Jono Sandilands

Saturday linocut

2012-01-21T13:00:00.000Z

Saturday afternoon seems to be a good time for me turn some of my recent sketches into prints. I've been quietly working on quite a few test linocut prints in my spare time, the two shown below is a sneek peek at part of a set of new hand pressed linoprint gift cards. There is also a small linocut zine in the Saturday print works (BUT it might be a while until it's finished!). More sneek peekings of my work etc can be seen on Instagram (username: jonosandilands).

"Meat Tin" and "Worry Horse" (working titles) - Taken with Instagram

Hop Night

2012-01-13T19:50:00.002Z

Gigposter for First Foot Soldiers with Casino Feet at Captain Flints bar, Lerwick, Shetland.
Hop night is the night for the surviviors of the all night celebration which is Lerwick's Up Helly Aa fire festival.
More info about Up Helly Aa:www.uphellyaa.org

Happy New Deals

2012-01-12T21:01:00.000Z

Happy 2012! To kick off the year I am releasing this new set of limited edition prints to buy online- "The Little Prints". There are eight different prints, so to show my goodwill I am giving away any four prints for only £5. Choose which you like or let me choose for you.

And just to show how much you all mean to me, you can also get free shipping by using coupon code "THANKSJONO" at checkout. Yay!

Click below to buy on Etsy
Any four little prints. A6 size. Limited Edition. £5 available on Etsy.

Click below to buy on Etsy

Any four little prints. A6 size. Limited Edition. £5 available on Etsy.

Retro 80s print madness

2011-12-02T18:20:00.001Z

If you were following my blogs about frantically building a stand and printing for the Craft Fair last month, you may have noticed a bit of silence since then. Been busy as usual...

The stand looked great and the prints sold well. So well that my new set of cards is practically sold out over the weekend, the remaining sets are for sale at North Rock Gallery in Lerwick. Pictured below is the stand (built with loads of help from my dad), pictures of the Top Toys of the 80's cards and some pictures of some new lino cuts I have been working on.

My prints are always available to buy online at my Etsy store. There is still time to order for Christmas and if you leave me a nice note I will throw in a free card or postcard.

My stand at Craft Fair, Clickimin Centre November 2011

Top Toys of the 80's - set of 4 limited edition hand screenprinted cards

Colour one complete - 200 cards in total

Printing the 4 designs at the same time right onto cut and creased card to save time

The final set of prints 50 of each design

New Prints: To continue on the 80s theme this week I have also been working on some more 80s inspired print, but this time lino print. VHS tape and Scalextric. Good memories.

VHS tape linocut

Scalextrics linocut

The first official prints on my Iron Cast press.

The final prints. More lino coming soon...

Potato

2011-11-17T12:22:00.001Z

During the third week of the Handmade Graphic Design Nightclass I am running with Adult Learning course supported by Shetland Arts the class experimented with print. We used Potatos (yay!) as a introduction to relief printing methods.

You may say this is a very basic introduction, and you would be right, but it gives an insight into how more advanced techniques, such as letter press and lino print work. Some of the class got the chance to experiment with lino cutting and stamping, which worked great. Over the next three weeks the class will have the opportunity to apply these print techniques to their projects if they so wish. Now the pictures:

All the potato prints cut by the learners

The alphabet


Wrapping Paper

Look into my eye


Chainsaw's symbols

Show me your teeth

Visual Design - Saul Bass inspired prints

The Tattie Alphabet

Everyone's cut potatos

Dogfish and Trexmas

Why so Serious?

Papa de diamante

Messy tattie alphabet

Pre holiday/craft fair prep

2011-10-18T21:59:00.001+01:00

Wow, it's been a hectic week. My stand is almost complete thanks to my dad and also Sandy for helping me paint. A few finishing touches when I get back and it's ready to go.

So due to weather conditions I've had to travel to mainland Scotland from Shetland a day earlier, I'm writing this on the ferry.

Like I said, This week has been so busy, we've (just about) moved flat (we officially move after holiday), almost finished my craft fair exhibition stand, screen printed lots of small postcard sized art cards and gift cards, designed the craft fair posters with help from the muckle Gravit and of course the famous Andrew Watt, many thanks to him for agreeing to being wrapped up in a huge ball of old smelly knitting.

So now I can hopefully enjoy some time off before diving right back into the craft fair when I get back.

This years Christmas Craft Fair is at Clickimin Centre, Lerwick from 11-13 November.

Here is a sneak peek at what I've been doing, will have more about the prints post holiday! I'm off to the bar...

Craft Fair 2011: Progress

2011-10-12T11:06:00.000+01:00

Wow time flies! it was about a month ago now since I posted about my plans to build a stall for this year's Craft Fair (see post 14 Sept 2011)

Things have been progressing well, although, it's now a week until my holiday, and alot of work to do! The original Google SketchUp model from my last post helped me work out what I wanted the stand to look like, keeping in mind possible future use. It also let me measure around about how much plywood and timber I would need.

My Dad has played a big part in helping the build, including transport from the timber yard, space to build and ideas how it will all work, which has been brilliant.

The panels have now all been prepared and we have had a test set up to make sure everything fits together and to see how it will look.

Next stage is to paint the stand white, and get the shelves ready and in place. The shelves will be moveable so I can play around with where prints sit in the stand. Last night we tested out one shelf and got everything else ready to attach the shelves after I paint the box.

The other shelf attachments are made from the same square blocks but screwed into the side frame. The shelf then sits on top of the attachments. Each shelf will also have a small groove for prints to sit into. Prints will all be mounted and packaged ready to sell. In two minds if I will paint the shelves as the wood is really nice, will just see what it looks like when we get them all attached!We tested a shelf on the back right panel, the large bolt on the left holds the two back panels together but also acts as attachment for a shelf.

So a bit to do on the stand, keeping in mind I am also busy preparing artwork for other prints for the Craft Fair. Here I am working on some new Christmas cards. Planning a set of 4 limited edition cards which will be released at the Craft Fair in November and be on special offer. A few more things in the pipeline - so hope to reveal some more before my holiday!

Shetland Wool Week

2011-10-05T22:52:00.001+01:00

Programme and logo design for Shetland Wool Week 2011.
Commissioned by Jamieson & Smith and Promote Shetland.

Art Direction by Jono Sandilands & Daniel Gear
Artwork by Jono Sandilands

Programme printed by Shetland Litho
2 colour on brown packaging paper

Craft Fair 2011

2011-09-14T11:59:00.000+01:00

This year I am going to have a stall at the Shetland Arts & Crafts - Clickimin Craft Fair 11th - 13th November. I'm away on holiday in the few weeks leading up to the craft fair *(The Fest, Florida!)* so I need to be ready to exhibit when we return in November!

I'm busy thinking about my stand (see draft model above) and new prints. Will post more of the process of both over the next few weeks, very exciting and busy!

Handmade Graphic Design Nightclass

2011-09-08T09:36:00.003+01:00

Handmade Graphic Design Nightclass
Continuing from last years Graphic Design Nightclass I am running an Adult Learning course supported by Shetland Arts in Handmade Graphic Design.

In this course you will explore handmade elements to produce eye catching solutions to design problems. Learn about research, layout, typography and printing.

