Simon Walsh

G      R      A     P     H     I     C

[heathermariemetcalfe]

Sneak peak of giveaways for #costadelsalford this Thursday at Piccadilly place!

[adamstanway]

EXCLUSIVE OFFER! FREE trip to the Costa Del! If you’re industry why not enjoy this all inclusive trip with stunning views, free booze and friendly locals! This offer is available for a limited time only so come down this THURSDAY from 6pm! Visit www.costadelsalford.co.uk to find out more. #costadelsalford

And all my fam, friends and everyone else can also enjoy this offer on FRIDAY so come on down!

*beaches my vary, suntans aren’t guaranteed

[simoncwalsh01]

Salford 11.

Welcome to my first blog (and possibly my last!). So bear with me as I put this together, seems odd having a conversation with myself, but here we go.

Welcome also to Salford University, this big empty room  will be my home for the next 12 months. Yes, your right, it looks pretty spare and barren, it actually looks like the inside of a young offenders institute. But I’m pretty sure over the coming weeks the walls will get filled with work.

Interesting times to come, I just really want to get working and fired up after a rather dull summer…

[simoncwalsh01]

Farewell Allerton, thanks very much to all the staff and students that helped me through the past 3 years. Wishing you all the best for whatever the future holds for you all.

[chrisshen]

Installation in progress of Spectra.001 at the Centre For Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester.

[simoncwalsh01]

Worth a visit l reckon.

[simoncwalsh01]

Managed to upset somebody...would have preferred it if they had properly defaced it, or even ripped it down.

I'm pretty sure Bill Hicks didn't actually mean to kill yourself, he loved life to much for that.

[simoncwalsh01]

POSTER-Choose Your Masques.

Idea for poster based on the myriad permutations of the DOGMA pentagram logo. Could perhaps develop this with other colours but liking the White on black version. Need to box off the boards now so any extras are on hold until deliverables completed

[simoncwalsh01]

DESTROY ALL SKETCHBOOKS.

Well it would be in bits if it wasn't for me constantly rescuing it with tape. Surprisingly this sketchbook was a tenacious little shit-even though it was pretty cheap with crappy paper (would I destroy my Moleskins? Hmmmm). Quite liking how the designs(?) mark making etc with the inks, paint and markers bled through and stained further pages.

I've been using sketchbooks now for 4 years (I'm sounding like an addict...'Hi my names simon and I'm a sketchoholic...') And I'm quite sure I'll be carrying one round with me all the time now. Something I kinda like.

[simoncwalsh01]

Politics of Plenty & Neomania.

Leaving this now, yeah the pacing of the acetates is a little off but that may not matter so much in the bigger picture once we start finally editing these sequences together

[simoncwalsh01]

Politics of Plenty & Neomania

Not sure about this, maybe need to try something very different here, anyway its a start. Perhaps need to look at how themain headline text is related and decronstruted a bit more.

[new-aesthetic]

Boeing test flights (Superbowl celebrations, 747-8, 787 Dreamliner), via FlightAware.

[simoncwalsh01]

Huge graphics!

[simoncwalsh01]

THE RAID 2.

Saw this last night.

Watched the 1st one and it blew me away. But I was managing my expectations with No.2. I have a built in mistrust of sequels (though there are notable exceptions, Godfather II, Aliens, thou not Jaws 2 that was bad.) So high hopes, but was expecting to be disappointed, especially when I saw the running time was 2 1/2 hours.

Well I have to say its a seriously impressive piece of film making. Forget the complicated plot, this is about one thing. Fights. But it extends them into a beautiful dance, this is no hidden wires 'Crouching Tiger' though. Neither does it feature lashings of '300 Birth Of An Empire' C.G.I. blood spurts. Its hard and brutal, but strangely mesmerising. OK this is not a date movie, unless the other half is seriously into hard hitting fights using a variety of weapons; knives, broom handles, hammers, baseball bats, lots of guns, cars, more guns. But its all handled in such a kinetic, dynamic way. Some extras must have been seriously hurt making this film. There are too many brilliant stand out set pieces, each one trumps the last, but the mud soaked prison yard fight is a sight to behold.

