Gone for a Burton

There’s little id-iom enjoys more than a roadtrip – especially when it’s to somewhere new – so when we got a call from Smirnoff about jazzing up the smoking area of Society Bar in Burton upon Trent we didn’t have to think too long before agreeing. After a lengthy approvals process we finally got the go ahead so packed up the id-iomobile and hit the road. It’s lucky we started straight away as it turns out that doing loads of stripes is easy when designing on a computer but surprisingly time consuming when doing it with paint. Especially when we had to work with very little access behind the scaffolding poles. Which we would have been able to remove if we brought an adjustable spanner rather than some allen keys. It wasn’t our fault though, for once, as we were told that we’d just need allen keys. Anyway, we just about managed to get it all done and you can see the fruits of our labour yourself if you’re ever in Burton.

Cheers

id-iom

Bonus: We passed through the suburb of Branston on our way out of town and we joked about Branston Pickle being from there. It turns out that it is actually the case. So now you know.

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Mass forces to the rescue!

We got a call asking if we’d like to do a little live paint as part of a company away day and as we always like a trip to the countryside we readily agreed. Apparently the Mass Forces department has had a tough year (I’m still no wiser as to what the Mass Forces department actually does) and are now bouncing back and they wanted something to reflect that. The word ‘superhero’ was bandied about. After a couple of false starts the iconic ‘Superman pulling his shirt open’ image came to mind and we were off and running with an idea. As relating to our fairly loose brief it’s got it all. Something work related, something superhero related and the words ‘Mass Forces’. On the day the weather was lovely so it all worked out pretty nicely really. We even managed to invisibly cover over the little hole that had been accidentally been put in the canvas (not by us I hasten to add). Win all round.

Cheers

id-iom

Shoulder to shoulder we stand

When we got a call asking if we’d like to come out to the countryside near Elstree and do a bit of a live paint and a graffiti workshop of kinds for a Samsung event we thought ‘why not? that sounds like fun’. Thankfully the weather was glorious as we were painting outside and over the course of the afternoon we had 22 teams come over and they had to produce a bit of artwork (either as a team or as individuals) which we would then judge with the winner taking home an original id-iom canvas. I wish my phone hadn’t run out of power as we had some great entries but the winner was the man who stayed for a good 25 minutes after his team had left in order to complete his entry. That’s dedication to the artistic cause for you.

After that we had to get busy creating the big canvas that they’d take away for their office as a reminder of their day chilling with us. How sweet. Using their ‘shoulder to shoulder’ theme for the day as our inspiration we set to work creating this bad lad. Featuring four guys wearing vests in the colour of their branding for the day, the Samsung ‘S’ as the necklace on one of the guys and the Samsung ‘A’ as the yellow wallpaper background element. Coming in at a sizeable 1.8 x 1.2 m it was fun to create but I dread to think what we would have produced if the weather hadn’t been so agreeable…

Cheers

id-iom

Something a bit more Formal

Capitalist lapdogs that we are we sometimes choose to work for actual money rather than the superior feeling that comes from being part of a wildly successful artistic team or , of course, ‘exposure’. As a case in point here’s a building company logo sprayed on the hoardings surrounding their site in an effort to deter graffiti artists from desecrating the boards. The irony is not lost on me.

Cheers

id-iom

Queen of Clubs

We offer today’s post with something of a heavy heart as it’s the first memorial piece we’ve done. It was created to mark the passing of a good friend who sadly leaves behind her a husband and two young kids. Our love goes out to them.

If you knew Ali then you knew that the most important thing to her was her family but also that she loved playing her role within the music industry. To that end we’ve created a kind of playing card design to signify her ‘Queen of Clubs’ status (obviously) featuring the Plug logo and references to her husband and kids. She was a fun loving mother, wife and daughter who was taken at far too young an age. I could try and say more but words seem to fail me.

The piece is lasercut on wood and then handpainted with the small extra heart and star elements stuck on for the final touch.

Much love

id-iom

Man at work

I was just looking for something else on my computer when I come across this rare image of the younger half of id-iom actually doing some work! I know because I took the shot. Any pics that you may have previously seen showing him doing something that looks like work will undoubtedly have been staged or digitally generated using Photoshop. What’s more incredible is that he’s also up a small pair of steps (which are just out of shot) so that makes the whole thing doubly rare. He doesn’t like using ladders at the best of times. Even small ones. If only I could remember what had driven him to such extremes. Perhaps I was suffering from whooping cough or the more dangerous man flu at the time. Who knows?

Cheers

id-iom

God save the Queen

For this commission the only instruction I was given was ‘bees’. Now that is the kind of commission I like. And this is what you get. A dwindling global bee population can only be bad news for puny humans as the bees pollinate an awful lot of the crops and flowers that we depend on for food. Without them we are somewhat doomed so it’s probably best if we take a bit better care of our little insect cousins and make sure they can continue doing their job. And, as a big bonus, they also know how to make honey (which the crystal resin on the picture is meant to represent). Without that we’d be left with wasp gravy and you wouldn’t want that on your morning toast.

Cheers

id-iom