Learners will work to set project briefs during the course – prioritizing handmade elements but utilizing computer skills where appropriate.Increased confidence and skills in producing handmade elements in Graphic Design. Increased knowledge about Graphic Design in contemporary and historical context. Use a range of research and thinking methods to develop Graphic Design concepts. Evaluate graphic design elements in context of user requirements

6 weeks from 19 September 2011
Venue: Shetland Arts, Toll Clock Centre, Lerwick
Times: Monday 6 – 9pm
Cost: £54 + £5 material costs payable to tutor. Bring drawing equipment.
Book: http://www.learnshetland.com/handmade-graphic-design
(book by Wednesday 14 September)This course is suitable for Beginners/Intermediate learners.

In The Drink

2011-07-26T22:36:00.009+01:00

Poison Popcorn - In The Drink from Jono Sandilands on Vimeo.

Daniel gear + Jono Sandilands
- Music video for Poison Popcorn "In The Drink"
After years of speaking about a collaboration, good friend Daniel Gear and myself finally found the time (albeit very tight time) to work together on a project. We were both approached to submit artwork to Shetland's Vunk Fest art show at Shetland Musuem in July 2011. It was perfect time to work together and the chance to work with video with an afternoon screening of films already being planned. We put in our proposal and were booked with a rough slot for our as-of-yet-non-existent film.

Although we knew it was in July, it wasn't until mid June we realised how quickly time was getting on and we'd better get a move on with the film. We had some brainstorming sessions to come up with the idea for the film. We agreed it would be a music video most likely for Poison Popcorn. We came up with the concept of almost a reverse green screen using green coloured card as the 'portal' allowing a layer below to be revealed. Proof of concept below:

Rough Green Screen Mouth Test #1 from Jono Sandilands on Vimeo.

We needed people, Facebook has alot of them so I put out a call to anyone interested in helping us make the film. This happened to be on the Wednesday before the festival, so needless to say I was slightly anxious we would be done in time.

Thankfully on the night we had a good turn out. Must give out a thanks to everyone involved, it was really great fun making it, and we got some funny looks waving around green bits of card in the middle of the pub. Also must be said at this point, we weren't sure how the final video would look, and knew we would have a busy few days editing the footage together.

Daniel and me called it a night on Wednesday, getting home quite late after some additional footage was filmed (see very end credits of film). On Thursday evening after of day jobs we started the editing process. The first attempt at making the concept work with the footage had us rolling around the floor, amost crying with laughter. Editing at the same time, we managed our workflow to be working on different parts of the video to minimize overall time editing.

We finished the main part of the video at 4am Friday morning, with our day jobs to go to again bright and early. Friday night was spent cleaning up, exporting and producing the credit sequence in time to burn to DVD for Sunday's showing at Shetland Museum & Archives.

Film can now be seen online above, and we are also submitting to this years Screenplay festival. (www.shetlandarts.org/FilmsWanted2011)

Caring Sunday

2011-06-26T20:23:00.000+01:00

Shetland Carers' Cruise 2011
Sunday June 12th 2011

On Sunday 12th of June, along with some friends I volunteered to help out at The Shetland Carers' Cruise. The cruise is a great opportunity for carers and the people they care for to enjoy a relaxing scenic cruise on a ferry around the island of Yell. It was great to hear about some of these remarkable people, most of whom devote their lives to caring for other people. Great way to spend a Sunday.

More information here:
shetland-communities.org.uk/subsites/scg

Fishbowl

2011-05-29T16:04:00.010+01:00

At the start of this year, to get ourselves back into the way of working and using our sketchbooks, alongside Andrew Morrison of New Dead Language / Co:Lab we set out to get back to basics with a week long "Doodle Week". (See post here). Doodle week looks set to become an ongoing exercise.
The rules were simple, each member must produce one sketch per day, with the main objective to get back into the way of working after the holidays but also to have a, lets say, "bank" of possible ideas to take forward and produce into prints.

The original shown above. A few people have asked, "what does it mean?". I'm not ashamed to say it has no meaning, it was totally a case of visualizing an image in my head and putting pencil to paper to make it a reality. I did want to create a sense of spookiness/eeriness/weirdness, I hope it comes across.

It could be said the girl takes influence from the twins in 1980 psychological horror film, The Shining. The girls in the film may have been based on a photo by American photographer Diane Arbus - 1967 photo of identical twins shown below:

It may be interesting to make a matching print of the girls twin, but that will be something for another day... For now the final print below:

You can see I kept pretty true to the original sketch, I already had a good idea for how I wanted it to look when I did it, so it was quite a seemless process from sketch to print, just spanned out over a much longer time than I normally work ie not to set deadline, exhibition, client etc.

Sketch produced in January and artwork inked over the next few months when I had a spare moment, to final print in mid May.

Fishbowl
Colour: 2 Layers - black on red
Size: A4
Edition: 10
Stock: Revive 100 325gsm Matt
Signed and numbered

Buy Fishbowl on Etsy:

Co:Lab Exhibition: Heart Your Head

2011-05-26T21:57:00.000+01:00

The Goodwill Merchant

2011-05-08T20:12:00.026+01:00

If you read my last blog post (Printing with a view - 27 April 2011) you would have seen my girlfriend and me were house sitting out in the country for a week. At the end I mentioned I was also working on another print during that week and would be posting soon...

The Goodwill Merchant

About the print
The Goodwill Merchant
Colour: 2 Layers - cyan on cyan
Size: A3
Edition: 10
Stock: 340gsm Revive 50:50 Matt
Signed and numbered (note: not photographed)

Buy Beard Sea on Etsy:

After a bit of internet research about the area we were staying in for the week, I found out about a ship that wrecked in 1976 on the coast nearby - Goodwill Merchant. The article linked mentioned of some the lost cargo of the ship being new cars. All the work that went into manufacturing and shipping the cars, just lost like that. Don't mess with the sea.

The print is also a nod towards how some cars on the islands were disposed of until not too long ago (see youtube video I came across a few years back: !!!)

I began thinking about the amount of car parts at the bottom of the ocean around Shetland.

Process and (lack of) time
So time really went way too fast during the last three days house sitting, and I had to rush away to Aberdeen at the end of the week, leaving no time to update this here blog.

Wed 27 - Research, Initial drawing and layout:

Thurs 28 - Finish Layer 1 inking + Beetle - photographed below, crawled up the leg of my jeans whilst I was inking, aaah!

+ After some heavy inking over the 2 days I finally finish on Thursday night.

Thursday night ends with a late night journey to town to print film positives for exposure to screen for Friday morning.

It was quite strange, after printing the film I drove past this wrecked car, which looked like it had possibly been fished out of the harbour. (poor quality phone pic)

The 2 positive films held together in the light, can kind start to get a taste of how the print will work:

Fri 29 - The main reason we were house sitting was to look after 4 excellent cats. One of which is a natural hunter - he brought us 2 rabbits and on the last morning, this mouse, who had seen better days but survived!

Exposure of screen + printing. Here is a pic of the garage converted to temporary print workshop. Note the bamboo drying racks: its the way forward!

Then there was a mad dash to catch my flight. No time to even blink on the last day! But really pleased with how much I managed to get done over the week.

Well that's my holidays, now back to my day job.

Printing with a view

2011-04-27T22:27:00.006+01:00

Holidays! And great weather for printing outside! We are house sitting for a work colleague, out in the country, great to get away from town for a while.

The inspiration: The clouds + sky, has been great, so decided to to a print based around that.

Skytone matching system.

Printing with a view - what more could you ask for?

Also have 4 little helpers, who come to check up on me every so often.

