Joe Stone Graphic Design

I’ve been doing a lot of branding work over the last...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:29:00 +0100

I’ve been doing a lot of branding work over the last month, both at Glyph and as a freelancer. None of them are quite signed off yet, so here is just a peek at three separate jobs I’ve been working on.

Stark Trek: Into Darkness comes out next week, and I’m so...

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:07:13 +0100

Stark Trek: Into Darkness comes out next week, and I’m so excited about it I did this dumb Star Trek Family Tree style doodle on my lunch break.

There are a number of designers, illustrators and artists who I’m always drawn back to...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:47:00 +0100

There are a number of designers, illustrators and artists who I’m always drawn back to whenever I’m stuck in a creative rut. Whether it’s because of a single piece of work, their general output or even their attitude towards design, I often browse portfolio websites or re-read interviews with and writing by them to give myself a shot of inspiration in times of need.

One such studio who continue to influence me on a near-daily basis are Toronto based Bruce Mau Design.

I came across Bruce Mau’s work in the first year of my Graphic Media degree at Colchester School of Art. The whole class was set a project that had each student assigned a particular designer to research and produce a four-page broadsheet sized document about. At this early stage in my education I was largely ignorant to the wider-world of designers outside of the obvious big names and the project was a complete eye-opener for me. The brief was to avoid merely taking examples of our respective subject’s work and presenting them in a visually pleasing way, but rather to find out about the ethos and ideology employed by the designer or studio and use appropriate design to showcase information about them. I was assigned Mau as my research subject, and luckily for me his ethos and ideology sits at the forefront of a lot of his output.

His book Life Style was my first exposure to his work, initially from the university library and then later on when I found a fairly scruffy version for sale in a second hand bookshop. From my first opening of the cover to reveal a series of full bleed, double-page spanning photos, each one accompanied by a powerful statement or maxim, I was hooked and fascinated. Full of deep and insightful looks into Mau’s creative process, his views on culture, society, and personal accounts of events that shaped him as a person and as a designer, it’s a truly interesting read that had a massive affect on the way I viewed design. Naturally, it also stands alone as being a wonderful piece of design in itself, with innovative page layouts mirroring and answering the non-linear content. It has remained one of my design bibles ever since, a never-ending source of ideas to dip into when I’m stuck.

One of the key lessons I learnt from the book is the importance of understanding in design. The understanding of where something will be, who will see it, how it will be interacted with and why people will be interacting with is paramount. It reinforced to me the idea that context is everything, and learning more about that context is the key to a successful design. This is something that I have since tried to take into consideration on every project I’ve worked on since.

Another important message that Mau tries to get across is the social impact of graphic design. He understands that design – and imagery in general – is a hugely powerful tool that can be used to great effect when applied to trying to do something good for the world. The Massive Change project is probably the studio’s most ambitious attempt at conveying this message. Comprising of a book, an exhibition and a radio program, it presented examples of how design can and has been used to positively impact people’s lives, sporting the tagline “Massive Change is not about the world of design, it’s about the design of the world.’

My enjoyment of Mau’s work goes beyond the nobel intention and underlying values though, as the studio also turn out extremely high quality design work.

While they cover a wide range of disciplines, their branding work has been what I’ve enjoyed the most, especially their environmental branding and design.The rebrand of New York’s iconic Museum of Modern Art, for example,applied a slick, contemporary and thoroughly appropriate design to the entire building, guiding visitors on a journey from the busy Manhattan street it’s located on to the quiet interior space of the gallery. The flexible and modular identity for the Ontario College of Art and Design is another of my favourites. Taking elements from the design of the building itself and turning it into a blank canvas for creative expression, it leaves an empty box free to be filled with work from students at the college. A truly inspired piece of identity design for a creative educational establishment, and a triumph in terms of flexibility and longevity. It left a lasting impression on me and has directly inspired me to approach my own branding work with an eye on how it can be interacted with.

More recently, 2012’s Know Canada concept of re-branding of an entire country particularly appealed to me. I’ve long been fascinated with the idea of giving a visual identity to a broad location, and this attempt was highly successful. Managing to be informative, witty and engaging, it flipped the negative stereotypes associated with the country on their head, opting instead to point out that the negativity merely came from a lack of education about all the positive things to have come out of Canada (although there was no apology for Justin Bieber).

