And Now For Something, A Little Different

I have had the great pleasure of being asked to create some Save the Date cards for a couple's big day.

Really enjoyed this, was a pleasant and unexpected change to the work I'd normally do.

Do not class this as your copy, and unless you know the couple, I probably wouldn't expect the invitation anytime soon.

Iron Tiger

I was approached to create a logo for a new upcoming company born out of the East Midlands. Don't worry if you haven't heard of them yet, you will before too long I'm sure.

Random Fun With Illustrator

 I have decided to expand my skills and push myself a bit more, to do so I've stepped away from the comfort zone that it has become - Photoshop - and instead decided to create images using Illustrator.
I'll be honest, it was a challenge at first to wrap my head around the differences between the two pieces of software, but the outcome(s) definitely make up for it! As you can tell, I stuck with a specific theme to start with, but hopefully more will follow in due course.

Happy Holidays From Hashtags

As you've no-doubt guessed, Hashtags are still here and it doesn't look like they're going anywhere soon. For now, they're here and spreading the festive spirit with their updated, seasonal logo. Courtesy of yours truly who had the privilege of the design work.

The Beards Are Here To Stay

Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of The Beards and Louder Now's Hayley Smith caught up with them to talk about the last 10 years as well as answering a few questions. Hayley requested a cartoon of the band to commemorate the event and the below is the result of that request.

To see the interview head to: http://loudernowmusic.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-beards-beards-beardless-people-and.html

A Homage To The Beginning Of Consoles

So it's been a little while since I put anything on here, that's not to say I've not been hard at work planning numerous works to share with you all, but you know what they say about all good things! In the meantime, to tide you over if you will, for being so patient. A little something, in honour of all of the games consoles that started the trend, not the ones who have kept it going over the past couple of decades, but before that, before me! In homage to them, I create the work you see below. (I'd like to point out that yes I am aware they were not THE most original consoles, I wanted something retro that numerous people could still identify with that will still make them think "that's old").

More Playing With Silhouettes

So if you didn't guess from my post late last month, I've been playing with Silhouettes recently, tricking the minds eye into completing the image itself whilst using mere shapes for the image. This post is another very quick attempt at this. Based on one of my favourite movies, which I still think is not spoken about enough. Well done if you know what it is. I may do more along these lines, I'm currently undecided. Either way you will no doubt find out in the not-to-distant future.

#Hashtags Are Here

Recently in the East Midlands, a band was formed. This would normally be uncommon in any area, bands are formed and broken all the time. But these have been sneaking up on all of us for months, we just didn't realise. The most subtle (and completely illegitimate) advertising campaign ever brought forth the era of the Hashtags! Now you all know what I'm talking about, you can't go on any form of social media without seeing them, word of mouth spread fast! Their plan worked...


If only that were true! In reality, probably based around the phenomenon that is the "hashtag genre" the band was formed. I've had the pleasure of knowing the members for years.. being related to one of them helps with that. With this familiarity, came the opportunity to design the logo for them to get going and introduce themselves to the world. Based on a quick doodle from the band's Bassist (and my brother) Rob Iliffe, the logos has formed which you see here in front of you.

You should definitely go and check these guys out! They've only played a couple of gigs so far but have the talent to go so much further! You don't want to miss out! Just follow the link below to find them.

www.facebook.com/hashtagsgroup

Do NOT Talk About This Post

Okay, so I'm going to break my own title's rule and mention this post. I've gone over a week of not submitting anything to this page, not due to lack of activity but more due to many things being in limbo and others in the works. In the meantime, thought I'd do a quick idea I came up with just to give myself a break from everything else currently going on. If you hadn't guessed by now or don't know me at all then I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm a massive self-proclaimed geek and film nerd. I love comics, graphic novels, games, films of nearly every genre. Below is the result of one of these loves. If you can get what this is from, congratulations, you too are a geek. Okay, so probably not, it is a VERY popular reference used in many variations and I have been less than subtle in the referencing for this piece (in that the name is mentioned in the design.. Twice).

