The Reekster Blog

OK – Keeping up with this blog is hard work when your designing all the time! but that doesn’t mean nothing has been goin on.

So here’s something a little different.

I’ve installed Logic Studio 9 this weekend and yowser it’s a big UPGRADE from 8 Express I’ll say! Needless to say I’ve been playin around with the VMK and getting sucked into a new world. I’ve uploaded it below so have a listen.. kinda ambient electronica esq

Jump to the MP3 Here! It will download onto your machine… Thankfully in the process of setting up proper hosting on my own site (finally)

Beta preview can be seen here: www.rikhopkinson.com

Will update soon – just seeing if this works!

Circle from Rik Hopkinson on Vimeo

I don’t blow my own trumpet that often; but i really think this latest corporate design I’ve been workin on over past few days is pretty goddam flawless. From a design, SEO, CSS, semantic, tasty imagery, subtle, aesthetic, griddy and rather pleasing point of view – I love it! (Not too mention the sub-conscious image pointing CTA) mmmmm

I’m sure this is the year for these guys – and not just for the website Nice little minimal experiment…

A few of my latest stuff I’ve been doing at the old workplace. Really liking the new job! The interactive side of the company is growing with the latest addition of my good mate Shmee

Here’s a few concepts and ideas for pitches:

1. Amdega – Had some branding to work off for this first one but not much – as in a logo in white/grey the rest are ideas…

2. AVB - This was something I actually knocked together pretty quickly – Nice use of Minimalism and very neutral in black and white:

3. Ordabase – nice concept that i wont go to far into. This was the initial design that actual has since been re-worked as it was too out there :

More coming soon (so many to choose from!)

Hope you enjoy this little doodle. Flipping cut up text about on the canvas. Nice effect! Couldn’t resist the added texture

Bit of an ampersand influence here from a nice little font called Caviar Dreams… mmmm fishy? Also took the colours of the old munsell colour wheel. Some complementary and a couple or tertiary. Come on sun and warmth!!.. Come Back

but… I’m gonna startuploading what i do during the day too… can’t design all the time? haha )

Here’s a little doodle… inspired by 6 and secrets… be they dark or be they light?

Had this idea after reading about a few articles this week. One on Andy Gilmore (amazing graphics - http://www.birdbrid.com/) and also some inspo from the colour book about Albert Munsell’s colour wheel; a partitive colour system based on five primary hues or principle colours, yellow, red, green, blue, violet which are based on afterimage perceptions from what we see/derive everyday in nature. The Munsell wheel also begins to bring in all the many tones of gray.

Getting it on with the building blocks of colour! Win!

I thought I’d do my own version using an old maths system of creating curves from straight lines… one of the things I actually learnt at school haha… I’ve also got a thing for grid systems at the moment… they are everywhere!

Also started reading this rather good book on colour by Edith Anderson Feisner… Amazing how much colour effects our daily lives without us actually realising. The first if many experiments we thinks!

The first main elements I’ve been learning about are that perception of colour is actually split into 3 main concepts: Local Light, Optical Light and Arbitrary Light. See my 2hrs of twiddling definition below (still playing with lightbeams:) )