spray play

April 4th, 2014

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Some Matisse inspired illustrations.
Created these, by using a bit of spray pen, posca pen and some collage messing around.

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D&AD 13

November 30th, 2013

For the last year I have been designing the prestigious D&AD 2013 annual.

D&AD 13 COVER

D&AD 13 COVER

San Marino

San Marino

The process started back 10 month ago.
When I was asked by Neville Brody to design the annual.

I thought about what D&AD do and really what resonated was that D&AD showcase great talent and are a global organisation. Infact in the last 40 -50 years we have seen a shift in a very british exclusion organisation to one that has now become very global and I felt that this in particular was something I wanted to celebrate.

This being the 51st annual it needed to set the tone for the next 50 years, with this in mind I started to think about how we create and what’s the role of technology and digital media, and how does this influence how we connect in the world.

And so it seemed a great opportunity to celebrates D&AD’s role by bringing all of this altogether.

Australia

Australia

196 country illustrations on the cover to reflect creativity being open for the world. Each pattern has been generated by code from meta data and location data from the day D&AD’s entries opened for this year – that date was the 1st nov 2012.

Turkey

Turkey

To represent the country’s location in the world the patterns have a shifting horizon line reflecting a nation’s latitude, which also aims to convey a ‘new’ horizon of creativity.

The 42 represented countries that have winning work are spot-varnished on the cover and are placed in the opening section of the annual.

Pakistan

Pakistan

To continue the story you can log on to and create your own patterns based on your location. Hopefully by creating your own pattern you can be part of a living global design.

http://horizons.dandad.org/

Credits
Publisher: TASCHEN
Design mentor: Rejane Dal Bello
Code support: Jon and James Isbell
Manager: Jana Labaki

Glitchout pattern

September 17th, 2012

Inspired by my mac glitching I created this:

sound card

August 22nd, 2012

I created this pattern by experimenting with images and sound. I compressed the coloured blocks to create a sort of sound card. That could be read as a pattern but also when put into a program can be converted into sound.

code play

August 13th, 2012

Created with inkjet printer, and photocopier.

photocopier series

June 1st, 2012

I had a bit of fun playing with a photocopier today. Here I photocopied a photocopier part.

I’m thinking this could start a series, of photocopied office?

invert tube exploration 2

March 30th, 2012

I started creating patterns using the tube lines as a basis, I then made a pattern using shapes inside the lines of the tube map. I then inverted the colours to create this composition.

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another version (click to see close-up)

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More patterns

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bw tube pattern

February 23rd, 2012

I created this pattern using the tube map as inspiration, I created patterns and used this to fill the areas created by the tube lines.
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pavement tile pattern

February 13th, 2012

Last week I was walking along the pavement and I noticed that there was an interesting pattern in the way the tiles had been placed. Taking a photo I used this image as reference to create some pattern illustrations.

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patterns generated from tiles.

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pavement tile reference, taken somewhere near Caledonian rd

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tube map exploration

February 10th, 2012

Having a love for all things tube map, I decided to do a bit of exploration, below are some initial experiements.

Tubes into a bottle:

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Tube map with only the national rail logos exposed.

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using the tube lines as a guide, I created the patterns. I created patterns using the structure of the tube map, for instance the northern and central lines connect. As do the circle and district and hammersmith and circle.

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northern and central line combination.

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overground, central and northern lines.

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hammersmith and circle.

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circle and district

Wallpaper* Graduate directory

January 2nd, 2012

Jan 2012 issue of Wallpaper* featured the graduate design directory, my kraftwerk music piece was featured in the visual communication section. see here

Here is a screenshot from the Ipad app.

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pulse audio brand

January 1st, 2012

pulse audio is a music composing and sound engineer company. Given the task to create a brand, I show some initial designs below:

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All design components and logo use the frame work of the same shape, which I then used as a grid, see below.

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Field of light

December 20th, 2011

Over the Christmas break I visited the Holburne museum. Where artist Bruce Munro is exhibiting, “field of light.”
Here are some pics I took.

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I had a bit too much fun spinning the camera .

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line play poster

December 5th, 2011

I created this poster based on music waves using a photocopier and lines in inDesign.

