JOHNNY BULLETINS

PlumpState Christmas card 2012

2012-12-05T13:01:00.001Z

This year's card is another pun. I was thinking of doing something with this Dorset beach picture as it was a nice and out-of-season-ish bit of colour that would stand out a bit from the crowd on the mantlepiece.

Occasionally, on a hot summer day where I lived as a child, the tide would leave cuttlefish stranded on the shingle at Southsea. (I think their posthumous fates were beak sharpeners for budgies). Occasionally a glistening mass of jellyfish were washed up. I thought a Yuletide might leave friendlier flotsam!

Blue Amy: My most popular image

2012-07-24T14:15:00.003+01:00

BLUE AMY SIGNED OPEN EDITION £75

My exhibition at Ashley Wood Artspace was great. The private view the best I've ever been to, and the people who braved the uncertain elements were all on fine, appreciative form. Apart from a couple, but they were too drunk to care.

Blue Amy was my best-selling print, followed by Mauve Amy and Sarah Vaughan. I'm going to design a fantasy poster that includes them and Miles. I haven't decided where they'll play, but I might put them in the Quartered Heart in Norwich, or the Uncarried Load in Portsmouth.

Thanks to Anne Clements for taking so many cool pictures (a neighbour of Amy) and Richard Grosse who suggested I include this brilliant singer as a subject...

Thanks to you all. See you next year.

The Sound Of Music: John Coltrane

2012-06-18T11:19:00.000+01:00

There's another image of the Modern Jazz Quartet to come. They, Charlie Parker and Trane all have one thing in common; they've been up-dated at the same time, so all share a stylistic similarity; the improvised turbulences, which for want of a better word provide a narrative, or some kind of sequential element... Apologies, I did need a better word, but just haven't got the time to think about what it might be! Oh, they're all called Dream Ignitions.

The Sound Of Music: Charlie Parker

2012-06-18T10:46:00.002+01:00

This is work in progress, but the background is almost finished, and improvised entirely. Just like jazz!

There is a partial aim in making a painting about music, to have some of the sequential properties of the subject. So these turbulent areas provide the spectator with something to work out, to decipher and I hope, enjoy. But as Donald Fagen said, "Even today, Charlie Parker can still empty a room."

I hope he doesn't at the Jazz Metrospective at Ashley Wood. But I'm happy to take my chances.

Amy: Pure Jazz

2012-06-15T16:48:00.003+01:00

AMY WINEHOUSE by Johnny Bull

Years ago, I made a series of drawings of jazz icons including Miles, Sarah Vaughan and Pee Wee Russell among others.

Someone suggested I should attempt one of Amy Winehouse. So here she is in full bloom. She was a fantastic singer; my favourite since Billie Holiday (who was Frank Sinatra's choice). There's no question; she was the real deal. Thanks to Richard Grosse for some timely intervention!

So she'll be up with my heroes at the Jazz Metrospective at Ashley Wood in July.

Missing her already.

(See post below http://j.mp/M2xnYd for details).

Life drawing classes: clothed and unclothed

2012-06-14T12:36:00.001+01:00

This is a flyer I designed to promote life-drawing classes at Ashley Wood Farm. Clare, who runs Ashley is very keen that there is a space to produce work, and also to exhibit. I'm really grateful to her for this fantastic opportunity; I loved teaching it years ago – all the pupils were women, and mostly, so were the models – I didn't so much teach as encourage and cajole, and the results, especially from the novices (though nobody, strictly speaking, is a novice at drawing) were spectacular in their energy and spontaneity.

Classes are £20 for two-hours with either a clothed model (10-midday) or nude model (6.30-8.30pm). So you pay £100 for five lessons, telling me in advance, if possible, what sessions you can attend.

Materials needed: Drawing board (20 x 30") paper and drawing equipment (charcoal, pencils etc)

NB Don't forget a can of fixative (it stops the charcoal from smudging). A cheap version of this is hairspray! The studio has big windows, so the smell won't hang around for long!

I want to arrange an exhibition which features drawings from these classes at Ashley Wood, where we can have a proper Private View, drink white wine and listen attentively to the murmurings of adulation from friends and public alike.

With live music and canapes. Whatever they are.

So, I can't wait to start again. I have to get people to commit to 5 weekly classes, but if for some reason they can't make the whole block, they will be credited for the sessions they miss.

The morning sessions will end at midday, and it is hoped to extend these to a lunch at the Beckford Inn nearby.

But I mustn't get too carried away.

New Exhibition: Jazz pictures at Ashley Wood

2012-06-13T14:55:00.001+01:00

http://www.ashleywoodfarm.org.uk

I've got a feeling that things might be looking up. I'm not sure why, but in the midst of a recession I've been persuaded by Clare Martin, who runs the fantastic Ashley Wood Farm, to put on a show of paintings and prints.

Mostly they will be about music, and mostly, since it is one of my first loves, about jazz. Or rather, the people who largely figure in its history. If I've got time I'll finish the drawing of lovely Amy Winehouse (who was jazz to the bone), to go with Sarah Vaughan, a true hero.

The private view will be on 13th July, which is a Friday. If you're visiting it would be very wise to get a room at the Beckord Arms, only a few minutes away.

