Mizotion Creative

Vinyl Crackle

admin — Sun, 15 May 2011 19:59:43 +0000

A recent design brief for a DJ naturally led me to looking at what it was about the art of deejaying that masses of people found so alluring. Speaking to various DJ’s I found that before they’d come to realise the obvious perks, controlling a pair of decks and a mixer gave them a special feeling they couldn’t quite put their finger on. To the newer generation of DJ’s a deck more than likely means a CD deck, but to the more senior DJ’s a deck almost certainly conjures up images of vinyl decks and more specifically the Technics 1210/1200.

Over the past decade distribution of music has become prominently digital and as a result you’re much more likely to see CD decks in clubs rather than vinyl decks, but speaking to DJ’s who’ve made the transition it’s clear that most don’t get the same enjoyment from playing on the former. Although CD decks have been made with the intention of replicating the functionality of vinyl decks it’s clear from speaking to DJ’s that they just don’t ‘feel the same’.

As someone who previously collected vinyls that now collects most of my music digitally I’ve noticed that the intimacy you felt with each individual record simply isn’t there with mp3′s for obvious reasons. Looking at certain records I’ve come to realise that the memories of where and when I bought them account for a lot of the satisfaction of owning them. My collection of mp3s is far bigger than my collection of vinyls but aside from one release ( J Cole – Friday Night Lights ) how I acquired them is insignificant, typing an artist’s name into a search bar on itunes is hardly memorable.

DJ’s I spoke to relayed similar sentiments, often mentioning the satisfaction of playing a record for the first time after spending weeks anticipating it’s arrival at their favourite record shops or longing for the days when a fellow DJ might look over your shoulder to see the name of a tune to be faced with nothing but a white label. The digitisation of music certainly has its pluses but one of the most obvious drawbacks is that to many people it has taken the fun out of collecting music.

With all this said I decided to produce a series of designs titled Vinyl Crackle inspired by the nostalgic sentiments many people attach to vinyl. I’ve already produced a number of the designs which I’ll be rolling out here on my blog over the coming weeks and months, the first can be seen below screen printed on a t shirt. I posted a picture of this tee and received a positive response so i’ll be making them available to buy in the near future. If you’re interested in keeping up to date follow me on twitter or join my facebook page .

Stuff & Things

admin — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:30:26 +0000

Last month I randomly dropped in at ‘Dots’, a screen printing studio based in Leeds run by some friends (check out the short video I made on them here). That night they just happened to be printing a job lot of posters for a gig by The Charlatans so I took a few pictures, the illustration was done by the very talented Sophie Primrose of ‘Stuff and Things’ who are in the process of getting themselves online.

Over the coming months ‘Dots’ and ‘Stuff and Things’ will be the subject of a few more posts and hopefully some videos to get some insight into what they do and the ideas behind their work, but for now here’s a few snaps.

Random Snaps

admin — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:30:29 +0000

Looking at the date of my last post I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last posted.

It would take me far too long to sum up what I’ve been doing in one post so before I get back in to some detailed posts I’m just going to show a few random snaps from my camera.

More detailed posts will follow on personal projects, inspirations and other creatives I’m working with will follow, hopefully in less than a year’s time.

Personal Project – Love & War IV

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:27:37 +0000

Hello it’s been a while since I posted anything on here which fortunately is a result of being busy with live projects amongst other things. I’ll be making quite a few updates to my portfolio in the coming weeks and going through my process for some live briefs but for now I’m going to update you on the Love and War personal project I started a while back. My last update on thius project documented the development of the Contego crest which is now complete so now I’m going to pick up on the process I went through to complete the Instigo crest.

