For The Money
    • Distillers – Distillers
    • The Wilhearts – Fishing For Luckies

    Thinking about:

    T-shirt printing and design

  • Currently listening to:

    • Mastodon – Hushed and Grim
    • Reso – Ricochets
    • Rose Lynn Harris – Peace in this House
    • Coheed and Cambria – The Father of Make Believe

  • Amber Coffee Roasters – Conceptual Brand

    This was a conceptual design brief from my class at briefbox.

    The brief

    What is the name of your company exactly as you want it to appear on the logo?
Amber



    What does your company offer?
We are an independent coffee roasters based in Brooklyn, NYC and we provide the finest coffee beans imported form verified and sustainable sources



    What is your company’s tagline (if any)?
Honest coffee house



    What are the deliverables required?
Logo



    What is the target audience for your company?
Coffee lovers which is quite a few different target audiences! But the majority of our customers are young busy professionals.



    Who are your main competitors?
https://www.reminyc.com/ 
https://hutchandwaldo.com/ 
https://felixroastingco.com/ 
https://www.astoriacoffeeny.com/ 
https://www.cultureespresso.com/


    What sets your company apart from your competitors?
I think the family aspect, we’re proud of being family run but also we take the time to get to know our customer base



    What values do you want your brand to convey?
Honest, Independent, ‘Current’ and on trend, Like family run and authentic but down with the cool kids and know what’s going on kinda thing



    What are the specific details needed in the logo?
Main type – ‘Amber’ Then ideally our tagline below or around, could add some small details like ‘midtown NYC’ or our founding date – 1987

Do you have any color preferences or existing brand colors that need to be used?
Open to suggestions but bright bold, strong



    What adjectives should best describe your new logo?
Engaging, eye catching, we like some of the custom type or crest stuff shared in our competitors



    What is the overall message you want to convey with your new branding?
That we are an honest family run and friendly coffee house who cares about our brand and visuals as much as we do coffee. We want it be modern, on trend and stand out from the crowd

When do you need the project completed by?


    Is there anything else you would like us to know?
Feel free to use custom type or crests or badges! We like those styles

    The brief expanded to include a brand roll out of packaging patterns, coffee bag and loyalty card.

    Mood Board and Initial Ideas

    I started off with a hand drawn logo, a A in the form of a carafe and various other inspirations from the moodboard I had created. Eventually settling on a slight tweaked bold A for the main logo with a straightforward sanserif typeface and an interpretation of the iconic Brooklyn buildings as background, incidental imagery. The colours were inspired by Amber’s warm yellow/orange and the browns of delicious coffee!

    Figma moodboard for logo

    Amber logo initial sketches

    Final Brand Rollout

    Check out more of my Graphic Design work here.

  • Flower woman T-shirt design

    This one was an attempt to make a t-shirt design following ten hundred’s method in this video. I love creating t-shirts and have printed a few but direct to garment, which is the cheapest way to do small runs is often quite poor quality.

    I ‘d love to do a proper screen print run but that would need enough demand to make it worth while.

    I drew this in procreate and then finished in Adobe Fresco. All in vector. I actually really like the way it came out. The model is Gracie from Draw Brighton again.

    Illustraion of a red haired woman surrounded by daisies in a cartoon, graffiti stylee.
    Image of t-shirt with a print of a red haired woman surrounded by daisies in a cartoon, graffiti stylee.

  • Yin Yang Bear and Wolf

    This was a tattoo design my friend and acupuncturist Charlie at Uckfield Wellbeing wanted. There were some specifics for this brief and it was quite a challenge to get the bear and wolf both looking out and neither taking dominance with the yin yang still clearly recognisable.

    a white wolf and a black bear in a yin yang shape drawn in ink

  • Cosmic Woman

    Continuing the theme of life drawing portraits that served as the base for an imaginative interpretation. This one is heavily influenced by Graffiti in particular rocket01, David Speed and whoamirony.

    Model is Francoise by way of Draw Brighton.

    Head portrait of white woman looking to the right surrounded by swirling galaxy and space nebula.

  • Deciding between Logic and Ableton

    I have been making weird little tunes on various things since the early iphones using beatmaker and garageband and before that acidpro. In the last couple of years I have been doing it a bit more and splashing out on some DAW namely, Ableton. I am super amateur,amatuer… I was initially attracted by the groovy style and design of all ableton output, a fancy and irresistable midi controller (launchkey mini mk 3) and the fact that people like Etherwood and Jon Hopkins use it. However I have been thinking recently having watched a documentary on Billie Eilish and a youtube interview with Maynard from Tool I have been thinking Logic might been the way. I have always found Garageband super intuitive to use and I just want to turn _something_ out you know? Also those fat sounds that people get on Logic? Damn!

    Ableton Pros:

    • Cool!
    • Ableton Move and note
    • Easy to add effects by piling them on
    • The loop workflow is super quick and fun
    • Freedom of OS (linux notwithstanding)

    Ableton Cons:

    • The loops is easy to start but how to finish
    • Chopping up samples is so unintuitive to me
    • the timeline type workflow is a pain for me
    • I HATE the new AI style tag menu thing, nested lists are best if you ask me

    Logic Pro Pros (ahahaha)

    • affordable £200 for the whole thing
    • Great built in samples, loops and instuments
    • used by bands I love
    • Cool sounds
    • Very intuitive
    • Like garageband

    Logic cons

    • Locked in to apple eco system
    • I have buy another DAW (sunk cost fallancy much?)
    • not as cool
    • doesn’t make the lights be pretty on the launchkey 🙁
    • no move, note or push

    In a super scientific move I thought I would try and make a tune as quick as possible in both programmes. I am not sure it helped much but here they are

    Logic


    Ableton

    (I had trouble getting a longer export when rushed)

  • Nomi neo trad tattoo style portrait

    Nomi neo trad tattoo style portrait

    this one started out as a watercolour piece. I finished in procreate because the composition was a bit out. Reference from the wonderful draw Brighton as ever. Model is the talented Nomi

  • Naomi portrait

    Naomi portrait

    This one I had in mind a particular thing, but it took a different path.

    I was trying to emulate Christian Ward but I simply didn’t achieve that but I did get a nice portrait in the end I think. I was trying also to be loose with the paint.

    I do like the state of mind I get into when painting…

    The triangles came out well I thought.

    Well proud of this one though, the largest and best non digital portrait I have done so far.

    Model is Naomi Rufina from the excellent Draw Brighton archive.

    More artworks here