Sonnenzimmer - Didactics: Warp and Weft: Poster Construction + Formal Additive Programs

SONNENZIMMER (2015) Didactics: Warp and Weft: Poster Construction + Formal Additive Programs. Chicago: Green Lantern Press

Didactics finally arrived in the library last week and I've been giving it a peruse for the last few days and can safely say it is the most insane book on design I have ever read. It gives a really detailed report on Sonnenzimmer's various event poster designs in terms of project information, connection between the visuals and the event/music, and the composition, including intended line of sights and areas of interest. Along with each of these is provided a short exercise for the reader to carry out in order to inspire a creative process of their own.

The last part of the book, 'Formal Additive Programs', takes the reader through a process of deconstructing a drawing in order to produce something completely new. I'm excited to begin trying out some of these exercises myself as part of my studio practice.

I tweeted my screen print to Grimes as it seemed like the most accessible way to contact her, but I think she might have ignored it. At least this was a good opportunity to make a twitter account as another platform to have for my work.

I also found her tour manager, Karen Soskin on Linkedin and sent her a message about the poster but never heard back. Oh well

Tutorial with Patrick

This was really useful:

• Off the back of the lecture with Good Wives and Warriors, advertising has become quite an attractive pathway for me to take in the future. Look into contacting advertising agencies/companies. (Blinkink/art, BigActive)
• D&AD type briefs are very much advertising based. These are a good way to get myself thinking in terms of the field. Have another look at the briefs and really try and un-pick them. Think about the creative side of things first, and then stick the product in there. Think outside of my box.
• This leads into me needing to think bigger. Never consider an image finished - always think about how I can improve it or change it. This includes screen prints if I want to improve them for portfolio purposes. i.e. Grimes
• Being an illustrator/designer and being a printmaker are two different things and skill sets. Don't worry too much if I don't become a master printmaker as long as I'm a good designer, as the designs are looking good even if the prints aren't top notch.
• Be more ambitious/experimental with the screen prints - prepping paper by hand before printing onto it might yield interesting results and unique one-off prints
• Be more positive about my work so as to not make it lose value.

Studio practice related:

• Re-evaluate where War Horse images are going - they are at risk of seeming to patronising at the moment as they are not saying unique that the text isn't already. Look at graphic industrial aesthetic of the early 20th century. Re-think colour palette.

Maintaing a screen printing practice

So I want to keep screen printing after I graduate and have already mentioned East London Printmakers' Studio which I want to purchase membership to. I'm looking at their prices list to see how affordable it is, and they also have a list of other materials vendors.

https://www.eastlondonprintmakers.co.uk/about-us/price-list/
http://www.cadisch.co.uk/screen-printing-inks/Default.asp?whichpage=2

Buying 500ml of System 3 acrylic seems to be chapter to get directly from these guys than even Cass Art which is surprising.

• 500ml of System 3: £9.00 from East London Printmakers
• 1l of System 3 binder: £10.84 from Cadisch. Slightly cheaper than buying 2x500ml from ELP (though it would probably be more economical to buy their 5l for the long run)
• 500ml ink pots: £0.40 from ELP, though I can provide my own tuppleware. 
• 3M brown tape x2: £2.49 from Amazon, cheaper than ELP
• A1 200gsm Stockwell cartridge paper from ELP: £0.40 per sheet
• A1 370gsm Lambeth cartridge paper from ELP: £.0.55 per sheet (if I want to make prints on thicker stock)

• Emulsion from Cadisch: £2.87 per 100g, available at 900g for £25.89
• Emulsion from ELP: £2.65 per 100g, available 1kg for £26.50

• Therefore, emulsion is cheaper from ELP.

You can hire screens from ELP per day/week which I'll probably start out doing. Prices start at £2 going up to £7 depending on size.

You can pay per emulsion coating as well starting at £1.50-£2.70 depending on screen size

If I want to buy my own to save money in the long run:

• A3 kit including Stretched mesh and squeegee - £59.00 (+£54.84 for a second screen if I want to be printing two colours, which I do)

At the very least, my first 2 coloured, A3 screen print using my own materials would cost:

• screen hire/week = £8
• 3x500ml of System 3 = £27.00 (3 because of the need to mix colours, though will probably require more)
• 1l of binder = £10.84
• 1kg of emulsion = £26.50
• 1 x brown tape = £1.24
• 10 x A1 stockwell cartridge paper = £4.00. This equates to 20 A2 sheets to print on for a 20-edition run

£77.58

If I don't bother buying my own emulsion and use it per coating, this becomes £51.08.
The thought of carrying around lots of ink and a kg of binder sounds cumbersome so it might not be worth the effort at the very beginning.

