Author Archives: Cinn

Book cover – Goblin by Ever Dundas

Posted by Cinn

New Edition (Saraband)

For the new edition of Ever Dundas’ novel, Goblin, Saraband wanted to use a full wraparound cover. This required a few tweaks to my original artwork to work with the copy, but it also allowed for the inclusion of the buried camera (a key plot point) on the spine of the book. The typeface was chosen to suit the wartime setting and underground London locations of the book – something that was present in an early tunnel book artwork I produced for the novel.

Detail of the artwork for Ever Dundas’ book, Goblin

Saraband edition: Published 06 December 2017

First Edition (Freight)

Original commission from Freight Books to design the book cover for Goblin, the debut novel from Ever Dundas, published in spring 2017.

Goblin book cover
Goblin book cover
Artwork for Ever Dundas’ book, Goblin
Detail of the artwork for Ever Dundas’ book, Goblin

Freight edition: Published 18 May 2017

Tomb of the Dread Lords boardgame design

Posted by Cinn

Graphic Design I created for a boardgame, Tomb of the Dread Lords, by Maciej Kozlowski.

Full-colour components: Download the latest game components.

A low-ink version was also created: Download the low-ink components.

Tomb of the Dread Lords graphic design: during gameplay.
Final design files before cutting.
Original playtest files from the game designer.

Brief:

  • Create a minimalist and elegant design for the game to mirror the game’s simple and elegant mechanics.
  • Just enough theme to spark the imagination without dictating the specifics.
  • Improve usability. Include as much gameplay information on the relevant components as possible to minimise the need to refer to the rules during play.
  • Optimise layout to create as few pages as possible for economical printing.
  • Page size optimised for printing around the world (A4 and Letter sizes).

Solution:

  • A simple and elegant dungeon tile design that hints at the elegance of TSR’s blue Dungeons & Dragons maps of old.
  • Information is conveyed through colour as well as iconography to easily distinguish and reference the different monsters from adventurer and ally tokens. (With the added bonus of being as gender neutral as possible!)
  • Character/item tokens were replaced with mini cards that contain all the relevant stats, rules, and gameplay information on them.
  • Stats from the tokens were moved to mini cards (colour-coded as well as having the icons for easy reference) to simplify the tokens, to increase immersion in the game, allowing for a more elegant design, whilst introducing the possibility for new scenarios and difficulty levels to be easily introduced, by printing a single scenario card instead of a whole set of tokens.
  • Dungeon tiles were given a wall around the edges to make a dungeon feel constrained, entrances were given a light source from them to aid tile orientation, and the monster spawn points were changed from numbers to more thematic runes/symbols.
  • 6 double-sided Letter/A4 printable pages for home printing.

Joy Division Unknown Pleasures engraved card

Posted by Cinn

A greeting card with cutout panel containing hand-engraved diagram of 80 consecutive radio signals from pulsar CP1919*, used in Peter Saville’s design for the 1979 album Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division.
(Black card, engraved frosted acrylic sheet; 105x148mm)

 

* (now known as PSR B1919+21, or the more accurate PSR J1921+2153)

 

‘Cardiothoracic’ paper cut card

Posted by Cinn
‘Cardiothoracic’ tunnel book/card: ribs closed
‘Cardiothoracic’ tunnel book/card: ribs opened
‘Cardiothoracic’ tunnel book/card: inside the cavity
‘Cardiothoracic’ tunnel book/card: close-up of the (anatomically incorrect) heart
‘Cardiothoracic’ tunnel book/card: closed flat
‘Cardiothoracic’ tunnel book/card
‘Cardiothoracic’ tunnel book/card: half-closed

Lovey-dovey card made for my amazing wife. (Luckily she’s almost as interested in anatomy as I am.)

Various colours of card, cut and laminated. The heart is suspended by thread and flutters in the breeze.

Various seasonal posters (OPFS)

Posted by Cinn
Summer garden party promotional poster
Halloween party promotional poster
Christmas toy appeal promotional poster. For hanging in work places collecting donations. Produced as an interactive PDF to allow personalisation before printing and displaying.

3 promotional posters designed for various seasonal activities at OPFS.

The Christmas Appeal poster was also produced as an interactive PDF, so that it could be sent by email and personalised by the recipient before printing for display.

Constraints

Halloween and Christmas Appeal posters needed to be printed in-house on office printers, therefore full-bleed designs could not be used.

