As you can see from photo A my tent did not quite make it through Benicassim in one piece. Bearing in mind it was a full week of Sandstorms, bush fires and alcoholic 14 year olds contaminated with swine flu I think it did surprisingly well. I'm heading to Reading this afternoon and since I'm a bum I've managed to get free entry as long as I serve the Reading crowds their long sought for sweet tender beverages for 6 hours a day. Free entry, food and drink to a festival, not a bad deal! This time though I am not taking any chances, my packing for Benicassim was somewhat naive to say the least but this time I'm ready for all weather conditions and mindless teens. So here is the check list for the forthcoming bad holiday weekend of madness:
£9.99 tent - check Dad's sleeping bag - check Little Bros wellies - check 2 pairs of jeans - check heavy duty rain coat - check carry mat - check assorted range of flannel shirts - check torch - check undergarments - check toothbrush - check Jack Kerouac's on the road - check
I think that is everything apart from the all important food and baby wipes which I will collect en route. Enjoy the bank holiday weekend people and I will hopefully see you on the other side with everything in tact! (I know it's not going to happen, but I can at least dream it will)
My friend Fran needed some help doing some fake rock band T shirts for some forthcoming feature film for the BBC, not sure exactly what is it but I do believe these Tshirts were designed for Martin Freeman who was in the office and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The fake names were Lesser Spotted Crumb and The Anatomicals, and given that I had 4 days to draw these up, they aren't too bad. I had a few other ideas I wanted to do for them but hey maybe another time.
Rumour has it on the grapevine that the surf is to be epic this weekend, I was already in last night for a wee paddle and I'm actually amazed I can remember how to stand up. Lets see how the rest of the weekend unfolds.
I should really be asleep by now, trying to be the Hoff is killing me but anyway just scanning through my itunes looking for what to play and came back to this beauty..
I forgot how good Wintersleep are and this album in particular (welcome to the sky night), I love it when that happens, it feels like you are listening to a band for the first and get totally blown away by them. They played in Auntie Annies to about 40 or so people not so long ago and I was lucky enough to be there. They are mesmerizing live, if you get a chance to see them play, take it, you will not be disappointed.
Best lyric by far off that album is "I used to dream about saving the world Now i just dream about the holidays"
I need to stop talking gibberish and actually do some more graphics. Once I have finished my baywatch course I will get back on track with real graphics, I promise.
Yes it totally looks like a kids film but it does look amazing and bring back wonderful memories. I wish it was out sooner!
Also tonight I've been trying to lay out a random quote over a few photos for a very good friend of mine Shelley Garrett. It's suppose to be for the banner of her blog but she's not feeling the type over her photos so much. In the end we decided/well she decided to leave the quote out of the banner as it takes away from her photo. Even though it was done in about 15mins I still quite like it myself so I thought I would just post it up here anyway.
Oh I also heard the other night from Danny that Goodbye Pluto may have to change their name to something else due to major copywrite issues, uh oh, but it does mean I get to play around with some more designs for them. Oh here's what the stuff currently looks like at the min if you don't already know it.
I think that's all for tonight, I have to get up early tomorrow morning to learn how to save lives the David Hasselhoff way and I wish I was joking.
One of the most epic bands at home and prob one of my favorite songs live. You have to see them play, I think Kerrang's write about them said something along the lines of"... if armaggedden had a soundtrack these guys would provide the sound."
So it has been months since I last posted on this due to a course director wanting D&AD to be top secret, I kinda left the blog alone and forgot about it, but I have linked my website to the blog so I have no choice, also a good friend of mine complained that there wasn't anything new on it so here it goes. First off I have a website, I know very professional of me but I wanted to have a go at the old web design and after weeks of slavery to html and flash finally have something to show for it... benmcqueen.com,made me appreciate of tough and evil flash and dreamweaver are together.
Ok I'll share with you some info on the graphics scene, still no job but hey it will happen soon enough I hope. I'm thinking of some screenprinting and T shirt making tactics when I get back to the motherland next week, to hopefully help or more than likely scare off potential clients. I was scanning through YCN earlier and came across this that made me smile. Somebody in the design world knows we exist.
Anyway not much to report on graphics at the min but hopefully a few things will creep up in this in the next few weeks. Other than that I'm reading Jack Kerouac's on the road, typical boy novel I know, but I'm in love with it already and I've only read 75pgs of it. That and Richard Longs' exhibtion in the Tate at the min really make me want to travel.
Check him out in the Tate, the amount of work he has done is breathtaking and also the amount of miles that man has cover by foot is insane. I wish I could accomplish something as epic as that one day.
I seem to pick books at the min or like pieces of work by people on a quest, the next books I have lined up to read are Moby Dick, which most people laugh when I tell them and I'm dying to read some of Jack London's work. It will probably take me another year to get through on the road and moby dick though as I am the slowest reader ever.
Here's another random thing I think I might share, I was at a club on the Thames on Saturday and about 3am I decided to go home, now normally the bus would be the usual option but I felt like I needed to walk. I don't know if anyone else ever feels that way but walking a long distance home after a night out with Explosions in the sky in your ears really is something special. Made me think about a lot, but in particular about coming home and I guess it also made me think about that one girl who you feel like you need to share everything with. Chris McCandless said "Happiness is only real when shared" out of all the quotes I know this is probably the on quote that hits me the hardest. I don't have the balls or the vocabulary skills to explain anymore about my own quest home other than I'm getting damn anxious about seeing her and I think it's the good anxiousness.
I'm going to try and leave a blog entry everyday with a song or video of youtube so here's the first thing I listened to this morning when i got up that just made total sense. The Temper Trap
