Posts in Cat: / Media
Kinnegar Brewing is a brewery in Donegal set up by Libby Carton and Rick LeVert. Before becoming the beer magnates that they are now, Rick and Libby ran one of the most respected and highly regarded design consultancies in Ireland – Carton LeVert. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was a wet-behind-the-ears NCAD Visual Communication graduate, I was lucky enough to be offered a design position with them, which was the making of me! I was delighted to work with Rick and Libby on their latest venture creating a range of marketing material for their beers – which have wonderfully quirky names such as Yannaroddy, Rustbucket, High Glen, Limeburner, and Wallawalla!
Instagram just commissioned this from me as part of their International Pride Wall campaign – an initiative where they have selected work from a series of artists to get Pride themed art into Facebook’s London offices. Happy Pride, Everyone!!
Leo and Mark Kinsella-O’Shaughnessy were the first same-sex couple to announce their engagement in the Irish Times, after the successful Marriage Equality referendum on May 22nd last year. A year later, and we are just back from their amazing celebration – in blazing French-Riviera-style sunshine – at Castle Leslie, for which I had the honour of designing their invitations and wedding stationery.
In the immortal words of Brendon Marczan, ‘If this is the new normal, where one throws a celebration for 200 of your family and closest friends, where you get married at a castle where a Beatle married his supermodel girlfriend, then that’s a ‘normal’ I’m glad to be part of!
This year was the first that I made over to OFFSET, the highly regarded design and creative conference which has been held ever year in Dublin since 2009. Previously I had been put off due to timings but had no reason to miss it this year – and how glad I was that I didn’t. The three days of talks have been a serious wakeup call for me in terms of my own work, and how I am going to move forward with it.
What I am realising is that the emotional journey and background of the creator is just as important as the work itself – and sharing this with an audience- which is something that I really have to work on! Highlights for me were Stephen Kelleher’s beautiful animation and photography; Morag Myerscough’s joyful, vibrantly colourful sculptures and installations; the quirky, buzzing character design and animation of TADO, and the foulmouthed, hilarious genius of Mr Bingo.
I am now going away to have a long hard think about what I am doing and where I am going…….
Heres a wee cracker of a project I worked on earlier in the year. On Friday May 22nd, Ireland voted a resounding YES to extending marriage rights to same-sex couples – the first country in the world to do so by popular vote!
And subsequently, my friends Leo and Mark’s engagement was the first to be announced in the Irish Times, as a result of the Yes Result. Truly momentous!
I’m getting as much value as possible out of my Netflix subscription; having just watched the entire three seasons of ‘House of Cards’……again. And my favourite character of all is Claire Underwood, the ruthless, cunning, and conniving First Lady. I can’t wait to see what mischief she will get up to in Series 4, which unfortunately won’t air until next February……………….
This month, GQ FRANCE is all about rugby, and how the dual nature of the sport, brute force and respect, is viewed as the ideal template for how to operate within a corporate environment. This interesting anecdote also came up:
South Africa, Rugby World Cup, 1995. France defeats England for the third time. After the game, the English team decide to drown their sorrows at a pub/restaurant called Ed’s Diner, unaware that the French team had also chosen this place to celebrate their victory. Things could have turned ugly but instead the two teams bonded through a series of drinking games and a riotous food fight.
If I had known that this sort of thing went on rather than just simply stumbling around in the muck in the Navan Road sports grounds, I might have stuck with it during my formative years in Belvedere………there’s NOTHING like a good food fight………
Exciting! My Jameson St. Patrick’s Day 2014 bottle design has been chosen for Gail Anderson’s fantastic new book ‘Outside the Box: Hand-Drawn Packaging from around the World’- published by the Princeton Architectural Press. It’s released on October 6th and you can pre-order it on Amazon….
The story of the emotional turmoil experienced by a gauche herd of rural cows when they are joined by a sophisticated, high maintenance ‘city cow’, ‘City Sue’ is a storybook collaboration between Kerrygold Butter, children’s author Jeanne Willis and me! You can also view an animated version of the storybook online at www.kerrygold.co.uk, narrated by the one and only Chris O’Dowd……..
Jameson, the world’s favourite Irish whiskey, have commissioned me to design their St. Patricks Day 2014 Limited Edition Bottle. The bottle will be available to buy in travel retail outlets and will be on sale in over 40 markets worldwide, including Russia, Japan and Australia, from February 2014.
Earagail Arts Festival have just commissioned me to provide the illustration for the cover of their 2012 brochure and website.
The festival is a bilingual (Irish and English language), multidisciplinary arts festival which takes place every July throughout County Donegal on the North West Atlantic seaboard of Ireland. The 24th festival will take place between 7th and 22nd July 2012. International and local artists involved include Toumani Diabate and Liam O’Maonlaí, Donal Lunny and Cór Thaobh a Leithid, The Henry Girls with The Fox Hunt, Victor Gama and An Cosán Glas, Inishowen Gospel Choir and Moya Brennan.
Promotional Image / Earagail Arts Festival 2012
Earlier this year, Prime Minister David Cameron commissioned a report from retail guru and TV presenter Mary Portas on the current state of the British High Street, and thus hopefully gain some insight as to why they are in decline. The report was produced by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, features illustrations by me, and can be viewed here.
As I’m sure most of you know, BP’s ruptured oil well is currently spewing approximately the daily equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico – and BP have still not managed to cap it. Greenpeace are currently running a BP logo ‘redesign’ competition – here is my entry.
Editorial / Sex and the City Special; Harpers Bazaar Japan
Just finished a series of images for a feature in Harper’s Bazaar Japan centred around the upcoming release of the new Sex and the City movie…. can you recognise these ladies?