But anyway, I hope you like it, I will continue on my other works and hopefully have something else to share with you all soon.

Silhouettes and Illusion in Artwork

 So this is not exactly what I have been working on this week, but along the lines of ever developing my skills, I've grown to love the use of minimal detail for imagery and the eye completing the picture as well as the use of silhouettes. Here you can see just a taste of what I'm working towards with the two art styles and I will no doubt have many many more of these to come in future along with other styles I'm growing to love.

Extra points will go to those who can tell me in the comments the inspiration for all of these pieces, some obviously much easier than others.

Louder Now. Ever Growing, Ever Changing

I've been graced with a visit from the lovely Hayley Smith this weekend, owner, creator, main entity behind the ever-growing "Louder Now". It's been a really fun filled week, we went to a "Speaking in Shadows" gig in Nuneaton on Friday night and had the privilege of interviewing supporting act "Never Hill". Overall a very good gig, head over to http://loudernowmusic.blogspot.co.uk/ where a full review will be up as of Wednesday 24th.

Along with going to gigs, we have also been working on the new image of Louder Now, the earlier post being an "in progress" appearance until it could be finalised. I can now say that the Louder Now image has officially changed to the sights you see before you. With some input from Hayley herself the new look of Louder Now is ready to go. Above you can see the main logo as well as the image you will find on the Louder Now Facebook page which you should all definitely check out!

Brand New Me

 So as you may have spotted by the giant new banner at the top of the page, I've undergone a re-branding. I felt it was time to have a professional look to all of the work I am going to be producing in the near future (with any luck). The name underwent numerous changes before I finally settled on Darren Iliffe Designs, and even more changes before I settled upon a design I was happy with. Here you can see a glimpse of a handful of the final choices I was left with before making my final choice of brand which you can see below, in case you missed the header, which if so, well done!

Louder Now gets even Louder!

Louder Now have been growing and growing over the last couple of years, thankfully I've been fortunate enough to get approached for not only the re-branding but also for a once in a lifetime Louder Now give away event for which I was asked for two posters for varied social media sites (mentioning no names). Go check it out! You never know, you might win the prize!

http://loudernowmusic.blogspot.co.uk/

As you can tell looking at the designs, there is a strong purple theme still present, but hey, I think it works, and thankfully so does Hayley Smith, the driving force behind Louder Now and hopefully you do as well.

Hopefully this is the first of many projects I'm going to be producing in the near future, keep your eyes peeled for more uploads soon!

Final Degree Animation

Better late than never, the old saying goes. Apologies for the wait, turns out, moving house/city is very stressful. However, here it is, the animation that is hinted at within the photo in the previous post. And before anyone says anything, I'd like to point out that the largest influence for the approach and execution of this animation came from the Newgrounds animators 'Behemoth' (if you're unfamiliar with their work, check them out, they're amazing!)
Anyway, without any further ado, my final attempt - for the time being - at animating. Think I'll stick to still imagery and design-based work for a while.

University Degree Show

So, the time came for my end-of-uni degree show, must admit, I didn't think I'd anticipate it as much as I did, turns out I actually got quite nervous about people from industry and the general public seeing my work, yet here I am, sharing what I see as my best works with all of you, go figure.
Anyway, the show lasted just shy of a week and to my pleasure all of the business cards I had printed for the occasion were gone by mid-week so I can only hope for good things to come in the near future. For those of you that didn't know about it, or simply couldn't make it, below is a photo of how my work looked as it was displayed for the show.

I'd like to mention at this point, the mac was not simply showing a curtain with headings over the top but rather a short trailer I created to accompany the poster seen on the left (as you can tell from them having the same name). I will add the trailer onto the site in a seperate post in the near future.