I wanted the shape and composition of the coat of arms to reflect the offensive characteristics of the Instigo group, I perceive stars as being dynamic so it seemed like a good starting point. Most of the elements of the Contego coat of arms are enclosed within a shape so I wanted this coat of arms to be more expansive in contrast. Having looked at a lot of insignia I’ve taken a particular liking to emblems that are for air forces so I wanted to incorporate some elements commonly used in them, I feel these elements are in keeping with the idea of Instigo being expansive so I included some wings. I created two war flags in a similar style to the two included on the Contego crest and also added a chevron. the next step was to choose a motto that reflected the characteristics of the Instigo group, I used Latin for the Contego motto so I felt it made sense to follow suit with the Instigo motto. with that said I came across some mottos in various languages that I felt were strong, after a lot of searching and translating I narrowed it down to the following

Ducti amore –

Led by love

Toujours en avant-

Always forward

Paratus et Fidelis -

ready and faithful

Nec aspera terrent -

Not afraid of hardship

omnia vincit amor -

Love conquers all

I settled on omnia vincit amor which led me to the next stage of developing the typeface to be used. Throughout the process of I was conscious of striking a balance between the two coat of arms being similar yet distinctively different to mirror the idiom that gave me the idea for this project (all’s fair in love and war). I initially sketched a font that was completely different from the Contego typeface but I then decided to use the Contego typeface as a starting point. The defensive nature of the Contego group came across in the form of tight counter areas and thick solid strokes, I wanted the Instigo font to be more expansive so I slightly altered the proportions to make it much lighter. Once I’d finished with the font it was just a case of setting it on the coat of arms. So this is the completed Instigo coat of arms,now that the pair are completed I’m going to focus on some of the ideas that have been floating around in my head based on the concept. If you’ve got any questions or feedback feel free to leave a comment, thanks for reading.

Type Series III

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:12:12 +0000

Hello, I’ve been busy over the past week so I haven’t had time to do as many type pieces as I’d aimed.
Here’s the latest though, critical feedback is always welcome and appreciated.

Type Series II

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:04:53 +0000

Type Series

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:20:16 +0000

Hello, just a quick post to sum up a little personal project I’m starting this week. I’ve mentioned in other posts that besides design, music is one of my main interests and whilst making a beat a few days ago I had an idea. When making music I try not to think too much and just see what comes out, to ensure I don’t have much time to think I often set myself a time limit to have the basic framework of a beat down before turning my keyboard off.

With design work it tends to be the opposite as a lot of criteria have to be taken into account, so I thought it would be interesting to do a few pieces of type design under a time limit with minimal thought involved. I’m going to post a new piece every day this week hopefully so here’s the first.

As usual I’d appreciate any feedback, thanks for reading.

Video Killed…

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:07:01 +0000

I have a lot of interests, design, trainers, philosophy, history, trainers, gaming, technology, trainers, etc etc

Of course there are some interests that I actively explore more than others at different times, but no matter what or when their are a few interests that are permanent fixtures. If I was pushed to narrow it down to 3 they would undoubtedly be music, football and design.

Design is everywhere and since I first analysed a piece of typographic design a few years ago I’ve never been able to look at a letterhead since without at least one passing thought about the layout or the typeface. Football is pretty much self explanatory, 11 people on a field somewhere who can have more influence on the mood of my weekend probably more than they’d like to account for (and this season they’ve accounted for quite a few sombre ones). But music is without doubt my biggest interest and the most integral to pretty much everything I do.

I think in many ways my interest in music is a direct result of being brought up around it from an early age, Sunday afternoons have been synonymous with my mum swaying to Lovers Rock from as far back as I can remember. I inherited my mums taste for music but as I grew older dance, rnb and hip hop became my favoured genres. I’m an 80′s baby so of course I’m part of what is sometimes referred to as the MTV generation which is a reference to the time at which music video’s became largely influential.

When I was younger MTV was one of my favourite channels and like a lot of other people I used to make my own video mixtapes, lol their are certain videos even now that I can provide second by second running commentary to I’ve watched them that many times. But even though I enjoyed watching music videos I have always had an interest in music genres that weren’t accessible via the mainstream media channels, so what music sounded like always took precedence over what music looked like. As time’s gone on video’s have become increasingly influential in determining how successful an artist is and how their music is perceived.