Of all his work, the Incomplete Manifesto For Growth is probably the project which has affected me more than any other in terms of my approach to design. A 43 point list of beliefs and strategies, it serves as the backbone for all of Bruce Mau Design’s output. It also served as the main source of inspiration behind the final major project of my degree, which ended up being a fairly ill-conceived manifesto of my own (it had several nice ideas in it that I’m still proud of, but was ultimately too sprawling and self-involved to really work – maybe someday I’ll talk about it at length). Mau’s list includes several points that I take into account not only in regards to my work and creative output, but also in my life in general.

The affect the manifesto had on me has been the most lasting of anything the studio has done. There are few other designers who I’ve come across that go into as much depth about how we do what we do for a living, rather than just why, and so from that point of view Bruce Mau Design stands out as a particularly inspiring studio.

The world is completely saturated with imagery which directly affects billions of people on a daily basis, and all of it has in some way been designed. Everything from advertising to celebrity culture to architecture to product design plays a role in our perception of the world, and so how it looks and feels and works is incredibly important. Mau’s work and the work of his studio understands the social impact good design can have, and how it can entirely change the very way we live our lives. I can’t really remember my four-page broadsheet for that college project well enough to say if it appropriately represented the ideology and ethos of Mau, but after my research into his work I can safely say it was the first time that I felt my work went beyond pure aesthetics into something of actual substance. That lesson alone still serves as inspiration to my work today.

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For more information about Bruce Mau Design, click here to visit their website.

More typographic experimentation.

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:36:41 +0100

More typographic experimentation.

Experiment with type for a branding job I’m doing. This...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:00:45 +0100

Experiment with type for a branding job I’m doing. This was my attempt to visually represent the idea of new perspectives and the overlapping talents that the client offers. It doesn’t quite work though; the P looks too much like a B and the R is quite awkward. It was fun to play around with, though!

Archived Work A character re-design of the Sudbury Rugby Club...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:09:17 +0100

Archived Work

A character re-design of the Sudbury Rugby Club mascot Sudbury Sam, taken on and completed at Glyph.

joestonearchive:

Originally introduced in the 1980s, the character had fallen out of usage at the club and an entire generation of new youth players weren’t aware of him. Given free reign for rejuvenation, I decided to transform him from the dumpy, beer-swilling joke character to someone that younger players could actually aspire to.

Broad but lean, strong but friendly, and still cartoony and mis-proportioned enough to be fun, the final product took inspiration and features from the original but added a whole new aspect to him which was much appreciated by the club.

Archived Work Portfolio site for oil painter David Stone (who is...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:40:10 +0100

Archived Work

Portfolio site for oil painter David Stone (who is also my dad).

joestonearchive:

An extremely basic portfolio site offering a simple lightbox gallery for his various series of paintings.

View the site by clicking here.

New Work Following on from my Marvel Universe Family Tree series...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:30:22 +0000

New Work

Following on from my Marvel Universe Family Tree series I decided to continue the idea and expand it into other areas of pop culture. As a huge Star Wars fan, and with the news that a new series of films were to be made, it seemed like the only option.

The characters are limited purely to the film and canonical TV series’ (sorry Mara Jade fans - although I’m not ruling out the possibility of drawing up an extended universe version at some point).

Click here to view the full thing on my portfolio site, where you can also download a whole bunch of iPhone wallpapers featuring some of the most popular characters for the price of a tweet.

New Work Branding for Book Puddle, an in-development web-based...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:30:07 +0000

New Work

Branding for Book Puddle, an in-development web-based app for sharing the books you love.

Click here to see the full job on my portfolio site.

Archived Work Illustration job via...

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:13:30 +0000

Archived Work

Illustration job via Glyph.

joestonearchive:

Through my work at Glyph I recently drew a series of illustrations of children’s toys in a bright and child-like style for Red Pepper Marketing. Each toy represented a different service that they offer. I went for an especially simplistic style to give them a sense of friendly lightheartedness.

Following on from the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Avengers Family...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:36:47 +0000

Following on from the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Avengers Family Trees back in 2011, I’ve now started working on the Star Wars Family Tree. It’s hopefully going to be pretty cool. Not sure when it will be finished yet, but hopefully fairly soon.