The Way of Shadows

 Motivation has finally found me and I've created a few things I'm actually happy with. I've decided to turn one of my favourite books into a comic, well, the start of a comic at least, it would be a massive undertaking to recreate the entire book. For the comic I'm creating the starting few scenes as well as a front cover relating to the pre-existing one from the book as well as a poster advertising the comic. Unfortunately none of these items are finished as yet but are all well under way. Below is a few trial and error pieces of where I am currently at in terms of the front cover and the poster. Hope you like them. I've also added in the existing book cover so that you can all get a feel of what I'm working from.

The Demon

My job has changed, I am no longer a Film Editor for the newspaper, instead I am now a 'Technical Coordinator'. Pretty fancy title aye? Well this means much fewer articles are going to be written by yours truly, what it does mean is that I've got more imagery produced, this involved front covers, full page spreads and general odd jobs for the other Editors.

Below are the front covers for issues 99 and 101 as well as a two page spread celebrating the achievements of Demon Media. I've also included the 'sticker' I made up for issue 101 for the Demon FM takeover of The Demon.

Hope you like them!

Tarantino reviews

As I said before, there were indeed articles I wrote for other issues of 'The Demon'. I was asked to review Django Unchained and also do an article on Tarantinos' career in movies. Below are the two articles as they appear in the newspaper:

Tarantino

Tarantino started his movie career only 20 years ago with the release of ‘Reservoir Dogs’ which
showed the world that he was here. The film was a huge hit amongst audiences far and wide -
myself included-all of whom were stunned at what he produced. What made this movie, as well
as most of his other movies since stand out is the use of non-linear story telling. Although the
story for ‘Reservoir Dogs’ is quite dull when stripped down, it has been told in such a way that the
audience was hooked from start to finish and second guessing a lot of what had already been shown
which only helped keep people engaged.
Only two years later, Tarantino released ‘Pulp Fiction’, again using non-linear story telling but also
multiple stories within the same movie. The film tells four intertwining stories in such a fashion that
the film is known far and wide as one of the best films modern cinema has seen and has become a
benchmark for many when viewing other films.
Since then, Tarantino went on to release ‘Jackie Brown’, ‘Kill Bill: vol. 1 & 2’, ‘Deathproof’, ‘Inglorious Basterds’ and has recently released a new film, ‘Django Unchained’. All of the aforementioned movies are just as good, if not better than the last, with the exception of ‘Deathproof’, in my opinion. This did little to sway me from his work as the works of the five previous movies, it shows that even Quentin Tarantino isn’t perfect and is capable of slipping up every now and then. If anything, ‘Deathproof’ helped make the other films that much better as it shows the effort gone into writing and directing each movie.
With each new film, Tarantino’s fame grew greater and greater to the point where he was able to
use the acting capabilities of other ‘Hollywood greats’ such as Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio,
which only helped make the films appeal to more audiences and increase his [Tarantino] fame.
Having only 8 feature length films under his belt, it is highly unlikely that Tarantino’s work is done,
which means we can only hope to see more of the same high quality film making in the future, with
rumours already spreading of a third instalment to the “Kill Bill” franchise. I think it’s safe to say that
Quentin Tarantino is just getting warmed up.