It's a one colour print on A3. Thinking it will look good framed.
Small limited edition of 4.

Was trying to achieve a framed view of the sky I've been staring at the last few days, almost like looking out a window. Hopefully when we're back in town, I can get this up on the wall, and be reminded of this great weather and country air!

I'm working on something else for the next few days based on some completely different inspiration since being out here, so hopefully have more to show soon. Also hoping the weather hold out! Enjoy!

Power of Place - Parkour video

2011-03-11T17:08:00.000Z

During 2010 an exciting project: Power of Place – Shetland’s Year of Architecture and Place 2010 took place in Shetland.

Throughout 2010 Power of Place hosted: lectures, workshops in youth clubs, themed architectural articles, an international architectural conference, an architecture film festival, and held Architects’ Doors Open Days.

This short film about Parkour in Shetland features local Parkour group "Northern Focus Parkour" utilising Shetland's architectural environment.

The original footage is courtesy of Northern Focus Parkour (youtube.com) and mixed media animation was filmed and animated by Jono Sandilands (jonosandilands.com).

Power of Place Final Fling events:
Saturday 5th March, Shetland Museum & Archives, Lerwick.
Saturday 12th March, Sandwick Carnegie Hall.
Saturday 19th March, Mid Yell Hall.

All from 11am – 2pm. FREE. Everyone of all ages welcome.

Power of Place - Parkour

2011-03-04T22:47:00.004Z

Over the past week I have been filming and animating a mixed media video for Power of Place - Shetland's Year of Architecture (Shetland Arts, Shetland Architectural Society & SIC). (That's the videos rendering just now - and they're being shown tomorrow! Eeek!)

Northern Focus Parkour kindly jumped in to help with the short film clips which will be shown alongside loads of other things at the Power of Place Final Flings (poster for events).

Saturday 5th March, Shetland Museum & Archives, Lerwick.

Saturday 12th March, Sandwick Carnegie Hall.

Saturday 19th March, Mid Yell Hall.

All from 11am – 2pm. FREE. Everyone of all ages welcome.

www.shetlandarts.org

The Art of Ping Pong

2011-03-01T16:35:00.005Z

The Art of Ping Pong Prototype #4 - Full Size from Jono Sandilands on Vimeo.

I have been developing my "The Art of Ping Pong" project in the very little spare time I've had over the past few weeks - have come to some conclusions about how to finalise the project, which I plan to exhibit in some form later this year! Ping Pong, Art and Beer!

The blog (www.theartofpingpong.blogspot.com) has a complete process of my work on the project so far, please follow for further updates and info on future plans!

Remember me

2011-02-22T15:04:00.006Z

Everyday at work I come across a website I am interested in.. but it's blocked! So I email myself a link. This isn't the best way to go about things so I thought I would start a bookmarking system on Google Bookmarks instead of filling up my own inbox.
Feel free to follow!
Remember me on Google Bookmarks

Beard Sea

2011-02-17T21:35:00.006Z

This week I have been hand cutting a woodblock based on one of the doodles from our Co:Lab February Doodle Week. (Sketch below)

More about the doodle: The idea of doodle week is to come up with ideas everyday for possible prints. I stretched the rules a little bit - in that on doodle week Tuesday - I sketched the wavy lines which I wanted to be a rough sea, but wasn't sure where it was going so gave up for the day. When I revisited it on the Wednesday I instantly saw a beard - I must have been inspired a little bit by Up Helly Aa season and Vikings. So - Beard Sea!

For me the idea was screaming out to be a woodblock print so I got carving...

Inked up and ready to print:

The final prints:

Hip hip hooray!!

Buy Beard Sea on Etsy:

Too Fast

2011-02-16T17:48:00.009Z

Anyone looking out of their windows in the early hours of this morning may have been shocked to see a man running around waving his arms. I'd like to say thank you for not phoning the police, and it was not a mad man, but it was me... at work..?

Shetland Youth Theatre are putting on a production of "Too Fast", By Douglas Maxwell, directed by John Haswell - part of The National Theatre Connections. (more info and tickets)

Having only 24 hours to do the artwork for the promotional material, the director John Haswell and myself sat down and did some research into ideas for the poster. After a while we came up with the idea of using light graffiti to create a surreal, artificial look, mixed with a real world scene.

But with no stock photography on hand, the challenge was to get this ready overnight. At 4.30pm I ran over to the nearest DIY store, Frank Williamson's, and found a cheap LED torch. Just one of them ones that can connect to your keys.

The problem with this being a rushed project, I had already made plans for my Tuesday night. Leaving no time to work at night. My plan was to get up at 6am Wednesday to catch the last bit of darkness before sunrise at 7.41am. But came 3am I was wide awake in bed ready to go - so I just got up and started with some indoor (warm) tests.

I got the camera ready inside - and after I was happy with the technique I was ready to move outside and for more space to experiment and have fun.
A selection of some of the different options we had for the poster.

Co:Lab - Doodle Week 2

2011-02-16T14:27:00.002Z

The second of our now monthly doodle weeks over on the co:lab blog.

Hot Topic Taxi

2011-01-31T20:41:00.015Z

Recently I was asked to visualise "Hot Topic Taxi", a segment featured on BBC Radio Shetland's monthly programme, Sideways, a sideways look at Arts & Culture in Shetland hosted by Mark Inchley. The animation will be used on Facebook/Youtube etc to 'visualise' this part of the show online.

Mark originally came to me with the idea to have a static drawing of two people in a taxi (see sketch of idea by Mark below) with the area in black in the back window transparent with a video of a road moving in the background.

After a bit of brainstorming over the idea - I proposed an idea, and a challenge for myself to work within a tight budget to produce something more usable and dynamic than the original brief of a static image.

The challenge I set was to produce 3 or 4 very short animations (around 5 seconds long each). They would be of a very rough quality, which I supply for the Sideways guys to cut together themselves using some sort of movie software.

I had a listen to the audio and started quickly sketching out what I thought the characters, taxi and setting looked like. Once I had an idea for what I wanted them to look like the final elements were roughly drawn with a soft pencil then scanned and saved each element as a separate transparent file.

I used Adobe After Effects to create a really basic set of the flat layers with a camera positioned in front of the placed elements to create the look of a 3D world with elements moving at different speeds to create a depth of field. View from right of the placed camera in After Effects.

Next to make the action - the backgrounds were set to move using two keyframes for start position end position. The characters and car were set to wiggle randomly to look as if driving in a real car. The mouths only had to loop a basic speaking pattern and this was quite quickly done by making a photoshop file with the 4 different mouth positions required.

In After Effects I trigger which layer should be visible at a given time using time remapping. I type "0" for what is called "layer 2" above, "1" for "Layer 3" and so on. I looped a segment of the mouth movement and used the same mouth for both characters.

I like to use this project as an example of what you can do working to a budget.

Co:Lab - Doodle week

2011-01-17T12:28:00.003Z

Co:Lab doodle week - find out more here.

Woodblock 3

2011-01-13T09:54:00.003Z

Another small test woodblock print from last night. Again really just playing about trying to get an idea of how it all works. Thing to learn from this is: when I've done my sketch on paper and before drawing and carving the block - I need to remember to mirror my image! Pretty obvious, but good to carve it into my brain now before I do something bigger.

Woodblock print tests

2011-01-11T22:47:00.006Z

Happy New Year to everyone!

