Blog of Roper

Merry Xmas 2011

2011-12-23T14:35:00.001Z

Tis the season to be Jolly… Fa La La La La etc. Here's a pic of a Robin smoking a Pipe.

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A Merry Xmas Animation from World of Roper

2011-12-03T11:24:00.001Z

A Christmas Single animation I did for TimButTwo. A feel-good nostalgic Christmas sleigh ride, guaranteed to make you smile. A sprinkle of Slade; Wizard; and Phil Spectre combined together into a classic Christmas song that'll be loved by young and old alike!

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My Grandad Roper

2011-11-13T10:10:00.001Z

As it's Remembrance Sunday I thought I'd scan a Pic of my Grandad - Private Ernest Roper. He's third from the right, sitting down in the middle. I have no idea where the picture was taken. Unfortunately I never knew my Grandad, he died when I was about 3 years old. I understand he had a bomb explode near to him and had a fragment of shell embedded in his head. He was operated on at the time however he suffered for the rest of his life with a form of Tinnitus. Apparently he was told he had a low life expectancy, but lived on 20 years longer than predicted.

I wish I could have known him. I hope to find out more about his life over time, for the moment this pic will have to do.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Charcoal

2011-10-14T10:22:00.001+01:00

A few weeks ago I had a go at drawing some Abstract Charcoal pictures. It had been quite a while since I had done work like this. My first few attempts were pretty awful, and I was ready to give up, but I was determined this time. I put the Music on Louder (Twas Harry Nilsson via Spotify), took a deep breath; and worked. The great thing about Charcoal is that you can easily remove, smudge, rub out, go over again, remove again. My strategy was to do this until I had something I was happy with.

Sure enough, with determination I had created something that I didn't want to screw up and throw away. With renewed vigour I created more pictures, in the zone now. My Mojo was back.

I have since tried recreating with Paint but not with quite the same success, nevertheless I will keep trying. Hopefully I can post the results here soon.

You can view the full set of Pics in my Artwork Portfolio, you can also purchase prints here at ImageKind. Originals also for sale please contact me directly.

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T-shirts now available to buy online

2011-07-20T14:08:00.002+01:00

I have been busy putting together some T-shirt designs, and put together a couple of online stores.
My designs consist of Brighton Seagulls, Exploding Bombs, Moody Cows, Barking Dogs and Skulls. I will add more designs during the year. Please visit http://worldofroper.spreadshirt.co.uk and http://www.cafepress.co.uk/WorldOfRoperUK to purchase a range of T-shirts and other Merchandise.

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A Curious Ape

2011-05-17T11:38:00.001+01:00

My recently completed Full Colour Illustration of a Curious Ape.

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Witches, Hats and All That - 4th sneak preview

2011-04-06T10:30:00.001+01:00

I am currently working on a Children's book written by Aprill Harper titled "Witches, Hats and All That". Here is another sneak preview of one of the page illustrations. The book will be available later this year.

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Witches, Hats and All That - 3rd sneak preview!

2011-03-10T12:18:00.001Z

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Witches, Hats and All That - 2nd sneak preview!

2011-02-14T20:33:00.004Z

I am currently working on a Children's book written by Aprill Harper titled "Witches, Hats and All That". Here is a sneak preview of one of the page illustrations.

Lester and the Unusual Pet

2011-01-28T10:46:00.003Z

I was wandering around Brighton a few weeks ago doing research for the book I am currently illustrating - Witches, Hats and all that by Aprill Harper. One book I picked up at a local charity shop was called Lester and the Unusual pet which was written and drawn by Quentin Blake, one of the greatest children's illustrators of all time. It was printed and published in 1975 (My birth year).

I did a quick search on Google when I returned and found that it is currently out of print. Quite surprising really, I would have thought that books by a master like Quentin would sell like hotcakes. It is a charming little book, which I am storing safely as it was surely a bargain buy!

