AJS Designs

Here is the finished product of the USB robot men. They’re...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:30:32 +0100

Here is the finished product of the USB robot men. They’re pretty funky (the material is a hard rubbery-plastic). Its always pretty cool to see my designs come out as a full product (even if I still prefer the other design!).

Some concept drawings for a custom designed USB Memory stick for...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:30:29 +0100

Some concept drawings for a custom designed USB Memory stick for Briggs Equipment UK (they sell and rent forklift trucks).

The main goal was to have it fit in with their recent marketing campaign that showed a red robotic hand (the first USB is meant to be the end finger segment). In the end they went for the 4th option but in red with a grey logo/details). I’d slowly fallen in love with the face design on the 3rd usb, something about the happy little face!

If I start putting up lots of drawing of robots for a while, I don’t apologise, because retro style robots are AWESOME.

To celebrate my friend Mair passing her driving test I did this...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:30:16 +0000

To celebrate my friend Mair passing her driving test I did this little doodle (a couple weeks ago now, as I’ve not had time to upload). This is another drawing with my Wacom Inkling, and it unfortunately messed up on a number of the lines and needed quite a bit of redrawing on computer. I’m slowly getting all the qwerks out of it (e.g. I now use bulldog clips to keep the whole page as solid as possible to stop and slippage which stretches and warps the image in weird ways).

Next on the experiment list is to get some colour into these drawings, which I will hopefully do with my next one! (which was drawn with Chinese New year in mind ;) )

So I went and spoiled myself and bought a Wacom Inkling, heres...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:06:04 +0000

So I went and spoiled myself and bought a Wacom Inkling, heres my first impressions!

My first (technically second) drawing with my Wacom Inkling, just a quick 10 minute doodle I did on my lunch break at work today.

It hasn’t picked up all of my pen strokes as yo ucan kind of tell with breaks on the outlines, although it does appear to have picked up bits of shading quite accurately, as for this technically being my second drawing… I can see the file of my first sketch on the Inkling memory, but the viewer doesn’t seem to want to let me open or view the file. I’ll try and trouble shoot and see if I can get it working.

Next step for me I will work on this sketch with both illustrator and photoshop and see how I can add some colour or smooth it up a bit. I’m still pretty excited about this new toy! :D

Some business cards that I designed at work for GEM Vending...

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:30:15 +0000

Some business cards that I designed at work for GEM Vending machines.

If anyone needs vending machines in the Midlands, check them out!

Not much to say about the designs themselves really, I did a few different designs but the client were helpful and specific with the direct they wanted to take making the process go with ease.

Just a quick little bit of artwork I did, this was background...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:30:31 +0000

Just a quick little bit of artwork I did, this was background for an invite to a Chinese New Years Eve party, the symbol at the back is for the Year of the Snake.

Drawn freehand with a tablet in Illustrator (so that I could tighten up the curves a little after - I have 0 experience writing Chinese!)

Little bit of artwork for a small pack of pencil crayons for a...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:30:31 +0000

Little bit of artwork for a small pack of pencil crayons for a Daycare/infants school I did at work. In the end they had the black and white version so as to only have 1 print colour. (The pack itself was a recycled card brown colour).

Something rather calming about illustrating cute animals :)

Ended up going through about 4 or so major changes in the design...

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:35:57 +0000

Ended up going through about 4 or so major changes in the design but it circled back around similar to the original, so I’ve left them out.

The 2 major issues I was having was fitting the products in without upsetting the overall design, I’ve ended up using them in a ribbon across the design, same as the WINTER/SPRING.

The 2nd issue was the ice pattern on the WINTER bit wasn’t too clear, with some people saying it appeared to be a work surface. Another quick trip to cgtextures later I found a really nice panoramic landscape of mountain peaks. Not necessarily winter as such, but it was the only way I could include snow/ice and have it appear without a doubt as snow.

We were meant to get these last weeks but the printing was delayed so will hopefully be getting them middle of next week now… but will try get a photo up of the printed catalogue, I’m really like this final design.

(If you’d like one of these catalogues or just wish to browse the stuff we sell online, you can go to the Blueprint Promo site)

UV poster for New Years Eve party at the Blue Note. I actually...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:30:15 +0000

UV poster for New Years Eve party at the Blue Note.

I actually learned some fun things with this, creating the title text with the 3d tools in Illustrator that I didn’t really know existed (previously I had made 3d myself using the 3d guides).

One thing I find odd/annoying however is that to get certain colour effects to work as I want them I have to have certain things in RGB rather then CMYK, then once they’re done convert them to RGB. I’ll try look into why this is, but as far as I can tell, there isn’t any proper reason you shouldnt be able to do the effects in question!

Totally alternate idea for the front cover, going for impact and...

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:30:19 +0000

Totally alternate idea for the front cover, going for impact and eye catching, I referred to a pop art style explosion to really leave a lasting impression.

Quite like how it turned out, although seems a little bit off using the photographic products with the vector/screen printed style explosion.

Ultimately this didn’t go past this first draft stage.

I did learn some stuff about how to edit patterns in Illustrator though, so a worthwhile sidestep at least.

A quick poster to push our Nightmare Before Christmas event that...

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:04:33 +0000

A quick poster to push our Nightmare Before Christmas event that is happening (strangely enough) just before Christmas.

