Nixti - promo image

Just a quick post with the image we created this week for dub step DJ Nixti on the Smudge Music label. The image continues with the concept of "digital origami" we created the album for "Instincts" and it's preceding singles – view the project on our website here.

Nixti's latest release – Black Magik, featuring legendary Jamaican Dub Poet Yasus Afari – will be out very soon. For a preview check out the Nixti Soundcloud.

Jackrabbitt - typeface design

Designed for extreme sports brand Jackrabbitt, this is Split's first full typeface design and is part of an ongoing project to create the visual identity for the community-focused brand.

Starting life as just the word "jackrabbitt" in the logo, we decided to take a leap into the unknown and extend the design into a full working font that the JR guys could use as a display face on their website, videos, apparel etc.

The original letter-forms were designed to be both friendly and accessible but at the same time have a bit of attitude and edge. After a number of versions and a bit of trial and error in the rules of type design we settled on a basic design we were happy with. Then came the hard work of actually making it work as a type face, which is certainly more complicated than we anticipated – with literally thousands of possible combinations of letters that needed kerning* individually the project admittedly became a labour of love for a while. However, I'm happy to say it led to the creation of our very first font as well as a whole new level of appreciation for the work of type designers!

*Kerning involves setting the spacing between each pair of letters and is crucial to making a typeface read correctly.

Dep Arts / Northern Ballet - Spring 2012

A poster and flyer set designed for a season of contemporary dance shows presented by Dep Arts Ltd in conjunction with Northern Ballet. 

Taking the key words given in the brief – such as scientific, edgy, sharp, futuristic and modern – we looked at the descriptions of the shows and picked out three key phrases we thought best encapsulated the season:

• "Bringing two states, technology and dance, together to interact and exist simultaneously"
• "A delicacy and technical virtuosity which is contained, yet explosive"
• "Precise dance of structure, synchronity and stamina"

We then explored how we might express this visually, looking into scientific visual material and in particular, looking for inspiration from scientific/technological fields related to the mapping of movement. The final design combines the image of a dancer with illustrative elements inspired by a piece of software designed to map the movement of a user's mouse on their computer, creating an image that is both delicate, precise and fragile yet exciting, dynamic and edgy.

(For tickets and further information visit the Stanley & Audrey Burton Theatre website: www.theatreleeds.com or call 0113 220 8008.)

Congo Dia Ntotila - Seben Steps to Heaven

Cover for the upcoming release from Congo Dia Ntotila, shot in an empty unit of Munro House, Leeds in December with photographer Jon Stanley Austin.

CDN is the result of a colaboration betweem London-based jazz guitarist John Kelly and Bass player Mulele Matondo Afrika and draws heavily on traditional Congolese dance music. Check out their Myspace to hear tracks from the album.

And for your viewing pleasure: A (badly made) "making of" stop-motion video starring Jon and me running up and down the ladder (like muppets) to fix the (highly realistic) clouds to the ceiling.

(Thanks to All Brass & Woodwind for the loan of some of the props featured in the shoot.)

Spinoff 2011/12 - an update

I just thought I'd update this post with the design for the 2012 gigs. The design for the 2011/12 Spinoff season features a set of 4 flyers designed in collaboration with former Golden girl Fliss Gibbeson.

You can get more details on what is set to be another great season of original music here.

Christmas designs 2011

We're feeling festive so I thought I post up a small set of Christmas designs done for a few of our clients this year.

Design Time
Christmas card range for the retail interior design company

Photography by Andrew Tunnard

Breast Cancer Care
Carols by Candlelight - Invite & posters

Leeds College of Music

Christmas cards 2011, inspired by 7" vinyl sleeves and the Christmas Number 1

54 Degrees
Christmas mailer based on brand message of "Effective Project Navigation"

The New Split Website

The new Split website was launched last week and is now online at split.co.uk so I thought I'd put up a short post about the site and its development. The design work and concept was created by Split before our friends and regular collaborators at Hydrant provided the web development and coding.

The idea behind the site was for it to have high impact but at the same time be a blank canvas to feature out work. As we don't work in any one style, visually we wanted the site to be about the design work in the portfolio and the shop, not the site itself, whist at the same time trying to create a unique and effective site to communicate what we're all about.

We also wanted to explore the possibilities of an online portfolio site – with such a high level of skill and knowledge within the Hydrant team, the possibilities of what could be done was pretty exciting and we siezed the opportunity to experiment and push the boat out a bit.

Unlike designing for a static piece of print, the web provides unique challenges visually in that no two screen sizes are the same. As such, we designed the site so that no matter what the screen size the site is proportioned and balanced. The menu, illustrations and layouts are responsive to the size of the screen, while the really clever bit comes in Hydrant's coding for the the portfolio with 3 different sizes set so that the portfolio fits to your screen, whatever size it is.

The home page illustration and animation can be very easily changed to feature different crack illustrations and with different animation below, whilst the portfolio has intelligent image transitions between the images that slide backwards and forwards depending on which way the user navigates. Again the clever bit comes with the development because all this is done without using Flash which is becoming increasingly outdated. Flash is unavailable to some users so has accessibility issues, but it also involves higher loading time and problems with search engine optimisation and content management. Hydrant have developed the site purely in HTML, CSS and Java Script meaning the site's subtle animation works in all browsers and even for Iphone and Ipad users.

Finally the site also features the new Split Shop integrated into the site and provides an outlet some of our self-initiated work including Tshirt prints, posters and other design products. Visit www.split.co.uk/shop to have a browse and perhaps even sort out that last minute christmas pressie!

We hope you like the site and if you have any feedback we'd love to hear it. You can email us on: info@split.co.uk.