If you want to get a copy, Amazon is your best bet - cheapest price I can find is £49.99!

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Seagulls Greetings!

2010-12-25T07:04:00.004Z

Merry Xmas 2010!

Witches, Hats and All That - First Taster!

2010-12-14T17:35:00.007Z

I am currently working on a Children's book written by Aprill Harper titled "Witches, Hats and All That". The attached picture is an early character design for the Green Witch. The book should be available early next year.

Blown Cat Animation

2010-11-09T16:06:00.004Z

Another short Flash animation that I put together.

Wukulele Poster

2010-10-18T12:47:00.004+01:00

Poster Design for the South Coast International Ukulele Fringe Festival 2010. Over three days the beautiful seaside town of Worthing hosts Europe's premiere ukulele festival. Wukulele presents international stars in concert, gives you the chance to learn ukulele and improve your technique, or simply hang-out and jam with other uke enthusiasts.

I also designed a small A6 foldout programme.

My entry for a desktop wallpaper competition - theme is "Cute"

2010-07-31T11:23:00.002+01:00

What could be cuter than a Cat with an Umbrella been blown along by a cloud?

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Paul the Octopus

2010-07-11T13:06:00.003+01:00

Just uploaded my latest pic to my site www.worldofroper.com.

The Psychic Octopus is on the eve of predicting the World cup winners of 2010 - who will it be, Spain or Holland?

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My Review of the OFFF International Festival for the Post - Digital Creation Culture

2010-06-30T12:16:00.002+01:00

OFFF Day 1 24/06/10

4am start to get Taxi to Heathrow with Mary Agnes who was accompanying me on this venture. Finding out there was to be a general Strike in France that day is not the best news when you are due to fly to Paris. However the plane was only delayed by about 20 mins.

After getting a Taxi from Charles de Gaul only to find the motorway into Paris was jammed meant we didn't arrive at La Grande Halle de la Villette till around 11 30, an hour late. There was the most almighty queue due to some mess up over allocating wristbands. Presumably not helped by the Strike.

The Hall itself is a huge impressive structure constructed of Iron. Built between 1865 and 1867 by architect Jules Merindol it used to be a Market and Slaughterhouse.

Eventually got inside the venue to catch the end of Hellohikimori & mudbubble. Nice to see their work doing pieces for True Blood and Glee. So tired from travelling though so difficult to make much analysis of this section. Next on the bill were H5 however this was cancelled "Due to the strike". Shame as I was looking forward to their presentation. An opportune moment to head over to the Hotel then and drop our bags off.

After lunch we got back for Craig Ward. He did a presentation showing his whole process and methodology behind creating Typefaces. Particularly striking where his experimentations with Hair, dropping clumps and taking reels and reels of pictures until he came up with a bunch of "Happy accidents" that represented letters of the Alphabet. The whole thrust of his ideology was the ability to create beautiful works through random chance events, so that new visual languages could be created were the mind of the Artist/ Designer would not be able to come up with these works using their normal thought process alone.

Next on the stage were Dixon Baxi, presenting about their work with fiveusa (UK digital channel). Fantastic how they were able to create these great "stings" and "montages" to sell the channels content. They make re- runs of old 80's action films that you have probably seen half a dozen times look fresh, new and exciting.

Then came Neville Brody - it was supposed to be Keith Schofield presenting but I can only assume this was another casualty of the French Revolution. Neville decided he would not present about himself but interview one of his greatest influences the French Design Anarchists Bazooka. Together with a reluctant translator what preceded was probably one of the most shambolic, controversial but interesting presentations of the day so far.

Commenting on the Modern world of Graphic Design Kiki (I believe) from Bazooka proclaimed "It's all shit". Talking about all the corporations he proclaimed he would "Kill them all". He even said he would kill Neville Brody.