Tonight I have been working on some test woodblock prints, practicing how to make a woodcut and print it on some small offcuts of boxwood. I'm looking to do a project with a much larger sized woodcut in the near future. Will need alot more smaller tests before I tackle the big one. Quite please with the qualities of the woodcut, will explore more...

And the second one - "Happy as Sad" (test).

I also used the left over ink from the roller plate to make a monotype print: (Monotype: A unique print made by pressing paper against a painted or inked surface. Different from monoprint in that the plate used only exists once.)

North Rock YULE print online

2010-12-11T14:25:00.002Z

North Rock Gallery has got the Yule exhibition prints from the CO:LAB Boys (Andrew, Beto and myself) available to buy online...get yourself some Shetland artists work now before it goes :)

Ganzie on North Rock Gallery

Co:Lab - A Good Shot?/A Real Meal?

2010-11-24T14:52:00.007Z

Here is a look at my two screenprints set side by side for the second of the two Co:Lab Christmas 2010 projects currently showing at Sprickle an' Peester exhibition (which I also did exhibition design - see previous process blog) at Bonhoga Gallery, Weisdale Mill, Shetland until 23 December. We are showing work alongside makers and artists from Shetland and across the UK.

Each screenprint is Four colour
Size: A3
Edition: 3

Buy Jono Sandilands screenprints online

2010-11-13T11:09:00.005Z

You can now buy a selection of my screenprints online - just click to browse Jono Sandilands Etsy shop. Perfect gifts for Christmas, including the 'Socks' cards shown above (especially for Uncles!).
Enjoy!

Sprickle an' Peester

2010-11-10T13:00:00.013Z

Today I realised I haven't posted any projects done while on my placement @ Shetland Arts for a while - so here is a recent one to share. I have been working on the exhibition design for Bonhoga Gallery's Christmas exhibition which is titled "Sprickle an' Peester" (Yup, another Shetland Dialect project - (see my recent "Ganzie" print) - Sprickle an' Peester translates to 'Wriggle and Squeal'!?)

The gallery team asked me to do a typographic treatment paper cut which would be used on the poster and invites for the exhibition. The first thing I did was a really rough sketch of the layout and style on paper. I wanted the type to be quite crisp so this sketch was scanned and used as a base guide to work on top of in Illustrator with a font which was similar to what I had in mind. I then set about manipulating the type and adding the extra glyphs to make the vector guide marks. This process animated below:

The next step was to cut the design from paper - to get the delicate handmade qualities desired for the final artwork. This was an awesome Friday afternoon project!

The cut out paper was placed on top of red card and scanned before setting out the poster design in InDesign, adding appropriate information and logos.

Now time to go and put finishing touches to my Co:Lab submission for the Exhibition...

Co:Lab - Ganzie

2010-11-06T10:59:00.007Z

The Co:Lab trio were recently asked to submit prints to this years "Yule" themed exhibition at North Rock Gallery in Lerwick. We all approached the theme in very different ways and you can see the results at the North Rock Gallery until the 24 December. You can see the other Co:Labbers posts about their work on their blogs - Andrew Morrison & Beto.
Below is a bit of insight into my print - "Ganzie".

Ganzie:
It comes to a time of year when your shorts sink down your drawer and huge ganzies (ganzie=sweater/jersey - Shetland Dialect) with amazing patterns, start to emerge from the dark dusty depths of your wardrobe.

I started spotting some of these ganzies with interesting patterns in August and kept my eye peeled for more including lots of reindeers and even one with a giraffe. This became quite addictive and I got quite obsessed. For my print I wanted to combine some of these patterns with 'knitted typography'.

The message in the print comes from some of the research. A trend called Ugly Christmas Sweater Party (www.uglychristmassweaterparty.com) where you can get tips and also buy ugly ganzies to wear at your party.

In September I spent some time working in London where I thought it would be funny to 'Facebook' my finds to share with others - Ganzie Watch.

Co:Lab work to tight deadlines - especially when working towards an exhibition - so during any free time in London I had to complete the artwork for ganzie. I had to make use of the hotel's mini fridge as a makeshift lightbox to make sure my second layer matched the first.

Some more research...

Socks:

I also produced a christmas card to match ganzie in the form of socks. The idea originates from my Uncle - whom I often receive a lovely pair of socks as a christmas gift - these come in useful in these cold months.

Socks available on etsy - http://etsy.me/b3VXgI

More prints by Co:Lab on the blog at - www.colabproject.blogspot.com/

North Rock YULE Exhibition

2010-10-28T23:08:00.000+01:00

Co:Lab have been busy over the past month preparing for two exhibitions over the festive season. The first of which kicks off on the 5 November at North Rock Gallery in Lerwick town centre. More info coming soon.

Co:Lab Blog
North Rock Gallery Blog

Graphic Design Nightclass

2010-08-20T16:16:00.002+01:00

I am pleased to announce I will be delivering a Graphic Design night class through Adult learning in Shetland this semester. The course is dead cheap, runs for six weeks and is aimed at the beginner and intermediate level also anyone who is interested! We will learn the creative process from research, idea generating, development through to final concept. The course is supported by Shetland Arts.

If you would like more information please email me at work: jono.sandilands@shetlandarts.org

And to book follow this link to the Learn Shetland Website: www.learnshetland.com/graphic-design

Portage: Finger Symbols

2010-08-09T00:30:00.002+01:00

Portage: Finger Symbols from Shetland Arts on Vimeo.

Recently I was commissioned to produce a film for Portage: Finger Symbols, a Shetland Arts exhibition at Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland. I worked alongside fellow artist Chloe Garrick who was commissioned as photographer for the exhibition and also More info below.

Portage: Finger Symbols, an exhibition exploring rings and finger ornaments, curated by Mary Smith can be seen at Bonhoga Gallery, Weisdale, Shetland from 7 August to 5 September. The exhibition shows contemporary work created by emerging and established international makers and also features photography by Chloe Garrick and a film by Jono Sandilands. The film can also be viewed online as Shetland Arts’ first online exhibition.

Co:Lab - Geometric

2010-08-08T23:43:00.006+01:00

Co:Lab's latest project description from Co:Lab blog (www.colabproject.blogspot.com/)
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Produced over the course of a month for exhibition at this year's VunkFest Music and Arts extravaganza, co:lab's latest project is a six colour, cross pollinated, geometric delight.

Recalling the overprint collaboration of co:lab's debut outing, each of the three final pieces in the SC&T project bare the creative stamp of all three co:lab members.

The prints are built up from a simple geometric template – a triangle within a circle within a square. In week one we each tackled the square (leaving a space for a subsequent circle to occupy). At this point Jono, Beto and Andrew all chose two colour as a signature to carry through the project and ensure some kind of continuity through the set.

At the end of the first week we came together with the fruit of our labour and left with each other's as a stimulus for week two – the circle. Both this and the triangular element of the project differ slightly from step one in that we each, from that point on, had the freedom to bleed one of our chosen colours out into the preceding shape and through the artwork of our fellow co:labbers.

We moved up a print size with this project and following week three's triangle we were faced with finding a new source for acetates. Up until now we have been printing these out on Jono's A4 printer but with SC&T's maximum working size of 350mm x 350mm we had to look for outside assistance. Fortunately Beto happened upon a recommendation for www.copyexpress.co.uk who were extremely helpful and provided A3 acetate we could patch together with amazing next day deliverly!

Jono cunningly managed to bypass the acetate stage by producing his contribution in cut paper which could be placed straight onto the coated screen when exposing.