The background texture is actually from a hi-res photo of the moon, as having Jack with just a plain cream face would have looked a bit on the dull side.

We’re currently rebranding all the nights at the Blue Note, so expect a number of posters and flyer designs popping up over the next couple weeks!

This was the first draft of the cover for Blueprint Promo...

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:30:38 +0000

This was the first draft of the cover for Blueprint Promo Winter/Spring catalogue. (I had done another design, but it was too good for a short catalogue so is being saved for the next full year one! I’ve got that set to post when the catalogue will go out.)

Basic idea was to show off some products while still making the cover stand out enough to be unique and memorable. I grabbed some free hi-res textures (from the ever awesome cgtextures.com) to use to help highlight the Winter/Spring words and give the cover some much needed colour and interest.

A catalogue cover idea for next year for Blueprint Promotional...

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:30:19 +0000

A catalogue cover idea for next year for Blueprint Promotional Products.

Designing for catalogues is always tricky, much in the same way as websites, as you have to balance visual interest with practicality. End of the day its a catalogue and has to have a certain amount of ledgibility. Its not good making a catalogue, magazine or whatever if you can’t actually get the information of what you’re looking at.

That in itself is something that annoys me no end with certain, more artsy, magazines, where you have no idea what the imagery is even meant to be about because they’ve gone far too abstract with little to no information, but then I’ve always tended to lean more towards function then form when it comes to design. (My artwork, ironicly can be VERY abstract)

I also seem to be going through a “white space” phase at the moment…

Just a quick grungy poster to promote our Friday nights at the...

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 12:30:15 +0000

Just a quick grungy poster to promote our Friday nights at the Blue Note. We’re still looking into rebranding all of the nights, but waiting on the hiring of a new manager before any of that happens. In the mean time these posters seem to be ticking us over.

End of the day people who go out these days are attracted by one of two things. One, decent music (decent being relative). Two, cheap drinks prices. Hense making our cheap drinks offers as large as possible as noticable as possible (the A-Board is nicely lit and pretty large, its visable half way down the street). The next step up I feel would be to basicly have a girl ringing a bell and wearing flashing lights, stood outside shouting “cheap booze!”

This is the front and back of some business cards I got to...

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 12:30:13 +0000

This is the front and back of some business cards I got to update a design of at work. Its not often I get the chance to do this kind of work as more often then not companies will have all their stationary bits already designed and I just have to apply them to print templates/areas, so I enjoyed this.

This is the standard cocktail menu that we have at the Blue Note...

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:30:35 +0000

This is the standard cocktail menu that we have at the Blue Note whenever we don’t have events on. As with the previous one its split into 3 sections for a 3 sided plastic stand for tables/bar tops.

When I made this it was to go with the posters I also made a while back, using another grunge textured backing from the same texture pack as well as the bright pure cmyk set of colours. They’re fit for purpose now but we’re expecting to start change up our drinks soon so will no doubt see another menu soon.

Sometimes at work I have to do concept visuals for things like...

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 17:01:31 +0000

Game City custom USB visual 1

Gamecity custom USB visual 2

Sometimes at work I have to do concept visuals for things like custom USB pens.

These were a couple visuals Game City (an annual videogame festival in Nottingham). As far as I know they didn’t go for them in the end though. But I am steadily starting to enjoy creating 3d work within Illustrator.

One tool I found that I never knew about at Uni that has become indispensible on a number of occations is the “envelope” tool. It basicly allows you to create a shape of a surface, then merge any other content into that shape. Meaning you can angle and give depth to multiple object in Illustrator, which is not possible any other way.

If anyone wants any help with it just send me a message on here or reply to this post.

One of the other banners for Nottingham Trams. This banner was...

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 12:30:42 +0000

One of the other banners for Nottingham Trams. This banner was for their stand at the NTU student freshers fair.

While the images on this that include trams were supplied by NET, the rest are actually sources from a free stock image website. (www.sxc.hu <- this is a great site for people on a budget, can’t afford real stock images or have the ability to get the photos for yourself, I wish i had found this when I was still a student!)

I was kind of shocked to find out that while most of these shots are generic student/uni photos, some are actually of the NTU buildings themselves! Its a small world sometimes!

This was 1 of 5 pop up banners that Nottingham Trams had done,...

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:30:47 +0000

This was 1 of 5 pop up banners that Nottingham Trams had done, they stand about 2 meters high and are pretty damned nice. As with the previous NET bit of work I did, all the photos were kindly supplied by marketing people over at NET.

This banner was to take into schools and such to help promote safety on the Trams.

(If you’re looking for these kinds of pop-up banners give check out my work’s website here: Blueprint Promotional Products)

My final bit of Halloween stuff for the year, I promise!This was...

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 18:00:38 +0000

My final bit of Halloween stuff for the year, I promise!

This was the special cocktail menu for the week of Halloween at the Blue Note nightclub, I tried to keep it on brand with the other posters I had done to promote Halloween. (Note the way this was designed, is for the 3 sided menu holders that sit on tables/bar surfaces)

In the end some of the cocktails were a big hit and some were duds, which was a shame, but working to close deadlines with limited ingredients and equipment selection available.

Hopefully next Halloween we’ll have the event all planned for and POS ready and waiting by September.