WESTERN on Flickr.
Illustration from a Western book I worked on. #work #cowboys
I had the “pleasure” of designing the JACKIE COLLIN’S HOLLYWOOD WIVES dvd release. It was a good exercise in trying to make something come across as cheap & trashy, but still look “good”.
Here is my first design, which I was actually quite happy with. Nice trashy big hair women mixed with some pretty nice typesetting and some interesting colours and textures.
On presenting it to our Sales department they felt it just wasn’t “trashy and cheap” enough- which oddly is a big selling point to a title like this.
So this is what we came up with:
While I personally much prefer the 1st concept, I conceded that this hit the right trash/cheap market. So off it was sent to the licensor.
Unfortunately it was only at this stage we were informed of the strict billing restrictions on this title. No cast member could be billed above any others, and if we were going to show 1 cast member then we had to show all of the billed actors. Of which there were 13! Clearly that wouldn’t work so we went for a text only treatment in the vein of Jackie’s book covers.
Here’s a quickly whipped up idea:
This idea was then fleshed out with the lips getting ditched in favour of more diamonds!
This was on the right track, but still felt like it wasn’t “feminine” enough, so finally I came up with this design (which is what went to print):
Normally I’d loathe a crappy title like this that had this many versions and super-restrictive licensor conditions… but I have to admit for some reason I actually like this design!
I think it hits all the right objectives and has some nice (trashy) aesthetics going on!
You can PURCHASE it HERE!
(for your mum… or for yourself- I won’t judge!).
Here’s some comic work I completed for an educational publisher earlier last year. Excuse the shitty lettering. #sigh
I find caveman films intriguing so I really enjoyed this french film. It’s a touching odyssey that follows Ao, the last living Neanderthal in his quest to find survivors of his clan- in particular his lost twin brother.
I’m a bit of a fan of Clive Barker and the Hellraiser films, so this was very fun to work on.
The front design itself is pretty straight forward, but I had to build a lot of the elements.
I’ve created a bit of a process gif below to show some of the layers I built up. (I had to build the chain links, hooks and rust texture but must’ve merged those layers at some point).
#insider fact: Those chunks of flesh on the hooks are clipped from a photo of raw steak!
Here’s a look at the back sans text:
Likewise, there was a bit of work involved with creating this.
#insider fact: I “sourced” autopsy photos of a dolphin for the intestines, ribs, flesh etc. Pretty full on!
The metallic tin packaging turned out pretty cool. I think the bluray quality of the prints, the special features and the packaging design does justice to this classic horror trilogy.
But don’t take MY word for it. Check out this extensive video review.
At the moment the collection is a limited print run, exclusively available only at JB HI-FI.
Those fine people at Found Item Clothing (who’re responsible for some of my favourite tshirts) are holding a poster competition for one of THEIR favourite cult 80s films- REAL GENIUS, starring a young Val Kilmer.
I’ve put forward an entry:
The comp is judged by facebook voters, so PLEASE follow this link and LIKE my entry!
While you’re there, check out the other entries and the awesome tshirts!
I believe this’ll be available in November. From what I’ve glanced the blu-ray print was looking good! #CROM
Here are a few music DVDs I’ve designed recently:
Dad rock a-go-go!
Just occurred to me that I’ve designed a fair number of David Williamson-based movies over the last couple of months.
As ‘strayan as it gets, but always interesting stories with plenty to say.