The essential protest was that by doing work for big globalised companies or anybody with a commercial message you are not able to express yourself artistically. These are people who see Graphic Art as a tool to transform and change the world. They believe anyone using Graphic Art to further the interests of Agencies or companies are worthless. A big message aimed at a conference which must be dripping with Company Execs and Commercial interests.

These themes of Designers been able to express themselves Artistically Vs the Constraints of Commercial work would be continued the next day.

OFFF Day 2 25/06/10

So after a welcome nights sleep and a decent breakfast I arrived at offf feeling sharper and ready for a full day of technical insight and creative inspiration.

First on the bill was Hoss Gifford. This was a great lecture on some key fundamentals of programming and also how to conduct your Business. Compared to the Anarchy of the Bazooka performance the previous evening we were back into the room of commercial realities. It was a well paced presentation. Early on he talked about the principles behind "Less is more", with a criticism towards anyone who uses this philosophy for the sake of it. He used the Benjamin Franklin Story about a Hatter:

"I have made a rule, whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, 'John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,' with a figure of a hat subjoined. But thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word 'Hatter' tautologous, because followed by the words 'makes hats,' which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word 'makes' might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind, they would buy them, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words 'for ready money' were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.' 'Sells hats!' says the next friend. 'Why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What then is the use of that word?' It was stricken out, and 'hats' followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So the inscription was reduced ultimately to 'John Thompson,' with the figure of a hat subjoined."

Hoss's main point was that you often have to begin with "more" before you can strip an idea down to it's bare essentials therefore ending up with less.

The remainder of his talk continued with good advice from his experiences within the industry - each function within a code should do only one thing at a time, Pick a font and stick to it, Never discount your fee, Rich people own assets, poor people own liabilities. He also commented on how outliner was an extremely useful tool he uses to structure his ideas - a product developed by my friends Husbands company.

Next to present was Tara Mcpherson. Her talk began with her showing some early school paintings and her progression through Art College, then her decision to take a degree in Astrophysics. I believe she managed a year of this before deciding that her true love was painting after all. It was an inspirational talk as she showed her work designing Toys, Packaging, Rock Posters, Comic Covers, Tattoo's, Wall Paintings, Screen Prints.

What is great about her work is that though she has worked for various clients she appears to have been given quite a lot of creative freedom. Again this is something very important to her and touches upon the issues raised by Bazooka the previous night.

Having watched two great presentations it was time for a break and lunch. Returned in the afternoon to see Knife Party. Presenting was the man at the helm Simon Robinson. This turned out to be one of the most inspirational talks for me. The presentation was about a collaborative animation film titled "Coalition of the Willing". The film is based on what is essentially an essay by the writer Tim Rayner. It discusses that how together through modern technology and social networking we can create a "Swarm" movement similar to the radical movements that brought about social change during the 1960's, with the specific aim of stopping man's affect on Global warming. What was particularly impressive was that this was a largely voluntary project and was using the skills of Artists, Animators, Directors and writers to produce a piece of work aimed at improving the society and world that we live in.

One of the Animators involved Nina Pfeifenberger summed it up quite well when she said that one of the roles of Commercial Graphic Designers and Animators was to manipulate peoples minds, and it is rare to get the chance to work on something with true value so when you do you should grasp it with both hands.

I'm sure the guys behind Bazooka must find it hard to critique this particular project, in the same way that they appear to have written off the majority of the modern breed of Graphic Designers. Having said that, working on a project like this would not do any harm to your future employability by large corporations.

So to follow we have Universal Everything, a design company helmed by Matt Pyke. Again we are back firmly in the world of commercial Graphic Design. In this presentation Matt talks of his development from the Artwork of his school days. It was a slick presentation and showed some impressive work he had done with various clients including Nokia and the V&A. A large section was dedicated to the re- design of the MTV titles. A portion of the previous presentation discusses how 60's culture has been re- appropriated, I believe MTV is a good example of this - how themes of personal freedom and Pop culture are intertwined to sell a product. I guess in this case MTV and its sponsors are the product.