Good Wives and Warriors lecture

http://www.goodwivesandwarriors.co.uk/New_2010/home_frame.htm

These collaborative designers were interesting to hear speak, although it was obvious that they carried out their process very differently to what a purely illustrative practitioner would.

Hearing them talk about their process for this book cover is interesting, and while it seems that they just tried to throw as many concepts in as they could, it doesn't detract from the overall image, as I suppose it lends itself to their ultra detailed way of working. I don't think I'd manage to make something like that work quite as well, nor would I try as I think making simpler images with a strong concept is more interesting.

Some interesting things from their talk:

• One of them did an internship working for an illustrator called Hannah Stouffer, which I found very interesting since you don't hear about illustration interns that often. I asked her about it, and apparently it involved a lot of "shaking her posca pens" for her and other little errands. However, she did say that by observing her she learnt a lot about dealing with clients and was surprised at how much she was charging for her work, since she didn't know an illustrator could acceptably charge that much.
• Publishing jobs don't pay very well - a couple hundred pounds maybe. Advertising pays a lot of money - This swatch brief got them £17,000. The amount of work you do is hardly ever proportionate to the amount you get paid.
• They work as Good Wives and Warriors only 3 days a week. Their other jobs are textile designer for Topshop, and artist assistant in a studio. They said that working only 3 days a week as Good Wives and Warriors lessens the pressure they feel to keep it highly commercial and allows them to be a bit more experimental and do their own personal, more 'fine art-y' projects.

Portfolio session with Patrick

General notes from the session:

• 10 pieces in your portfolio is a good start - never more than 20. 
• The most comfortable size for the portfolio is A3 - big enough but not too big.
• Start positive and end positive - i.e. good pieces.

• When meeting a client, do a lot of research behind them, specifically the person you are going to meet. 
• Don't just bring whatever you think they want to see or think they want, but other stuff that they might be interested in. You can get a sense of control and push them in a creative direction.
• Before a meeting, ask them if they want you to do anything, for a 'creative steer'.

• Testimonials look good on a website along with a client list

AUDIT my body of work and find 10 core pieces:

http://issuu.com/es251397/docs/10_pieces

I'm not totally happy with all these pieces, and this task has made me realise that I really don't have much work to show from the last 2 years, which is why I'm hoping to rectify this ASAP with Extended Practice.

• Manuel Gottsching screen print poster (level 6)
• Flight Facilties screen print poster (level 6)
• Grimes screen print poster (level 6)
• Mind Melter screen print poster - competition brief (level 5)
• Waking Life movie poster - competition brief (level 5)
• Vice Rule Britannia animation D&AD competition brief https://vimeo.com/123204993 (level 5)
• Ubiquitous Mobility picture book about the overabundance of technology in society http://issuu.com/es251397/docs/cop_book (level 5)
• Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka series of book covers and box set http://issuu.com/es251397/docs/505_presentation_boards (level 5)
• The Judgement by Franz Kafka inner illustration (level 5)
• Light for Leeds College of Art student magazine (level 6)

All images were completed in 2015, but I have a feeling that by 2016 nothing from level 5 will be something I will want in my portfolio. I'm not really sure what I was doing in level 5 but I don't really like much of the work I produced that year anymore. I think this is good though because it means that I'm pushing myself even more this year to produce good, professional-level work.

I have this image that I screen printed in first year which I am still quite pleased with. I would consider putting it in a portfolio at this stage, but the screen prints themselves were A1 in size and the colours were far from what I intended originally. And while the registration was mostly good, only a few of the prints were aligned straight on with the paper:

So in total I have one piece from first year that I would maybe consider 'good'

and only a few from second year which I would consider 'acceptable', which places a lot of pressure/importance in this final year.

Little White Lies - Cate Blanchett

LWL have a creative brief to draw Cate Blanchett as her new character Carol. 

I'm pleased with the technical quality of the drawing, but I didn't really know what to do with the portrait once I had drawn it, or how to really turn it into an illustration, making for an image that is lacking in substance.

