everydaysimon

[everydaysimon]

A friend of mine is a big Sons of Anarchy fan and more recently a Game of Thrones fan. Does that make him a Throny? I made him a little poster for his birthday, mixing Opie’s wedding vows with a Westeros twist. I was tempted to go with “as good as my sword” and “as much as my destrier,” but that felt a little too far away from the original quote for my liking. 

[everydaysimon]

Had a play with a t-shirt idea for HEC and HAJET. The brief was to show them as linked and tie in the new logos they each have. Took the swan metaphor and added the “learning to fly”. 

[everydaysimon]

Some old friends were wanting a logo for their band. I send them an idea, but not sure what direction they’ll go with. Check them out at jabbourband.com

[everydaysimon]

having a play with the namaru as a repeating pattern. Could be back of a loyalty card or business card. 

[everydaysimon]

The new editor of the Polestar magazine here in Hokkaido asked me to have a think about am updated logo for them. I wanted to keep it super simple and work with a magazine that can be very graphic-heavy. Picture credit to Teton Gravity Research for the awesome pic. Wanted to show how the logo could work overlaid on light, dark and mixed backgrounds. 

[everydaysimon]

I was saddened today to hear of the untimely death of international rugby’s first superstar. My thoughts are with his family. 

[everydaysimon]

The good people at HAJET are gonna do some Wani t-shirts this year, but also wanted a Winter ‘gator for some secret merch they have coming up. Fat skis, powder board, mountains, snow, rising sun, pretty stoked. 

[everydaysimon]

I haven’t been doing much design stuff recently, except for covers for my cooking essays and accompanying recipes over at thejetcoaster.com This is the most recent title header. Made, style and photographed all by Yours Truly, then with a little typography in there too.

I have to admit, I got pretty into this one. Thinking about the evolution of sushi and then mixing it with Hawaiian style po-ke was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but if you read the write-up, you’ll see how I got there.

[everydaysimon]

I am cooking again and very happy with the results this time around. I had a number of ideas floating around my head and managed to get them into one recipe. Chicken-fried pickle-brined maitake mushrooms are my very own idea and honestly, if I ever get famous, it is likely to be for this. Pickling them frying the mushrooms leaves them juicy and not overly oily. The would work amazingly well for any number of dishes, but honestly, you can’t go past a burger. The pickle is on top for a number of reasons explained within the recipe, but mainly because, well, the burger didn’t need it inside. Served with kimchi remoulade on a brioche bun, it couldn’t have been better. Try it yourself. 

www.thejetcoaster.com/chicken-fried-pickle-brined-maitake-mushrooms

[everydaysimon]

My social media feeds have been inundated with Straight Outta Somewhere memes. I actually thought the accompanying movie was pretty good, especially in light of the apologies that have been made regarding the glossing over of issues. NWA were formative for me. Not that I was their biggest fan, but as a middle-schooler listening to early ‘90s New Zealand university radio, the difference in their tone was stark from anything else I had heard to that point. What dawned on me though was how the meme didn’t really feel like it applied to my current situation/feelings. I am not straight out New Zealand and feel more distant from it all the time in terms of cultural and political trends every day. So, as is my way, I made my own. Slightly more fitting for an expat, don’t you think?

[everydaysimon]

Opinion is a funny thing. I thought I didn’t care what New Zealand did about the flag until I saw the shortlist. I had seen the long list, but the idea of changing things seemed so abstract. I would err toward not changing it unless NZ became a republic and broke away formally from the UK and even then only then with a super-majority of public support.

My own ideas on flags are based on simplest is best. Meaningful is good and colours are important, but also the the flag should replicable, by hand, by a kindergartener. With the exception of few, just about all world flags are like that. The ferns and koru (spiral) images I have seen seem far to hard to freehand draw for my liking.

Anyways, so here is my play on the idea. The basis is the story of how Maori found New Zealand/Aotearoa (land of the long white cloud). You have sea and sky in thirds and the middle third divided by three again is the green hills capped with snow that led ancient navigators to our shores and still typify the Kiwi landscape. 

[everydaysimon]

I was asked to make a poster for an event in Obihiro, Hokkaido, based on the classic Agatha Christie novel Murder on the Orient Express. I redrew a train I liked that I had found online, combined it with minimalist Poirot and overlaid a nice art deco period appropriate font, then a bullet hole and some blood splatter for fun. 

[everydaysimon]

Further to the last post, here are my thoughts for the summer camp portion of HEC. The s’mores and foliage are a bit overboard, but it’s nice to see the shield logo in a context like how it might appear on a poster. 

[everydaysimon]

Having a play with ideas for a logo. An ugly duckling theme with lettering similar dimensions to the HAJET logo, since the two are linked. 

[everydaysimon]

Continuing the theme of overlapping letter, here is an idea I was playing with for the Hokkaido English Challenge speech contest and summer camp. It was a bit of fun and meant to appeal to students and I thought it might, since this was the sort of letter I used to play around with at school. On receiving more information, It seems that something that will appeal more to Boards of Education and Schools is more what is wanted, SO back to the drawing board. Good thing probably, I had gone down this lightning route (thinking keywords like “inspiration” and “eureka” and so on), but in the end I wonder (cannot unsee) that it might look a little too like a dismembered Pikachu tail. hahaha

[everydaysimon]

Having even more of a play with interlocking kanji and letters and a little mountaintop to top it off. 

[everydaysimon]

The next instalment of my cooking blog over at the the jetcoaster take the postwar classic Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki and, along with cornbread hoecakes, turns it into a ramen burger. 

http://www.thejetcoaster.com/author/simon-daly/