I'll put up more images as and when, meanwhile spread the news.

Dorset: A new image

2012-04-26T18:12:00.001+01:00

A SCORCHING DORSET BEACH. REFLECTION OPTIONAL!

I'd love to do a seaside poster. I love the sea and I love posters of the sea.

Oh no. Just been to the Dorset tourist Board website. Nobody conspicuous by name or phone number. Just one of those application fields that give you access to an office I suppose. When I fill in that little box with my hopeful message saying something along the lines of, "My name's Johnny Bull, I make spectacular images of locations and events, celebrating the people in all their ..etc" I can then add a link to this striking image, which although modern and created and executed in the digital way, has a sort of echo of the posters of another time, when you could go from London all the way to Weymouth, or Corfe Castle by train. Makes you want to weep.

I made a similarly striking image of the Dorset Steam Fair, which I fed into a similar, depressing little aperture in one of their sponsor's websites. That was five years ago, and I never heard a dickie bird... When I saw what they were using to grab the attention of the steam brigade, I didn't bother to chase them. But with the Dorset Tourist Board, things could be different. I'll keep you posted.

Intellectual property: The artist's fear of the penalty (and faith restored)

2012-04-25T17:36:00.001+01:00

THE PAINSTAKINGLY-DRAWN HIGHBURY STADIUM

Years ago, when I'd started doing 'people prints', my friend and football fanatic, Leon, suggested I make an image to celebrate the last day of Arsenal at their Highbury stadium. It was 2006 and on 7th May I dutifully took photographs of the Gooner faithful at their swansong. They beat Wigan 4-2 and Henry scored a hat-trick. A day to remember. I painstakingly drew the old East Stand from the original plans I found.

It took me an age, maybe more than one. But, I thought the Arsenal marketing board would weep tears of relief that finally, just for once in their noble and iconic history as North London's finest, they would get to sell a really tasteful image. Well, how wrong can you be?

Everybody I showed it to loved it. Apart from a woman who thought it a bit depressing. Was it the colour? The composition? No, she was a Spurs fan. As soon as I'd emailed the marketing chief at Arsenal, I sat staring at my screen, expecting an immediate reply of amazed gratitude; a hurried, badly spelled note of rapturous heartfelt thanks. "At last..." I imagined the email beginning, "for the first time in the history of our club, whose image we have been so keen foster as one of the great tasteful and creative influences in this noble game..." or, even a touch more pedestrian, "No one has ever taken the trouble to present the old East Stand in all its Art Deco splendour..." "Can't begin to adequately..." "Do you have a figure in mind..."

But, no. Unbelievably. Just nothing.

I went home that night feeling at a bit of a loss. The loss you feel after you take a chance and you fail. Well, not exactly a loss, but an empty sort of grey feeling of failing. In the real world, I thought, nobody cares, they don't care about the fans – I'd cut out hundreds of 'em – or about taste, or good, gentler times... I thought of a player that day leaving, being mobbed by his fans. His car, a humourless black Range Rover. A mobile nail bar; with its horrible black glass and low profile tyres. And possibly a number plate consisting of a couple or three platinum card-only letters. I should have known,

Anyway, a day later I did get a perfectly spelled email from their head of marketing, Adrian Ford, who liked the image but it didn't fit into what they were doing at the moment. Well, no. He was right, it didn't. Which was why I did it and why I was wrong. Importantly, he said I was free to use it without let or hindrance. Oh well, small mercies.

I thought I could make it available as a limited edition print.

Anyway, over the years a few people have bought The Last Day where they've added their families to the crowd, a couple of big prints now adorn Emirates boxes.

A famously funny Gooner paid two and a half thousand pounds when I donated a print for their 2010 end of season ball.

Then I discovered an online shop called Zazzle. They print on demand all sorts of things: ipad covers, t-shirts, aprons, key-rings and the like. I submit a design and Zazzle put them on a product that I choose.

Now Zazzle in their wisdom have decided to withdraw all my images; my t-shirts and Blackberry cases are no more. Everything I spent a frustrating, clumsy week of uploading has been plucked nervously from their site. Their reason? The stadium itself, they think might infringe Arsenal intellectual property:

"Specifically, your product contained an image depicting Arsenal Stadium and infringed upon the intellectual property rights of Arsenal Football Club."

So, now I have to get someone at Arsenal to send Zazzle an email. That should be, er, easy.

UPDATE:
Well, I'm delighted to say that there's a man at Arsenal called called Mark Gonnella who is head of Communications, and according to great guy called Andrew Allen (@AAllenSport), an Arsenal fan (Gooner) and a journalist who produces very funny Tweets, he seemed "very approachable". So I followed Mark on Twitter who answered my plaintive request for his email address, and this morning, he had his team write to the Zazzlers to put things right. Mark, I owe you; and you too, Andrew. Thank you both very much.

Mind you, Zazzle aren't quite so quick in restoring the items back to my Goonerama shelves as they were in taking them away, no surprise there; maybe protocols have still to acknowledged. Will I get another chilly message in the morning?

Anyway, I'm going to carry on with Twitter; how on earth could I have done without these two guys?