Wicked Witch of the West card

Posted by Cinn

A commissioned papercut greetings card depicting the Wicked Witch of the West, from the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.
(Black card, and green art paper)

Wicked Witch of the West papercut card – full view
Wicked Witch of the West papercut card – shadows
Wicked Witch of the West papercut card – cutout section
Wicked Witch of the West papercut card – shadows
Wicked Witch of the West papercut card – backlit

Myth-busting infographics (OPFS)

Posted by Cinn
Infographic: 1 in 4 families in Scotland is headed by a single parent (alternate size)
Infographic: 1 in 4 families in Scotland is headed by a single parent (alternate size)
Infographic in situ on twitter
Infographic: Only 2% of single parents are teenagers. Average age is 38
Infographic: 64% of single parents are in work (alternate dimensions)
Infographic: Gender split – 92% women
Infographic: Gender split – 8% men and increasing (alternate size)
Infographic: Only 2% of single parents are teenagers. Average age is 38 (alternate size)
Infographic: 64% of single parents are in work
Infographic: Gender split – 92% women (alternate size)
Infographic: Gender split – 8% men and increasing
Infographic for Mental Health Week (Single parents more likely to be affected by mental health problems)
Infographic: Welfare cuts impact
Infographic: Prediction of single parents 30% below MIS by 2020
Infographic: Children in single parent families are twice as at risk of living in poverty

Brand identity (OPFS)

Posted by Cinn
OPFS stationery (letterhead, comp slip, business cards)
Some of the business card variants to express the different aspects of OPFS’ work
OPFS business card variants to express the different aspects of the organisation’s work
OPFS promotional helpline cards
OPFS branding history: The iterations used to implement a new, vibrant brand from an older more formal look.

Branding work done for One Parent Families Scotland.

Brief

To create a vibrant, friendly, welcoming brand while still retaining an air of authority.

Solution

Bold, aspirational photography along with a set of six key colours and circles were used as the key to the extended branding.

Letter, press release, general document and presentation Microsoft Office templates also created – all with same brand.

SCoWR Holyrood Manifesto 2016

Posted by Cinn
SCoWR Holyrood Manifesto 2016 (cover)
SCoWR Holyrood Manifesto 2016 (pages 2 & 3)
SCoWR Holyrood Manifesto 2016 (cover wrap)

Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform Holyrood Manifesto 2016. An 8-page, saddle-stitched, A4 booklet on satin paper created for a campaign round the 2016 Holyrood elections.

View the full publication (PDF)

Brief

Create a clear, eye-catching booklet containing SCoWR‘s manifesto for the 2016 Holyrood elections that is stylistically linked to it’s sister publication, the SCoWR Manifesto for Change.

Pull-up banner designs (OPFS)

Posted by Cinn
OPFS Fathers’ Service pull-up banner design 2
OPFS Fathers’ Service pull-up banner design 1

Brief

Design pull-up banners for the Edinburgh Fathers’ Service that are vibrant, eye-catching and in-keeping with the OPFS brand. Create a design that can be used as a template for other services so that banners can be mixed and matched at events as required.

Red Squares card game design

Posted by Cinn

Graphic design for a card game by Maccabee Games, based on the analytical philosophy of art set out by Arthur Danto in his book, Transfiguration of the Commonplace.

Players create a series of imaginary exhibitions along the lines of Danto’s thought experiment competing to create the most compelling artistic ideas and narratives based on a single, simple canvas, depicted on “commission cards”.

The cards were imagined as paintings hung in a gallery complete with artwork labels (illegible, except on the card backs). The in-game currency was created to mimic the dots applied to sold artworks.

Components spread out for play.
Red Squares card game: Close-up of the commission card back
Red Squares card game print layout

A quick primer on the theory behind the game:

He proposes an exhibit of identical, yet different, paintings – each a rectangle of uniform red paint. One of these paintings is of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. The artist’s comments note that “the Israelites had already crossed over, and the Egyptians were drowned.” Another red canvas, entitled “Kierkegaard’s Mood,” is a work of “immense psychological penetration” reflecting on Kierkegaard’s description of spiritual turmoil as “a mood, a single colour.” Another painting, entitled “Red Square,” is “a clever bit of Moscow landscape.” The last painting in the exhibition is “a still-life executed by an embittered disciple of Matisse, called ‘Red Table Cloth.’”

 

Factsheet Redesign (OPFS)

Posted by Cinn

Side-by-side comparison of the designs of the factsheets

I was asked to come up with a solution to revamp the OPFS factsheet range to bring them inline with the branding initiative and to increase the appeal and readability.

Brief

Redesign OPFS’ factsheet range to increase the readability and visual appeal. One problem identified in the old design was the text density making information hard to read and putting service users off due to their intimidating appearance to casual readers.

