Animations and Flash websites

I've just found this flash based ...digital toy by a Japanese freelance designer. Not quite sure of it's purpose but it's very pretty...

This is a very attractive and cleverly built website which one day I aspire to have the abilities to be able to build something as amazing as this Ted Rosedale (although I'd use better music...)

One of my favourite videos on youtube has recently been deleted by the creator - gutted, it was awesome [Chik 'n' Jack]

This is another video I've recently found on utube using stopframe animation techniques to create this quirky, slightly disturbing video in which the character - Sara gets up and literally puts on her face but she get's angry with her lips which make her smudge her eyebrows and cuts them in half in anger and hasto tape them back together. Snip has a certain Tim Burton-esq quality to it

See The World
is a really attractive music for the band The Deadly Deaths. I really like how you get to see both the close up view of the world and it as a whole from the distance. One of my favorite features is the trees which are incredibly effective and well designed.

Contraption number 019 has to be one of the strangest videos I have seen in a long time; just watching it gives me the shivers. It opens in a clinical room with a large contraption which is controlled by a maggot creature. The contraption has many mechanical arms that pick up parts of human bodies that are stored in the draws on the wall and places them into the machine at the side of the room which closes and spins. upon opening flies fly out and up through a hole in the ceiling out of which bright light flickers. The maggot eventually places itself inside the machine and emerges as a disturbing human/maggot mixed up creature which flies up through the hole and into the awaiting fly zapper and dies...

Live Project - When I grow up I want to be...

For one of my live projects I worked on a brief called "When I grow up I want to be..." for the brief we had to create a poster which completed the title. The poster had to be A3 size, it had to be suitable to be displayed alongside 7-9 year old's and other artists work on the same title and had to be possible to be hung with pins.

For this brief I chose to focus on a wish I have held since I was a child; a fantasy I think most children would agree with. I have always been fascinated with birds and have always wished to be able to fly like a bird, soaring through the sky above the clouds where the sun always shines...

My poster was landscape and was made out of sculpted white card built up in layers to signify the clouds and a silhouette of a bird soaring through. One thing I like about this piece is the shadows that are cast from the 3D forms - unfortunately this photo doesn't do it much justice but hopefully you'll get the idea.

Live Project - Future Perfect

For the Live Project I chose to work on a brief which was set by the group Designers are Wankers and Grafik the magazine. I bought a copy of Grafik to inspire me as to what they were wanting... I'll review it in a bit but first:

The brief reads:
Write an 800 word article in response to one of the following titles
01 Graphic design's best-kept secret is...
02 A manifesto for the modern graphic designer.
03 Advertising is the root of all evil. Discuss.
04 In what ways does design education leave its protégées ill-equipped?
05 Designers are wankers. Discuss.

the prizes were:
First Prize
For one overall winner:
01 A paid writing assignment to interview an international design studio in a future issue of Grafik.
02 An Apple MacBook.
03 Publication of your article in Grafik and on designersarewankers.com.
04 A regular column on designersarewankers.com.
05 Dinner with the Designers are wankers guru of your choice.
06 A library of essential design books.
07 A year's subscription to Grafik.

Runner-up Prize
For three short listed entries:
01 Publication of your article on designersarewankers.com.
02 A selection of design books.
03 A year's subscription to Grafik.
04 A copy of the Designers are wankers book.

I chose to write an article concerning title number 04 and here it is...

The Art of Bullshitting
By Nikki Bratt

Those creative students with a fragile deposition must beware of the dangers of placing their work in the spot light if they have not learnt the invaluable art of “Bullshit”. Bullshitting is something that all students must learn in order to pass as a designer; they must be able to talk their way through their work and out the other side with some dignity intact; this can be a messy process to begin with.

On the whole design tutors hold the ultimate skill of bullshit and are able to recognise a bullshitter at thirty yards but yet they never let on. They never speak of how you’re floundering but instead push and pull you until you find some sort of edge to grasp or rather a deadline to swim for and pull yourself out in time. Only to be shoved back into the swirling wake of ideas once again and the process is repeated throughout your entire educational life in the design world.

It seems most small children hold the ability to be creative, so why as they age do they become more or less adept at these skills? It is all down to a crisis in confidence, the child begins to recognise the world around them and how what they do can be perceived by others. They begin to hold the desire to fit in, to conform to the norm. In later life (after mastering the art if bullshit enough to give you time to become a good designer on the side) it becomes necessary to be able to place your ideas out into the open to be scrutinised and regarded for what they are, without you there to defend yourself or your reasoning. This in turn with a desire to fit into the accepted roles of society has the strong ability to crush or conceal the creativity within many young artists who flared as children only to die down in the presence of years. To ‘educate’ in the simplest form means:

“Give intellectual, moral, and social instruction. To train or give information on a particular subject.” Concise Oxford English Dictionary

So if you cannot teach creativity what exactly are we being ‘trained’ for? Is the focus predominantly shifted onto the technical side of becoming a practicing and paid designer; the abilities required to be able to take whatever form of creativity and artistic drive the pupil holds and form it into something desirable, useful to the outside world? The tutors must have the aptitude to be able to see what talent the pupil has and mould it to fit into the overbearing world of the designer. While the whole time allowing for the bullshit to circulate and manipulate the student who will on the whole generate their best ideas when placed under the pressure of critiques and blagging their work. The tutors must have the ability to nurture the creative gene and allow it to flourish in a safe environment, occasionally allowing it to be exposed to the world but not long enough for it to be crushed by opinion because let’s face it after all – we’re only learning.