After a deserved break I returned to catch the presentation by the SOSO collective, who showed their work using the Media to create live performance events, They used the words spoken during media events such as public apologies from Politicians, Celebrities and Corporations and broke them down into different categories. Using statistical data gathering techniques these categories where displayed in various visual formats. A fascinating way to show and document how language is used in the Media.

OFFF Day 3 26/06/10

So the Final day has approached. The day began with a presentation from Art + Com.

Presented by the Company Chairman Prof. Joachim Sauter it was a good start to the day. Art + Com specialise in creating interactive exhibitions within public spaces. He took us through projects such as a Dinosaur exhibition within a Museum, where by looking through a viewer directed at a T- rex Skeleton flesh would be applied to the bones and the exhibit would come to life. Other projects included a walkway where digital ripples would be created when stepped upon, only to be transferred to the pool underneath to create real ripples. Then there was a brilliant project for BMW which created a Kinetic sculpture using Metal spheres which showed the production of a BMW car. There was an element of Frustration when Prof. Sauter explained how BMW went on to use the concept in their advertising campaign without any credit going to Art + Com. This is a theme that has been brought up by a few presenters - seems that a good idea will be mimicked and re- appropriated without any permission from the original creators. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done you just have to let it go. At least it is a compliment.

One of the final messages from the Professor was the importance of teaching what you have learned as this makes you re- evaluate your own way of working and as a consequence maintain your standards and keep out bad practices. He showed some examples of his students work including image fulgurator by julius von bismark which was quite simply excellent. A device that would cause words or images to appear over an object when an unsuspecting member of the public would take a picture using a flash. For example people would be astounded when they would check their pictures of a painting of Chairman Mau only to find his face was obscured by a Dove taken from a famous Magritte Painting.

So next on the menu was Grady and Metcalfe. They gave a confident talk on their pop culture magazines and video work. Their focus was on what motivates them and they opened by talking about the dangers of "Analysis Paralysis". The theory is if you think of all the obstacles in the way when you come up with a grand creative vision then you will never go ahead with it. An example they gave was Walt Disney when he originally presented his ideas about creating the Disney Theme parks.

So they continued and talked about their first Magazine Gum and how they managed to get this produced even though it broke all the Magazine conventions - the first issue was presented in Gum card format and included stickers, tattoos, gum, interviews in the form of Mini comics. As this was a work of love and had limited commercial success they then talked about the development of their magazine Lemon which, though still "Off the wall" had more commercial appeal.

To conclude they summed up their philosophy which boiled down to "Ready, Fire, Aim". In other words - don't get bogged down with thinking about things too much just go for it. I guess this Philosophy can work in certain situations however I'm also sure there are plenty of arguments against this. For instance George Bush Juniors war policy on Iraq.

After a visit to Montmartre for lunch I returned for the afternoon session. Non-Format where first up. This is hands down the winner for the most energetic, enthusiastic presenter, Kjell Ekhorn. Highly entertaining he discussed his projects and how they always follow a "Wheel of Style" - Excitement, Established, Mass - Market, Cliche, Embarrassment, Forgotten, Nostalgia, Reinvented, Avant-garde. An early example he used was his work on an Orange billboard campaign. As it enters the Mass Market phase it gains imitators then as a consequence becomes a Cliche, then an embarrassment then eventually forgotten.

There was a lot of talk about their work on Typography and the different styles they have created. Recent work includes their album cover for Delphic. All in all a highly entertaining presentation.

A hard act to follow but next up was Julien Vallee who created the offf 10 Sponsor titles. He gave a well presented talk about his work and his move away from digital based animations towards more traditional animation techniques - he did some great pieces using paper. He finished by showing the offf sponsor titles.