Enjoy!

[simoncwalsh01]

ProCon III

PROCON 3

Social Media Links

Tumblr                    http://simoncwalsh01.tumblr.com/

Behance                https://www.behance.net/simonwalshdesign

Linkdin                   http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/simon-walsh/80/830/b54

  BAR SHORTS

‘While You Were Sleeping…’

Part I      https://vimeo.com/91388975

Part II    https://vimeo.com/91388976

Part III   http://vimeo.com/91504748

  FULL SECS

‘Double Speak’

‘Globalisation’ https://vimeo.com/91389296

‘New World Order’   http://vimeo.com/91503813

‘Downsizing’       https://vimeo.com/91398258

    ProCon III Motion.            Evaluation.

Have I over specialised? Should I have done web? Well only time will tell, but I returned to university to get the skills I needed to get a job I could turn into a career. I really do not care for coding at all-it bores me, in fact it annoys me, but now is not the time for a rant. But in a nutshell why would I want a job doing something that I really don’t like? So that pretty well answers any doubt in my mind-don’t tutors always say ‘do what you love, love what you do’ or something like that. So no regrets here, I love motion and film, and I have to say have thoroughly enjoyed Procon III, probably the first time I really have throughout these 3 years, and that’s because I specialised in Motion. What I’ve learnt from my 3 years doing Procon is that it allowed me the time to explore different areas of design, finding out what you like and don’t like. So it’s been a success.

The motion pieces have tried to expand my knowledge of film-making and after effects, not always successfully but certainly in regard my learning and development very much a success. My initial plans to do everything stop motion, drawing out each frame was totally unrealistic considering the amount of time an effort required to carry it out. But I still carried out many tests and failed attempts to make a piece that had a more authentic feel to it that just resorting to After Effects. Ultimatley I resorted to plan B and used found footage and then stop framed it, changing each frame in photoshop to try and get that hand rendered effect. Am I pleased with the output? Well no, but this is because after every project I feel it could have been better. This is a healthy attitude to have, something that I will extend into my professional career.

I’ve enjoyed the Tumblr blogging, the thought of actually stopping blogging now Uni is ending seems ridiculous, so this will continue. I’m planning to post more as I carrying on creating and as my skills develop even further, so hopefully will my work. This is an exciting time, also scary, but fortune favours the bold so it’s with this in mind I’m due to start at Mighty Giant in May. Need to really show them I’ve got the right attitude, and that I am willing to do the hours and put in the work to succeed

[simoncwalsh01]

Bellyfeel-Infographic.

Think this one works best for what Krish has asked me to do.

[simoncwalsh01]

Year In Review.

Year in Review 2013-14.

Creating-

Destroy/Create.  Motion Piece for Salford Type Foundry.

D&AD 2014. DCM IDENT. Motion Piece entry.

Greater Manchester Homes. ‘Pretty Vacant’ Pitched work to board at Greater Manchester Homes Empty Homes Project.

Nifty Mini Drive- Pitched packaging designs for new product launch.

Blockletter Typeface Created. Featured on Behance-Student Show and Behance-Typography served, 700+ hits.

Shape@Christmas, Motion piece produced.

Manchester & Salford Illustrated 2014. Illustration created and chosen to be featured in exhibition an printed as poster for charity Wood St Mission.

Belly Feel- Transmedia Infographic.

Laser Cutting Workshop

Seeing-

Future Everything, Manchester.

Rogue Studios. Open Studios. Manchester.

YorkshireSculpturePark.

Manchester & Salford Illustrated. Opening Night.

Manchester Central Library Opening.

Cornerhouse, ‘Hiker Meat’ Exhibition.

Manchester Gallery Visit.

Walker Art Gallery’ Liverpool.

Tate gallery, Liverpool.

  Attended/Speakers-

Robert Shadbolt Industry talks.

Creative Spark talk/competition.

Business Bootcamp-2 day intensive seminar.

Jonny-Mighty Giant. Gave presentation to MINT class and feedback on my work.

