design

Creative Data

I did this illustration a little while ago for the designer and sustainability consultant Leonora Oppenheim. Leonora is one of the most knowledgable people i know about design and sustainability and is very active writing for coolhunting and treehugger as well as consulting and a ton of other things besides. She has a huge passion for the possibilities of design as an agent of change.
Creative Data was set up by her to get design and artists together with science and researchers to communicate data and research to the wider public.would be so nice if more design was for projects like this rather than advertising and branding. hope to see lots more from creative data. have a look>
http://www.creativedataprojects.com

By Chris Haughton|2020-05-13T12:50:03+00:00December 10th, 2011|Tags: design, sustainability|0 Comments

Gibson Hotel Artwork

I recently made artwork for the interiors of the Gibson hotel in Dublin. The Gibson is a very modern 4 star hotel right next to, and same owner as the O2, which is Irelands largest music venue. The idea is that the performers and audience can stay after gigs and so its music themed. They asked me if i could do some artwork ‘around rock legends’ Eventually we decided to do artwork with songs hidden inside them. It was a pretty nice job to work on (!)

The mural in the bar features three songs hidden inside the images. Its 5m high.

play> Led Zeppelin: Stairway to heaven
play> Fela Kuti: Water No Get Enemy a good article about Fela
play> Bob Dylan: All Along the watchtower ‘said the joker to thief’

The mural in the restaurant is 10 metres wide. In the details you can see..

play> Velvet Underground: Venus in Furs based on the sascha-masoch novel
play> Can: Mushroom ‘when i saw her mushroom head… i was born, i was dead…’ (see the atom bomb)
play> Bob Marley: Get Up, Stand Up ‘if you know what life is worth… ‘ ..some of my favourite lyrics
play> Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (this is the psychedelic section!)
play> Beatles: Lucy in the sky with Diamonds
play> Bob Dylan: Mr Tambourine Man.’..then take me disappearin’ thru the smoke rings of my mind’

These additional pieces were used as their menus and elsewhere

play> Bob Dylan: You aint goin nowhere
play> Billie Holiday: Strange fruit wikipedia article>

play> Beatles: A Day in the Life ‘woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head….’

play> Brian Eno: Spider and I

play> Beatles: Hello Goodbye

play> Pink Floyd: See Emily Play

These are some shots in production or ideas that didnt make the final cut. The original idea was to have the actual lyrics alongside the artwork but we couldnt do that in the end for fear of copyright issues.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about the project was that i did all of this work while i was in Kathmandu. I was working there with a fair trade group to make rugs when I was approached by the Gibson. In fact i originally proposed that we do the artworks as RUGS!! A huge thanks to the design team and Harry Crosbie, (he’s the developer behind the hotel as well as Vicar St, The O2 and Grand Canal Theatre, some of Dublins nicest venues) The team were very keen on the rugs, I explained about the work we were doing at NODEand they were considering making the entire mural as a rug, the only thing that stopped it was the long production time (for 40sqm+ of hand knotting!!) Instead it was done as a digital laminate print

After we finished the job they have since bought 5 big rugs for the best rooms. They are in the penthouse room where the artists stay, this year including Bob Dylan, Roger Waters and Kylie Minogue (!) Pictured is Gibbo Pink from Aslan in the upstairs rooms

Thanks very much to tim at Neworld design and also to harry crosbie, im very proud to be involved in this. Take a look at the Gibson site below, it really is a stunning hotel

gibsonhotel.ie

By Chris Haughton|2020-05-13T12:50:03+00:00September 12th, 2011|Tags: design, node, rug|2 Comments

Camino fair trade chocolate

I helped rebrand Camino chocolate in Canada. Camino means path/road in spanish so we based the packaging on maps. Interestingly, the original meaning of ‘trade’ also means path or ‘tread’. The lovely packaging was designed by Karacters in Vancouver and i got the very important job of drawing funny little fellas all over it.

Have a look at Camino’s website, (their chocolate range is amazing, v interesting flavours) or read more about the project on lovelypackage.com blog

By Chris Haughton|2020-05-13T12:50:04+00:00November 24th, 2010|Tags: design, fairtrade|1 Comment

Sound Shift | Istanbul

I did some of the artwork for the design and posters for Soundshift, a cultural event in Istanbul in association with Grenouille radio in Marseille. It is a French/Turkish cross-cultural event. Istanbul is 2010 European capital of culture and Marseille is taking it on in 2013.