Then The Mill were up and began by showing the off opening titles. These were highly impressive, however the following talk about the making of the titles was quite laboured. With a Panel of presenters it was really a case of too many cooks. This meant an opportunity to venture downstairs to discover a performance by Random, who was full into the swing of his "Chip - style" sounds. This was highly entertaining and frankly, a relief from the performance upstairs.

To end the night in style then it was Lullatone and Michael Paul Young to do a special live show to end the festival. Their performance of their "Hello Kitty Theme Song" was just perfect. At the end of which I decided it was time to leave.

All in all a really successful event. Happy 10th anniversary OFFF.

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Informathlon Banners

2010-06-22T20:40:00.002+01:00

Finally completed my banner designs for the Informathlon project. Helped hang them up yesterday, please go along to the Jubilee Library in Brighton to see the exhibitions.

See my Logo Design and Pics below.

Thanks to Mary Agnes Krell for giving me the opportunity to work on this project.

Visit http://www.informathlon.com/ for more info.

A collection of projects exploring stories that emerge from data surrounding and related to Olympic Activities.

Funded by the Creative Campus Initiative, Informathlon was devised by Mary Agnes Krell as a response to the narratives that emerge and exist alongside major events. It has been produced in collaboration with Sue Gollifer, students from the MA Digital Media Arts at the University of Brighton, Artist Anna Dumitriu, and others including Sarah Cullen, Stephanie Wong, Build Brighton, Lighthouse and the University of Sussex.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Television

2010-06-18T12:03:00.003+01:00

So looks like we are entering the age of 3D High definition television. The future is finally here. Programmes are becoming more and more reality based where people like you and me can get on TV for no other reason than that they can breathe. Isn't the logical conclusion that one day we will end up watching ourselves watching ourselves in glorious 3D High definition? Maybe not...

As a Philosopher and Poet once said.. "Believe me, The Sun always shines on TV.."

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The Final Logo

2010-06-03T18:45:00.015+01:00

I said I would return with the Final Result for my choice of Logo so here I am. It's been a few months since my last update as I have been hard at work creating my Website - however it is now finished so here goes. . .

After some tinkering with my last design I came up with this:

A refinement on my previous design, with a ring around the "e" in an Internet Explorer style. However feedback wasn't overly positive. I can see why. It is lacking something - there is no real "Wow" factor. I had to re- evaluate what it was I was trying to communicate. What is the purpose of my site? How do I want to present myself? With this in mind I went back to the drawing board. I decided I wanted to create an image that was Fun, Colourful and demonstrated my desire to work on projects that have those elements. I want to show off my creative side. The logo above, though functional, is bland. Not really the impression I want to give people visiting my site.

I decided to do some more research and look for Images/ Styles that really communicate what I am looking for. I have always been a Comics fan and also love Sci Fi - especially the 50's B - Movie imagery.

I came across 3 images in particular which really grabbed my attention:

This is it, I thought - exactly the kind of look and feel I want for my site. I had also been learning to use Adobe illustrator and decided this was the best tool for creating my Logo. Here are some examples I came up with, a total departure from my earlier ideas:

I particularly liked the first example however I still felt I needed to go further, and not just directly copy the earlier styles. I came up with the below logo after coming up with a quick sketch, influenced by a site logo that used a large symbol with small type below it:

I really felt this was a strong image which fitted the criteria I was looking for. Fun, Colourful, Creative. It is influenced by the Comic/ Sci Fi images I had been researching. After a fair bit of tinkering and getting feedback from friends I finally came up with a Logo that I was happy to use for my site:

I decided to use the "O" from "of" and use it as a Saturn ring and join the "W" and "R" together. I felt this gave the logo a bit of distinction and stayed with the theme I was looking for.

So there you have it - the story of my Logo and the influence for my site!

Creating a Logo

2010-02-25T11:44:00.012Z

OK so I have opened an account with a web host site5 recommended by a friend. I have purchased my domain name worldofroper. Now all I have to do is build my website. Easy huh? Oh I wish...