Printing went fairly smoothly and it's been rather pleasant washing out the screens in the summer sun even though we've had issues with the hose and managed to burn out the motor on one of our pressure washers.

SC&T was hanging in The Shetland Museum's Learning Room between the 9th and the 11th July alongside many other artists contributing to this year's VunkFest. The museum also played host to a series of short films on the Sunday and of course you can read about all the great bands playing that fantastic weekend here. For more information on all the going on check out www.myspace.com/vunkventures

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A few pictures of my paper cut positives which were used in place of acetate/film to expose stencil to screen:

And the final prints:

Summer Update & Vunk Fest 2010

2010-08-08T20:56:00.011+01:00

First of all, for those who have stopped by recently - you may have noticed the lack of updates on latest projects. It has been a busy old summer of projects amongst other things including moving into a new flat and trips away to London through my placement at Shetland Arts - to work on an exciting project, involving the branding of Shetland Art's new venue, Mareel. More about this in future posts, I'm sure.

So to begin the update, I will start with Vunk Fest.
Vunk Fest is an alternative music and art festival in Shetland. This year I was involved with the Vunk Fest Visual Arts Collective which was a group brought together to create work as a collective. We chose to involve the musicians as a greater part of the visual arts side of the festival and break down preconceived barriers between the artforms of the festival. We also arranged a pop-up shop in the run up to the festival which I briefly blogged about in May here. Wow summer has gone by fast!

My main focus over the build up to Vunk for the collective was on "The Drum Splattering". Murray Arthur of Shetland Drums kindly agreed to sponsor himself and a drum kit for the idea, which was to film a completely white drum kit splattered in paint while someone played along to a backing track, the film would be used as a promo to the festival and the drum kit would be used on stage at the gigs.

First I had to figure out a way to splatter paint on the drums, a test film with an old cymbal and house paint was set up back in March, this concluded that the simplest way to fling the paint would be most successful, this method was plastic cups.

Next step was preparing the drums. The sponsored drums were Murray's practice kit, which were coloured red. This meant a few days of full on sanding action to take the existing lacquer and paint off and back to bare wood.

The drums were then sprayed white over the next week. Another point to add was the metal hardware had to be numbered and documented to make sure everything fitted back together seamlessly and fast!

This preparation process took some time to do but was a great feeling to get the drums looking so good at the end. They look brilliant just white, but they were missing that something Vunk.

Moving on now, we arranged to commit the splattering during the following week but the spray paint dried faster than anticipated and with a beautiful looking Sunday night we pushed the filming forward. Thankfully everyone managed to get there on short notice to help out. At this point I must thank Karen & Kirsty Bruce, My Dad for transport to location, Murray Arthur and the splatterers Chris Storey, Birdy, John, Elaine and Jamie.

I really couldn't be more happy with how the drums turned out in the end they look and sound brilliant! There was always a slight element of worry that the sound quality would be effected but after getting Murray along for a quick tune up we realised they sound good! Phew!

So now please enjoy the final film with music by kind permission of Poison Popcorn and El Pedro. Thanks for looking!

Vunk Fest - Its Gunna Be Messy! from Jono Sandilands on Vimeo.

Hillswick Youth

2010-06-23T22:08:00.003+01:00

Logo design commissioned by Shetland Youth Services for Hillswick Youth Club.

My brief from the young people was to create a crest / coat of arms, with four sections showing icons/pictures relating to friendship, being active and arts/crafts, with the banner Hillswick Youth Club underneath.

Co:Lab - Alphabet

2010-05-31T21:10:00.005+01:00

Co:Lab's most ambitious project to date, Alphabet, where each member is asked to produce a custom typeface and produce three prints each with two colours showcasing their alphabet in different ways: Complete Alphabet, Pangram and Big Up a letter of your choice. Below is my alphabet process:

My plan here was to use existing typefaces, some standard, novelty, overused etc, cut them up and reconstruct them to make something new and exciting out of the original letters. Legibility is not an issue here, I want to destroy these typefaces!

The points were traced onto paper and I began the dissection process joining up the points, then cutting. This was also an experiment with papercut screenprinting separations (as opposed to printed acetates, which has always been a problem for me):

I kept the insides of the letters intact with the notion to use these to print too, but when it came to printing time I opted for acetate for the pangram and big letter print due to the time constraints of the project.

The final screenprints:

The Full Alphabet - which used the papercut to expose to screen.

Full Alphabet Close Up:

Big Letter:

Big Letter Close Up:

Pangram:

Co:Lab - Red & Blue

2010-05-31T20:24:00.002+01:00

The most recently Co:Lab projects was the Red & Blue brief, completed during Co:Lab's two week residency at The Vunk Fest Pop-Up Shop in the Toll Clock Centre, Lerwick. The guidelines were simply to print using only the colours Red and Blue and to fit onto A6 sized stock. Below is my Red & Blue:

The rest can be seen on the Co:Lab blog.

Ping Pong tests!

2010-05-09T18:52:00.004+01:00

I just updated The Art of Ping Pong blog with a new video test/prototype, you can head over there to have a look at what I've been working on: theartofpingpong.blogspot.com/

For sale!

2010-05-09T18:25:00.003+01:00

Week one of the Vunk Fest Pop-Up shop is over and Co:Lab and Vunk Fest have had a busy week! As well as looking forward to what looks set to be a busy final week in the shop, Co:Lab will also be working hard on producing another print in time to release on the last day of the Pop-Up shop, next Saturday, 15th May, be sure to come and have a look!

As well as that, I have made the Hurt Locker prints available for sale online, and you can get your own limited edition print simply by clicking here: BUY ONLINE!

Vunk Fest Pop-Up Shop!

2010-04-26T10:44:00.002+01:00

Vunk Fest Pop-Up Shop!
For two weeks only, a sale of works for the not for profit festival.

Available:
Festival Ticket Deals
Photography
Artwork
Merch
New prints by Co:Lab (http://www.colabproject.blogspot.com)

At Toll Clock Shopping Centre, Lerwick.
Opening 12pm on Sat 1 May
Mon-Sat 10am-5pm Until 15 May!

http://www.myspace.com/vunkventures

Check out the event on Facebook for more details: http://bit.ly/VunkFest

Shetland Life

2010-04-15T11:00:00.001+01:00

Co:Lab are proud to be featured in this months Shetland Life magazine with Jono's interpretation of the Adverts brief.
See previous posts for each of the Co:Lab team's process of the brief:
Andrew's Advert Process Blog,
Beto's Advert Process Blog ,
Jono's Advert Process Blog.

To see the final prints of the Co:Lab Adverts brief prints see here.

More Jammy Goodness

2010-04-09T14:20:00.001+01:00

Pre-Donut Warm Up from Jono Sandilands on Vimeo.

Thursday 8 April, 2010

Marshall and Jono shooting some test footage of various spots around town.

Jam Donut - 9 April - TONIGHT! - 5.30pm - Meet at Sound Slopes!

Jam Donut 2010!

2010-03-29T23:19:00.011+01:00

Jam Donut from Jono Sandilands on Vimeo.

This week I've been having fun with my new camera on a little promo project for 'Jam Donut 2010' which is a BMX & Skate session in Lerwick next month.

The whole idea of 'Jam Donut' is for it to be fun and to raise awareness for the need of a skatepark, as well as a heap of competitions and of course, skating.

