Caravan Palace

I'm moving back to Clonmel for college this weekend, this is technically my last post of the "summer." and I went swing dancing for the first time last week; so it's couldn't be a better time to share a Caravan Palace! (Note: This illustration is available as a print here. :) )

Can you believe it's September? I can't. This summer was such an incredible one, and the time has absolutely flown by! I still can't believe that in less than a week I'll be back in classes and lectures. And this year is going to be different in many ways. For a start; I'm going to be living on my own this semester! I'm moving into a tiny little house on Friday, although I still legitimately think I'd have been better off buying a little caravan and living in that instead.

Buying a caravan and doing it up into something cool and quirky and weird, and touring around Ireland or Europe or somewhere (anywhere), is something that I'd love to do at some stage. It's my idea of a perfect summer really; driving around a country or continent, discovering new places and new experiences. A little caravan palace? That's the dream!

Which brings me on to swing dancing! It's something that I've been wanting to try out for a really long time, and last week I actually managed to find a class and take it! Caravan Palace - a swing band - is one of my favourites (I fully intend to see them perform live someday! Just look at the video above! Incredible stuff!) and because I'm a former gymnast, I really missed dancing. So I took the class, had some fun, and I've been listening to Caravan Palace since.

Ultimately, this post feels like I'm about to head back into the routine. Ballpoint pen in my Moleskine sketchbook; it feels good, and familiar, and welcoming. Tomorrow, I'll have my last full day at work (the photo above was taken on my lunch break this afternoon - I've gone to that bench in that park most days this summer), I'll take a day or two to take a step back and breathe, and then I'll kick off next week in full swing!Till then!

Liar, Liar

Pants on Fire. Your nose is longer than a telephone wire.

I recently got talking with someone about the best films we've ever seen; and I reckon I will always put Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels at the top of that list. It's got good, solid, characters, the use of the English language is off-the-wall, and it's one of the best-told stories I have ever come across. No matter how many times I've seen it; it still makes me laugh, makes me frustrated, and makes me excited to see what happens next. Classic British comedy at it's finest.

It's also a very, very well directed film (hats off to you, Mr Guy Ritchie!), so there were a LOT of shots that I wanted to illustrate. Alas, the week was busy, so I could only pick one. So, here's Tommy, during the boxing-ring poker game that sets the ball in motion.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out overall. Wish I could spend more time on it, but between day-job, odd-jobs, and freelancey-design-jobs, I was lucky I was able to spend the few hours on this at all. I might return to Lock Stock for more inspiration in the not-too-distant future though; 'cause I had a lot of fun with it. And  it's a pretty good excuse to listen to the soundtrack and watch my favourite film all over again. And with scenes like this:

How could you not love it?:)

Logo Design | Ortús Chamber Music Festival

Final Logo Design

Very excited about this project! Back in June, a friend of mine - super talented cellist, Sinéad O Halloran - approached me about an idea she had. Together with Mairead Hickey, she plans to launch a brand new chamber music festival, called Ortús, which will be based in East Cork in February 2016. It was an absolute pleasure for me to get involved by designing a logo for the event!

Very loose and sketchy initial thoughts.

After discussing the project with Sinéad, I learned that the name of this festival - Ortús, pronounced "ore-toose" rhyming with moose - originates from two words; the latin word, ortus, meaning rising, beginnings, origin; and the Irish word tús which means beginning, start. The overall idea of the festival is to encourage young Irish musicians who have studied and performed abroad to come home and share what they've learned from their experiences with our local communities. Three concerts are planned, as well as open rehearsals, and outreach in schools. With all of this, Ortús really wants to make chamber music more accessible to the public, and hopefully inspire the next generation of musicians to broaden their horizons too. 

Colour studies.

With all this in mind, I began drawing up sketches in various styles and colours. I considered a wide range of symbols; inspired by everything from the passion that these musicians had for their craft and the cultural significance of returning home to share their experiences, to the dawning of their careers and the idea of crossing oceans and moving mountains with their talents. I also considered more physical elements of the project; including elements of string instruments and music notes, as well as waves of the ocean and the colours of the sea and land. 