Greenback: one of my back pages

2012-04-22T17:51:00.000+01:00

SELF PORTRAIT AT THE TIME
(Includes favourite skins, and Polaroid film pack tucked into trendy denim bib)

A friend of mine, Mandy Wheeler, who's a gifted copywriter and radio producer, amongst other things sent me a message she got from a writer in America. Mandy has written an inspirational little book called Tell An Outrageous Lie, which contains nearly 200 vignettes, some real, some imagined, that are designed to kick-start the story-teller in you; to give your creative block an enema or two. (Actually, there are 188 of the critters, one of my faves: 'A picture of an offal shop, a giant snowball and graffiti saying Can you see me?')

Her friend's donation was this: 'I have a dollar bill which has a strong scent of perfume, and not an expensive one. There's a story to be told here.'

And in no more than 650 words.

This was my contribution. It's not brilliant because, apart from one word, it's absolutely true. Took me straight back to Nixon, Roxy Music and shop window porn.

Greenback

I was working in Amsterdam in 1973. I was 23 years old, and working in a design office that overlooked a wide canal, offering as pretty an urban view as you could ever hope to see. The company that employed me was a bit of a Camden Town sweatshop and made its money out of designing record sleeves and various bits of merchandise for some pretty cool acts. And a whole load of not-so-cool acts: dismal, combed-over cabaret fodder that appealed to, well, actually, I never really found out what benighted pie-slice of the populace went for these forty something relics.

This Amsterdam studio was near the great hippy square that smelt of dope and patchouli. And the Paradiso Club where I saw Nico and her harmonium, amongst others… Prostitutes gazed down from lorry mirrors bolted to upstairs windows, or looked at you, quite cheerfully, from their showrooms. Price for sex was 25 guilders according to our rather uptight manager called Joop (pronounced Yo) who, because of his stern bearing, never managed to get us much work.

I found the sexual atmosphere electrifying. Even in the American Bookshop near the Amstel Bridge, which showed the Watergate hearings every day, I remember thinking that something sounded like a really shouty orgasm. I looked round, puzzled. Oh. I see. A sign which said something about films and an arrow pointing downstairs. Everywhere fucking. Every fucking where.

And weirdness. As I walked home one night: A scary dude, bearded and patchoulied, holds up a matchbox, shakes it, and says, “For three guilders you can see what’s in this matchbox.” Not have. See.

Jesus.

Joop and I had by this time struck up a good, but slightly awkward relationship, where every young woman we passed on the street would be accompanied by his sotto voce and smirky, “What about her? Nice one Cyril. Shall I ask for you?” No, Yo… keep walking. But he was very kind, and he invited me to stay in Haarlem with him. I really wanted to see the Franz Hals paintings and those lesser known contemporaries, painters with no grasp of a sitter’s character, but fuck me, could they paint a ruff, stitch by stitch.

So, there we were, Joop, me, confronted by this wall of paintings and suddenly I hear bats in my head. Every time I get close to a painting, the alarm system is inaudibly, but painfully warding me off. Joop is laughing at my plight. Don’t get so close. Yes, but, ow, there it goes again. After a time I’m turning this into a sort of cabaret. Every picture see I react to by clutching at my head and moaning. I’m only doing this, because by now two women that Joop, thankfully, hasn’t noticed, have joined in. They laugh; they both copy me. This is, ouch, more like it. Then Joop decides it’s time for dinner, so we leave, abruptly.

I don’t think I’d ever been into such a clean, expensive restaurant. I felt a bit awkward, scruffy, on edge. Joop was in his element. It was expensive. Probably 25 guilders each. Or three prostitutes. He ordered wine and there was bouillabaisse in a silver salver.

Then the girls from the gallery come in. Lordy. I offer a silent prayer. But a waiter (to Joop’s obvious approval), hurries them out. I ask why. “Patchouli. They are nice, but their perfume stinks.”
I feel utterly confounded and a bit ashamed; I’m like them, scruffy and young. They shouldn’t be here and neither should I. And I’m too confused to direct anything in the way of a heroic, muscular counter attack.

Then one of the girls, laughing, rushes back in and throws something that bounces off Joop’s head and lands in my stew. It’s a dollar bill, and unfurled, it has a phone number and a kiss.

And the message: WE ARE MORE FUN

Chalke Valley History Festival: A Manifesto of Fun.

2012-03-02T13:27:00.000Z

IMAGE FOR CHALKE VALLEY HISTORY FESTIVAL 2012

I love graphic design more now than I ever did before. I love the Mac and its universe of essential tools, the software that enables me to do so much that was inconceivable when I started in the early 70s.

Now I can set type, import images and retouch them without having to wait for a courier, or a type rep from Apex or Conways, or the airbrush salesman (one of whom, a true gent from DeVilbiss, found himself fretting, in his shirtsleeves, trying to help me create a silver plate on a Procol Harum in-store display – he left at eight, telling me to eat properly and sleep well, otherwise I'd get an ulcer. But I was, and remain, an overtime glutton).