   Promoting.

Behance Profile and portfolio set up.

Linkdin Profile set up.

Tumblr-Continual Blogger.

COSTA del SALFORD. Involved In setting up and organising, implementing Costa Del Salford, industry nights and end of year show.

  Placement/Opportunities.

Due to start at Mighty Giant in May.

Invited in for a chat with DoodleDoo.

[simoncwalsh01]

Client - BellyFeel. 

Transmedia Infographic.

Spoke to Krish earlier this week, all positive, pretty much said what I felt about earlier versions. So added a drop of colour (I tried a multi colour version but it looked horrid and messy). Kept the colourways simple, and pushed back the vibrance so the 'audience' sits more in the background.

So a few variations here to show Krish, still need copy off him, then I think I'm done

[tashatime]

The fantastic @jamesp0p from #creativespark visited yesterday to fill us in on a competition and tell us about spark-world - really interesting talk and snippets of wisdom - thanks for joining us @salforduni here’s james doing an amazing Hammo Gull shadow puppet #graphicdesign #salforduni #lectures

[simoncwalsh01]

Interesting talk, seem like they operate under the mantra of 'work hard, play hard'. Though I'm more of a 'Work hard till its done....then play hard' The speed of turnaround is impressive, obviously being able to react quickly and get quality results is key to being successful.

[bethstevens-blog-blog]

Liars club where we held our Costa Del Salford event for Industry lastnight. Huge success and spoke to a lot of companies that gave me some brilliant feedback and even possibly a placement! #CostaDelSalford

[simoncwalsh01]

BEACH PARTY/INDUSTRY NIGHT @ The Liars Club, MCR.

Felt like a long long time in planning and organising. Not without headaches. 

OK what needs to go better next time.... 

You've heard the expression 'too many chiefs and not enough Indians'? Perfect example of that here. I'm all for democratic leadership, but just trying to get agreement on a decision proved time consuming, especially early on trying to get things off the ground. Ultimately this is a Student led event, yes staff do provide essential support and advice. Also they are fundamental in getting industry to attend (along with a £300 bar tab). But if students aren't allowed to make mistakes they wont learn. Having said that it does have 'Salford University' pinned to it, so staff don't want a disaster on their hands or it would reflect badly on uni. So there is a fair bit of, what I call, push-pull going on. Also all things considered can you really rely on a bunch of very busy students(good students) or the just disinterested or plain fucking lazy.(Bad students) to get stuck in...the answer, apart from those notable exceptions...is no. So unless a very dedicated and committed team is together from the start...expect problems.

However it seems apparent that there will be a small core group of students that gets burdened with doing pretty well EVERYTHING. It basically came down to whoever was about and showed willing got given a job...though to be fair there was never any grumbling from any of them. I thought they all showed great commitment and really got stuck in.

Expect the same thing to happen next year. Ideally you get the team sorted right at the start-however there's no guarantee that front runners will stay the course (not blaming anyone, I could have spent loads more time on Costa if I'd wanted to). Ideal situation is to get people together AND its for their NMP, becomes a win/win situation (terrible phrase).

The venue/numbers. Ok victim of our own success here, I loved the venue, the vibe of it was perfect for the theme. But by 7.30 the place was rammed. But really how would we know it would be so busy! Last year hardly any students showed up...this year it was full! Bloody brilliant! So its impossible to predict numbers, and really it only impacted on the 'Events' we had planned...but no matter we can use them at the end of year show.

Goody Bags....don't we have it drummed into us...DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT...ok then how about next time around try and avoid 'GOODY BAGS'. Every year, goody bags are given out. Its dull to repeat others. Yes they serve a purpose getting our foot in the door, but there has to be a better way...it all ends up in the bin. Got to be a better way.

Having said all that the night was a great success. It worked! True it did feel like speed dating. Yes, I was uncomfortable. But I reckon we all had constructive feedback and placements were grabbed by quite a few

Still think its a shame Salford has to come to MCR,but that will change next year as these kind of events have been effectively finished off by the faceless university decision makers...its all at media city from now on.