I got asked to do a poster for the event but I had a great idea for a little promo video for it too. At first I wanted to take slow motion footage of a doughnut being shot by a pellet gun, but this proved to be a bit too ambitious. So I rethought the idea with more brainstorming and came up with the wheel crushing the doughnut and jam oozing everywhere.

So after digging out my old, cheap BMX and giving it a bit of a clean up, inflation of tires and a trip to the shop for a load of reduced jam doughnuts, I set the shot up...

First attempt - on my own - camera rolling - focus in on the first doughnut - climb up on table - pick up bike (of course I planned to edit this) - BAM! ... flat doughnut, no jam, nothing ... BAM! ... "oooh a little bit. Maybe it'l do, see how it looks..." Rubbish. Clean up. Reshoot.

Second attempt - on my own again - pot of jam from cupboard, knife and spoon - open top of doughnut - fill - cover with part of first doughnut - camera rolling - up on table again - BAM! ... some jam comes out top and side, under wheel. Doh!

Third attempt - Dad onboard (I'm living at home again for now) to help the bamming and jamming up. - Dad proceeds to cut a huge slit and spoon half a jar of jam into side of doughnut - ridiculous jam oozing doughnut - dad up on table - me dedicated camera man - BAM! - does a backflip somehow - still intact - BAM! doughnut basically opens and gives full view of jam. ha ha. We're getting there...

Attempt four - Bit of problem solving from my Dad - "wonder if it would work better heated up" - BINGO - these are old doughnuts - the heat will make them nice and soft again - yusss - Now we're on fire - using hole in side of doughnut, fill with jam using DIY pipette - microwave - hot! hot! - extra filling of jam after heat - BAM! woooaw! Ha ha! Jam explosion just missing the camera and landing on the floor behind - that worked toooo good! "Ok one more, we're going to nail it..."

Fifth and final doughnut - hot again - extra, extra filling jam - but this time, no sudden force (or BAM!) - Perfect! Check out the video.

Nothing like help from your Dad and a bit of trial and error! Thanks Dad!

Other info: Text added in After Effects.
Audio: Teenage Bottlerocket - Skate or Die.

Edit: Just adding the poster thats going around shops etc...

Promote Shetland Process

2010-03-27T20:00:00.012Z

My latest completed project was to produce a set of illustrations to be featured in the themed itineraries of Promote Shetland's 2010 Pocket Guide.

The guide will be quite unusual, quirky and something that people would want to keep as a souvenir of Shetland. The publication will be predominantly pre-arrival material and will be Promote Shetland's main marketing tool aside the web. (www.shetland.org)

Promote Shetland asked me to come along and present to them some concepts for possible styles that could work in the guide. They had quite liked the work and the papercut style I achieved whilst working on the Gman: Contemporary Craft project, which had been seen around Shetland Museum & Archives where Promote Shetland are based.

Straight away I knew that a handcut paper style would suit what they were looking for. I thought I would experiment with a random 'Shetland scene' - trying to achieve a 3D depth of field with layers of paper - some textured/patterned - built up on top of each other.

You can see what I was trying to do with the scene, didn't really work fully as intended, but the piece still allowed me to show the concept, and I could physically show how the idea could work with development and studio photography.

I also presented a really rough mock of another idea using blocked out shapes and text, using another random 'Shetland scene' - for example purposes.

The team at Promote Shetland agreed for me to take this concept forward for each of the five themed itineraries: Bird Watching & Nature, Island Hopping, Walking, Archaeology and Shetland with Kids.

I worked on tightening up the style and kept a consistency throughout for the final papercut pieces.

Each papercut started life as a quick rough sketch of the idea, then drawn out and traced backwards onto GFSmith Colourplan White paper and delicately cut. I always find it interesting looking at the original sketches for other designers and illustrators so here are some sketches:

It was important to really concentrate as some parts of the original drawing were wrong and had to change as I cut, because of technical issues, keeping the image together. Sometimes if I went ahead and made a cut, I would loose an integral part of the papercut, so I always had to be one step ahead and be prepared to be flexible with the image. I feel this really helped the final pieces.

When I receive a copy of the guide I will post pictures of how Promote Shetland's designers took the papercuts and applied them to the style of the whole Pocket Guide. I found it quite intriguing to see how another designer worked with them. I will pick up on that when I post the finals.
Thanks for looking.

The Hurt Locker Screenprint

2010-03-13T19:44:00.002Z

Today I screenprinted The Hurt Locker poster with assistance from Andrew Morrison. Very pleased with how the prints turned out.

Edition: 16
Size: A4

War is a Drug

2010-03-09T19:20:00.008Z

With news of movie The Hurt Locker being successful at this years Oscar awards this week, it seemed perfect time to publicise Shetland Arts' screening of the movie later this month.

The Hurt Locker opens with a quote: "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug". The quote comes from the 2002 best-selling book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by New York Times war correspondent and journalist, Chris Hedges.

Below is my process and final, rejected poster for the film. (They would prefer to use the existing artwork for marketing)

Co:Lab - Monster Mash Up

2010-02-18T01:33:00.006Z

The Co:Lab team have just finished their third project - Monsters!
Below is a video I produced in addition to the prints, as a showcase online, and a bit of fun!

Co:Lab - Monsters from Co:Lab on Vimeo.

The three of us each produced one whole monster and afterwards we dissected each one to allow for mix and monster mash:

Happy Mashing!

Co:Lab blog for more details.

Co:Lab - Turn Your Cash into Trash

2010-02-11T22:22:00.002Z

The Co:Lab team have been busy this week screenprinting the next brief of experimental artwork. The brief was: in the set timescale of one flexible week, each Co:Lab member was to create a two colour advert with the freedom to advertise absolutely anything we wanted.

My reply to the brief - "Ad Revamps":
The concept was to take existing adverts and classifieds found in newspapers/shop windows/signs, which are selling second hand goods, and redesign them.

I discovered a few ads I felt fit the bill, such as one selling a "Geto Blaster" (spelling as original ad) also a car costing only "15£" (again direct quote from original ad) but quickly got inspired with an advert for a "Gas Cooker" with "Four Hobs", which became the final print. With extra time from the early burst of inspiration I decided to take on the other two ads as well, with scope for an ongoing ad revamp project. (Geto Blaster + Car below - Digital versions)

The printing of my final advert went relatively without a hitch, compared to our first night of printing when we blew two bulbs in our exposing lamp, causing one screen to fail. But we used the extra time with Andrew's print to our advantage by experimenting. I took on board some Co:Lab colour theory learnt from that night - namely the orange shown below, which we realised from some of Andrew's test prints.

Again, we took some time to experiment with some other variants and even learning to not get too excited about mixing colours to forget to dry screen before printing!

And finally a one off - a possible colour choice for a scary Co:Lab project coming soon.

To see the other prints from the Advert brief head over to the Co:Lab Blog.

Miss Scarlett with the Revolver in the Billiard Room *SET FOR SALE

2010-02-08T20:37:00.007Z

These are the three small pieces I exhibited @ Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland during the christmas exhibition 2009.

The concept behind them was after a bit of brainstorming about christmas, I realised it was the only time of year when everyone gathers around to play board games, and coincidentally - according to some people, the time of year one would have to put up with relatives that stay around too long, which may lead to the popular game of Cluedo becoming reality... fortunately I never had that problem myself...