When the Mac first started hushing-up the graphics studios, an air of thoughtful creativity took over. Gone were the days (before mine, even) of the jovial, post-pub lunch pranks from the pissed paste-up artists, blowing perfect smoke rings out of Cow-gum tins and Christ knows what else... In New York, in Mad Men days, a bored Madison Avenue agency art crew apparently enjoyed fishing for pigeons from its corner of a sky high playpen... What larks.

The cool studios like Pentagram, of course, were famously creative and quiet; but not as hushed and thoughtful as the ubiquitous flat screen makes everyone today. I know that fun has left a lot of studios, like it's left a lot of things. You can tell by simply looking at what's going on in posters, shopfronts. You can see that designers aren't looking at each other over a pile of markers ("Who's got the Barely Beige?" you'd shout at least twice a day; that hue being the one for flesh. Flesh itself being far too orange for, er, a real flesh look.)

I worked with John Bonis, who was the only person in London capable of holding a light to Barney Bubbles, of Stiff Records fame. His Island posters were legendary; witty, well designed fun. We did ads by the ton, too. If he couldn't think of an idea he'd just start drawing and one morning held up a huge cartoon of a man running with fish for feet. "What am I going to put for the headline?" he asked; the client having just arrived. "Put your skates on?" I said hopefully, looking up, probably, from a badly airbrushed platter. All smiles, he lettered it in; infallibly; in his perfect rendition of Franklin Gothic. Demi Bold Condensed.

So, now I'm working on the Chalke Valley History Festival programme and I'm loving it. Loving making the images work with the titles and having fun (yep, that word again) against the rather serious but adaptable Univers. Clients often confuse wit with a lack of gravitas, but humour used properly, shows confidence. One of the 80s most brilliant designers, David Stuart, co-wrote a book, A Smile In The Mind, that showed examples of this elusive magic being caught and used properly. Er, hem. My design partner at the time, Paul Rodger, and myself, both featured, albeit modestly.

So, thanks to my Mac I'm writing this in the vague hope that it will be read and understood, and people the world over will think, "That was funny. He's very clever, he'd be great for..." But then you have to join the weird, awkward virtual parties of the social media, like the wel cul Facebook, like the dreary Linkedin, or the glossy, designery one like Google+ (Facebook for professionals) where most people who talk loudly about nothing much still get high-fives from others who want to be their friends. I'm with him. He's like so fun. Mmmm. But he's actually not. He's got a cat. Oh, it's fallen asleep...

We'll just wait and see if there's somebody... maybe a Barney Bubbles; a quiet genius, biding his time and just waiting for someone to hear their laconic, wry aperçus.

Someone like me, or you, but we're never going to take over that party, but we never wanted to, really. Now where's that Barely Beige? Anyone?

Twinkle twinkle little stars: breaking free of Google Earth.

2012-02-29T14:25:00.000Z

THE STARWAY FELL UPON TRIESTE.

Google, who you may remember gave us the best search engine for like, ever, has come up with a new social marketing phenomenon called Google+. It suits people like me better than Facebook or the dreary crushed paper cup of Linkedin.

It shows work in progress from various photographers and illustrators, one of the most prolific being the nocturnal Paul Stickland. But alas, the usual suspects always seem to rule the Google waves, like they rule the websphere with their wretched twee homilies and their pictures of a cat falling asleep on a windowsill. I used to like the Dalai Lama. But Jeeze...

They get literally hundreds of 'plusses', which is a thumbs-up from a grateful reader. I've just got an unheard-of eight for this. No, four. But still, on my Richter scale that was epic, dude.

Encouraged by the tireless genius that is +paul stickland to illustrate an idea for a space elevator concept by +Michael Laine ... Here goes. "It just appeared one day in the square by the fountain. At first nobody dared go up; they'd maybe skip up the down lane, then when a stag party decided to take the plunge and came back, thoughtful and beatifically happy, it sort of caught on. The authorities tried to dismantle it, but it was completely unbreakable. So, they shrugged their shoulders and let the public take their chances. All you could make out of the disappearing people as they got higher was the flashes of their cameras as they took pictures from the shimmering stairs.

Richard Branson, thickly jumpered, took his Virgin chequebook and skipped up one Saturday morning with an entourage of PR people and photographers. They blazed a tiny, twinkliing path in the ether, and were never seen again."

Phoebe posing. A natural gif.

2012-02-28T16:44:00.000Z

All in the aid of history. My daughter dressing up and posing as someone being buzzed by a Spitfire. The cover of this year's Chalke Valley History Festival brochure shows Phoebe and our neighbour, Millie, dressed as Victorians taking the air and being surprised, maybe terrified, at the sight of a Spitfire howling through the valley on the way back from a sortie.
It's a montage, so they're not really frightened, just a bit cold... Anyway, here's Feebs going through the acting paces. Takes after her mother, clever and beautiful. Thank goodness.

When I have time I'll put up a movie-ette of Millie. Now she is dramatic.

Thanks to the brilliant Christina Reynolds, Millie's mother, for making it all possible.

Valentine fun: Graphic hearts and salvage

2012-01-20T13:26:00.000Z

ZAZZLE HAS 'EM!