I guess this was just a nice exercise in technical drawing/inking.

House of Illustration: E.H. Shepherd - An Illustrator's War

I went to an exhibition at the House of Illustration on the weekend which featured drawings by E.H. Shepherd during the war. Most notable was that these drawings were done on the front lines from life. 

Some of the illustrations still managed to retain some of Shepherd's light-hearted cartoony tone which I think made his images about war particularly special.

The image above was my favourite drawing of the exhibition as I feel that, even though the colours are really muddy, it captures the atmosphere of trench warfare really well.

It was also really interesting how he was used to go ahead and draw the landscape and approximate the distances, which he would mark on his drawings with a ruler for the troops to determine better where to fire artillery fire.

I want to apply some of the skills I saw in his work as a draughtsman to what I produce specifically for my entry to the Folio Society War Horse competition. His figures are incredibly gestural and show a lot of emotion. Perhaps I should also try and be more light-hearted in my tone in order to make my images less predictable.

Victo Ngai

Victo Ngai came and gave some really insightful comments on her practice and the discipline of illustration in general.

I think one of the most interesting things that she said was to find the difference between what you like doing, and what you like looking at. This is what helped her realise that she was more inclined to drawing rather than painting, though she could still take inspiration from painters. I think that I have yet to make this differentiation which is why I'm so unsure about where my work is going or what it looks like.

Editorial:

• Reverse-engineer editorial briefs so that you can draw what you want to draw - how can a desire for drawing animals translate into an appropriate solution to a business/economic article?
• Use the edge of your page to imply the scope of your ideas
• Even if you are illustrating a serious subject, make your work whimsical to try and encourage your readership and make them feel better about something. This is what she did for her illustration about breast cancer

Illustrating for books/stories:

• It's all about picking the right moment - in this illustration she unpicked a scene that only really made sense after reading the story - the composition divides the illustration and reflects the woman's wants/desires to be free from her husband and how far apart they had grown. I hadn't thought of using big compositional shapes like this to communicate themes before and found it really interesting.
• Hiding faces hides emotions, makes the reader want to read the story.
• In this poster the composition centralises the main female character, but the small size of her juxtaposes this and conveys the themes/message of the movie.
• Consider what including/omitting certain objects in the composition implies.

Advertising:

• Keep fulfilled by doing something personal while doing something really corporate.

general:

• Vertical perspective is the type of perspective in old Chinese paintings in which things further away were just put on top of closer objects.
• Find something you want to draw and make up a story for it to give yourself some context/inspiration.
• As long as your visual vocal and language is consistent you shouldn't try to make everything realistic.
• Picking colour palettes from others is only a starting point - will probably have to add/change it to make it work/more personal. Take palettes from paintings too.
• Take inspiration from a wide variety of sources to get yourself a more unique 'Frankenstein' outcome.

Bendik Kaltenborn

Bendik was at Thought bubble this weekend and I'm trying to make up for the silly mistake I did of booking a weekend away at the same time by e-mailing him and others.

I'm trying to e-mail people who will help share insightful comments on their design process which will push my work forward or change the way I think about things

Sonnenzimmer

update: they did reply, apparently such questions are answered in their book 'Didactics', which I've sent a request for in the library. Looking forward to giving it a read when it comes

http://sonnenzimmer.com

I've been obsessed with these guys' work for the last week or so, especially since what they're doing is inspiring me for my screen printed posters brief for Extended Practice. I sent them an email asking a bit about their design process and practice. Hopefully they reply.

Linkedin

I'm trying to get the hang of Linkedin, but it's difficult to remember to keep checking up on it. I'm accepting invitations to connect with other designers but am struggling to come up with interesting or relevant questions to ask them.

I did message one guy from the Czech Republic called Miroslav Lakosil because he had a sketchbook of his published on Amazon as an ebook which I found very interesting.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fineliner-Sketching-Workout-Sculptures-Victoria-ebook/dp/B00VIQLFDG
Apparently publishing an ebook on Amazon is as simple as uploading a PDF which they convert for you.

I'm gonna keep trying to remember to check up on my Linkedin everyday or so. Alongside this I'm also gonna try and keep my Behance up to date as I haven't touched it since second year.

