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In the first of a brand new series, Pulse looks at the inspirations and designs of some of the UK's coolest promoters, brands and club nights. This week, proceedings kick off thanks to the efforts of Nick Cobby, a resident at popular club night On Your Niche and promoter for the fantastic Zleep event. The brains and creative force behind the popular Nottingham event choses his five favourite flyer concepts below, running through why their design is worthy of attention. Over to you Mr Cobby!
Zleep 014
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I've been co-running Zleep since 2010 with some good friends of mine, and much to my enjoyment I have been on artwork duties too. I have to say that it's been one of my favourite ongoing projects, perhaps because it is also close to my heart. The theme from the start was 'space', and that was the brief really - it was wide open. I initially used nebulae and cloudy, dream like images to try and create a spacey look that was almost more like a painting than a photograph. This has evolved over time and now I'm really interested in exploring massive satellite imagery, zooming in on areas and playing with the colour levels so that it starts to become more like an alien world or microscopic life form than an image of our own planet.
Zleep/http://tinyurl.com/zleep014
Warm 12th Birthday
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I've been a fan of the Warm posters for some time. Its one of those that I wish I had done myself, and I’m sure I’m not alone. This design, showing the phases of the moon arranged into a kind of optical pattern, is one of my favourites (and there were loads to choose from). You may have seen this one on a t-shirt design at some point, as it translates so well and is a screen printers dream. It’s a striking image and so pleasing in its simplicity. In a word - perfect!
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This one is easily nestled among my favourites from last summer. The RSS posters are always a treat for the eyes. This one perfectly summed up that Olympic period for me. It was a fun time to be in London and really love how the Olympic imagery is used with subtle Greek influences in the typography and illustrations. It’s obvious that a lot of love went into it, which is always great to see. I particularly like how the various events are depicted, although I must have missed the naked wrestling.
Louche
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This is another series that I've always followed closely, and with much admiration. This flyer is for their next event coming up in London, and perfectly showcases the collage skill of the designer once again. Its really easy to cram a load of imagery onto a canvas and call it a collage, but the real skill here is picking just two or three images that just work. You can tell how well these go down, as the Louche design format is still going strong after years, and though it has evolved slightly, the essence remains the same.
RA - X
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Something a little bit more fun here. This design from Simon Cook aka ‘Stone & Spear’ was part of the RA - X series of events back in 2011. Each artist involved in the series was specially chosen and limited edition art prints were available to buy alongside the event. It was nice to see some value put into the designs, as the poster and flyer world can be very much a use-once, throw away environment. This sometimes means that a lot of the time a great piece of work slips by unnoticed.
Tief
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Here’s a lesson in good photography from Tief. Again, so simple in the execution to come across as effortless, when I'm sure it was anything but. It’s just really…nice. And I mean that in the best possible way. Sophisticated and understated. And like the night itself, it lets the music do the talking, and talk it does.