A few things that have surfaced as I try and 'internationalise' my work and sell with a degree of optimism that has so far eluded me as I stare woefully at a khaki coloured mudscape and think more dismal thoughts about the immediate environment. I'm desperate to find a bigger audience for all this stuff, and the chance that someone in Germany or Japan, or wherever, will see something they like, means that I have to spend so much time networking that it's become a more pressing task than sitting down and creating images. I'm on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Posterous and I have a growing number of outlets on Zazzle... More later, but meanwhile, here's some Valentine imagery that I didn't have the heart to trash!

Dare 2 Festival: Chore-free design

2012-01-17T16:44:00.005Z

LOGO-FREE ZONE

Jeeeze, it's been a while since the last post, but since I don't blog from home, I haven't really had time to catch up. There's another festival looming, well, looming as Summer has every right to be in this iron-cold January day, and I've had a lot of fun over the weekend getting some images prepared for this family-friendly get-together.

Taking place in July on a farm in mystical, magical Tollard Royal (which sounds like a very expensive and debonair cigarette from the '20s) I've tried to give it some energetic imagery, colourful, poppy and animated in approach; something that tries to express the atmosphere as well as giving the event some imagery to promote it. I think it shouldn't have a logo as such. The name is the logo. And the sound.

Hey, I dared 2 do a no-logo poster!

Joyeux Noël. Christmas cards are a pain to come up with...

2011-12-09T13:17:00.001Z

SHOP #8 LE FOLIE DU PAIN

A bit last minute, but I thought it would be fun to use this really festive bread shop as a card.

My wife and I were thinking along the lines of The Folie and The Ivy, Christmas shopping being a pain etc... Then I thought of my very favourite part of the Christmas food galaxy; the perfect accompaniment to turkey... et voila.

Always make your bread sauce the night before (sit up at the back), or, at least put an onion (studded with cloves) in some milk with a bay leaf, and bring to the boil. Then turn the heat off. So on Christmas morning, get rid of the onion and chuck in your (freshly grated) white breadcrumbs and bring back slowly to the boil... Then add some double cream and a cloud of pepper. I think nutmeg might make an appearance, but anyway, my brother, who is a great cook, likes to blend half the onion and add to the mixture. It's nice. I've got to go. I'm hungry!

The time has come for all good Gooners...

2011-11-18T12:09:00.001Z

HIGHBURY 7. 5. 06 (Put yourself in the picture!)

To come to the aid of the party. That party. The last game at the Highbury Stadium. If you weren't there, then you can be, now. I want to fill this picture up with Gooners young and old, big and small, to send off to the Royal Academy as a huge print as a candidate for inclusion in the Summer Exhibition. Where you'll be seen by millions...

Send a jpeg (head to toe, preferably, so you can be treated in my inimitable style). I want as many as possible to chuck into this merry throng, leaving the beautiful ground for the last time... so pass this on to anyone who supports the most deserving team on the planet. That means you, Chris, and your mates, and you, Arsene, I can put you up in the front with Charlie George.

Players and fans, Gooners and Goonerettes! I want to create an football image with a difference; something with a bit of taste and creativity. A bit like Arsenal in fact.

Please send your photos to me as soon as you can! They don't have to be hi-res; I can sort that out.

Do it now to make sure you get into the most memorable bit of football imagery ever.

Halloween: What's it all about, halfwit?

2011-10-21T18:27:00.002+01:00

I know I haven't got a commercial bone in my body now. I used to have a passable talent for following a brief, and delivering on or ahead of the deadline, but... For a shameful and humiliating bout of time, I've been trying to design a sell-able Halloween print, or some image exploiting the usual: owls, pumpkins, ghosts, snaggly trees, zombies (actually not too sure about that one) cats and bones. I remember really cool Halloween parties; improvised ghoulery is lovely, messy fun. Now it's gone corporate, with slave illustrators trotting out their depressing stuff.

The whole kitsch carnival of abysmal and badly drawn stuff is right here, on my screen. and I have nothing in my robust and versatile armoury to improve on it all. Nada. Nix. So here it is, the result of my struggles with the empire of dross, my anti-gift for this tawdry celebration of kiddie blackmail.

Trains, Boats, Tractors and Ponies: Exhibition preview at Smith & Williamson

2011-10-20T12:50:00.000+01:00

Yes, it's the kind of gig David Cameron would give his eye-teeth to be at. It's just so big society. Well it's Salisbury so it can't get much posher.

In fact Smith & Williamson are a firm of accountants who always have space available for artists' work; they have an opening night and they have the pleasure (and their super-rich, art connoisseur clientele) of looking at nice pictures for a few weeks, I'm hoping that I'll make enough on the night, that I'll be flush enough to hand over my financial affairs to them, but it's a fairly hefty hope...

They're local and they're located in the old library building in Chipper Lane.

I'll chuck a map on here in a minute... The building is beautiful, and you can see the original French Shop pictures that caused so much fuss in Homes and Gardens recently (I'm no stranger to controversy) and look at the famous Queen Mary print, while downing glasses of chilly Muscadet or whatever they've got on offer at Majestic. They've got a lovely panelled boardroom where you mill contedly around Polo Match and Skaters. Oh and there's three very fetching Italian images...