Specifications & Limitations

  • A4 pages, to be cost-effectively printed in-house on office colour printers.
  • Keep the same amount of information, but making it more legible and readable, whilst limiting the number of pages to maximise cost-effectiveness.
  • Make the design of the factsheet range cohesive and in-keeping with the organisation’s branding.
  • Make each individual factsheet easily identifiable.
  • Make the range easy to update and easy to identify when out of date.

Solution

  • The expensive pre-printed factsheet shells were replaced with bespoke template layouts controlled in-house. This enabled the publications to printed on plain paper in one go, preventing stock wastage in the event of contact/information changes.
  • The text was reformatted to increase the font size and line height was increased, increasing readability.
  • The intimidating, heavy, corporate look of the old factsheets was replaced with a friendly, bold design that takes its cues from the OPFS branding guidelines.
  • The large feature image at the top of the front page on each publication acts as a useful identifier for each factsheet, even from a distance.
  • To enable the identification of out of date publications, the accent colour rotates between three of the brand colours (green, jade and purple) each year.

View a redesigned factsheet example (PDF)

The redesign replaces the dense blocks of small text with information in small chunks with an increased font size and line height, aiding legibility and readability.
The redesign implemented a clearer heading structure to aid skimming and finding specific information quickly.
Important information is highlighted in the redesign. Contact details were given a unique style and placed at the relevant point in the publication.
In the redesign, calculations are clearly annotated with key concepts highlighted. Friendly styling employed to make them less intimidating to the casual reader.
Redesigned footers provide more contextual information (such as the page number and publication title), with clear contact info and links to further information on the back page.

Redesign highlights

  1. Typography

    The redesign replaces the dense blocks of small text with information in small chunks with an increased font size and line height, aiding legibility and readability.

  2. Typography

    The redesign implemented a clearer heading structure to aid skimming and finding specific information quickly.

  3. Block Highlghts

    Important information is highlighted in the redesign. Contact details were given a unique style and placed at the relevant point in the publication.

  4. Calculations

    Redesigned footers provide more contextual information (such as the page number and publication title), with clear contact info and links to further information on the back page.

  5. Headers & Footers

    In the redesign, calculations are clearly annotated with key concepts highlighted. Friendly styling employed to make them less intimidating to the casual reader.

 

A5 “Going Back to Work Checklist” publication (OPFS)

Posted by Cinn

A5 4pg booklet: “Going Back to Work Checklist”.

Brief

  • Requires a clean and clear publication to organise complicated information into a clear and concise manner.
  • Portable.
  • For in-house printing.
  • Design must be sympathetic to the branding of the three organisations involved: OPFS, Fife Gingerbread, and Making It Work Fife.

Solution

  • The content was presented in a simple, clear and concise manner, with clearly labelled information was added on where to get more help for each action item.
  • The green and a slate blue were chosen to complement the branding of all three partner organisations as best as possible.
  • The white background enabled in-house printing on printers that cannot print to the edge of the page.
  • The A5 leaflet style was chosen to make the publication small enough to carry around for reference, and to enable easy printing (on A4 paper) and assembly in-house (simple folding, with no cutting required).
  • The checklist was made into an interactive PDF to enable people to download, fill them in, and store them completely digitally if they wished.

View the full Going Back To Work Checklist (Interactive PDF)

Papercut wedding design work

Posted by Cinn
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – 221b Baker Street
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Asgard
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Barchester Cathedral
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – The Black Lodge
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Carcosa
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Cuartel General de la T.I.A.
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Hamsterdam
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Hogwarts
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Royston Vasey
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Sunnydale High
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Ten Forward
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Winterfell
Design for A1 papercut wedding seating plan with cut-out foliage, names and table placards
Design for folded, papercut wedding dinner place-name cards
Design for papercut wedding table name sign – Ten Forward
A1 papercut wedding seating plan with cut-out foliage

North by Northwest tunnel book

Posted by Cinn

A specially commissioned piece celebrating the classic Hitchcock film, North by Northwest.

North by Northwest tunnel book – initial design mockup
North by Northwest tunnel book
North by Northwest tunnel book – cover opened
North by Northwest tunnel book – cover closed
North by Northwest tunnel book top view
North by Northwest tunnel book

Lairosufni sketches

Posted by Cinn
Lair tries on some new headgear
The Lair Cosmic
Lair checks out a few books from the library
Lair tries out photography (with appropriate protective clothing)
Lair celebrating
Lair checks his facts
Lair finally finds time to begin writing his memoirs

Various sketches of the recurring character, Lairosufni.