The design was done by Lola Duval who Ive worked with before. Im a huge fan of her work. I recommend taking a look at her website here

By Chris Haughton|2020-05-13T12:50:04+00:00November 10th, 2010|Tags: design|0 Comments

Interview Faculty of Arts and Applied Arts, Chulalonkorn University, Thailand

1. In your opinion, what is graphics?

Simple images that can communicate something complex can be very powerful.The word ‘graphics’ has become synonymous with branding and advertising but i would like to think theres more potential for it that just that. At their best they can communicate complex ideas without language and their meaning can be universal

2. What is your job? [Freelancer / employee]

Freelancer. I have worked as design employee before

3. why do you choose graphic design?

I chose to study graphic design 11 years ago mainly because i wanted to be able to use computers.

When i was in college i first wanted to study fine art and work on my own projects but when i saw the creative potential in computers i wanted to do graphic design. The graphic design department was the only department that had any computers at that time. The possibilities and flexibility with digital imagery was very new. Really there was no illustrators or certainly very few of them using computers then, but i liked the though of having so much creative control in making images and also the possibilities with motion graphics and the web. It was really just starting then and seemed very exciting.

The only problem was i didn’t really like the graphic design course, i wasn’t so interested in the branding /packaging/ advertising side to it.

4. In your opinion, how does the good graphic designer work?

Flexible in that they are able to apply themselves to many different projects, ie books and animations and murals but also they must be able to do each one well and bring something new and interesting to each project

5. What kind of style do you use in your works? Who are your target groups?

All sorts of styles really

I dont have a specific target audience

I have done a very basic childrens book for 3 year olds but also i regularly do quite abstruse work for the european business magazine, it really depends as long as i feel i can add something to a project and i can get excited about it i can work for all sorts of ages and styles

6. What are your inspirations about this work?

Lots of different areas but i suppose my main inspiration is folk art, I love abstracted and free approach to drawings and representation.

Maps/ textiles/symbols etc everything that i pick up that come from a less conventional approach to image making i find is inspiring

for example i recently i saw some very old maps from turkish and islamic manuscipts where half of the map is like a map but then they are mixed with realistic images of people and buildings, that sort of approach i think can often communicate much more than any sort of representational image. also i look at textile designs and patterning and i try to incorporate that sort of imagery into more figurative images to make them more decorative and playful

I definitely think that the more research that i do for each image the better it will work as an image. sometimes i start off without enough material to work from and i can feel the image is looking a little weak and in that case ill have to stop work and go out and find some new inspiration or directions to go in

7. Do you have any problems about working? If you do, What do you do to resolve them?

When i am given the brief i will try to visualise the best way i can approach the project. Sometimes if the brief is tight or unimaginative it takes a bit of imagination on my part to come up with something interesting, but almost always there is some way to do some nice work from even a very conservative brief.

Often its difficult when the client comes back and asks to change it in a way that i dont want to go in. its takes a lot of imagination to keep up the excitement for producing something interesting alive when you are knocked down several times, but unless you keep going and keep trying something new that both you and the client will be happy with you will end up with a mediocre image that the client might like but that you won’t be happy with.

8. How to make success?

I think the only way to do the work that you really want to do, is to do the work that you really want to do and get them seen by the right people.

For example if what you really want to do is be a music videos director you first have to make one or two good music videos. Once you have done that and get them online or out and about youll get the work that you set out to get. otherwise as a designer you tend to get stuck in an area that you didnt set out to be in and that can be very frustrating.

Doing something like that sort of involves a lot of sacrifice and work up-front and unpaid but once you do that and can make something that you are really happy with, chances are others will really like it too and you can get work from them Every time i want to do something new i need to do something like that. For example i wanted to design some repeat pattern textile designs because i thought it would be an interesting area to work in and i had a few ideas for some designs.

But in order to get work in that area i first had to do a few designs so that i could show people what i had in mind. Then, inevitably once I started off in this new area I discovered that its much more complicated and challenging than I had originally thought. Repeated patterns are actually quite difficult to do well, its very easy to to create a nice decorative image but to have it repeating smoothly and in an attractive way took more work than i had thought. Starting off something like that takes time and also self discipline because you are working without money or a deadline.

The same was true when i wanted to break into doing children’s books. I first had to do a story of my own that i was happy with, things like that take a long time but if you can do something new once in a while it ensures that you will not get bored or tired of the work that you do.

By Chris Haughton|2020-05-13T12:50:07+00:00February 1st, 2009|Tags: design, how to get into illustration, illustration, interview|0 Comments