The Brilliant creative team blog

Parking outside Brilliant HQ can be risky business, especially with the large amount of morons who do not know how wide their own cars are!

After another encounter with a fellow ’Sawbonite’ recently and more damage to my pride and joy I decided enough was enough and in true English spirit, wrote him a very angry note along with a diagram and stuck it to his car, pointing out the evidence left on his car.

So be warned, cross me and I will write you a sarcastic note and draw you a pretty picture :D

Supremebeing have a new competition and this time the task is to take your favorite album and rework the cover design. I have had no time to do much on this but chucked down some quick ideas on a few of my favorite albums. I’m really looking forward to seeing what others come up with and their take on album art.

Fourth installment of the ’Up The Walls’ project.

I’m not going to give you any clues on this one, well... apart from the fact it’s a Steven Spielberg film obviously.

OK... one clue, the film starred a rather young Christian Bale.

Last week I entered a competition that Supremebeing hold each month for a bit of fun.

The brief was to design a snowboard graphic and not only did my design reach the final three but it won the comp... although I’m not to sure that it didn’t just turn into a popularity contest as it was left to Facebook fans to decide the winner, either way I’m chuffed at the victory :)

Third installment of the ’Up The Walls’ project.

A film based around the rap, break dance, graffiti scene of the early 80’s.

The two scenes that really make this film for me are the battles between the ’New York City Breakers’ (blue) and the ’Rock Steady Crew’ (red)... see what I did there, blue over red, clashing... *sigh* never mind!

This was a big film for me when I was younger, although having watched it recently it seems to be a lot cheesier than I remember. Still, a great film was strong morality throughout.

Here is a Youtube clip from the film.

This is the second installment of my poster project.

I have been warned not to put this one up... downstairs toilet it is then. There’s 10 internet’s in it for you If you can guess the film correctly (not really too difficult is it).

Having moved last April to a new place we have finally finished decorating... phew!

That said the walls needed something, so I set myself the task of filling them. Minimally-detailed was the order and I set to work.

Designing artwork for your living room wall is kind of like designing a personal identity or website for yourself, you have tons of ideas, filter out the good ones, artwork, ’um and ah’ over it, artwork again, leave it for a while and come back with fresh eyes, artwork some more, agonize uncontrollably until you’re sitting in front of something you feel you can live with for the foreseeable future.

With the project in full swing I thought I would share some of my hard work. This piece is a drastic rework of a movie poster and one of my favorite films.

As its an ongoing project I will hopefully be updating the series often and might be able to convince the other guys to allow some of them adorn the Brilliant walls!

This BBC News article about typefaces caught my eye, not only because I have a passion for typography, but also because it’s a subject which is rarely brought to the general public’s attention.

As a discipline, typography involves more than simply choosing a font for a particular purpose; amongst other things it also requires an appreciation for the subtleties of the art of typeface design, a knowledge of the history of alphabets and letterforms, and perhaps most importantly a functional understanding of legibility and readability.

But these things don’t consciously concern most people. Type is there to do a job, and when done well, it should be ’invisible’. Counter-intuitively, it’s for this very reason that typefaces really do matter.

It’s true that there are snobs who needlessly complain about the proliferation of fonts like ’Comic Sans’ and ’Papyrus’, blaming it on the wide availability of standard fonts within DTP software on affordable desktop PCs; but frivolous elitism should not be allowed to cloud the issue.

For example, using the wrong typeface for a corporate document is almost as disastrous as using the wrong company logo. Typefaces should be specified as part of any good brand identity guidelines because, as well as facilitating the readability of text, they contribute to the style, tone and personality of your communications.

Underestimate the power of typefaces at your peril!

Here at Brilliant we are lucky enough to be involved with projects that require nicely designed and highly detailed illustration on a daily basis. This is mostly a good thing but it can also mess with your deadlines and cause mini panic attacks if you get carried away or even worse, a change in style or subject is required.

We love to produce artwork that is something a little different from the last but delving into the new and unexplored; whilst exciting can be deadly with a time constraint so its a good thing that everyone at Brilliant are designers at heart and not just at work!

Personally I spend as much of my free time as I can practicing my design and illustration techniques, which can be anything from an hour a night to the whole evening and few early morning hours. The practice allows me in theory more time to complete the work and produce something awesome as well as being able to offer a variety of styles, techniques and concepts.

Having an arsenal of finishing abilities behind you allows you to put more time into the purpose and messaging of a design.


(Image is a mixture of 3d, vector, photography, hand drawn elements and Photoshop techniques)

In this article on the Guardian website, internet guru Clay Shirky shares his predictions about the future of online services.

He surmises that printed media such as newspapers will disappear in less than 50 years, and claims that "... no medium has ever survived the indifference of 25-year-olds."

Whilst I too believe that the traditional channels for delivering certain content will eventually be replaced by cheaper, more convenient and environmentally friendly media; I do not think this portends the end of print in a wider sense.

Much like the survival and resurgence of vinyl due to demand from music enthusiasts, there will always be a market for high-quality printed material.

There’s nothing quite like opening a new magazine and being hit by the smell of freshly-printed ink on a special paper! And that’s the point: we mustn’t forget that with print, our senses are spontaneously engaged in a unique way. In any case, if print dies how else will we package all that lovely vinyl in the future ;-)?