This is a long over due post. Two weeks ago I went down to Galway for the Irish Blog Awards (which were really great fun) and for a photowalk had been organised for the same day (which was also good fun).

The prop master for the day was Fran Hollywood who brought along a giant polystyrene iPhone on the photowalk and later provided a foam coffin, headstones and mini coffin trophies to the winners at the Blog Awards. Fran is the founder of Made In Hollywood, a company which specialises in designing and creating 3D objects in polystyrene foam.

Fran gave me a BIG polystyrene version of the photowalk.ie logo that I designed a few months ago and for which I want to say a big public thank you. Much of my graphic design work is for clients that I never actually meet in the flesh, so after the design is finished I rarely see the final printed work, so to get a giant photowalk.ie logo made out of foam was very, very cool and it’s taking pride of place in my office.

This is me with Fran and the logo towards the end of the night. (I’ve had a fair few drinks at this stage thanks to the excellent Ladies Tea Party where the wine was flowing and the fact that Captain Morgan’s rum sponsored the Blog Awards. Oh and because I like drinking Guinness too.)

Made In Hollywood are Ireland’s best foam designers and if you haven’t seen the kind of thing that they create take a look at their portfolio. I had no idea of the kind of work that can be produced using polystyrene – everything from architectural and garden features to logos like photowalk.ie to giant promotional pieces including amazing chocolate bars.

Everything you can see below is created by the team in polystyrene.

So thanks again to Fran for the superb logo and if you’re looking for some interesting marketing and promotional materials please check out Made In Hollywood.

Congratulations to the team who created Logorama, for winning the best animated short film. Directed by Nicolas Schmerkin (Autor de Minuit). The film is clever and funny and takes place in a world entirely populated by logos.

I love this movie for many reasons, two of them being a) I’m a logo designer so the nerd in me gets very excited by seeing lots of well-known logos, and b) I love the animation and bright colours in this film.

The movie is hilarious but has serious undertones about how corporations are taking over the world – look out for Ronald McDonald holding a child hostage. Sheer brilliance.

The movie is just over 16 minutes long and is well worth your time. Here it is in two parts.

Congratulations also to the team from Brown Bag Films for the wonderful achievement of receiving a nomination for the brilliant Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty. This is their second Oscar nomination having previously received one for “Give Up Your Oul Sins”.

Photowalk.ie is a web site which was recently set up as a means to let people know about photowalks happening in Ireland. If you haven’t been on one, or heard of one, a photowalk is just a group of like-minded individuals (in this case all into photography) getting together for a walk and a chat and taking pictures along the way. It’s good fun, free to attend and can help you feel a little less intimidated about taking your camera out and using it.

The site was set up by photographers Stephen Holmes, Julie Ann Matkin, Ryan Whalley and Elliot Tucker. (all links to their photography sites which are well worth a visit)

I played a very small part in the collaborative effort by designing the logo, which you can see below. It’s a pretty simple concept, a slightly skewed frame around the word photo, with the little dot in the centre of the letter O representing the centre of the camera lens. The colours used are those that were already chosen for the site and I think the grey and orangey-red look quite smart together. If you’re interested in typography, the font  used here is DIN.

So if you’re interested in photography and live in Ireland, or are even visiting Ireland, why not check out Photowalk.ie to see when the next walk is on. Actually the next walk is on this coming Saturday in lovely Trim, Co. Meath and I’m bummed out I can’t make it myself, but hopefully see you on the next one!

Google have made some new logos to aid consistency across their sites. There’s no dramatic departure from the main multi-coloured logo, just some additional text to clarify which section of Google you’re browsing. You can read more about it on the Google blog.

There’s nothing earth shattering, but I really like the simplicity of the blue text. What do you think?

Clonmellon Honey is a small company – one person – producing delicious organic honey in Westmeath, Ireland. The honey is sold at farmers markets around Ireland and the client wanted to have something that looked more professional than the white sticky labels with text printed on it that he was using before. He wanted a logo that was professional, not too stuffy,a little bit old school and a bit “quirky”.

Initial sketches involved bees, honeycombs and various beehives. The final sketch I used is of a “skep” – this is old style beehive that really isn’t in use very much anymore and it’s not the style of hive my client uses. However it is recognised by many people as a traditional beehive. From there I took the name and the tagline “pure goodness” and tried out lots of different positions for the text including scrolls and circles.

The sketches were brought into illustrator, and this black and white version was produced which the client liked.

A couple of colour schemes were investigated, mainly natural earth tones of greens and browns but I wasn’t happy with the result. The client himself is very interested in Buddhism so after some discussion on this topic I tried the dark red and gold of the Buddhist monks robes! And we were both really happy with the result. The final colour logo is below and all comments are welcome.

You can see more logo designs in the portfolio.