Little Paper Planes

http://blog.littlepaperplanes.com/

This is a really nice blog with some really nice design and illustration

Career Track Tuesday - 27th October

Finding a job - Alternative Ways of Job Hunting

I went to this Careers Track session, and while a lot of the stuff that was taught had already been covered by John, such as ways of getting yourself out there and networking, there were a few points which I did find really interesting:

• The "hidden" job market - only about 30% of all available jobs are advertised publicly. The other 70% are got through employers contacting people they know first before bothering to ask outside their network. 
• The vacancy filling process from the employer goes something like this: Lateral moves or internal promotion > Contacts from existing staff > Networking /Word of mouth > Professional organisations > Recruitment agencies/Job centres > Adverts/Websites
• Most people look for jobs starting from the red, whereas employers employ from the green downwards
• A lot of university websites don't restrict access to their careers prospect sections. It's worth having a look through them, particularly those for University of the Arts London. I was given a very long list at the session which I'll be going through

It was also another kick to start emailing people. I've set myself a deadline to contact House of Illustration and Shotopop, a design agency that John told me about, before Christmas. I also want to have a chat with Mike in the print room about his experience at a print studio before coming here.

NEST Magazine submission

I submitted this image to the latest issue of the Leeds College of Art student magazine, NEST. The theme of this issue is "light", and so I decided to make an image that plays on childhood fears of the dark, and how kids naturally feel safer in the light.

I designed it with an isometric view which I've never done before, but really enjoyed. I haven't heard back from the editor whether it's been accepted or not, but if it has I'm looking forward to seeing it in print in December, bound with other students' works.

update: They did!

https://instagram.com/p/9iivDDwv2F/?taken-by=flightfac

I genuinely like these guys and their music, so to know that they enjoyed my work is great. They also have my email address if they ever want anything done!

I e-mailed Flight Facilities this poster I designed for OUIL603, hopefully they receive/like it.

Nice posters

http://www.admrwe.com/posters.html

Screenprint

Risograph/laser

For OUIL603 Brief 1 - really nice incorporation of text and image. 

I emailed a couple of agencies with a question

My biggest concern about my practice is my lack of a concrete tone of voice. I already mentioned that I've looked at some agencies but that I didn't want to contact them with a portfolio because of this, so I emailed Heart and Central Illustration Agency to instead ask about the importance of style/tone of voice. They got back to me the next morning:

They both say pretty much the same thing, that a style is a must for agency representation. But the emails were still useful and encouraging - Tess from CIA reminded me that most illustrators they sign have been in the industry for years so have had more time to develop their practice and Helen explained why a 'style' is so important, as well as recommending a book that I now intend to read.

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/october/i-think-readers-are-hungry-for-honest-stories-about-relationships-editor-daniel-jones-on-the-new-york-times-modern-love-column/

Found this article on Creative Review that has some really lovely animation which makes me want to try my hand at animation again this year.



New York Times - Modern Love from Moth on Vimeo.

House of Illustration

http://www.houseofillustration.org.uk/get_involved/become-a-volunteer

I knew about the House of Illustration competition that is on yearly, but I never really bothered to investigate the organisation itself. Turns out that it's a proper gallery in Kings Cross quite close to where I live in London.
They don't have any jobs open but they do have opportunities for volunteering, which I think sounds like a lot of fun when I go back home during easter and maybe after I graduate.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Guardian Brief

I don't normally do editorial illustration because I find it hard to come up with snappy conceptual images to accompany writing, but I thought this would be a worthwhile brief to take on at the beginning of the year.
The three articles to be illustrated were on

• Creating a perfect portfolio
• Careers in the arts and creative industries
• The revival of crafts and analogue methods in a world if digital advancements

I chose to not illustrate these articles literally, with the potential for overlap in concept between the images. I'm happy that I chose to also use mostly traditional means for the images, utilising coloured pencil, ink and cut paper. This mixture of traditional media is something i would like to do more of in my work.

Level 6 Creative Strategy

Having been thinking about what I will focus on in Level 6 over the past few weeks, I have come up with a few very simple plans for what I will do with the year

• I want to begin and try identifying which aspects of my work I really enjoy producing and what aesthetics I feel are most successful and true to myself. This will be in hopes of being able to brand myself more accurately and build up a more consistent portfolio.

• I'm going into Level 6 with the same desire to pursue book illustration that I left Level 5 with. In order to become more adept at translating text into illustration, I want to push my conceptual image-making much further. I want to be able to say more with less convoluted images. This is key to making a good book cover, and I've been reading a lot of articles as it is related to my COP project.