I've already put together a few pages using Dreamweaver however the effort is... amateurish to say the least. The front page isn't too bad, I have the revolving Earth Flash image; Colours are OK. It has an element of FUN about it however it looks too cartoon like. The links at the bottom give away big time that this is the work of an amateur. No real formatting - just basic links created with dreamweaver. The logo too doesn't really work. Uninspired but functional.

The next page "About Me" is even more disappointing. I had some fun taking pics of my old paintings and chopping them up to use as side and header margins. However the verdict on the page so far..highly amateurish! Must try harder. If I want to get a career in this industry my site has to look modern, stylish and professional. So this is where the work begins. over the last few days I have been researching websites from Local Website companies, using the Wired Sussex site. There's some great looking sites out there - two good examples are Itonic Desi gn and flymedia. There's a load more examples but what stands out from the best is:

Simplicity
Use of Typography
Subtle but stylish page links
Intelligent page layout
THE LOGO

The Logo - this is surely the most important part of a Website/ Company. This is usually the first contact made with a Corporation/ Business/ Freelance Agent/Food Vendor or whatever the industry. This is what struck me most when researching - the majority of the listings for the various companies are represented by their logo. I would immediately make a judgement and form an opinion about the company based on this one small image alone. It means when I go to view the Web Page I am already excited about what I will find, because the Logo looked promising. Or I am expecting to see something drab, unprofessional because the logo is poorly designed.

So that brings me back to my site. I already have the name - World of Roper. I've had doubts since thinking perhaps I should have kept it simple - like andyroper.com or similar. Nevertheless I think World of Roper could work. I'm going to run with it. I'm going to stop production on my website until I have what I consider to be one of the most important aspects - The LOGO. My Logo as it exists on the above images will not do. So I have read a few articles on Logo's/ Typography (HERE and HERE are a couple) and I am ready to have a go. I have made a few sketches of possible Logo ideas however I have been particularly inspired by the idea that you can take a simple, standard Font and give it an identity using a bit of imagination, use of spacing, colour, tweaks, prods. This has lead me to produce a whole array creations of varying quality. This among them:

The colours make me feel nauseous if i stare for too long. However I am starting to get the feel of an idea. I feel there should be some reference to a World or Planet in the Logo - this is represented by a simple circle. I like its positioning behind my name (though it looks more like a Sun than a planet), I also like the idea of emphasising my name and separating it from "World Of". So after more tinkering I have come up with this:

Finally I feel like I am getting somewhere. Firstly, I love the Colours. The subtle radial shading on the Blue planet works - simple, not too complex. The background colour of the yellow/ green is a nice compliment. The Font is the classic simple but Modern looking Ariel. I have separated "World of" from "Roper" without it looking too tacky. It reminds me a bit of the old Observer logo though I think it still stands on its own. The most exciting thing is that I now feel I have a playing field. Where should I position of the planet behind the R? Could I use the R within the Blue Planet as a one word logo to use as a Favicon? Perhaps wrapping the text around the Blue Planet? One thing is for sure I am going to do some more experimenting and I shall return with the final result/ choice for the "World of Roper" logo. After all it will be the Flag that I hoist on my ship as it sets sail into the turbulent seas of Web Design.

And so the Blog begins

2010-02-17T13:39:00.001Z

Hia,

I'm new to all this blogging malarkey however here goes. I am currently setting up my own website and want to have a blog section. I came across a friends blogsite and was impressed with the layout and user friendliness of Blogger.com so I thought I would set up my own account.

Having spent the last 8 years working at American Express I am now looking for a career change. I am currently teaching myself Flash Animation as well as other Adobe products. My goal is to become a Web- site Designer/ Flash Animator which will align more with my educational background in Design Communication, Graphics and Fine Art. Any work I can get working in the industry would be fantastic.

I guess to begin with I can show you my first proper attempt at a Flash animation:

Ta Ta for now.