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Sky-scrapper Patterns

December 3rd, 2011

I created this pattern using a photocopier and overlay colour modes and repeated rectangular shapes.

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Cropping into the image creates some nice results and patterns

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The original image, click to view bigger

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FLAG OF USA PLAY

December 2nd, 2011

VErsion 01.

Until 1912, there was no set design for the Stars and Stripes. This resulted in flag designs reflecting political affairs or social comment.
Taking this as inspiration I set to design 50 USA flags.

See it on the creative review feed

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Click on the image to see it bigger.
This exploration is just a play, there are no set rules, so watch this space for more designs and exploration.

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graph play montage

October 26th, 2011

Using a tumbling block graph I created the below:

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I then used some letter-pressed U’s

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Polar

October 21st, 2011

Created using photograms and polar shapes

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Creative Review profile

September 30th, 2011

Creative Review featured me in their graduate issue, sept 2011.
Click here to view.

“Equally at home with paper and ink as she is working on screen, Fleur Isbell’s design approach often combines the two within a single project. Rather than seeing analogue and digital as separate disciplines, both media are, for her, simply platforms from which to explore and play…”

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Pentagram Competetion

September 30th, 2011

As part of the emerge exhibtion which will run during design week, I was asked to enter a brief set by pentagram.

The brief asked to choose a piece of typography that came from London and express it on a landmark.
This was my response.

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Forty years ago the Beatles crossed Abbey Road and the photo taken was used for their final recorded album. Since then Abbey Road has become synonymous with the Beatles and London in the swinging 60s. It has become an iconic landmark; a shrine for thousands of fans who visit Abbey Road every year trying to replicate the famous zebra crossing pose. Analyzing a web cam located above the crossing, the poster is a representation of fans crossing on John Lennon Day 2010. Using this information, I applied it to the album lyrics of “Come Together” with the idea that fans become participants in the design creation. Every letter or character of the song equals a second represented by a bar as people step onto the crossing. These representations are black when they cross left to right and red when they cross right to left. It was interesting to note that the end result resembled a sound desk, a piece of music or a keyboard – and a zebra crossing! Other interactions are recorded on the poster key. When fans step onto the crossing they interact with the design and the lyrics. For example in the final line,’Come together’ where there are four letters, four people crossed at the same time. A further outcome would be to project the design onto Abbey Road studio; a speaker would play sound-bites from the album corresponding with the fans’ movements on the crossing creating a ‘fan-made musical score’. For instance if 3 people walk on the crossing at the same time then 3 sound-bites will play; when they pause, the sound will stop.

Creative Review illustrations

September 30th, 2011

Creative Review Magazine, asked me to illustrate their back cover as part of their Graduate special issue, Sept 2011.

This is the illustration they chose, which you can see on the back cover of the sept issue of CR

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Experimenting with shapes, textures and colour.

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Experiments

September 27th, 2011

Adjusting and experimenting the pixel dimensions I created the below image:

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I then played with shape and scale

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When I was at the Emerge exhibtion I came across work by Jamie Reid, who created “mashed-up” data file images. Taking this as inspiration, I took a Jpeg of one of my letterpress scans and open it in a text editer I then replaced the õ to a letter F, using the cmd F function.

This was the result

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Emerge Exhibition

September 25th, 2011

This week I have been involved in setting up for the emerge exhibition, where I will exhibit my user generated sound installation. Emerge are a group of designers chosen by companies in industry to exhibit their work. My work was recommended by Jim Northover of Llyod Northover, so a big thank you!

this is emerge profile
about emerge

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Video of me talking at the emerge event, explaining my designs:

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Featured in design one blog

August 31st, 2011

I was featured on the design one blog

“Design One is back to blogging after long summer with this massive young talent – Fleur Isbell. Recently graduated from Bath Spa University, Graphic Communication, Fleur is having a great eye and large scale ideas in digital experimentation. Furthermore, these experiments end up gracefully with smart modern touch, exactly within the taste radar of Design One. Besides the great visual language you may also enjoy the Isbell’s blog which is equally exciting. Indeed, the Design One blog could hardly give the full details of Fleur’s work but if it triggered your curiosity the job is well done, now switch to fleur.isbell.net and enjoy”

See here blog article, “Bath full of vision”

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d&ad Graduate academy

August 30th, 2011

This week I have been taking part in the d&ad graduate academy. Where the “top 100 creative graduates” where invited to take part a week long bootcamp. The week was brilliant, met some great people and learned loads! A big thank you to Kin design, Mother and onedotzero who ran the cascade brief and helped out, it made my week!

