A design presence

Alex Dyson / Pencilwound

Who am I?

I am a graphic design student currently developing myself & my creative practice at Leeds College of Art. I have an unmistakable interest in branding & visual identity, & a love for working with anything that involves solving a problem with a contextualised & well executed solution.

Pencilwound is the name of my creative practice. I wanted to present myself with a quality that is unique to me and will stay with whoever crosses my work.

When I was young, I got in a fight with a kid called J贸se who used to bully me when I was about 9 years old. During this playground fight, J贸se grabbed a pencil and stabbed me in the arm with it.

To this day, there is still grey scarring on my arm where I was stabbed with that pencil. I have never met anyone else with anything similar so I feel it identifies me in a way. Something different about me, however, now completely relevant to my every day creative practice.

Creative Skills Erm What?

Slowly but surely

Confident & Capable

Lord of Shortcuts

As well as the advanced software skills I have developed over the years of using them, I religiously sketch, refine, craft & make/drink coffee.

Having these practical skills and consistently building on them helps me complete tasks to the highest standard.

Adobe God

I have been interested in cameras & photography since I was rather young, buying my first DSLR with my first ever wage at 16. I have since developed my knowledge & practice with a camera & often enjoy going out & taking photos of what I do & where I go.

In my first year of university I started to notice that my busy lifestyle was making it difficult to fit any

Interests

Aside from my life of design I have interests that complement it or simply allow me an escape from it overwhelming me.

Over my time at university I have become very passionate about the art of screen printing. This is now a skill I can execute to a very high standard.

excercise into my routine.

This sparked my interest in cycling and I have since grown very fond of it as a form of transport around the city as well as a way to blow off steam late at night when there is little traffic.

In social environments I enjoy drinking craft beers & coffee.

I rarely buy a beer I have already had as I love discovering new tastes.

However unless I feel like trying something else I always have my coffee black with two sugars so I can enjoy the flavours at full blast.

This was a competition brief I discovered which asked for a design for Korn’s new single ‘Love & Meth’.

After developing a series of ideas & possibilities I decided to cook some see-through candy methamphetamine, break that up & then place it in the shape of a living heart on a piece of black card.

I then photographed it & used photoshop to distress and enhance details.

Korn

Unfortunately I did not win the competition however I am very content with the final outcome.

Love & Meth Single Artwork Packaging

Illustration, Print Design & Videography

Undead Audrey Hepburn

Inanimate Apparel

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For a clothing label that I ran before arriving at university, I designed a zombie Audrey Hepburn themed launch for a t-shirt & vest in the Summer.

For this self initiated brief I illustrated the design by hand, digitally rendered it & then had them screen printed on American Apparel garments. These were limited to 45 of each style.

To accompany the products I screen printed an A4 poster for each garment sold.

Two short videos were shot & edited by myself showing both the printing and photo shoot for promotion.

Collaborative brief between myself & Joe Leadbeater.

Domino’s

The brief asked for a solution to solidify Domino’s ownership of Tuesday’s with their promotional offer ‘Two For Tuesdays’. The mechanic had to continue using two pizzas, & the branding had to be consistent with Domino’s company. The rest was up to us.

YCN Two For Tuesday’s Competition Creative Advertising & UI Design

The ‘Two For Tuesdays’ application will promote itself through the users’ social networking. This creates a circuit of word of mouth between friends & family, connecting people with the application, to then connect within the application.

A trend of sharing your pizza experience has the potential to go viral & generate a whole new audience who previously had little or no knowledge of the deal.

Nicole Jopek Logo & Business Cards

Branding & Identity

Nicole Jopek, a fashion photographer in Huddersfield approached me in need of a professional identity that reflected her work as well as a high end business card to distribute to possible clients whilst on location.

I designed a custom Bodoni typeface and removed the stem of Nicole’s first inital to make it stand out amongst other fashion based identities.

An alternative logotype was designed in case of the need of branding smaller spaces, this can be reduced to 14mm in print without losing it’s clarity.

The business cards were 700gsm Duplex GF-Smith Colorplan Ebony & Pristine White with gloss black foil on the ebony side and black letter press on the white side.

Thank you I hope you have enjoyed reading about my creative practice and the work I complete.

I love talking to people so if you would like to get in touch with me you can pick up your phone, open your laptop, send a messenger pigeon or however you’d like!

Thanks again, Alex Dyson / Pencilwound t _ +44 (0) 7788587307 e _ hello@pencilwound.com w _ www.pencilwound.com