• Having looked at a couple of print studio websites, I feel like this would be a fun and useful venture for me to undertake after my studies. Therefore, I want to become as experienced as I can in printmaking. I'm not sure I want to delve too deep into etching again this year, but lino and screen print are two mediums I'm excited to pursue further this year, especially after how well screen print has gone for me in the past.

• Self promtion: My promo pack at the end of Level 5 was silly and contrived - I'm going to focus on products that are simple to produce and practical - a more professionally produced set of business cards, stickers and post cards will probably suffice. Things like stickers can be distributed more informally on the street, bathrooms, etc.

Print Studio

https://www.eastlondonprintmakers.co.uk/membership/join-us/

Discovered this print studio which offers yearly memberships to printmakers at a very good price. I'm interested in print, and if it's the direction I want my work to go in, it's good that I've found this studio in London which I could potentially join in order to facilitate my practice.

Members also get a page on the website that has a showcase of some of their work, plus there is an annual exhibition of members' work. I feel like this would be a  nice place to get a little bit of exposure in a studio environment somewhat like that here.

Agencies

I think agencies are an interesting way forward when you begin a freelance career. I've been looking at a few, such as Heart and CIA but what worries me is my lack of a specific tone of voice. I feel like that's something all the illustrators with agencies seem to have, and is what makes an agency want to represent them. I want to use the early parts of Level 6 to try and develop more of a tone of voice before I bother contacting any agencies.

An MA in Illustration?

Thinking more about my options for after Level 6, I have considered the possibility of doing an MA. The MA Creative Practice course at Leeds College of Art doesn't seem suited to me as I want something that is specific to illustration in order to really build a better understanding of the discipline.

http://aub.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/ma-illustration/

The course at AUB sounds like it has similar aims and goals to what we try to achieve at Leeds, but I imagine it will take it much further and expand on any questions I may have about my practice by the end of this year.
However I have to admit that part of my reasoning for wanting to undertake an MA is simply the security that a structured course can provide after I graduate. This may not be the best reason to throw myself into this, and reading the description of the course makes it sound like people who take some time away from studying to see where they're going would benefit the most from returning to university at a later date with more structure, should they need it.

Uniqlo t-shirt competition

Got an e-mail from D&AD about a t-shirt competition from Uniqlo. I entered a Star Wars t-shirt competition for them last year. I didn't win, but it was fun and I was pleased with what I came up with. This time the competition was about what London means to me

I took a vector approach because I thought it was the easiest way to make the bus image appealing enough to go on a shirt. It's not really what much of my work tends to look like, but I had fun making it and am pleased with the end result. 

I feel like it has a bit of a simple, but stronger concept behind it compared to other things I have done.

This is an aspect of my work I can hopefully work on in Level 6

Travel

I did a bit of travelling this summer and tried to keep a sketch book that I regularly drew in

These are some drawings from my family holiday to Ecuador. I bought a set of colouring pencils before Summer because everyone else on the course made them look fun, and it turns out they were. I don't know how they'll factor into more finished illustrations, but they make sketchbooks look nice.

Final PPP2 presentation

My final presentation in which I talk about my journey this year and a few hopes for Level 6

Final promo pack

I'm pleased with the promo pack - having a physical product that represents and promotes your practice is incredibly satisfying.
I'm particularly pleased with the beer bottle and the label, though it's a bit of a tricky object to post along with the pack. I imagine it would be used more for in-person drop offs and meetings, but I think it looks really nice and is something that would really stand out.

With the A6 prints, I was really unsure whether to put a breadth of work that I do in, or get all similar looking illustrations - the images I put in are images I enjoyed working on, in visual styles I enjoying working to. I've heard a lot of illustrators say in Big Heads that you shouldn't put anything you don't enjoy doing in your portfolio, so I think I'm safe in this regard. I still don't think I'm developing as much of a tone of voice as I'd like to be, and these can be interchanged very easily, so I think what I've put in there suffices for now.

I'm also pleased with the box design - it's minimal, but I think is very neat and slick; matching my business cards too. I think maybe next time I might choose thicker stock though - I used 200gsm since I've seen other people try to fold 300gsm before and it was a bit tricky - maybe I should've just gone with it anyway though.