Above my original sketches based on the actual playing pieces from Cluedo. I wanted to produce really fine, delicate paper cuts. The delicateness of the pieces contrasting with the actual subject matter. You can see my original revolver, although based on the piece looks more like a banana that a weapon, I decided for the final piece I would update the revolver to a modern style one seen in Bond movies etc. (in hindsight, I should have also updated the Cluedo spanner to a common shifter style spanner.)

The knife - cut and ready to be mounted - very happy with the knife and gun.

Surprisingly, a very last minute realization on my behalf, was to mount the paper cut weapons on coloured card corresponding to different characters in the game. I thought when they were up on the wall @Bonhoga people could emphasize much more with them if they were named:
"Professor Plum with the Spanner in the Conservatory" (purple)
"Colonel Mustard with the Dagger in the Study" (yellow)
"Miss Scarlett with the Revolver in the Billiard Room" (red)

SET FOR SALE - only £35 for all 3 (inc postage)!
Email: hello@jonosandilands.com

The Art of Ping Pong

2010-02-06T14:34:00.003Z

I have started a new blog documenting my 'The Art of Ping Pong' project. View blog @ theartofpingpong.blogspot.com/

The Art of Ping Pong was my submission from last years YCN Student Awards on the Anomaly brief to encourage people to play more table tennis. See YCN.

At that stage the project was only conceptual, I had never thought I would have the chance to actually make the table become a reality but I had always wanted to push it forward.

The idea is that the table surface records where the ping pong ball makes contact with the table during gameplay to create original pieces of art. The interactive surface is animated and you create this artwork live, think, digital painting with a ping pong ball. Watch the video!

There is numerous ways this could be done, some Ive touched on - do I have a huge multi touch screen, iPad!? Is it projected? Video tracking of the ping pong ball? An array of LED's set up as sensors to record points of contact and also display the animated artwork? I wouldnt know where to start with alot of these things, some of which I don't even know are possible!

And then setting up a clever programme to take in this information and record it, I thought it would be able to recognise when there was a foul, a serve. Record speed, rally etc. And give stats for you game. There would be obvious things to take into consideration such as someone touching the table, or bouncing the ball by hand, both could confuse it depending how its done. Then the art work would be ready to print and display when more games are played (and beers consumed) at a night/event/tournament.

I want to be physically involved with building this and want to learn how all these things work, but as I know very little about making these things work, I want to know if anyone can help point me in the right direction or interested in collaborating with me to bring the table to life.

The Art of Ping Pong Blog

Thanks for having a look, and enjoy this video mocking up the idea...

The Art of Ping Pong - YCN/Anomaly Commendation 0809 from Jono Sandilands on Vimeo.

Mareel animation

2010-01-30T12:12:00.001Z

A few stills from an animation about Mareel, Shetland's new music, cinema and education venue, I've been working on over the past few weeks while on placement at Shetland Arts. Will post up video soon...

Co:Lab review

2010-01-30T12:07:00.002Z

Head over to the Shetland News website to read a review of the Co:Lab prints, big thanks to Charlene Storey for taking the time to speak to us about the prints and doing the review.
Charlene has her own blog A Sketching Storey - she has to draw everyday for a year - check it out.

Belly's Gonna Get You

2010-01-12T22:46:00.007Z

Today on my placement @ Shetland Arts I created this fun little poster for Belly Dancing Classes for kids and their parents at Whiteness School, Shetland with teacher Rocio Bolanos, starting later this month. Excuse the poor quality/blurry phone pics.

Shetland Arts do a postal mailout, the poster is designed to be perfect size for envelopes. Streamline. Nice. And so it doesn't get ruined in the post.

The poster physically dances as well - the concertina folding in the belly region can make for hours of fun!

My plan all along was to keep it simple and silly! Hopefully people get a bit of a laugh out of it, and maybe even take a little tear off "tassel" slip and go along for some belly dancing fun.

Co:Lab Prints

2010-01-07T21:45:00.003Z

We are happy to announce the Co:Lab prints are on display for a month from 12 January @ Bonhoga Gallery Cafe, Weisdale Mill, Shetland.
For more info see pics and description below and also check the Co:Lab Blog.

Beto + Jono

Andrew + Jono

Jono + Beto

Jono + Andrew

Andrew + Beto

Beto + Andrew

co:lab
Jono Sandliands • Beto • Andrew Morrison

These six prints are the results of a collaborative experiment spanning a total of six weeks. Basic rules were set and the time restriction put in place – one week for each step.

STEP 1 – Each produce an A4 illustration to be printed one colour. These, upon completion, are passed to one of the other co:lab members.
STEP 2 – The challenge here in the second week is to take the piece created and entrusted to you by your co:lab colleague and produce a second illustration to be printed one colour directly on top of the prints of the artwork they have been allocated.
STEP 3 – Take the six illustrations and print them together with their other halves producing three final pieces.

These three weeks three steps were then repeated. However this time in step 2 we each worked from the illustration by whomever they hadn't first time around. For example in the first round Jono created a second layer for Beto's piece. In the second round he did likewise for Andrew's piece.

The experiment was to challenge and inspire us in unexpected ways. Individually we have learned different things from the experience but together we have found ourselves varying our approach, adapting our styles to meet the challenges of another's, seeing how colours complement and which combinations best support the merging illustrative approaches.

Battle of the Bands

2009-12-09T20:19:00.005Z

Last Friday night I was asked to take some pictures at the Battle of the Bands @ Mossbank Hall. There were 6 great bands battling to win, competition was tight but, "Organised Chaos" from Sandwick won overall! Well done to all the bands involved!

See a penny pick it up

2009-12-08T00:33:00.004Z

I have just completed some orders for my Mono "Money" book. I hope to start producing more books for the Mono series again. I love doing them, its such a good way to explore an idea in a short period of time.

When looking for the files on my hard drive I came by a little test video I produced about a year ago, to go along with the book. There's something i like about it, (probably the roughness and mistakes!) So I uploaded it to Youtube for your viewing pleasure.

Please get in touch if you would like to order either of the Mono books - hello@jonosandilands.com

A is for Award!

2009-12-08T00:14:00.005Z

So after a long wait, I received my award from YCN through the post this week.

Colour matched to my wall?

YCN are a creative agency who run the annual YCN Student Awards, and as part of my final year studies at Grays School of Art (2008-09) I worked on a brief to encourage people to play more ping pong. My results can be seen on my site here, or on the YCN "A is for Awards" archive. I suggest you have a look at the video on my site to give you an idea how it works.

It was very exciting unpacking this. It's made of solid rubber, its quite heavy!

Was a surprise to find enclosed an excellent poster of all the winners heads cut n' pasted onto a pretty awesome background.

And another new addition to my studio is a print by a Co:Lab colleague, New Dead Language, as part of his Belonging set.

Looking good! Thanks YCN and Andrew!

Co:Lab Set 2 complete!

2009-12-03T00:41:00.004Z

The last print in set two of the Co:Lab project was printed tonight! Now we are almost all set for the Unique Presence exhibition this Saturday 5 Dec, 2pm - 9pm @ Islesburgh Community Centre, Drama Room, Lerwick, Shetland.

Now all we need are some nice little cards to give away to let people know where they can out find more about Co:Lab...

The cards use the test prints we printed while working on this project - we overprint with our details then rip up and give out to people!

In the meantime bookmark the Co:Lab blog where we will post details about future projects and purchasing prints! http://colabproject.blogspot.com/

Saturday is closing in...

2009-12-01T00:10:00.006Z

... and we're well underway for being ready for the debut of Co:Lab at our exhibition this Saturday. Unique Presence.