More valley ghosts: 2012 Chalke Valley History Festival

2011-10-11T10:38:00.002+01:00

“To promote the entertainment and relevance of history to the widest possible audience so as to furnish it with enough sense of the past to make sense of the future.”

Last year's Chalke Valley History Festival was an outrageous, runaway success. It actually made a profit, and the feedback was all positive. I didn't start working on it until May last year and the work on the graphics for the brochure, the advertising and the all the attendant bits and pieces took all the time from first meeting to opening.

This year I've started designing early. We're producing postcards and letterheads to prepare the ground visually as prospective speakers, sponsors and advertisers are contacted. And those who were aware of the previous look will see that nothing fundamental has changed: the subjects drift transparently around a now luminous green valley; the Hawker Typhoon just airborne hints at Antony Beevor or James Holland. I've still to add Thomas Cromwell and a few more visual clues to produce an interesting, as well as arresting cover for a bigger brochure, for a bigger festival.

Oh, and a Trojan Horse...and Elizabeth David

Speak The Culture: All Poland in two colours

2011-10-03T12:03:00.000+01:00

Speak The Culture Books are more than paperbacks on business and travel; they aim to supply readable, witty insights into the living and historical fabric of a particular country. Business is more than just turning up at a client's office, shaking hands on a contract and getting the next plane home. Well, I imagine that getting to know a client is as important a part of the job as analysing the business. Even accountants are known to be forced into the odd bar and made to down a drink or two in the cause of profitable detente...

Even if language is a barrier, the Speak The Culture aim is to provide any traveller, not just the business flyer, with bite-sized chunks of memorable information that, as well as providing several conversational entrées that will endear you to your host, they help to establish the character of the country visited; and the illustrations that I love doing for them, do their best to make the information memorable. They are limited to 2 colours, but instead of opting for dreary duotones, the range of effects is made as wide as possible. This selection from Speak The Culture:Poland shows how Rubine Red and Black work hard to make the most of their limited resources.

All Yesterday's Parties: Celebration of a celebration

2011-08-22T12:54:00.001+01:00

These are fun to do: images commissioned from scratch. Pictures of parties, weddings or anything that's worthy of making into a picture. The more photographs you send the better (the location can of course be photographed after the event). You can have carnival colour, or you can have colour that's subtle, or you may not have a view on it until you see a proof, then you might want to change it. It's all possible.

The images are colour-soaked giclée prints, and the quality is always superb; remember 'giclée' is just a posh word for inkjet, but there are a few more colours to achieve the richness and density that your desktop printer couldn't offer. They can also be made quite large. Very large if you want.

I've produced this image using a photograph of Compton Verney in Warwickshire (a massive Georgian pile, that you can hire for parties, incidentally) that I took a few years back, and dotted the grounds with the unlikeliest assortment of revellers plus a few bits of fauna, inspired by the Turners at Petworth House.

So, if you can imagine, a large (or not so large), colourful (or not so colourful) and beautiful image that records an occasion in the way you want to remember it, then drop me a line; this occasion might have happened, or it's yet to happen, it doesn't matter. You'll have a beautiful picture which is about you and your mates, who were there at a time, a place, an event that you'll never forget.

In praise of Doug Binder: The dream teacher

2011-08-14T13:50:00.006+01:00

DOUG BINDER TODAY. PAINTING SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

My first recollection as an art student at Portsmouth in late '68 was marked by a sit-down strike by all pupils and young staff in an effort to shake things up a bit, I think... I don't think it lasted very long: a couple of days, maybe... There was quite a bit of shouting, friendly and not so friendly barracking; students were elected to various posts and the politically-charged echoes of the Hornsey sit-in (big news at the time) subsided and vanished completely. The tear gas had long evaporated from the Left Bank; the world was becoming quiet again, even Cream were giving up the ghost, but the New Yardbirds (later Led Zeppelin) came to Kimbell's Ballroom. They were louder – no songs about rainbows or the colours of your mind – but essentially the still-molten power-trio template (plus proto-metal voice) being hammered into a emblematic and durable business.

But what the fuck did I know? I loved Portsmouth and Southsea; lived there during my formative years, and absolutely loved the distractions of the harbour, the liners and the cool boy stuff, not to mention the post-war mess that made play so adventurous and dangerous (you're not really going to go in for crazy shit like para-snowboarding or bungee-jumping if you've grown up with the constant threat of a really scruffy, premature death in some forgotten air-raid shelter).

Also I'd seen art students at the bus stops when I was much younger; they looked like refugees from the Beaulieu Jazz Festival. They were too old for Beatle music and they used words like 'invariable' and probably 'conceptual'. They had goatees and wore lilac cords and slip-on shoes over stripey socks... They moved their hands as if to convey ideas and the shape of their cool sculptures. Every time I saw art students, I just wanted to be one. It was invariable.

I often say that the Foundation Course was the happiest year of my life; not so, but it was certainly by far the most productive and fruitful academic year I ever had. By a belting margin. The man responsible for this state of virtual bliss was a quiet dapper geezer called Doug Binder.

