The Guitar Show is a new show in Bristol (UK).

It’s – by it’s own admission – a little show and the brief was to keep it’s identity simple, straightforward and to the point. To over-promise at this point in the shows life would spell doom.

I decided to really take the brief literally and go super simple with everything, the logo is hand drawn. No bevels, glows or texture of any kind just ink on paper.

The advertising is all set in Helvetica, in a single weight, left aligned on a simple yellow folded texture. It gives the show a unique feel amongst all the over-thought, heavily treated, high budget advertising that is the MI industry at the moment. Most MI ads are also ‘out of black’ so the deliberate choice of yellow helps the show stand out amounts the clutter.

Formed at the start of 2009 by Hundred Reasons and Pitchshifter members Colin Doran and Jason Bowld, TFFTS’s sound was really starting to take shape, as were the visuals.

Steering clear of the usual metal/punk cliches the band loved my idea to try and create an actual album cover – one which had a loose theme based around the bands name. I have always loved the work of Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis and felt that a band like TFFTS were a perfect candidate for this kind of look as their sound is quite difficult to ‘pigeonhole’

They fell from the sky split at the end of January 2010. Colin Doran left the band due to personal reasons, the remaining members are currently looking for a new vocalist for a new project.

This is where where we’d got to and hopefuly (although unlikely) we’ll get to finish it someday.

Shame.

ps. Yes that is the running order from ‘Destroyer’. I’m a Kiss fan – deal with it!

PRS welcomes frontman Mike Åkerfeldt of Opeth to the PRS family with this signature model SE.

As the lead vocalist and guitarist for the acclaimed death metal band Opeth, Mikael traverses the musical terrain with sounds that are “subject to savage punctuations of death metal fury at any given moment.” Åkerfeldt once commented on the diversity of Opeth’s music.

His new model follows suit with a singlecut mahogany body, maple top and flame maple veneer, maple neck with ebony fretboard, 24 jumbo frets, one of the first SE models to include old-school bird inlays, PRS designed tremolo bridge, gold hardware, HFS and Vintage Bass pickups, volume, tone, 3-way toggle. A Tortoise Shell finish with a Opeth “O” logo on body give this guitar a unique look to compliment a unique voice.

All that’s great for the gear heads but his signature advert had to be classic PRS. A great artist shot from Jordan, another great product shot and a classy layout.

Jordan takes pictures of beautiful people. When he’s not doing that he hangs out with Rock Stars and takes pictures of them.

It’s a dirty job…

The design of his portfolio site had to be an almost invisible thing, as the main focus is, of course, the images. Presented on pure black (I guess you could say “None more Black”) it allows the images to take centre stage, and really makes the colours ‘pop’.

A combination of Flash CS4, SlideshowPro and SlideshowPro Director is – in my opinion – the most elegant solution for any photographer. It allows updates to be handled without the need for any edits to the site (images, tags and descriptions and galleries are all uploaded, edited and called dynamically from the Director GUI). This allows Jordan to quickly arrange and re-arrange all the images without ever touching the Flash.

The main navigation is based on Jordan’s handwriting to match his logo and the galleries are all navigated via a thumbnail grids.


Take a look at the jammy b*ggers site here

The Colour Movement are a great young band from Cambridge on their way to big things in 2010

Steeped in songwriting influences that include Muse, Pendulum, Calvin Harris, Bloc Party, Jamiroquai, Coldplay … the band have spent the last two years working with producers Ben Mason (The Kooks, Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight) and Simon Efemy (Pantera, The Wildhearts), honing their brand of spanking Dance Rock to perfection. And attracting no little attention in the process.

The brief was simple, if a little vague. A solid identity for the launch phase of The Colour Movements career that would help them rise above the myspace ‘white noise’ of bands vying for label attention.

The Dance Rock Label can be a dangerous one for any band trying to break out, so I steered clear of the usual cliches and tired old ‘seen it all before’ rubbish that infects most of the design in the music industry today and created a clean but messy, simple but layered look that can move with the band as they evolve. Without the need for constant redesign.

