English National Ballet Design Competition

So there isn't long left on this (just under 2 weeks) but if you are into ballet and like to draw, design, paint, crosstitch, photograph etc. etc. etc. then it could be for you.

The globally renowned English National Ballet is inviting artists to get creative and design the visual identity for ‘My First Sleeping Beauty’, the first in a series of classic ballets for children. The selected artwork will be displayed at the world premiere of ‘My First Sleeping Beauty’ in April 2012 and on marketing and promotional materials in the United Kingdom.

Participants may submit one design in JPEG or PNG format but must retain their original artwork should they be chosen as the winner. Designs submitted must incorporate the following:

• Title ‘My First Sleeping Beauty’
• Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) with dark hair
• A strong reference to ballet

The selected artwork will be produced and featured on 500,000 marketing and promotional materials, press advertisements in the United Kingdom and theatre websites for the ‘My First’ tour.

The winner will receive $2000 and will earn global exposure by having their artwork featured on English National Ballet’s website, their social media platforms and on CultureCritic.co.uk. The winner will also have the opportunity to design the visual identity for future ballets in the ‘My First’ series.

The winner (and one guest) will be invited to the world premiere of ‘My First Sleeping Beauty’ at the London Peacock Theatre in April 2012 (travel and accommodation in London are the responsibility of the winner).

Three runners up (as selected by English National Ballet and Gerald Scarfe) in addition to the highest voted artist will receive:

• Global exposure by having their designs featured on English National Ballet’s website, their social media platforms and on CultureCritic.co.uk
• $300 each

• Two tickets each to the world premiere performance of ‘My First Sleeping Beauty’ in London in April 2012 (travel and accommodation are the responsibility of the runners up and the highest voted artist)

So yeah, draw the picture, you might win a prize.

More details here.

DKNG - Design

I always get worried when I am producing my own design work that I am doing it wrong, taking influences from the wrong sources or overcomplicating the process. So when I found these videos from Los Angeles based design studio DKNG (it makes me sick too, where is my Los Angeles based design studio?) I was so pleased that I was actually designing pretty normally and although everyone has different processes it is always interesting to see how others work.

DKNG focus on the music and entertainment industries so their body of work is pretty amazing, have a look!

Poster Process - The Black Keys from DKNG Studios on Vimeo.

Poster Process - Phish (Blossom Music Center) from DKNG Studios on Vimeo.

Poster Process - The Adam Carolla Show Live! from DKNG Studios on Vimeo.

Minimalist Poster Design - Graphic Design Inspiration

I have seen so many reworked and stylized movie posters recently (including a previous post on Mark Welser)

It seems a lot of artists heavily inspired by the work of Saul Bass and are developing a similar approach at the moment, so I thought I would do a bit of a round up.

Albert Exergian

Moxy Creative

Federico Mancosu

Hexagonal

Ibrahim Youssef

Jamie Bolton

Jerod Gibson

Laz Marquez

Nick Tassone

Pedro Vidotto

Olymoss

RVLVR Project - Graphic Design

Here is an interesting graphic design concept from Marek Haiduk (although how original it is I am not entirely sure)

RVLVR is a project involving different artists from all over the world, in which everyone uses at least one of the same given pictures to create completely original artworks. It is very interesting to see the variation in design techniques and I think it is a brilliant idea to stimulate creativity and get juices (gross) flowing.

'I'm Gonna Make It Better' Typographic Inspiration From Clim

Next time you're designing a flyer of a leaflet watch this video from Clim and remember a little bit of tinkering can make your typography look so much better.

Graphic Design From Radiandesign

Radiandesign is a graphic design studio from France. They merge photo-manipulation, graphic design, logo and web design to create some pretty interesting work.

Mark Welser - Poster Design

Vintage style movie posters by Mark Welser, a comic book artist based Erie, Pennsylvania.

Two Design Competitions

I was just browsing when I found a couple of design competitions that I thought I'd share with you all:



Egency want artists/illustrators/designers to transform "ho-hum" flyers, brochures and posters into unique, well-crafted applied-artwork.

They are challenging you to enter original, creative designs for flyers, appointment cards, posters, etc. that fit one of these professions:

* Party or Event Planning
* Medical
* Professional Services (such as florist, cafe, shop, attorney, accountant)

Applicants may submit as .jpg, .gif, .png, .pdf, .psd, or InDesign and the deadline for set-one entries is January 31st 2011.

Three top winners will receive their choice of either Wacom Intuos 4 XL, Wacom CintiQ12 WX, a Macbook or $1,000 cash.

Seven additional winners will receive a Booq laptop bag.

All 10 winners will be featured in a press release announcing the results of Egency's Design Challenge.

More info here.



The next competition from the New Zealand Book Council is to design a conceptual book cover for "Parade", by Māori author Patricia Grace.

There is a lot more background information about the competition and the book including the full text on the website here:

The deadline is January 15th 2011 and the prize is $1500NZ/$1150US/£725 plus having your design published.

Denise Nestor - Illustrator

Denise Nestor is a graphic designer and illustrator living and working in Dublin. She seems to have a thing about weird rabbit heads and after looking through all of her work I now really want a stripy sailor top.
There is loads more of her work on her lovely blog here.