Final design.

After various experiments and revisions, the final design that we came up with was this. Encompassing the idea of crossing oceans, and returning to the island of Ireland, I included waves and 'bubbles' in a deep blue design. I also used four "strings" to represent both the instruments that will be played during the festival, as well as the sheet music the musicians will play according to.  The curving shapes were inspired by the scroll at the top of those instruments, as well as the treble clef used in sheet music, and the fluid motion of music as its played- both in the sound, and in the musician themselves, as they pull the bow across the strings.

A few photos I took of the musicians involved.

Sinéad was also kind enough to let me tag along during a photoshoot at the end of June, which gave me the opportunity to meet with the musicians involved, take a few photos, and listen to them play. They're impressive, to say the least! I can't wait to see them perform again next February, and I'll share details as the event approaches on my social feeds, because I think you might like to see them perform too!

Taken while I was waiting around on the day of the photoshoot.

I was also fortunate enough to meet with Richard from Creative Productions, as he recorded a promotional video on the day, and with Bríd O Donovan, who handled photography.  Go and like the Ortús Festival Facebook Page to keep up to date on all of the Ortús Festival details. It's gonna be good! 

Kinetic Text | God's Away on Business

It's done! My kinetic text project is officially complete. So here it is! 

Please do click through to see the complete process, from start to finish! 

WIP 4 | Kinetic Text | God's Away on Business

The deadline for this kinetic text project is fast-approaching, and so are the deadlines for everything else! But it's pretty satisfying to see a big project like this one creep ever-closer to the finish line, so I'm pretty happy with it. There are still a few little bits and pieces about this section that I want to tidy up, but done is better than perfect, so right now, I'm planning to get everything finished to a standard I'm happy enough with, and then I'll go back over to tweak it to the best that it can be.

WIP 2 | Kinetic Text | God's Away on Business from Alice Coleman on Vimeo.

WIP 3 | Kinetic Text | God's Away on Business

I've been feeling a little unwell for the past while, and it's been a struggle trying to balance college work, appointments for this that and the other, and general life. It's funny which projects become more difficult to manage... This kinetic text project is one of the more complicated projects I've got in the pipeline, but it's one of the only projects I seem to be able to wrap my head around lately. Hmm...

Anyway, here's a little update on the project so far! I'm having fun with it!
(Sorry for the kinda terrible quality though!)

Flash Game | The Getaway

BIG post today! I spent a solid chunk of last semester working on this interactive programming assignment. Weeks and weeks of drawing, animating, and coding, all working together to create a short and sweet little game called "The Getaway." Click HERE to play the game yourself!

"The Getaway" is a single-level flash platform game, which I made with my friend Kirsty. What I'm showing you today is the game bible, which basically shows you every element of design that became a part of the game; including character designs, environment layouts, user interfaces and start/finish screens. I also wrote a short(ish) backstory to give the game a bit of meaning, and added a few of the early sketches. Be sure to click on the images below to make 'em bigger, and click HERE to play the game yourself! :D

WIP | Kinetic Text | God's Away on Business

Every now and then, I'm also going to post a few works in progress. This one is a college assignment for my Video I module, which I'm going to be working on for the next ten weeks or so. It's a kinetic text project based on the song, "God's Away on Business" by Tom Waits. From the suggested list, I chose this one because a) I like the song, b) it has a good, solid beat, c) it stood out to me as intersting and quirky as soon as I heard it, and d) I liked the visual imagery in it.

So, here's my very, very basic/rough plan of the lyrics (remember to click to enlarge)

And with added notes on camera moves and transitions:

From there, I moved on to pulling style sheets together:

And I have just about started to work on a few very quick test shots, just to get a further idea of what I want some of these shots to look like. I want to make changes to the ones I've done already, but the ideas are there. Sort of. :)