The History of Guns - ACEDIA packaging is nearly done. I’ve just finished the J-Card (both sides), replaced a couple of the photos in the booklet and gone through and done an additional tweak to some of the typography. Just waiting for the band’s final sleeve notes/thanks list and for them to check they are happy with the entire thing and we are ready to go to print, well as soon as the audio master is done.

It’s been a lot more work than I expected, but in a good way. It’s the first 16 page booklet I’ve done myself and I think it’s worked out nicely. I set up an InDesign file for all the text and typography which really made life a whole lot easier. Scott’s photos were as ever excellent to work with, even before this is complete I’m looking forward to working with him on the next project, although paid work is going to have to take priority for the next couple of months. We originally planned to use an O-Card (the cardboard sleeve you sometimes get round jewel cases) but the cost was a little too high so instead we’ve gone for a double sided J-card (the bit that goes in the CD tray) with a transparent tray and stuck the design intended for the O-card in there.

The hardest part of the entire project was removing the Tesco label from the bottles on the front cover. I would guess the hardest part of the whole thing for anyone was Max who had to get naked in a car park 3 days before Christmas. I have a new level of respect for him after that, the level of professionalism on the shoot from everyone was brilliant. The most amusing/unpleasant part of the shoot was Del with the fake vomit. We had Del lying on his back with Max spooning the fake vomit mixture into his mouth, he had to push it out of his mouth while looking dead until we’d finished taking photos. As soon as we finished he started eating the remainder of the mixture and telling us how pleasant it was. The mixture was made of soup, fruit juice and biscuit and in all fairness probably tasted great but it just looked like Del was eating a cup of vomit.

Hopefully the band will like it all, I’m sure there will be a few tweaks but I think we are pretty much there. Here’s some more parts, I’ll upload the complete set once the album is out

Front Cover, the complete image. The final version is cropped down with the band name/album name added. Max’s winky is covered not through any sense of self-censorship but just to protect his modesty. If he gives permission I’ll post the uncensored version;

Back Cover, Del choked on his tasty vomit.

Just need to sort the press release, poster design, promo cd design, flyer design and any web assets.

Night night xx

Some photos of Earth Loop Recall playing at The Fly on Monday. Gig was excellent, I managed to miss all the support acts although given how cramped the gig room was I wouldn’t have enjoyed ELR so mucg by the time they came on if I’d been in there from the start. Photos all taken on my Sony DSC F717, I’ve not edited them at all as time is short and I’m relatively happy with them as they are, I was there to watch the band not really take photos so these were just randomly snapped at points during the gig.

Due to the lighting I didn’t manage to get any of Jo, Jason or Dan.

Ben:

I tried some long exposures…

Tim:

Ben being a bit scary:

Ben accidentally slashed his hand on his guitar during the set, you can see a smear of blood on his cheek:

Earth Loop Recall @ The Fly - The complete set.

A couple of the (work in progress) spreads from the forthcoming History of Guns album booklet. Photography by Scott Wylie. I think myself and Scott make a damn fine team…

It appears to be quite late. I have meetings first thing. Dammit. Sleep time.

Following 10 years in web design/development I have FINALLY found the time to create an identity for my business:

Shinytastic

It’s only recently I’ve really had a need for an identity of any sort. For the large part of my career I’ve been acting purely as a freelancer, and as such contact with the actual clients has been minimal, and whenever I did have direct client contact I just used the name of whichever agency I was working for them through. Last year I decided to take the risk and start up as an agency/studio of my own, it’s taken a few months to actually decide on a name and the interim has been filled with those awkward conversations when calling a client’s office:

Me: Hello, can I speak to Geoff MarketingManager please?
Receptionist: Who’s calling please?
Me: Bob Barker.
Receptionist: Where are you calling from?
Me: Urm…. my desk?

Ok, I deal with it slightly better than that (not much though). Now I have the joy of yelling SHINYTASTIC like an over-enthusiastic child.

Choosing the name was a bastard of a headache. I hate choosing names for long term projects, it seems to get harder every time. Line Out Records was a relative pain in the arse, but back then I didn’t think too deeply about the value of a name, as long as I liked it, it was fine. I guess it’s because I put so much weight on a name/identity now that choosing it becomes so much harder. I generally much prefer a nice abstract name that can be associated with anything, for the dual reasons that most of the projects I work on are fairly far reaching and I don’t like having them tied down to any one thing, I might decide I want to expand a project over time. Say for example I chose the name “Bob’s Web Design”, as soon as I start offering video editing (which I do) it looks like a web designer that does video editing on the side as opposed to a creative studio which can work with whatever you give us.

