Development: Mini

Here are a few of the designs we've worked on so far:

In style of 'the car in front is a Toyota' we wanted to imply that the mini was heading North. We wanted to use the space well instead of just plonking a design onto the roof that already existed.

Mini roof design!

Stacie and myself started working on the mini roof design brief that was posted just as we broke up as something a little extra to mix it up a bit! This was a very quick turn around with not much sketchbook work so here's a little insight.

First of all i'm going to cheat and say you can find our visual inspiration here.

Secondly, we were really inspired by this artist who has just won the Northern Art prize 2010, Pavel Buchler.

When you see our final design you may not think it resembles any influence of his work, but discovering the work started off a long train of thought!

''I love Manchester. Of all the regional cities I know, it has the least 'regional' attitude. Artists there are not chippy about the rest of the world." Buchler

Christoph Grunenberg, director of Tate Liverpool, agreed: "We are fighting against the London centre of gravity," he said. "And so we should be: there is incredible work going on here."

We wanted to make a design which represented the buzz in the North, not just creatively but in general. We began to think about the North star and how it is a guiding light, always leading North.

South Killingholme

After going to the Caravan Gallery talk I got inspired to do a similar study of my home town over Easter. My parents live in a little village called South Killingholme which is about two hours from here, directly East and by the coast. There is not much in Lincolnshire other than flat country side and industrial areas, because it sits right on the river Humber. There are many sharp contrasts in the scenery - open countryside for miles, quaint little villages and old fashioned farms mixed with dirty power stations, shipping docks and machinery.

Unfortunately, the day I had to take the photos was a terrible day and I had a lot of problems with exposure. However, the aim of this study was to follow in the footsteps of the caravan gallery and really document the village, so it wasn't about the perfect picture, just about capturing the essence of the place. I was surprised how much I found to document once I started looking around, lots of interesting subjects and I enjoyed looking out for juxta positions and interesting shots. I'm getting more and more into the art direction side of things lately!

This mini project is part of my bigger stamp project - off on a bit of a tangent, but I've started to look a lot more widely at British culture and expand beyond the brief with different outcomes other than stamps!