Check back in 5 years time. If they’re still using the same logo on album 2, then I got it right for them.

Paul Reed Smith is the world’s biggest premium guitar brand.
Their endorsee list reads like a ‘who’s who’ of influential and outstanding players.

Ace is no exception. His trademark style helped make Skunk Anansie a worldwide multi-platinum selling band who, in 2004, were named as one of the most-successful UK chart acts.
And when the band announced 2 reunion gigs on 2 April and 3 2009 at the Monto Water Rats (the former venue of the Splash Club) in London under the alias SCAM (Skin, Cass, Ace, Mark). They sold out in 20 minutes.

All that was ever going to be required for this advert – given that Ace’s picture and endorsement would be enough to convince any guitarist that PRS are worth checking out – was a great artist shot from Derrick Santini, a beautiful product shot and exactly the right amount of copy.

Never one to disappoint, I did exactly that. Headline were over the moon and Ace loved the ad.

Job done.

The enormous Classic Motor Show at the NEC, brings together the whole motoring spectrum in a unique annual celebration of the car.

Along with the huge car displays, the show hosts the biggest single gathering of UK companies and traders offering every conceivable product and service to the classic car owner/enthusiast plus some superb and unique show features.

Working alongside ad agency Tin Can – who handle all the print stuff – I’ve helped ‘up’ the shows digital profile over the past few years and increase the direct communication with visitors by adding relevant content on various social sites (YouTube, Flickr etc) and with a dedicated email newsletter – which was last years most quoted route to ticket purchase.

Hughes & Kettner is a German company producing some of the most impressive guitar amplification in the world.

When Headline Music took on the UK distributorship of the brand, they wanted to re-establish H&K not only as a more rock’n’roll entity than they had been perceived in the past, but also to highlight the ridiculous lengths the company goes to in testing products before shipping.

H&K has a unique valve testing machine (the old-fashioned glass tubes still go into the best guitar amps), but no interesting images of the VTI were available, so we built the ad around a young band on the road with an amp. Because it’s already been tested almost to destruction at H&K, no matter what other worries the band might have on the night, it won’t be that the amp is going to die…

Deliberately snapshot photography from Jordan McLachlan was worked into a grid for that chaotic-but-considered aesthetic and hey-presto, the high-tech and the hard rock come together perfectly.

Budding songwriters love the BOSS BR all-in-one recording studios. They allow musicians to get ideas down on hard disk quickly and easily, or to build up fully-produced songs.

While the feature-lists of the products are impressive, what Roland sought to do in store was to highlight the benefits of buying and BR, and getting involved in a songwriting/producing community, open exclusively to owners of the machines. Suddenly, BR ownership goes from a passive thing to bring part of a creative community, sharing ideas and tips and finished compositions.

The BR POS managed to cover two bases – firstly, the layout allowed customers a quick visual comparison between the whole range, so they could settle on the ideal solution; secondly it highlighted the existence of the online BR community, encouraging users to get involved, building the BR line as a successful sub-brand.

While design for web and print takes up a fair amount of my time and energy, I’ve always enjoyed the challenge and creative satisfaction of working on large-scale pieces for exhibition display and so on.

At the London International Music Show at ExCel in 2009, Roland had an enormous stand, chockfull of exciting new products, demos etc, and I was charged with creating graphics for several feature areas.

Far from simply blowing up existing ads or product images, Roland are always keen to get creative when it comes to shows, so we ended up with a Union Jack ‘built’ from hundreds of red, white and blue effects pedals, eight-foot high superhero graphics and several very nice semi-transparent banner/sail-type affairs.

The whole thing added up to a dynamic-looking stand, but one that still felt airy and spacious. Which was needed, given the thousands of visitors it attracted over the weekend, keen to get down with Roland’s new electronic drum kits and guitar effects units.