I'd only done art for a couple of years at school; having moved back to the Isle of Wight and swapped an unbelievably miserable existence at a boys grammar in Portsmouth (run by those strict Catholic imbeciles who have a taste for ritualised punishment and a deep desire to fuck you up for a lifetime – no art for me there, just incomprehensible shit taught by the even more unpleasant lay teachers, but that's another blog. It hasn't all been said. Fuck those joyless tobacco-reeking wardens of misery.)

Where were we? Oh Christ, I'm sitting on a donkey (a stool you sat astride with a drawing board at one end) doing a paint exercise in oils on paper for Mr Faraday, the princely head of Foundation (who told the obnoxious and arsey Terry Setch – he was a gallery star, Gawd knows why – to fuck off when he decided to give us all a post-lunch bollocking, for not drawing well enough. You should see Terry's stuff. Jeeze-us...) and in walks this quiet, smiling late twenties-ish chap in very smart clothes, rolling an Old Holborn and telling us we were going to make installations tomorrow.

So there I was doing a sketch the next day of what I thought my piece would look like. It was going to be wrapped, like a Christo building; my drawing was done quickly to look like a wrapped chair. I loved it because I'd never ever thought of anything so nice before... When the thing, the construction was suspended and lit by some raking spotlights he came up behind and said "What a fantastic shape. Doesn't it have power? Isn't it amazing?". I had to look at him to check he wasn't being sarcastic. After our wretched Setch experience we were all a bit wary, but no... he was like our David Hockney (a quiet Bradford lad), a positive man born to encourage. To be fair, he praised everybody's; it was such a great thing to do and the homogenous wrapping-up effected quite beautiful transformations.

I can't really remember being so pleased with anything I'd done, ever, because I was impractical to the point of absurdity and the idea of producing a drawing (no problem), then a construction based on same, was a bit of a stretch frankly. But I did it. We had to photograph our pieces, then regretfully take then down and dismantle them. I just wish I'd checked my negatives before... But it's a luminous memory.

All through that year, a beautiful smorgasbord of delights: drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and for me, probably slightly too enjoyable because at the end I had no idea where my talents lay. Still don't if I were honest. But the idea of going into graphic design seemed the more realistic option, not one I had a burning desire for. What I really wanted was three more years of watching Doug Binder drifting in and out of his teenage charges trailing Old Holborn smoke, chatting, smiling, nodding, even adding a mark or two if he felt tempted. He was so friendly, so constructive – always, always constructive – that he perfectly suited that time.

Now, we're different; it's as though the DNA has been changed. We go to college or poly or uni in order to pay back the fees for 3 or 4 years' hard graft. You gotta work, bitch. It's a hard art now, you sometimes think. And you also feel here's no love for the students; they're there to be ripped off by shitty expensive bars and by scandalously mean deposit-stealing landlords. I'll leave the next few thousand predictable words out; you get the drift. But against the bright techno wallop of conspicuous disciplined achievement, there's got to be a battered 12-string being tuned and a counter current stirring of an inclusive, kinder and more sensible, creative world. Somewhere, in some place or other, maybe in Bradford, Sheffield or Brighton, there's somebody with a burning mission to get children to discover and celebrate their talents without actually caring too much about their chances of making it big in the mad swirl of greed and insanity that we take for granted, where they can use all this adventure and failure as a reservoir for later life.

Well. I hope there is.

I still think of Doug Binder and his words of encouragement after forty years and more. I still want to do stuff that pleases him and the people like him. I still want to be creative.

It's invariable.

Art of darkness: Cover design for The Message

2011-08-04T18:19:00.004+01:00

SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

Tariq Goddard's fifth novel, The Message is his best yet; he gave me the manuscript to read after very kindly suggesting I have a go at the cover. It's a fast, rich and violent story set in an African country that's going off the rails and sliding into bloody mayhem. So it's pretty topical.

The tale, like Tariq's others, has its quota of memorable maniacs, mercenaries and madness. It's like The Wild Geese given a twist, or as Goddard says, it's redolent of Conrad with just the slightest nod to Chuck Norris. And at the centre of this tale of realpolitik and various betrayals, is the Mahdi, the new Chosen One, a pretender to the leadership of the Islamic world, happily making war on his own people,

I thought of all the characters. The SAS squad, the Iranian advisors, the Kalashnikov-toting children in their colourful flip-flops, the comically sinister family (Dad, nipper and girlfriend) of mercenaries straight from Come Dine With Me. Would it be a film poster, like The Wild Geese, brought up to date?

I didn't think of anything until one morning I woke really early having dreamt about the book for most of the night. I had this image of Africa basically as you see it on the cover, with the calligraphy as the rictus grin, but I also remembered a poster done by Grapus, one of the world's most resourceful design groups, about 20 years ago, that dealt with the map as a skull, but as a bleak, silk-screened image to carry the Aids warning. So I decided to do the map, but keep it loose (as Paul Motian used to say).

After doodling a shape a few times, then scanning my favourite, I found it worked better than I expected, then I added an Islamic moon, and it was there: giving me a nasty look and a lovely warm feeling of achievement.