Bad things:
Business cards are off-center on one side
Coasters are rough (evaluated below)

Finalising beer bottle label

https://www.croxsons.com/uploads/pdf/7050248fb5db3f1d66c4934b5224af2998c9e0cc.pdf

Found this handy PDF - since I've already put the measurement "330ml" on my beer bottle, may as well make the label to that size according to the standards laid out by this image.

Updated business card design

Since the Creative CV is going on the pack itself, the proposed design I did for it is no longer relevant, but I thought it was a really striking image. I decided it would work well as a business card, so I updated the designs I did as I felt that my previous design wasn't that interesting - it's not something I would look at and feel immediately drawn to pick up.

However I still wasn't pleased with the back and was unsure it was a nice layout, so updated it one more time:

Although it's a different orientation to the front, I think the text is a lot nicer looking. I debated for a long time whether it needed the border or not, and in the end decided it was going to stay

Promo pack net

Since I've decided I want to include some A6 prints in my promo pack (and these will be the largest objects in the pack), the pack will have to be big enough to accommodate this with room to move:

I'm also using the promo pack itself as a mini creative CV, as there's not a whole lot of information relevant to my practice that I could fill it with - I feel that what I can put on the pack itself works for me.

Coasters

Since I couldn't send my designs off to be made, I had to use grey board and sticky back plastic. This has made for some really rough looking coasters, but I suppose they work for demonstration purposes. I've never really used sticky back plastic before, but I'm pleased that I was able to make these with minimal bubbles and scoffs.
They're functional as coasters, even if they're not the most well produced ones in the world.

 Action shot

Making the promo pack

I looked through this Issuu of nets for things to make my promo pack out of. I tried to assemble one box roughly, but didn't really like the way it looked. 

I decided to just design my own net, and so I went for a folder design, rather than a box:

Ordering coasters

https://www.thirstys.co.uk/

I found this website which offers relatively cheap prices for printing out beer mats. I sent off a request for a sample pack to see whether they were good enough for what I wanted out of my products, but unfortunately they never got back to me. Having waited so long, I'll just have to come up with a way to make the beer mats myself with whatever materials I can get my hands on.

Beer label

In the last PPP session, John said I should try and play up the fact that I like beer and see how it can influence what goes in my pack. A good idea would be to make a beer label that I apply to a real beer bottle and leave behind as a little reminder of who I am in a more creative way.

I looked at several typical beer labels, particularly old-fashioned ones or ones for really old brands since I like the elegance their label design tends to have. The main  I was also really keen on having a round element to the design in order to make the shape more interesting:

I've been trying to keep a sense of consistency between all my products in terms of design and colour. I've designed this label mostly using the same shade of grey as on my other products, but I feel that perhaps for this a splash of colour may be necessary, as if it was a real beer label it would obviously have to stand out on the shelf.

I decided to use it as a mini creative CV by including my areas of creative interest and a list of software that I'm confident in using.

Creative CV initial idea

Really like the idea of a multi page CV, or rather just double sided. I made these as potential front covers. I think they're pretty punchy

Creative CV

I have been looking at Creative CVs and found this site in general to have the best compilation of them that I've found: http://designrfix.com/inspiration/50-great-examples-creative-resumes

In the above presentation I've picked out the ones which have resonated with me the most. I want to try and avoid textual clutter as much as possible. While researching Creative CVs, I've been incredibly put off by the ones which are just stacks of text (and there are a lot of them). I'm intrigued by the one that folds into a box and the one disguised as a medical kit (though that's more of a whole promo pack, which makes for good research in that area anyway).

Sticker designs

I'm really into all this circular design that I'm starting to incorporate in my promotional material. Of these stickers, I think perhaps the 3 less colourful ones are more striking than the coloured one, but on the whole I'd be happy to print these stickers and distribute them as I see fit.

Stickers

I think stickers would be a nice thing to include in the promo pack as they are some of the most effective kinds of ephemera that you can distribute. I want to unify the designs I've been making so I'm using the same grey colour and portrait as the business card, except simplifying it to a b/w image.

I did the general design on Illustrator and now have this template to make variations with:

Coaster idea

When I went to Drew Millward's exhibition "Dust" at Colours May Vary, I picked up one of his business card-like coasters and thought it was absolute genius. This has inspired me to make my own coasters.

My idea is to make a series containing facts about beer since I like to drink beer.