Happy 2012

Happy year of the Dragon! Finally after sketch upon sketch the dragon nengajo is complete. I hope that I was able to send you one, if not I still wish you the best of luck in 2012 and if you send me your address you will definitely receive a 2013 nengajo in the post. I’ve been using the second image as my laptop background, so go ahead and use it too; it might bring you some good fortune.

I’ll leave you to contemplate these Chinese proverbs…

The dragon teaches you that if you want to climb high you have to do it against the wind.

To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.

And last but not least

He who wants to be a dragon must eat many little snakes.

Happy snake eating!

Nengajo

As it is coming to the end of the year, and I haven't posted anything for a while. I thought I should post some Nengajo (Japanese New Year Postcards). These cards were made mostly in Illustrator. The rabbit is from this year and the cat is from last year. Seeing as 2012 is the year of the dragon, I have been working on something cool, and this time round I'm having ago at a hand drawn picture. Come back before the years out, to check it out.

Serengeti Bird Visual

Some very old Max work, in fact possibly my first attempt. During the first summer of university, to encourage us to become proficient at max we were asked to design and create a bird. The presentation was made with photos, Photoshop, Illustrator and of course 3DSmax.   

New Jane Packer

Recently I have been working on an old project that never really got finished. You can see some Jane Packer branding work here; http://christopherwilliamcook.blogspot.com/2011/05/jane-packer-branding.html.

As a new project I am attempting an interior design for her flagship store in London. The original brief required the use of Corian; a resign based material that has antibacterial and easy clean properties. The concept just like that of the branding revolves around memories and photography. The window display will have large lenses focused on flowers and outline with circular ornamental frames... you'll have to wait for the 3D visuals, I'm onto it!

 

The paper size is A0 so you will have to zoom in to see the proper resolution.

Miller Harris at Ab Rogers

Miller Harris is a world famous brand of perfume with store all over the word. The website can be found at this address www.millerharris.com. The brand was designed by the wonderful Asuka Kawabata (www.tokyobranch.jp) This model represents a stand that will sell perfume within the cosmetic section of department stores. It was designed at Ab Rogers (www.abrogers.com) and I was asked to make this model out of card and acrylic.

New background

I probably should have also posted an image of the new background! Here it is.

From old to new

Finally a new background, I hope the new one is just as appealing and easier on the eyes. The old background was designed with 2011 fashion trend in mind, bold prints and retro patterns. However I aimed to make the background more asymmetrical and opted to not use the neon colours that are also being pushed on the catwalk. The new background came about when I was looking in an old sketch book. I found a small piece of tracing paper with a print design I was working on at university. At that time I was researching textiles of the 1950s which drew inspiration from the current atom age. Many textiles had prints and weaves that symbolised cells, atoms... things looked at under a telescope.  The colouring however is inspired from Paul Klee's

 'Flowering' (1934)