So when does it become acceptable for our work to be left out in the spot light for more than this predetermined time, when the gaze of opinion has time to form a voice? Maybe GCSE or A-Level or possibly Foundation? Or maybe they should keep it safe until the time in which we leave university and have to find out on our own that the world is not as safe, un-opinionated and supportive as we were led to believe? This is a harsh lesson to learn and so they attempt to wean us away from this support during our years in university, away from the comfort of the protective wing and into the real world through the use of live briefs and critiques at all stages of production. They allow complete strangers to appraise our work, strangers who could hold the key to our success and who will not tolerate the finer art of bullshit.

The fault cannot be placed solely on those who teach design education but also on the student themselves who, in the sudden freedom of university has realised the world’s a bigger place and has gone to investigate. Some may take this desire to create with them on their wanders while others leave it behind and go and get distracted with ‘life’. It feels that by the age of university students we are in such a position as to feel we have reached adulthood. We have contradicting feelings between the want for nurture of our creative gene and the lust for freedom but without that piece of paper that states we can be creative to a professional standard we are all a little stuck. Thus we continue to live by the deadlines until we reach that freedom, piece of paper clutched tightly in hand and mortar board tossed deftly into the air to realise that actually the worlds a pretty ugly place and shuffle back to do an MA course under the safe wing of education.

And so we return to the art is bullshit, which in truth is what you’re being trained for, never mind the technical aspects the jobs required, as long as you can get in and out of a critique or design proposal alive and with the majority of your arrogance intact then you, sir, have the ability to be whoever you want to be in the pretentious, mixed up world of design. Now good luck trying to find a job.

I doubt it's a winning piece but it was fun working towards a live brief and the possibilities of my work having some credit outside the walls of the college and the internal briefs we've worked on in the past

Charlie Chalk

Charlie Chalk is a children's television character that I used to watch when I was younger and I recently bought all the episodes on DVD so that I can reminisce...

The episodes last about 10 minutes each and are made using stop motion animation. They were created by Woodland animations who also made other kids tv shows such as Post Man Pat, The Wombles and Thomas the Tank Engine and friends.

There were ten characters in total called Charlie Chalk, Captain Mildred, Mary the Hover Fairy, Lewis T. Duck, Arnold the Elephant, Edward the Gorilla, Trader Jones, Sam Mellor, Bert and the Litterbug. They all lived on a small island called Merrytwit on which Charlie was shipwrecked when out fishing in his boat one day. There are thirteen episodes in total that follow Charlie and Co. through their adventures on the island.

I remember when I was younger being absoloutely terrified of the characters in Charlie Chalk but yet I used to love scaring myself silly watching them. I'm not sure why I was so unnerved when watching the cartoons but when I re-watched them a few weeks ago I still felt a little unnerved and disturbed by them (especially by the one where they meet Burt who is a large hairy creature that's been trapped in a cave for years on his own).


Click here for more info and pictures from Charlie Chalk

Clicky here to watch an episode of Charlie Chalk and see for yourself just how creepy it is...

Rock Lobster

This is an animation me and a friend made for our animation module. We used stop motion techniques to film it on a stills digital camera and edited it using Flash. We weren't/aren't very adept with Flash so I'm afraid at the time we weren't able to add sound to the animation. We both really like the idea of the story and hope to be able to go back and create a better version of it in the future... it's named Rock Lobster after the B52s track, clicky clicky to go and watch it:Rock Lobster :)

Leeds Gallery

We went for a wander into the Leeds art gallery and my god it's so uninspiring... I would have thought they'd have had some more interesting work around but it just seemed bland and nothing appeared to have changed since when we had to go there in the first year for drawing practices!

I would think that in such a creative and constantly changing city as Leeds the gallery would have so many opportunites to put on exhibitions on a regualar basis. It's not like there isn't enough artists and other talented creative people around looking for a break or opportunity to show the city what they can do.

They need to be less old fashioned, get with the plan Leeds!

Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger. The strip was printed daily in newspapers from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes was carried by over 2,400 newspapers worldwide.



The strips can deal with many political and social issues that try to show the worlds views through the eyes of a small child. Other strips focus on Calvins life and on going themes like his and Hobbes club called G.R.O.S.S [Get Rid Of Slimy girlS], their made up game of Calvinball in which you can't have the same rule twice and the regular sled and wagon rides in which Calvin and Hobbes hold their most philosophical of conversations.