I’ll be posting most of the characters as I draw them daily on my Instagram account, so give that a follow if you’re interested in how it’s shaping up (I also post various other work in progress shots of jobs and projects I’m doing on there too, if you’re into that sort of thing).

Veeeery nearly there on the brand identity I’ve been...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:40:35 +0000

Veeeery nearly there on the brand identity I’ve been working on (in collaboration with my main man Sam Knott) for new film production company Aura Films. Really happy with how it’s shaping up. I will elaborate at great length the thinking and process behind the design once everything is up and running.

Here are some Marvel Family Tree characters I drew that never...

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:31:47 +0000

Here are some Marvel Family Tree characters I drew that never actually got featured on any of the posters. At one point I was planning on doing a huge infographic of the entire Marvel universe with every character I could think of, but it was a pretty big job and time wasn’t on my side. It got pushed to the side for a few months while I was doing actual work, and eventually I figured that the boat had somewhat passed on the popularity of that idea. Plus I wanted to avoid being known as a one-trick pony who kept milking the same mildly successful project again and again.

That said, enough time has passed that I feel comfortable re-visiting the concept with some other ideas. More on that soon.

Archived Work Band practice...

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:03:29 +0000

Archived Work

Band practice photography.

joestonearchive:

Photography taken several years ago when I used to be in a band. We’d all get together in the drummer’s home made practice studio (his parent’s garage that was ‘soundproofed’ with lots of layers of carpet and egg boxes) and jam for hours, fuelled by beer and cigarettes.

After posting them on my Flickr account they were noticed and some of them subsequently purchased by a design studio in London for use on a major UK music body’s website.

Archived Work Zen Beauty Salon branding and...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:27:49 +0000

Archived Work

Zen Beauty Salon branding and stationery.

joestonearchive:

The logo was inspired by Japanese zen gardens, crossed with the clients desired butterfly icon. The general aim was to give the business a sense of elegance, peace and serenity, getting across the atmosphere of the salon itself.

A couple of years ago (when I was going through something of a...

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:20:00 +0000

A couple of years ago (when I was going through something of a ‘fine art’ phase) I played around with video art. The main concept I explored was the idea of capturing entirely still scenes that change slowly and subtly over the course of 10 to 20 minutes, giving the sense of a still photograph that looks slightly different every time you glance at it. Most of the results turned out to be incredibly boring and uneventful, but this one worked pretty well. The light was on my side and I managed to get my timing just right to capture the sky shifting from daytime to dusk.

I still find watching it quite therapeutic, and there are points where it looks almost beautiful (if I do say so myself). It is 15 minutes long, so if you decide to watch it and find yourself getting bored I’d suggest skipping to around 6 minutes in. That’s when it starts to look the most picturesque.

The fine fellows at the Colchester Film Festival are running a...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:15:12 +0000

The fine fellows at the Colchester Film Festival are running a series of monthly screenings showing some of the better films that didn’t get screened in Colchester’s crappy Odeon cinema. The screenings will take place in our local big golden Firstsite art gallery, and each film will be preceded by one of the shorts from last years Film Festival. I’ll be drawing up an alternative poster for each of the features, kicking off with Dexter Fletcher’s directorial debut ‘Wild Bill’. If you’re local to the area then come along on Feb 11th; it’s half the price of the Odeon, shown on a much nicer screen and is by all accounts a smashing movie.

Pretty happy with this photo I took while flying over the alps...

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:16:20 +0000

Pretty happy with this photo I took while flying over the alps on my way back from a trip to Venice (which I’ll talk about more later). Mountains are cool.

New Work In my day job at Glyph we recently completed the new...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 13:35:59 +0000

New Work

In my day job at Glyph we recently completed the new brand identity for the Football Business Awards, which is taking place at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium later this year. I got to draw a nice vector illustration and worked with my colleague Sam Knott on the logo and general identity.

The branding is based around that idea that business (the green element) has become such an integral part of how we enjoy football, if it’s taken away it alters the game entirely (the football in the logo becomes just a circle, the stadium a mere pitch). The awards were established to celebrate the unsung businesses that hold the game as we know it together.

Disclaimer: I don’t actually like football.

Very happy to announce that me and Sam Knott will once again be...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 13:51:00 +0000

Very happy to announce that me and Sam Knott will once again be working on the branding and promotional materials for the Colchester Film Festival.