Django Unchained

I have recently seen ‘Man with the Iron Fists’ and must admit, after seeing that, I was anxious about
where cinema was going with the approach to films set in the wild west. However, being a lifelong
Tarantino fan, when ‘Django Unchained’ was released, I maintained the idea he could do no wrong
with his directing capabilities and I was thankfully rewarded for this faith.
The film starts with bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) releasing a slave, Django (Jamie Foxx) from slavery, in case any of you were wondering where the title of the film came from. The two unlikely allies become a bounty hunter duo not to be messed with whilst the two of them seek out Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) who has been sold off as a slave to Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) from whom the duo get much more than they bargain for.
When approaching this film, not only was I dubious as to the portrayal of the era, but also the
casting of DiCaprio as the antagonist, having never been his biggest fan. Upon seeing the film, I can
say that I was highly mistaken and have had to rethink my attitude towards him. The role of Calvin
Candie, as with all of the other characters was superb. Christoph Waltz maintains a high calibre in
his work after his performance as Hans Landa in ‘Inglorious Basterds’, whilst Jamie Foxx (Ray, Law
Abiding Citizen) plays the role of slave-turned bounty hunter brilliantly and you, as a viewer, truly
believe he is going through all the pain and suffering of having his family torn from him.
There were, of course, people who slated this movie for its use of violence and gore. As well as a
large number of people who were put off by the frequent use of derogatory language. In my eyes,
although I can see where these people are coming from, as there is a lot of violence and harsh
language, these help to solidify it as a Tarantino film set in the times of slavery. Tarantino has been
known throughout his films (especially since ‘Kill Bill: vol. 1’) for his use of excessive violence and
audiences know to expect this from his movies. As for the harsh language, I feel that without it, the
film would have been hard to believe in many respects, as there would be no feeling that the slaves
were in fact slaves and considered lower down than their masters.
Overall, the film was thoroughly enjoyable to watch and engaging from start to finish with twists,
turns and, as usual, a cameo to look out for from Tarantino. It would be difficult to argue that this
isn’t his best film since the release of Pulp Fiction. This is a definite must see for all who are action
lovers.

From image making, to the written word

Thanks to being involved with the student newspaper 'The Demon' I have also been able to explore, not only image-making but also my writing abilities and have had the joy of having an article used for the newspaper regarding the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm. I know the story is now old news, the story when written was recent and it has merely taken me some time to upload it here. Below is the article as it was used:

Not long ago, somewhere in a state far, far away...

 

Recent reports from Lucasfilm have confirmed that award winning Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3, Little Miss Sunshine, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) will write the screenplay for the new 'Star Wars' film.
The news that filmmaker George Lucas has sold the company to Walt Disney has brought with it widespread excitement, as well as the promise of a new 'Star Wars' trilogy. Not to mention a film every two or three years thereafter.
George Lucas said in a statment: "It's now time for me to pass 'Star Wars' on to a new generation of filmmakers." Despite selling Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucas will still remain as a creative consultant.
Since the deal has been announced, there has been great speculation as to whether this deal is going to benefit the franchise or not.
Disney Chief Executive, Bob Iger, believes that since the release of 'Revenge of the Sith' in 2006 there is "substantial pent-up demand". However, there are those out there that believe that, like the prequel trilogy, the films will be directed at attracting new fans and leaving the existing fans wanting.
This will mark the third time, within the last seven years, that Disney has signed a massive deal, the other two being comic giants, Marvel in 2009, and 'Toy Story' creators, Pixar in 2006.
Despite these two giants being bought by Disney, it has not caused them to fade away and with recent releases such as 'The Avengers' and 'Brave', I'd say the two have benefitted from the agreement with Disney. Whether this will be the case with 'Star Wars' remains to be seen.
In terms of other news from Disney, there hasn't been announcements regarding the 'Indiana Jones' saga, also part of Lucasfilm Ltd. Maybe 2015 will bring more than we think.


That's the article, hopefully it will not be the only article I get to write for the newspaper, in fact I have another lined up which will hopefully be good enough to be used in future editions, if so I'll be sure to share it.

Cookies... In space!

Yet again my weird imagination has been allowed to thrive, being given the freedom to work on whatever task I wanted to. I chose to animate a science fiction short story of my own. However, that wasn't enough, I also wanted, well, needed a poster to go with it and act as publicity and promotional material for said animation. Unfortunately the animation is taking a lot longer to create than the poster (as you'd expect) so it turns out that the poster is actually a teaser more than anything.

Here is the first of what will possibly be a series of posters advertising my animation shorts. 'Gdar' are the alien race I created, which, if you hadn't already guessed, look exactly like chocolate chip cookies!