Down in the valley: design for a festival

2011-07-13T15:56:00.011+01:00

AD FOR THE CHALK VALLEY HISTORY FESTIVAL SHOWING GRAPHIC THEME

The inaugural Chalke Valley History Festival is over, and by all accounts is was a complete and magnificent success. Most gigs sold out; parking, catering and ticketing all flawlessly organised. Three days of speakers from Michael Wood to Amanda Vickery, Greeks, Romans, Georgians and some horrific Popes all being explained with passion and knowledge; all sounding good. And all being heard. There was a professional air about the whole thing. They seemed to know about PR and stuff, and not one hand-painted sign... Wow, and all in Bowerchalke, in deeply sleepy Wilts.

Jameses Holland and Heneage had the idea; finding favour almost immediately from a slew of impressive names (Antony Beevor, Max Hastings to name a a couple) and after a lot of work by a huge, dedicated and happy team of volunteers – the Chalke Valley Cricket Ground (one of the beneficiaries; the other being Help For Heroes charity) is now as it used to be before; without the massive marquees and the portaloos. Not to mention the stylish (ahem) flags and signs. I was really happy about being involved; I've moaned long and hard enough about design not really being appreciated in the country – its being a bit of a mystery – that I had to do something just to prove my point; so that the people who never want to spend any money on graphic design get a chance to see how it can make a difference.

Originally the cover was a wrap-around, and thanks to the tenacity and optimism of Rachel Holland; I was only left with the front to fill, and I think given a bit more time we would have had to sacrifice even that space for some more lucrative advertising.

Casual observers, (well, fairly committed observers since the type size is minute ) will see my design credit and Dave Stallard the printer's company squeezed onto page 2. The printing was excellent and Dave, as well as Steve Whitbread, at Printing Ideas, were as committed and helpful as everyone else. Even down to advising me on the finer points of artwork! But soon, here and on the website will appear a list of credits as long as an evening shadow. This was an example of something succeeding beautifully because the idea was followed up and executed by everyone involved with precision and enthusiasm.

Apart from James Heneage and James Holland (who is, along with his brother, Tom, a best-selling historian), the co-ordinator in chief and finance officer was Peter Bell who kept on top of things with with incredible clear-headed zeal. George Ashe who sits nearby developed an on-line ticket system in a stupidly limited time. He and Hannah Bell who manned the booking office, were responsible for converting the idea into currency.

Another big moan I have about doing business in the country is the comical amount of time that usually passes between sending an email, or leaving a message, and receiving an answer. When I was putting the artwork together for the brochure, I was working very closely with Rachel Holland who was selling advertising space. To my shame, I think I'd written off the idea of getting sponsors – we had a couple – and the thoughts of more advertising were receding as we were so close to copy date, when I found myself having to make space for more sponsors, more half pages, then full pages... She would only stop when I said there was no room for the Inn. She had the B and Bs queuing up. I could only give myself a pathetic high-five as the artwork finally disappeared into the night to hard-pressed Dave Stallard. (I know Rachel's energy was directed elsewhere later, but she actively got a school to re-think its image as a direct result of her persistent coaxing!)

Bin Scaburri, who was in on this from the start was instrumental in getting speakers to agree to come and importantly to send photographs to adorn their biographies, which she and James Holland diligently edited to a measly but necessary clump of words.

As the graphics got more and more diverse and last-minute, Pam Clover almost answered my queries before I'd asked them. Posters, bookmarks and an ad in Salisbury Life were all calmly chased up by her and I didn't have to make one phone call. She and Elli Lanyon, who was in charge of distribution, were always on the case.

And interrupting Pam's gentle missives were daily messages of public relations successes; Alex Hippisley-Cox was steering the festival towards more and more exposure and public anticipation. You thought, this better be good. And, I think it was.

Chairs:
James Heneage
James Holland

Finance and planning:
Peter 'Ding Dong' Bell

Adverising/Sponsorship:
Rachel Holland

Press:
Alex Hippesley-Cox

Coordinators:
Ab Ashton-Johnson
Pam Clover
Elli Lanyon (distribution)
Bin Scaburri
Penny Marland
Helen Harvey

Distributors:
Pat Weeks

Emma Cuff

Andy Brown

Ian Fowler

Martin Holland

Paul Sampson

Dave Gooden

Sue Bourne.

On-site:
Emma Verdin
Bin Scaburri
Ticket Desk and Checkers:
Hannah Bell
George Ashe
Ted Fry
Ian Nason
Alex Hippisley-Cox
Pam Clover
Ab Ashton-Johnson
Tommy Hooper
Elli Lanyon
Annabel Walters
Sandra Maurer
Sue Wharmby
Ashley Truluc

Bar Managers:
Nick Woolgar
David Brown
Dingle
Geoff

Bar Staff:
Milky
David Brown
Nick Woolgar
Dingle
Geoff
Will
Toby
Banger
Joe Brewer
Simon L
AJ
Emma
DC
Tom K
Phil Hill
Mark C
Dec
Ian Newman
Sophie
Nic Goodridge
Paul Boatwright

Main Car Park:
David Brown
Barry Goodbridge
Big Dave
Will
Jamie Bundy
Ian Newman
Stuart
Geoff
Joe Brewer
Mark C
Stuart
Harry B

Security:
Mark Farmer
Matt Tandy
Paul Boatwright
Hugo Armstrong