“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

Films and stories have always been the most powerful of influences on my creative work. It’s quite often the source of my inspiration and just this past weekend I went and saw The Great Gatsby. As with most Baz Luhrmann films you’re guaranteed to see something quite spectacular and visually this film was no different. As I was watching the creative bug caught me and I had to create my own poster. This design represents a scene in the film that is quite symbolic of the characters and their struggle. It’s beautifully captured on-screen and I wanted to replicate this digitally.

This piece is created entirely within Photoshop with the exception being Gatsby himself. He was created as a vector in Illustrator so I could easily adjust the size to fit the composition.

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

Last year I created Simon, a Photoshop styled illustration of a robot. I built him up using simple shapes, layers and patterns. Basically I was experimenting with the shading and texture techniques that Photoshop offers. I enjoyed creating something in that style and have wanted to do something similar ever since. That’s where the Cycrawler comes in. This guy got caught in some headlights and was a little surprised to see me but I reckon he’s pretty harmless. In fact I reckon he’d be a great companion to Simon!

The Cycrawler was created entirely within Photoshop with the background images being found at CGTextures, a great resource for images and textures!

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

If this is the first time you’ve seen a Creative Mondays, then welcome! If not, then you’ll know by now that I’m a sci-fi, space nut. I just love creating these kind of scenes, playing around with the simple shapes and designing some otherworldly creation. I’ve also learned that I seem to have a fondness for triangles and circles. Those shapes call to me for some reason!

This piece was created entirely within Photoshop (CS6).

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

Okay so I didn’t actually travel back from outer space or anything like that but these last couple of weeks have been a bit of a blur as I’ve been pretty ill and off my feet for most of the time. It was pretty difficult to get motivated to do anything let alone design work so rest and recuperation were on the agenda.

Thankfully I’m feeling much better and Creative Mondays will be getting back on track. Most importantly I’m looking forward to getting all those ideas out and being creative again!

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

Usually when I post my Creative Mondays work it’s to show off something I’ve been designing over the past week. At the time of completing my Desire film poster I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to post it as I entered it for a competition and wasn’t sure that it was right to post it yet. A month on, and I had forgotten about the piece. Unfortunately I didn’t win but the experience gave me a great chance to compare how other designers tackled the brief in comparison to myself.

The brief called for a poster design that used the signature car of the film the Jaguar F-Type. The use of the actors was disallowed but other images were supplied as either inspiration or to be used in the final composition.

Plymouth’s been pretty good to me. Since moving here in 2003, my life has changed a fair bit. I met my wife (almost 10 years ago to the day) in Plymouth and eventually got my start in a career in graphic design here. The city is growing and gaining more of a culture all of it’s own. For me personally, finding out those like-minded individuals was key and over the past few years with the help of Twestival (Plymouth made their mark in the social media charity event) and a Plymouth Designer’s social I feel there is a great community growing around the city.

A couple of years ago I wanted to show off some of the sites of Plymouth (there are still so many more to do) and so I took my camera out and shot some famous landmarks around the city. I feel this is the best way I can show my appreciation for the City of Plymouth.

Back the bid and show your support on Twitter using the #Plymouth2017 hashtag!

You can see this collection in a larger scale on my Flickr page here.

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

A little more Photoshop manipulation this week but back to an old favourite. The outer space scene. I had this idea of a retro poster advertising this funky Planet Hotel with a classic neon sign. Of course it only costs a measly £$5 million to get there and is run by “The Corporation” but I’m sure it’s worth it!

I wanted to create something a little grungy and filtered this bad boy up, creating various layers of grime and folds to give it the old poster look.

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

This week, photo manipulation makes a triumphant return with the sequel to The Floating Island, the poorly  named The Floating Island 2! I wanted to revisit this style and create another sci-fi world in Photoshop. Using the stock.xchng site as the starting point I scour the images looking for islands, rocks, towers or anything that might fit the landscape. I usually start with a base image and build up from there. In this instance the desert scene was a perfect starting point.

I’ll link up more of the subject matter I found tomorrow.

Image credits:

Island | Tower 1 | Tower 2 | Cave | Wood Platform | Bridge | Hiker

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

I can easily sum up why I chose to create my latest Creative Mondays piece. Dr. Seuss is awesome. Always loved his stories and I found this quote of his online today and started to mess around in Photoshop. This guy was easily one of my inspirations growing up and still is today.

“What is Creative Mondays?

Monday’s are always a drag. The start of a new week, you have to go back to that routine of going to bed early/get up early. If (like me) you have to commute then you prepare for that long journey into work and that long journey back for the first time after a nice two day break.

So to kick off those lousy Mondays, I’m going to get my creative mind flowing in a positive way. Creative Mondays. A chance for me to show off something unfinished or finished that I’ve been working on throughout the previous week.”

Recharged was basically created from an idea I had coming back after my extended Easter break. I had a few extra days off and used that time to unwind. Now that I’m back, I’m refreshed and ready to go. I’ve got a few new poster ideas on the go and hopefully within the next few weeks I’ll get something online to show everyone.

There’s also a couple freelance jobs on the go and of course my regular 9 to 5 so it was a much needed recharge!