And sometimes it's just pure genius... nothing like the truth to make you laugh out loud

Buy, review and find out more about Calvin and Hobbes here

The Pianist

The Pianist is an absolutely immense movie set in Warsaw, Poland in the Second World War focusing on a Polish Jewish family who are split apart as they are interned in a German labour camps. One thing that really effects me when I watch this movie is the fact that it is based on a true story of the life of the skilled pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman during the Second World War.

It follows his hardships as he breaks free from the labour camp and strives to survive the war through starvation, attack and despair.

I love this movie with a passion, it is definitely one of my favourites and I would recommend it to anyone but beware of the content as it leaves you with a heavy heart as to what people had to go through for the insanity of another...

Read about it here

Buy it here - trust me it's worth it.

One flew over the cuckoo's nest (DVD review)

Ok so I've now watched the DVD of One flew over the cuckoo's nest...

The synopsis reads:

A nice rest in a state mental hospital beats a stretch in the pen, right? Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a free-spirited con with lightning in his veins and glib on his tongue, fakes insanity and moves in with what he calls the "nuts." Immediately, his contagious sense of disorder runs up against numbing routine. No way should guys pickled on sedatives shuffle around in bathrobes when the World Series is on. This means war! On one side is McMurphy. On the other is soft-spoken Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), among the most coldly monstrous villains in film history. At stake is the fate of every patient on the ward. Based on Ken Kesey's acclaimed bestseller, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest swept all five major 1975 Academy Awards: Best Picture (produced by Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas), Actor (Nicholson), Actress (Fletcher), Director (Milos Forman) and Adapted Screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman). Raucous, searing and with a superb cast that includes Brad Dourif, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd in his film debut, this one soars.

Unfortunately the movie failed to hold my gaze particularly well which was disappointing as I had head such rave reviews of it. One thing I noticed is that the focus of characters is completely shifted from the Chief, who is the narrator of the book, to Randle P. Murphy played by Jack Nicholson. In the movie you tend to miss out on all of the inside views that you get from the Chief in the book and it feels as though quite a lot of the depth of the book has been lost in this translation - although I guess this happens quite often when books are placed in the world of Hollywood. There are some heartfelt moments which I appreciated in the movie but in all honesty I am not particularly impressed with either the book or the movie of One flew over the cuckoo's nest, but it is one of those classics which I am glad I took the time to read.

Buy or just check out reviews for the DVD here

Buy or just check out reviews for the book here

Hand to Eye

Hand to Eye is a book that has continued to inspire me throughout my design education. I first came into contact with it in my first year of my National Diploma in 2003. The book contains 144 pages of 45 contemporary illustrators from around the world.



It is one of those books that I tend to flick through from time to time to inspire me when I'm feeling at a bit of a loss. It is something I come back to on a regular basis when I'm searching for specific styles because it contains such a large wealth of styles and imagery that I usually find something to cater for my needs.



It contains many styles of illustration and graphic design including styles using pen, pencil, paint, embroidary and designers that merge digital art with hand rendered styles to create some highly original pieces.



The above image is one of my favourite in the book, I love the use of colours and patterns to evoke such feeling in a 2D piece.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

I took my first trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park back in December of this year. These are some of the pictures we took in the wandering...




This is the metal walkway leading up to the main gallery building, supposedly all the names contained on it are people who have sponsored/donated to the park...








These are permanent Henry Moore sculptures found in the first part of the park.

I really like the Last of these three photos, this sculpture is huge, you can walk inside it and sit and gaze out through the hole at a framed view of the fantastic countryside.



This is, ermmm... me is a sculpture. yeah, anyway - moving on -->



These are huuuuuge sculptures made out of steel that stand over about 14 foot tall. They are so big you can walk inside them, when I was there they were full of kids playing hide a seek. I managed to jump in when they were finished and took a couple of photos looking up into the structure (see below).






This is another random sculpture... I like the interactivity of the park, art should be interactive, who wants just a pretty picture?




Antony Gormley - the only piece he has at the park but it was good to be able to see it in person. There was a professional photographer there taking photos at the time, we stopped and eavesdropped on the conversation for a little while, he had worked with Gormley in the past on other projects.



A sculpture of nature

"winds through the branches becomes the silence" - found on a stamp in a box next to a turn style in the park





This is a piece by James Turrell called Deer Shelter in which he had created a concrete room with a hole in the ceiling that frames the sky, we lay in there and watched as the clouds passed us by, bliss.

D & A D

We recently entered some work in the D & A D student awards. We had to choose one out of about thirty briefs for various different companies and groups requiring different outcomes.

The brief I chose to work on was in the direct mail catagory. I had to design something that could fit through a standard letter box and would persuade people to swap their credit card balance to Capital One.

[First board design]

The first board had a pair of turquoise scissors attached through the foam board to show how they would arrive through the post.

the second board contained pictures and some blurb about the project. Here are some of the pictures...

[Front of box]


[Back of box]


[Open box]


[Open box with contents]


[In progress]

Three projects were chosen in total from those who entered from Vis Com to be published in the D & A D awards 2007 annual.