Aside from the possiblity of expansion I like a nice abstract name because it doesn’t put so many pre-conceptions in the mind of possible clients. I also feel it gives an air of creativity that a descriptive name doesn’t, this has proved, within my limited experience, to really make a difference to the clients you end up working with. It shows you are willing to take a risk, try something out, you are not likely to be lumping your clients with a boring standardized website/interactive CD/exploding monkey. The biggest jobs I’ve worked on have been through the agencies with the most abstract and original names and branding.

The actual process of choosing the name involved far more faffing about than should really be required. Lots of thesaurus reading, random word lookups, I even wrote a script that slices up selected lists of words and re-arranges them in a random manner. None of it worked this time (it has in the past). Shinytastic is based on the language I used when working with Damien at GD30* we were both a bit poor at using correct technical terms and so would just use 1984 style language (unintentionally) to discuss the jobs:

“You handle the server side functionality and I’ll do the styling” translated to “You do the tricky-worky-work and I’ll do the pretty-shinyness” a good design was “shiny nice nice” or “shiny-good”. Now I write it down I see quite how annoyingly smug we must have sounded, but it got the job done. Shiny was generally my favourite word for “good” and I’ve been known to excessively overuse “fantastic”.

I’m happy using a word for my studio that I’d actually use in real life. I appreciate it sounds a tad retarded, but it’s upbeat and positive, and I think it’s nicely original. I’m not interested in creating boring work, so I don’t want a boring identity. I hope it doesn’t put people off but then it can’t put them off anymore than a web designer without a website. Reactions so far have been mixed, but the reactions of clients and peers has generally been good, so I’m sticking with it.

The screenshot above of the current holding page is not final by a long shot but I needed something up there to show to prospective clients, I have an inbox full of enquiries to my lineoutrecords.com address (existing clients passed that on to their friends), I don’t want to be mailing from a new address - bob@shinytastic.com - where the domain has nothing but a blank “coming soon” page. The current image is certainly in the direction I want to take the branding. As suggested by the ever brilliant Tim of EvoHosting, I’m going for a Retro-Future look, which suits me because I like it.

I still need to sort a bank account, business cards, proper logo and branding, official announcement to existing clients, and probably a bucket of other crap. But at the least I have a basic identity.

* Speaking of which, he’s likely to kill me if he reads this, he spend a large portion of the time we worked together trying to convince me to do a creative blog. Sorry Damo.

It’s time to start blogging again. Something I’ve consistently failed at since the concept first raised it’s head. I’ve failed for several reasons in the past, mostly through viewing blogging as an incredibly low priority activity, there’s always been something more important to do. While this is still technically true, I do have slightly more time at the moment but I also have several other reasons for intending to maintain a regular blog (outlined below). Previous attempts have also failed for a variety of other reasons, sometimes I’ve ended up trying to be too professional and it’s become a horrible chore to try and edit a post into something I’d be happy for my clients to read. Sometimes I’ve ended up just meandering into general wittering about my personal life or really just using it to chat to friends (LiveJournal).

Although this is still a ‘personal’ blog, the intention is to make it more of a ‘personal creative blog’, so I’ll include stuff about work projects, record label stuff, personal design work and anything to do with the running of assorted projects but will avoid the personal life crap that tends to creep in. So mostly making stuff and as little whining as possible.

I’ve some specific reasons for starting blogging again, and in the spirit of blogging, here they are:

• I’ve never used Wordpress (or any out of the box blog solution) before, and increasingly clients, and friends want quick blogging solutions for their websites. I used to write my own blogging systems, which did the job nicely, but in reality it’s a lot less costly for clients and easier on my time when working for friends** to just install and configure a Wordpress blog. This way I get to learn to use one properly and can assist others without resorting to a manual every time they need help.
• I don’t have a portfolio. Of any sort. This is frankly a shoddy situation for someone who has been designing websites for 10 years and working on assorted other creative endeavours for just as long. For about 5 years I’ve been intending to sit down and set up a portfolio site but have never quite found the time. This is still something I intend to do but for now this at least gives me somewhere to post about works in progress that I can point people at. I am setting up a limited portfolio for my more corporate clients as there’s likely to be some fairly NWS and Not Brain Safe stuff on here.
• Following on from the porfolio point, it should keep a nice log of the work I’ve done recently for those days when I absolutely cannot remember who I did that logo for.
• I need to lean to write. Really. Not in a serious, write a book manner, but I need to learn to edit copy better and I really need to learn to write press releases. This gives me a semi-serious place to practice. If you are reading this, you are really just my guinea pig.

So, yeah! Let’s see if I last longer than a month, and let’s see if I bore the shit out of you sooner.

* There is no picture of my cat. There will never be a picture of my cat. I don’t own a cat.
** No, you can’t have a free website, extra special situations only!