We would just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their ongoing support throughout 2009. Thanks to our blog subscribers, everyone who has taken time to take part in the blog discussions and most of all many thanks to each and everyone of our clients, it has been great to work with you this year and look forward to new projects in 2010. We hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year!
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Posted in Blogging, News, Personal Projects
Well, time has certainly flown, it doesn’t seem that long ago we were designing our 2008 Christmas cards! Unlike last year, we were particularly organised this year and started designing our 2009 Christmas cards in early November. We were already developing Christmas artwork for clients so whilst we were in the full festive flow (with “Jingle Bells” playing loudly and mince pies and hot chocolate on hand) we thought we’d get down to work and create the Eightyone Christmas cards. (more…)
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Posted in Branding, Personal Projects, Print Design
We were lucky enough to enjoy a short trip to Amsterdam recently. We were taken back by the friendly people and outstanding sights and buildings. Wandering around the small side streets and Canals you can’t help but get inspired. If you haven’t been to Amsterdam before, we would both certainly recommend it.
We thought we’d share a brief selection of our photographs with you. (more…)
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Posted in Personal Projects, Photography
I was a very good girl this year and lucky enough to be given a Canon EOS 450D by Santa! In our New Years Resolution Blog Post we vowed to make more time for personal projects and I have been snapping away whenever I’ve had a free afternoon! I’ve posted a couple of pics below, but please be forgiving as apart from a couple of modules at Uni (which seems like light years ago) I’ve not had any kind of photography training. (more…)
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Posted in Personal Projects, Photography
As you are probably well aware over here at eightyone design we have a huge passion for VW campervans. We have written a couple of articles on them (When should a graphic designer stop designing? and VW campervan logo designs) and love to tinker with our own VW T25 Camper Van. We had been thinking of creating a blog solely dedicated to our hobby enabling us to write endless articles about various events we attend, camping, plans for our van as well as featuring other peoples vehicles. We finally launched www.vwcampervanblog.com last month and we are really pleased with the overall look as well as how it has been received by the VW Community. In this article we outline the design process we went through to design the blog and where we drew inspiration from.
We decided upon a vintage / retro theme as the blog would feature all different vans from 1950’s and 1960’s splitties through 1970’s Bay Window Vans and also the more modern VW camper vans.
We started at the beginning - with the logo design. Knowing we were after a retro feel we hit the usual inspiration hot spots such as Flickr. We found some great examples of vintage and retro drinks signs aswell as petrol / oil signs which we really liiked and seemed to suit the subject matter really well. (more…)
As a graphic designer, it’s very difficult to know when to stop designing. I know whenever we have a free minute to ourselves after a long day at work we immediately move on to our personal design projects. Or if there are no personal projects on the go we read design magazines and books or explore the internet for graphic design blogs or portfolios gaining valuable inspiration for the next project. Essentially, we eat, sleep and breath design. But when is it the right time to say, ‘No, I am going to stop designing and do something else’?
A good recent example came when I finished a restoration project on my pride and joy… my VW camper van. It has spent the last 5 weeks at the body shop being completely dismantled, rubbed down, primed up and re-sprayed from british racing green (with a white and maroon roof) to a much more appealing harvest moon beige.
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Posted in Graphic Design, Personal Projects
