The name's Bond. Greg Bond

 So is this what we will be left with if Scotland vote to leave us?

They are not called business cards for nothing

I love the under rated business card - these are great marketing items for most small companies, hand out loads at a time. They are easily kept and help word of mouth when passed on to friends and neighbours. This one is for my tree surgeon.

  

Get on your bike

Can't afford to advertise your business - on yer bike! - This was my own business - JJR Creative "Purveyors of Fine Design - Traditional values in a modern world." - I used to cycle to the office and park up in the town center. It got me some free PR and provided the town center with another waste bin (I would often find sweet wrappers in the basket).

Classic design

Classic type and simple drawings - to the point - need I say more

Alexander and er...

Alexander and Co are a regional Chartered Accountants and Financial Advisors - This is an advertising campaign to promote the idea that they can help you with more than just accounting. What I like about this is that the campaign can only belong to Alexander and the headline 'Alexander and er...' is colloquial, suggesting a friendly approachable company. This would easily transfer in to a radio ad campaign.

3M Mutlimedia Projector Concepts

Headline: 'One day I'll be up there'

This was presented to 3M as part of a campaign of six specialist press ads.

They came to me because they needed to promote their new improved multimedia projector, when they had advertised their previous projector model as being the 'Ultimate Projector'.

I looked at the audience and presented them as admiring and aspiring to be other presenters - who are using (implied) the new 3M Projectors.

Strapline: 'Make an impression'

Brainstorm...

The Importance of Networking

The other networking, not shaking hands with business contacts but laying a network of cables through a building and making sure all your computers talk to each other properly. This was the main business of my client, IT Solutions.
At the start of a year's campaign I commissioned twelve drawings to show business men doing puzzles, then used them throughout the year for everything from a give-away calendar, a corporate brochure to adverts.

This poster attracts attention with the illustration of the businessman's hands playing cats cradle. Then questions the customer's network and implies if it's not working, nor is his business.
The underlying corporate message throughout the campaign was that we (the company) offered solutions (solved puzzles).

How do you like your meat?

Here's a test
Just an observation - when a waiter asks 'Rare Medium or Well?'
What do people reply - I bet most the time they don't commit.
It's always medium to well or rare to medium. Are we all afraid - or just unsure?

So much to do - so little time

I have noticed how 'experiences' and 'adrenalin activities' are being sort by all sorts of people, I believe this is because we don't have enough other things to worry about - modern life is too comfortable.

Click to see more drawings like this.

Run of the mill logo

 

'Mill Adventure' is a climbing centre built inside an old water mill. The best design is the simplest design, some design jobs are an up hill struggle but when I worked on this logo it just fell into place. 

We can learn a lot from chickens

I drew these straight on to the computer with a tablet, (a good way to loosen up your drawing style) and took the inspiration from our own chickens.

The Writing's on the Wall

This is a simple piece of visual communication without words.  I made this sign up for my first house, a lovely small terrace in west London.
It needed to look like cast iron but as I couldn't smelt iron at the time it is just painted plaster.

My address was 52 Railway Side, of course.

Debenhams goes Punk

This is a bus shelter/16 sheet poster and believe it or not is over 25 years old - I designed this before Photoshop was invented. My brief was to aim at teenagers so I commissioned a punk photographer instead of the usual Debenhams boring fashion guys. Instead of photographing the models we videoed them, played the video and photographed the TV! It was a shocking for Debenhams, but appropriate for the younger market.

Stirring up the natives

Our village is quite large as far a Devon villages go and nestles in the lovely Culme Valley. However, just over the hill has been a gravel extraction site and next to that a landfill site. Both have applied to be extended to more than double their present size. This will bring the sites a lot closer and within sight of the village.
So to stir the natives up, I have designed this poster and sent it to a few key people.
I decided the most striking image would be one from Google Earth as most residents simply don't realise how large these sites will be and how much larger there are planning to be.
Using language like 'nosey neighbours' in a close knit village is deliberately provocative. I am also aware that planners can be devious at getting applications through the system and although they say, we as a county need more gravel and landfill, I think there is more to it than that, therefore one aim of my poster is to get people to ask questions of the council.
So far feed back has been good.

Perspectives

Using 'Lateral Thinking' as described by Edward De Bono is a method for coming up with new ideas. But just because something is new doesn't mean it is any good. When I used to teach students about how to brainstorm, some would come back with completely off-the-wall ideas (usually involving some sexual deviation) and expect praise. I would often have to say 'yes that is a lateral idea and yes it is creative and yes it is totally original but I don't think the world is ready for a .............. yet'. In conclusion lateral thinking is a way of going off on a tangent but the clever thinkers look back from that tangent at, where we the rest of us, are now and present ideas that the World can accept. So the best new ideas are not out-of-the-blue but a step on from where we are now, just seen from a new perspective.

Commercial Artists

Designers are artists of the commercial world, and likewise are often tormented by their art. It’s not a matter of going to work between nine and five for a designer, a little bit of heart and soul goes into every job, the true designer never turns off or shuts down but worries, processes and develops his art, day and night.
The value of good design is not always increased sales, good design has a more subtle, subconscious effect, it conveys a message, besides the words used, the colours and shapes all mean something to everyone.  A good designer will make sure that message is controlled and positive, to the clients benefit.
This document contains great works of art (for the commercial world) they have all added to the clients business, in terms of new sales, new clients, uplifted staff and improved awareness.

From his perspective...

What I like about this drawing is the hypocrisy of it. Our cities have seen apartment blocks shooting up and I'm sure so have the sales of telescopes.
From a message point of view this is aimed at a prim and proper elderly viewer, as the wife is, in my drawing, she is definitely not impressed by her husbands observations.

A view into the future

I took this photo from across our valley, then blow it up to start counting Solar PV systems.
This is my village and each yellow dot is marking a property with PV system.

Some people hate these panels, others reaping the free electricity, love them. For me, I see this image as a sign of the foolishness of a Government without a Maths 'O' level amongst them (that's all three main parties that have had a say in the FIT and are handing out far too much of our money for these systems) but on the positive side this is a glimpse of a more sustainable future.