‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it’. So spoke the eponymous hero in 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I was in North London on something of a busman’s holiday and decided this was solid advice worth heeding so headed out to do some ‘research’ into Highgate. It somehow yielded this result.
Some interesting facts about Highgate; St Michael’s Church (pictured) is the highest church in London and as you enter the church you are all but level with the cross on the top of St Paul’s Cathedral, there’s literally tons of famous people buried in Highgate Cemetery from Karl Marx and George Michael to Jeremy Beadle and Alexander Litvinchenko, the 18th century farcical oath of ‘Swearing on the Horns’ was traditionally given to visitors at Highgate pubs. If you don’t know about ‘Swearing on the Horns’ you really should check it out…
To celebrate these facts and Highgate in general I’ve produced this image. I think that’s the best explanation I can come up with for its existence. It would be good to have a proper use for it. I should probably get on with some real work…
You know Christmas is on the way when we get a call from events company Elsewhere as they need a little id-iom design pep to complete their party preparations. This year consisted mainly of design for print and laser cutting a load of bespoke Elsewhere Christmas decorations. The Party in a Pear Tree wallpaper design was used both as a wallpaper and as some giftwrap for the fake presents under the tree. It would seem id-iom is the complete design package after all…
Windmills have been around for thousands of years in one form or another but they’re not a particularly common sight nowadays. Brixton however has London’s only working windmill. It’s tucked away near the prison overlooking an estate. Originally it would have milled local flour, been surrounded by fields and been the best place to catch the prevailing wind. I know because I’ve had the guided tour.
To celebrate this hidden little gem and Brixton in general I’ve produced this image. I think that’s the best explanation I can come up with for its existence. It would be good to have a proper use for it. I should probably get on with some real work…
Now this is a story all about how Lou’s life got flipped, turned upside down and I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there. I’ll tell you how she became the ghost with white hair. It all began one morning when she was running a little late for work and decided to eat a bit of leftover takeaway for breakfast. This turned out to be a very bad decision. Within 3 hours she was dead. It’s unclear why she has been forced to haunt her old workplace for all eternity but she does it with dignity and grace. That is until she remembers the takeaway and goes into screaming banshee mode. It can certainly put you off your breakfast. That’s for sure. You may wonder why I’m telling you this. All I can say for sure is that questions are often more intriguing than answers.
With the memory of the Extinction Rebellion protests in Central London still fresh I thought I’d design a propaganda poster of sorts. The speed at which we humans are destroying our own biosphere is nothing short of astonishing. If only we could apply ourselves to less destructive activities we may even have a chance still. So, we fight because we must.
She will make a fine hot foil print. Watch this space…
Podge & Mcloughlin is my favourite skiing-based 80’s style detective show that never was. The premise would be simple. Every week Podge & Mcloughlin would somehow get themselves embroiled in some kind of complicated Alpine murder investigation and through a mix of keen detective work and comedic blind luck they’d come through in the last few minutes of the show and solve the seemingly impossible case – much to the chagrin of the lackadaisical local cops. Cue theme music and end credits.
It’s not that often that we get prints done from our digital files but this one with it’s mix of styles demanded the colours pop and the skin tones be lifelike so a professional printer seemed like the best way to go. Anyway, this bad lad is printed up at A3 and will look grand once framed. I just hope the commissionees like my treatment of their holiday picture as much as i do…
It’s pretty obvious that Sergey likes fun isn’t it? Just look at the big cheesy grin on his face. Only joking as his face is clearly a little sombre looking. Perhaps someone has just told him some unfortunate news. Anyway, we get some odd requests here at id-iom HQ and today’s commission was certainly one of those. One of our contacts on flickr got in touch and asked if we could use a photo of him and interpret it however we like. I had a look at his serious looking face and decided he needed an injection of fun to lighten him up a little. So here he is drunk on holiday in Cancun with all his spring break buddies. He’s at the front of the rambunctious pack pulling an amusing face for the camera. Go Sergey!
Sergey loves fun!
I should point out that the original photo on flickr wasn’t by me. It was by
In my experience it’s good to start them young. Hopefully this young whippersnapper will grow up to have some amazing can control if he’s starting out this young. The image is based on a photo I found on my phone of a friend’s kid looking longingly at the can of paint that I’d put on the table just within his grasp. The next shot I’ve got shows him playing with it (and don’t worry it didn’t actually have a cap on. I have added that for dramatic effect which I’m allowed to do as it’s my picture) but this is the one I like when he’s got that look of concentration like he’s working out what to do next…
So, our good friends put a picture of their new baby girl up on Facebook with a caption along the lines of ‘finally our little eskimo has arrived’. A few people thought that she was actually named Eskimo and much hilarity ensued (most of it along the lines of ‘have you really thought this through? Won’t she get grief at school?’).
At this point the muse demanded that I create a little Eskimo themed piece for them using one of their pictures of her as the basis. After some design and a bit of computer jiggery-pokery we have a little Eskimo girl outside her igloo on the frozen snowscape waiting patiently for her parents to come back with some tasty seal or arctic fox for her lunch. Now they just need to get it printed and framed and they have a nice memento of their first baby related internet gaffe. Oh how they’ll laugh in years to come…
edit: Since doing a little research after writing the post it would seem that perhaps Eskimo is a perjorative word. So, apologies to any Inuit-Yupik’s out there but the story just wouldn’t be the same if I changed it…
Since moving to London many moons ago we seem to accumulated a disproportionately large stable of PR friends. Now i’m not certainly not knocking them as I love them all and they have come in handy on more than one occasion but i’m just not entirely sure why this has come to pass or what it says about us ! Anyway, i digress…
We were commissioned by one of our friends who works for Six PR to create an image that was to be printed as an A1 poster for her office wall. It was to be PR related and had to feature the Six PR logo. That was pretty much as far as the design brief went. From there on in we just did as we wanted…
The background features the CV of the person who commissioned it turned into binary code and the Old Man has the Six PR logo for his shining left PR powerblast eye. There are also 6 sixes in different colours in the background to really drive home the Six PR point and that’s pretty much job done. I’m sure that makes it sound like it was less work than it was but coming up with the plan is always the toughest part.
The most annoying thing with this project was trying to remember throughout that the poster was going to be printed up at A1 and so the file had to fairly massive to ensure the image didn’t pixellate at all. At least we got there in the end.
Cheers
id-iom
Go to our flickr page here for a larger version of the image.
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