Along with Andrew Morrison and Beto, I have been working on a set of collaborative prints, which we printed two more of tonight.

Hope you can make it to Islesburgh in Lerwick this Saturday to see our hard work!

Happy December!

Printing in HD

2009-11-26T09:25:00.004Z

Co:Lab Print Session from Jono Sandilands on Vimeo.

Timelapse of a Co:Lab screenprint session in High Definition.

Printing for exhibition on the 5th Dec - Unique Presence @ Islesburgh Community Centre, Lerwick, Shetland.

See post about exhibition here.

Getting ready to go live...

2009-11-25T02:20:00.005Z

Ive been working on a couple of projects with Shetland Drums for a few months now, and this week will see a crucial point in the launch of the new look shop, with the release of the new website! *Now live!

The brief for the website is for it to be totally updatable by phone, by the guys in the shop. So I have seen myself being up into the little hours crunching code, trying to figure out the API's for Twitter and Flickr, so we can pull live content from these social media sites using appropriate tags. The beauty of this is that with all the images hosted at flickr, we use very little of our own webspace, and also don't duplicate things!

There is a few unstable bits, but these can be worked on, and think we'l get a better idea after using it for a while. This has been a great project, i just love the idea of utilizing these websites for ease of updating.

More about Shetland Drums coming shortly...

Thinking outside the box

2009-11-23T23:11:00.009Z

When freelance journalist, Chris Cope, got in touch with me about photography for a football magazine, I immediately thought, eh no. . .

But after hearing the brief for the job, I thought it was something I would be able to do. We had to capture the antics and goings on of UK's most northerly football team, Unst FC.

The spreads from the magazine below:

Along with capturing the action of the team, this was my first time doing sports photography, I used the match as an experiment and to take photos in the same way I would approach photography for live music, which I feel is probably my comfort zone in this area. I got some interesting shots in this way, and can see definite links between how people move their bodies playing sports, and playing a show at a gig. I think these ideas could make a good series of prints.

Another concept I had for capturing the team was by using Lomography, after the game I passed around the Lomo Fisheye camera, letting the team play around and take photos themselves of themselves. This could have been better executed throughout the day I think, and I only realized how these could be used after gathering the pictures, see below.

Cheers to Chris and Football Punk.

Unique Presence

2009-11-23T20:43:00.003Z

On the 5th December - Along with Andrew Morrison of New Dead Language and Beto, we will be launching a set of screenprints we have been busy doing over these cold dark months under the name of Co:Lab.

The idea is that for the first week we each created an A4 image which was passed to another member of the trio who would then for the second week create another A4 image to overprint this with. And then week 3, Print!

We have completed set 1 in my garage and are gearing up to print set 2 over this week before the exhibit on the 5th. Very exciting and we will be updating images as we print at our events page on Facebook.

An award winning cactus costume

2009-11-11T00:08:00.006Z

A bit of fun from last weekend, I was on my friend Kirsty's birthday bus, which had a theme of green. Harder to come up with something for that than you'd think!

After realizing a bogey was going to be quite boring, I got the idea to dress as a cactus. Originally it was going to just be a box painted green with cable ties sticking out, but I found these perfect bits of foam, from an old chair which were coloured exactly right! Bonus. Well they did smell a bit but that didn't matter.

The foam was from the arms of an old chair, and only needed some slight alterations to be right for cactus arms and legs! For the spikes - 100 cable ties, and a couple of hours on Friday night threading them through the foam and box (for main body).

The costume all set to go on Saturday!

Im a cactus! A runner up in best costume prize cactus!

We ended up at the Winter Rally @ Pierhead Bar where the Revellers were playing, was a great night! Above pic my bro and a half unspiked cactus!

Another genius idea I just had to do, and gave to a friend to wear, was the Windmill Costume - green energy. Oh yuss!

Hope nobody thinks I'm a complete idiot now...

Mareel Floor Plan

2009-11-07T01:00:00.000Z

Im currently on Graduate Placement at Shetland Arts, working full time as a Graphic Designer for the busy Arts Agency. Today in the Shetland Times we released a detailed floor plan for Mareel, Shetland's new cinema, music and education venue being opened by Shetland Arts in 2011. Very exciting. We wanted to give people a better idea of what the venue will be like so I created this floor plan showing the layout and exactly what will be in the venue. You can get more info on the Shetland Arts website. www.shetlandarts.org

Blogging my Love

2009-11-05T19:29:00.000Z

Welcome to my brand spanking new blog! It's a place to allow me to show my creative process and thinking behind a project and give me a platform to show some of the work and ideas that might never usually be seen by anyone but me!

For my first post I will show the design process of an identity/ business card for the person who is responsible (my inspiration, you could say) for getting me into this here blogging - Abby, from Shetland My Love - a really great blog about life and tourism in Shetland.

It all started through twitter (@jonosandilands) - Abby had seen I was a working graphic designer in Shetland, and after emailing, we met for a brainstorming session at our designated meeting spot, The Olive Tree Cafe in Lerwick. We spoke about alot of ideas but the main objective was to create a business card for her to give out to the people she meets, and obviously, to attract more people to the blog.

First step is for me to go away and think about the project and supply concepts as a basis for what the design will be.

My first experiments were using the love heart shape, cutting it up, playing to create something new from the shapes. Using the shapes to write with, in a tactile manner to create a bespoke typeface for Shetland My Love.

Named 'The Love Mark' the final logo using the font, replacing the 'v' with a love heart.

Moving on, I did a bit more research, asked the question how can I create a dynamic brand identity using something as iconic as the love heart shape, and then it hit me - heart shaped hands...

Reproducing the Heart - Using the human body - hands, to create the heart shape. Adding this deep level of personality to the brand.

The concept would be photo based using landmarks etc across Shetland in the middle of the heart, from the the point of view of the user. One technical issue is taking the photos of your own hands, to create the examples I had to do a bit of stretching and strange body positions to get the shot set up right.

Abby wanted me to push it a little further to really capture the feel of the blog. She was very keen on incorporating the Shetland flag to get the idea across this is about Shetland. The flag is something I try to avoid using if possible, due to over use of it in logos here in Shetland, plus I feel its really quite obvious, and boring.

I found it quite a struggle getting the flag to work, and Abby's idea to use the flag in the love heart worked best. The Shetland dictionary came in handy when researching words to do with love, and these could be worked into the brand. 'Smoorikens' simply translates to 'kisses'.

The Shetland words allowed me to play around with other ideas, incorporating a bit of wit and illustration. Iconic Shetland objects, traditions, folklore and places could be used to show exactly what Abby want us to know she loves about Shetland. A 'Trow' is a creature in Shetland folklore, and a 'ganzie' is a knitted jumper!

By this point I had become quite attached to the font and felt it was totally right but, what happened next shows that the simplest idea is sometimes the best...

I had sent Abby a sheet of experiments of me trying to incorporate the flag into the logo to let her see what I had been doing. On this sheet was this heart map of Shetland, I had just done quickly and then disregarded as I was quite set on where the other concept was going.

Turns out this image says exactly what we were trying to find, its perfect. I realized the other ideas were becoming quite complex and this was great as it is a simple solution to the problem. Everything was simplified and we sent the files to the printer to get these great results!

Big thanks to Abby! And keep up with her goings on @ Shetland My Love.

Please tell me what you think! I would like to find a format for showing the process better. Suggestions are welcome.