I‘ve seen plenty of custom alphabets, but can’t think of any that focused on numbers, that is until I saw this Number Character project by Skwirrol. Not quite finished yet, but I like where it’s going and eagerly anticipate the rest of the set.

Mark Weaver is still knocking his retro/modern collage pieces every day, I hope he makes this one into one of his silksreen posters.

Just found these great daily illustrated facts on Cargo. This one seemed appropriate, not because I’ve just been robbed, but it is Tuesday.. By the Manchester based design studio – Young.

Stumbled across the portfolio of Tofdru on Cargo today, it made my day, no shit made my year, this guys work is awesome. I didn’t think I’d see the day when a cut & paste collage artist would top Terry Gilliam, but I think he has. Can’t find out much about him other than he must own crap load of vintage magazines, I suspect he’s French, but his info page is in Japanese?

Update: Yeah he’s probably French, my Japanese friend says he must have used translation software, grammer is all over the place and it doesn’t make sense…

Also here’s his Flickr.

I came across the work of always with honor on Cargo. It’s a collaboration between Tyler Lang & Elsa Chaves (whose personal sites are well worth a look), they specialise in simple/fun icons and infographics.

While I was doing my Cargo Collective folio I decided to make a new repeating background gif. Originally I really wanted to have a really bright colourful background, break from the mold of ether black (ish) & white (ish). After much experimenting and playing around, I just couldn’t find a colour that didn’t clash with my work – problem with a colourful image heavy site, so I ended up plumbing for white (ish)…

The good news though – I thought I’d post all the rejects here, maybe they’ll be of use to some of my readers :) There’s 2 sets of files for you to download, the gifs are ready to roll, just upload them and insert the link into your html. But I’ve also included a set of Photoshop files, the texture’s just a mask so you can quickly & easily change the colour just by paint bucketing the layer. Note – there’s a second darker layer underneath, you’ll want to change this accordingly with your top layer. They’re all 150 x 150, so not too big file size, have a play around and I hope you find them useful.

• Download all 12 of the gifs »
• Download the layered photoshop files »

Pay close attention to this post dear blog readers - this portfolio site is 100% free and 200% awesome! I’ve tried out many portfolio systems over the past year, this is head and shoulders above the rest and won’t cost you a penny to have a play, can’t say fairer than that eh? It evolved out of the system that runs the SpaceCollective community, so has a fair fine heritage.

Cargo is largely much like all the others, but what makes it so briliant is down to a few key features like:

• A strong focus of design and visuals – it’s all about the images
• Navigation is a full page of projects thumbnails, the defacto best way of naviagting visual work
• Simple enough for the novice, but enough advanced features to keep the seasoned developer happy
• Unlimited – uploads, projects, customisation, fun.

What you get:

• A choice of excellent themes to style your site
• CSS editor to fine tune or completey customise your site
• Well maintained forum with lots of top tips
• Free Hosting
• Ability to set up a custom URL (www.example.com)

I’ve been playing around with it for a week or so, you can see the quick & dirty portfolio I’ve knock up here »

Here’s some other great portfolios I’ve found made with Cargo: Folkert Gorter, Josh Pangell, Stephen Cheetham, Kitchen, or just check out the Cargo Gallery.

It’s is in public beta at this stage, you can request an invite here. There’s talk on the forum of bringing in a flickr-esque annual subscription for a ‘pro account’, with a similar price tag – $25. Sound fair to me, would be happy to pay that.

In a month’s time (21st March) it’s another of those eccentric and uniquely British events, The Mighty Deerstalker, held just south of Edinburgh, in and around the town of Innerleithen.

It’s an ”adventure run” with a difference, all the racers are dressed up in tweed :) The Deerstalker is Fun Run meets Fell Race meets Hellrunner meets Tough Guy. You can expect water jumps, log balance bars, prickly tunnels and cargo nets over the 2 distance options of: 5 km (ish) and 10 km (and a bit).

1. Check out the route »
2. Enter here »
3. Location »

I don’t think I’ll be able to make it up to Scotland for the 2009 event, but maybe next year, looks great :)

Cheers for the link okjerome.

Name: Simon Cook (generally known as Cookie though)
Age: 32
Email: cookie {at} made-in-england.org
Telephone: 07974143355
Portfolio (in progress): www.cargocollective.com/cookie/
P.S. I don’t have a moustache anymore

SUMMARY:

I’d say I was a bit of a Jack of all trades, I like to have a go at pretty much anything. But I’m mainly an Illustrator & Designer specialising in vectors & textures, art direction & web design.

• Creative Art Direction
• Illustration
• Animation
• Graphic Design
• Interactive/Interaction Design
• User Interface & Web Design
• Sock Monkey makin’
• Digital Advertising
• Branding

EXPERIENCE:

Freelancer
October 2008 – Present

Recently I’ve been creating the illustration style & iconography of Skype business. Designing a massive cookery and product showcase site for Philips, to replace their boring brochureware appliances section of philips.com. Stiching a London 2012 olympic mascot (got through the first round). Designing a series of t-shirts for a fashion label. Doing some infographics for the BBC and designing a blog for Cadbury’s move into sourcing Fairtrade Cocoa beans.

Designer/Illustrator/Art Director at POKE
September 2005 – May 2008

My role at Poke was mainly focussed on Web Design and Art Direction. I made everything from cock-doodling sites, charitable campaigns, sites for celebrities like David Gest and bread & butter stuff for clients like Orange and Yahoo. There was an inspiring collection of people working here and I learned a lot from them.

Information Architect & Interaction Designer at France Telecom R&D
April 2005 – September 2005

This was an odd move for me in retrospect, I took the role mainly because of the team of old friends I was working with from my Nortel days. I was working on developing a new mobile phone operating system – I really enjoyed the problem solving and rigerous simplication of the IA, but I missed the creative side and didn’t stay too long.

Designer/Illustrator at Glue London
October 2001 – April 2005

Initially hired as an illustrator and animator, I worked on a lot of online advertising campaigns from microsites to banner ads. I also developed my Web Design skills here and became lead designer on most major sites like Virgin Trains. I also spent much of my downtime on a series of pet projects that pretty much became glue’s brand intentity.

Interaction Designer at Nortel Networks
July 2000 – July 2001

I worked at Nortel first as a 6 month placement while I was a university, and then came back once I’d graduated. It was a really great job just thinking of possible future applications for the technology that their scientists were developing. A lot of brain storming and then creating interactive presentaions explaining our ideas. Sadly when the technology shares went through the floor in 2001 the whole department was axed…

EDUCATION:

Northumbria University
1st BA (hons), Design for Industry
1996 – 2000

Weird degree title, but it was basically Industrial Design/Product Design. I really enjoyed this degree, they can’t teach you how to design things that haven’t been invented yet, so what they taught you was basic problem solving and creative thinking. Even though I’m not following my industrial design roots, I still think they were a solid foundation. I taught myself Flash during my time at Uni, hence the change of direction.