Wow, second post in the same day.

I must say, that doesn't normally happen. So my book is nearly finished, it's been printed and is currently being bound. I've made a poster of the spreads from the book, which I like, for my exhibition. Here it is.

UPDATE: I changed it a little to look like a receipt, as I'm going to have it attached to the top coming off a roll of paper.

So we're not allowed to eat in the studio.

So what do you do when you get told this information?

You make a poster. Like this. Just in case a scalpel falls into your sandwich.

Some Typographic Transcipture.

A double page spread of a transcript I made from a set of conversations I recorded at a supermarket between a supermarket checkout operator and customer.

My 15th Post - iTunes Top Played Song

So I got an email along with the rest of the class from the lovely Lauren Baker of Graphic Media Year 3 at Colchester Institute: School of Art & Design (and Tiny Sketchbook blog) with the following brief:
"Most people have an ipod/mp3 player of some sort. If you don't, you get to make yours up ;) in your itunes/media player of choice there should be a 'top 25 most played'. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to illustrate your most played song (which is technically your favourite song, i suppose) ... a few people asked if they could make theirs up and of course there's no way of telling whether you do or not, but it makes it more fun if you don't lie and we all know if martyn's isn't a girls aloud song then he's definitely bending the truth a little (I'M KIDDING)."

I'm not going to say I was overly happy with the last bit, but I guess it's slightly true :P (but unfortunately, I didn't have Girls Aloud in my Top 5 :( (the highest was number 27 as a matter of fact).

So I had the idea for mine whilst in bed with manflu, I had a rough idea, but then adapted to be in a similar style to a designers work that I found online that I liked. I thought this would be a great opportunity to experiment with something a little different to what I've done before too. I wanted to make the songs look a bit like movie posters, with a line of the song as if it were a tagline, and a really simple three-colour colour scheme with only text and blocks or lines of colour as the image.

I have uploaded them in the order of my Top 5 on iTunes :)

A complete little part of my book

This is the first part of my book that I have designed. It is for my Final Major Project and is a piece that I will photograph within the supermarket. The idea is that all the offers are rubbish, but the overall look emulates the styles that are used. By copying this style, it will mean the reader may be initially unaware of the subtle changes, as I have focused of language that is normally used within this environment, such as Buy One Get One Free (Buy One Get None Free) and Two For The Price Of One (One For The Price Of Two). I've used darker colours as I don't want the offers to stand out, whereas normal supermarkets use bright primary colours to attract attention. And although the overall project idea is to hightlight crap things that go on in supermarkets, doing so in this subtle, dull coloured way reflects the complete opposite of what supermarkets stand for.

My Shiny New Website

I just redesigned my website www.martynhazell.co.uk.

End of Year Exhibition Promotion.

This is my deskspace. I used my Macbook Pro at the center of the image, because I feel that I couldn't do any work without it. I used books to the left and redesigned their covers with quotes that related to my studio practice (even thought you can hardly see them). I displayed my typeselecter as it shows my interest in typography, and having diet coke and a donut in the foreground, it showed my love of fizzy drinks and unhealthy food. I wanted my desk to have a slightly cluttered feel, but at the same time be quite organised, because that is the way I work. Displayed on my laptop is my website (www.martynhazell.co.uk), and the sheets in front of the books are my CV designs. Draped over the chair is my Harry Potter 'Gryffindor' scarf, with my Harry Potter book in display on the stack of books. Finally, I used two images on the wall, the photo of a group of us meeting the legendary Neville Brody and a quote that I find really relates well to my practice and my dissertation.

The idea behind the desk space photographs for promotion was when Neville Brody at a lecture in November 2009 said that many degree courses in design have limited class space, let alone an individual desk space... of which we have :). This, therefore, does not just reflect our own way of working, but the college as a whole.

Photograph taken by Laura Potter, you can view her brilliant work at: www.laura-potter.com, or visit her blog http://laurajpotter.blogspot.com/.