Asbury & Asbury

Horse drawn

As a freelance graphic designer, there's one thing I'm pretty hopeless at and dread being asked to do, and that's sketching – or specifically, coming up with a quick sketch for a client presentation. Drawing isn't really my thing, especially drawing without reference material. But freelancers are expected to turn their hand to just about anything. Even when you try to explain, the reply usually comes that they're not after anything special, just a quick sketch to get the idea across. The client might get confused by mac-ed up artwork, thinking it's the finished article and then how would they justify the fees?

So I'd sit down with my pen and paper and come up with something like this...

...if they asked for a horse, of course.

Personally, I don't mind my drawing. It's embarrassingly inaccurate, but not without its charm in a naïve sort of way. The horse is smiling for one thing.

But I've always admired people who can knock out a convincing drawing of a horse, pigeon in flight or whatever – so I recently decided to do something about it and get a bit of practice in.

There are loads of instructional books on drawing out there (mostly for kids), but with my art and design training I'd always dismissed cartoon or copycat drawing out of hand, because it didn't sit well with my idea of drawing from observation. Now I have to confess, I'm hooked.

In two minutes flat I can draw this...

...a recognisable horse.

Referring to a slightly more grown-up book, I came up with this stallion in less than five minutes...

and here's the head...

All the drawings are first attempts and there was no 'cheating' with rubbers or heaven forbid, tracing. It's relaxing and stupidly good fun. Here are some of my other efforts – they're not all supposed to be horses.

 

How to draw 101 animals
Draw 50 animals

A Cloudy Language #26 (Swearing edition)

“Some pretty steamy showers on the way, which will give way to quite a muddy shite at Glastonbury.”
Tomasz Schafernaker

Thanks to Mike Reed for spotting that one – see here for the full audio clip, in which poor Tomasz gets a fit of the giggles afterwards.

Clearly he meant to say ‘a muddy sight’, but the forecast is probably quite accurate in the context of Glastonbury.

Owen goal

Given that one half of Asbury & Asbury is Liverpool and the other Everton, there are mixed feelings here about the fortunes of Michael Owen, former Liverpool and England football legend, now languishing at relegated Newcastle United, and reduced to advertising himself for sale in an already-infamous 32-page brochure.

Speaking as the red half of Asbury & Asbury, I’d happily have worked on the copy for free. That said, when faced with the brief, I’d like to think my advice would have been “Don’t produce a brochure at all”. Does anyone really need to know Owen’s brand values include ‘Cool’, ‘Dynamic’ and ‘Sincere’?

It’s almost as though the award-winning Christopher Doyle Identity Guidelines have found their counterpart in real life. Not sure if Owen has a colour palette, but he certainly doesn't look great in black and white.

UPDATE: This has since been picked up in a good article on Creative Review’s blog, as well as by fellow wordsmith Rishi Dastidar. Thanks also to Effektive Design who originally brought our attention to it. The latest breaking news is that Hull City are interested in making a bid. Not one to enter for the Design Effectiveness Awards. 

Q&A with A&A

 
The Casual Optimist, aka Dan Wagstaff of Raincoast Books in Toronto, has just published a Q&A about our Corpoetics project. You can read the whole thing here and have a dig around the rest of the blog while you’re at it. It's a good mix of literary and creative musings and observations, as well as the odd interview with obscure copywriters.

A Cloudy Language #21 to #25

“High pressure is very firmly ruling the weather roost at the moment.”
Susan Powell

“It will be temperatures actually that are our major fluctuating factor.”
Susan Powell

“Some bits of energy will help to set off a few showers...”
Dan Corbett

“If you are sort of stepping out for that Friday afternoon picnic you should be in pretty good shape.”
Dan Corbett

“Then this next clump of something here, this next little sort of surge of some energy in the area of some patchy rain.”
Dan Corbett

Thanks also to Conor Wynne for writing in to alert us to weather stalwart Martin King of TV3 Ireland. Judging by this solitary YouTube clip, his technique seems to rely less on language and more on rapid footwork. As one of the commenters puts it, “Somone should nail his feet to the ground.”

Creative accounting

Just been perusing The Guardian's gallery of MPs' expenses claims, which includes receipts for everything from garden plants to the Tesco weekly shop. Many of them are partially or almost entirely blacked out. It's striking how interesting they become purely as pieces of graphic art. Someone should blow them up and sell them as limited-edition screen prints. Naturally, they would have to be extortionately expensive.