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What a team!

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See more here http://oneinsight.tumblr.com/
and information about the d&ad grad acad http://www.dandad.org/talent/graduate-academy

d&Ad new blood

June 30th, 2011

“The new generation rises” Thur 30 June – mon 4 july 2011
As part of D&ad new blood my icelandic book, letterpress catalog and d&ad kraftwerk illustration digital piece was exhibited.

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Bath spa stand at D&ad

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D&AD illustration inbook award

May 23rd, 2011

d&ad student awards

The brief was to CREATE AN ILLUSTRATED INTERPRETATION OF A MUSICAL TRACK THAT IS EXPERIENCED BY THE VIEWER IN AN UNCONVENTIONAL AND PIONEERING WAY.

I chose 2 Kraftwerk tracks, computer world and radio-activity.

I created a simple program that reacted to user interactions via a microphone input. I filmed the program reacting to the interactions of the 2 tracks and illustrated each frame, placing the designs onto products such as wallpaper, ties and mugs. My entry won an d&ad inbook student award.

click on the images to view my entry.

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Kraftwerk mapping sequences

May 23rd, 2011

The idea came from analogue distorted patterns. Trying to reflect electronic/anlogue/data/computers etc.

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Film sequences created by playing tracks to flash program. The flash program responds to a microphone input. Blocks flash black/white flash on/off according to amplitude/microphone detection. Sequence and timing is determined by microphone.

Click on image to view Kraftwerk “intermission” movie


Click on image to view Kraftwerk “pocket-calculator” movie


I then drew out each frame from the recording and created a mapping sequence.

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Intermission mapping sequence

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As part of the brief was to incorporate fan interaction. I asked fans of kraftwerk to listen to tracks and recorded their interaction with the microphne whilst listening to the kraftwerk tracks, I then mapped the frames and placed the mapped pattern onto ties, mugs, and items that could be used for promotion.

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To illustrate the pocket calculator track, I printed each frame, trying to match pattern frequencies.

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Calculating the frequency of frames

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I then matched the frequency of the frames to the size, thus the higher number of frame repeats the bigger the frame.

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this got a big complicated at times – my desk

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I then experimented with composition, using a photocopier to play, distort scale, invert and cut and paste.

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Letterpress Catalogue

May 22nd, 2011

I set out to catalog all the wooden type available to students. I produced a catalog book and printed banner to promote letterpress at the university.

Each spread displayed in actual size the printed font as well as name, size, style and weight information. The right page included a count of how many and what characters are available.

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A section at the front of book gave an explanation of useful tips and guide

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As well as categorizing the 67 fonts available into serif, sans slab I also catogorised a sub section with numbers, punctions and borders etc.

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A spread from the punctuation section

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The cover can be used as a ruler as the lines are drawn in pica increments. The line measurements are then carried throughout the book to help the user understand the letterpress sizes. The diagram also represents the letterpress cases in the studio.

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letterpress on a giant scale

May 21st, 2011

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I wanted to demonstrate the variety of wooden letterpress type at bath spa uni. There are 67 fonts and nearly 4,000 forms. So with help from fellow students we printed 3 letter words per font and printed a giant banner. The words chosen were randomly generated from 400, 3 letter words. I then numbered each word and used a number generator to select each word to form a 67 line poem. hopefully this reflected the often unpredictable nature of letterpress.

come see it at bath spa graphic communication uni show for the final unveiling. June 10 – 14th 2011.

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To print the 6m banner a special wooden chase was made that connected together from 3 parts. this was clamped to 3 tables. A spool with a roll of paper was rolled on top of the chase. The banner was then hand printed using a barren. Click on the images to view the process

6.5 metre banner photos

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A special thanks to Flore Diamant, Jordan wright and Lavinia Tyler who helped to print the banner.
you can view this on the creative review feed. http://www.creativereview.co.uk/feed/may-2011/21/letterpress-on-a-giant-scale