I sometimes think that the problem now is that music is an audio artform yet it has become almost entirely visual, whereas before it seemed that video’s were used as a means of adding to the music it seems that now it’s become a way of compensating for music of poor quality. I hear people say quite often that they didn’t like a track up until they saw the video. This is probably a result of the way we tend to ~~listen~~ watch music these days, when I think of music these days I think youtube rather than radio. The increase in popularity of shows like XFactor ( :-l ) have also put what we’re hearing in the background as opposed to what we’re seeing, the entertainment for viewers seems to come in the form of the competition and the judges personalities rather than the talent of the performers. Of course what is seen has always been important in shaping people’s opinions on what they’re hearing, record companies have had marketing and styling divisions dedicated to molding the image of artists for decades but it seems that the music is becoming secondary.

I think this is why for the most part I’m drawn to music genres or artists in their early days before they’re exposed to the mainstream, the music takes centre stage because theirs very little else to sway your opinion. With that in mind I feel like I’m running a bit low on fresh music to listen to so I’d appreciate it if you’d drop me a comment, email or twitter me with any suggestions, thanks for reading.

Personal Project – Love & War III

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:33:14 +0000

Hello again I’m back with another update on my personal project. The last update I made was a breakdown of the typeface I made for the Contego coat of arms so I’m picking up where I left off with adding the text to the coat of arms. I didn’t do any work on this for a few days and when I came back to it I thought it looked a little sparse so I decided to make some changes and additions. I’d purposely left some space in the inner circle for a motto which is a common feature of military heraldry, I did some research into motto’s used by various military regiments around the world and made a shortlist of some I thought were suitable for the Contego coat of arms. Some of them are in Latin with translations at the side.

Nemo me impune lacessit – None attack me with impunity

Yesterday for today, today for tomorrow

No one comes close

Second to none

Conservo et supero – I conserve and conquer

Ever Vigilant

Protect, defend, preserve

I settled on “conservo et supero” because I think it fits in with the defensive characteristics I based the Contego coat of arms on and I also like the continuity of the Latin language influence. Surrounding the motto I was originally going to add a laurel wreath as they’re commonly featured in military heraldry and are recognised symbols of victory but I decided against it and opted for a chain which I think is more in fitting with the defensive characteristics behind Contego. It’s common for each branch of a military to have their own flag, for example the ground forces of the British military have a different flag (war flag) to that of the naval forces (roundel). Based on this I decided to create a war flag and a roundel to be featured on the coat of arms. After trying the flags on the coat of arms in various positions I added a few ruffles and settled on the one below So this is the finished Contego coat of arms (aside from any minor adjustments) so from now I’m going to be concentrating on the design of the Instigo coat of arms which I’ve already started sketching. Aside from both coats of arms I’ve got a lot of ideas around this concept which I’ll be posting about a lot more over the coming weeks and months. If you’ve got any questions or feedback feel free to leave a comment, thanks for reading.

Personal Project – Love & War II

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:58:58 +0000

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been continuing work on my personal project Love & War and I’ve got a few updates to make.

In my last update I was up to the point of my initial draft of my Contego coat of arms so the next step was to focus on the typographic elements. As mentioned in my last update the graphic style employed by the Soviet administration has influenced my work on this project quite heavily and as I looked at adding some type to the coat of arms I decided to look at some Soviet propaganda posters for inspiration. I looked at the type of numerous Soviet propaganda posters and noticed the typefaces used typically have characters with strong bold strokes, are angular in form and in keeping with the doctrine of the Soviets decorative elements are kept to a minimum. The next step was to look at typefaces with similar characteristics I could use for the Contego coat of arms. I looked at various typefaces that had a Soviet influence and narrowed it down to the four featured above but each of them had elements I didn’t like. I thought that ‘Nyet’ and ‘East Bloc’ were too compact in form and that the counter areas (hole in the ‘o’) of the characters in ‘Kremlin’ and ‘Eurocentric’ were too large so I decided to make my own typeface. In keeping with the angular style I’d employed for the coat of arms I decided to use a grid system for the characters and stick to straight lines, I also decided the characters would have narrow counter areas in keeping with the defensive theme. I’ve still got some work to do on the punctuation marks and additional characters but I’m at a point where I can continue with the design of the coat of arms, thanks for reading and be sure to check back for more updates soon.