Stephen Hawking as Spector has plans to go back in time with a new device to cure his illness. The outcome is unsure. Will everything happen in a split second and freeze for ever, or will time become liquid and accessible for time travel.

After reading a short biography of Stephen Hawking in which he writes lightly about quantum mechanics and that he thinks time travel would never be possible, I woke up in the morning with the idea of making him a Bond villain with an opposite story.

A title for the film is not that difficult to come up with... something about Die and Time that is already kind of a theme with Bond. Since I'm clearly not getting any artwork for this poster, I have to do my own research and the main characters in this story aren't hard to find. A good image with enough resolution, on the other hand, is a different story. In the original image James has a different gun that becomes vague at the end of the barrel and is not suitable for the center piece. I removed that and replaced it with another image where everything is sharp and also a clear strong hand.

Three pieces are used in the centerpiece. At the very back is a light blue exploding clock. The fact that it was a clock is no longer visible and is not a problem. This is about the effect. On top of that an image of CERN where they have done tests in the 27 kilometer long Large Hadron Collider in search of elementary particles such as the Higgs particle, also called the God particle and therefore a reference to quantum mechanics. (see LHC)

Ultimately, all on top of a 3D clock that I made in Adobe Dimension. It is clearly not a modern clock and refers to the possible success of Mr. Hawking. The circle gives an accent to the circles already present in the previous images and the gun in the middle. During post-processing, the light was tweaked and a glow was added to increase the contrast with the background.

Zonder synopsis.

The whole is nicely balanced and looks commercial. There are of course many possible versions. Sometimes less is more and more exciting by using only 1 image. But since I have no artwork available and have to tell the story in 1 poster, this was my choice.
I'd love to hear what you think below. So leave a comment.

Het bericht JAMES BOND POSTER – Will Time Ever Die verscheen eerst op Stylus Design.

As a designer who has spent years working in the Randstad and beyond at many agencies, large and small, I have come across many creative people. What struck me, apart from that experience with colleagues and the artists you read and see about, is that it almost never stops with the one discipline from which you initially know them.

Mister Multitalent
The greatest example of a multi-talent is Leonardo Da Vinci who was gifted in several disciplines. Music was also one of them. He composed and was skilled at playing the flute and lyre, an instrument that has many similarities to the harp. The lyre is small and can be held by pressing it against the hollow between the shoulder and chest. Leonardo seems to have sung beautifully without rehearsing.

Leonardo wouldn't be Leonardo if he hadn't invented and designed an instrument, the Viola Organista. It is a combination of a string instrument and a piano and can finally be heard after 500 years.
I can be brief about his other talents. Who is not familiar with his inventions, which are often masterfully drawn, or his paintings, architecture and sculptures.

Our graphic colleagues often also do something with music, play an instrument and also like to be in the spotlight on stage. Creativity appears to have no limits. The Alpha brain looks for all kinds of possibilities to express itself and looks for ways to solve problems in its own way that has not yet been discovered or implemented. That sounds a bit strange “solving” but that is certainly what happens with creativity. There is a great urge to express oneself where a degree of discipline is required. The road to it has obstacles that must be overcome. You often have to practice, refine and perfect for years to get what you have in your mind to come out well. You certainly recognize the bleeding fingers of the guitarist who initially has no calluses on his fingers and the tips are still soft. Many people have stopped because of the pain and cramps during those initial lessons.

Paul Roberts
A much-played musician from my own past who had two disciplines was Paul Roberts of Sniff 'n the tears. The band's album covers were his paintings. Almost as well painted as photographs and clearly also intended as a cover for the band's album. The work therefore had to have been made during or after the recordings.

He painted a total of 8 covers for their albums and eventually chose to become a painter, his first creative love, and now lives in France.
His style is hyper-realistic and comes back in all his work .

Miles
Another musician who enjoyed painting is Miles Davis. His work is completely different from Roberts's and immediately shows that the music reflects that other love that needs expression. Miles colors and jumps around with his trumpet. It shows that he has Jazz in his genes and can't really express any style other than that so well. He refuses to be pigeonholed in terms of performance and has single-handedly created movements that are still being played to this day. If you look at his paintings you see that Jazz and a theme return. Like this, almost graphic Kandinsky work, of which I cannot find the name.

There is some work by Miles on the net. His own website milesdavis.com displays 62 works and is very varied in style. Unfortunately, little is said about it. Nothing about the size of the pieces, what it was made on or what he painted with.

So many Miles albums have been released that it is impossible to determine whether any of his artwork was used as a cover. Yet many paintings and the like were used where his own work would not have been out of place. Maybe he didn't think it was appropriate or he didn't want to draw attention to his "hobby".

Why
I also have a talent for more than one discipline. Besides my graphic work, I played at North Sea Jazz for four years as a guitarist and can compose a little. And the funny thing is that in music it often doesn't stop at just one instrument. For example, I was able to borrow my uncle's sax for a few months. Blasting along to the radio soon became easy, as did finding scales. Unfortunately, the uncle wanted his sax back after a few months. At home I still have a DX7 IIFD synth that works well with the Apple Logic plug-ins. Photography also appeals to me and I have some series on Flikr. I also update images for Max Koot Studio. That's how I came up with the idea of this blog. You meet them everywhere in this creative world and they are especially noticeable when you are involved in it yourself.

Do you know more and can you point me to a link that points to information about why this is or if you have an idea yourself, I would love to hear it. Respond and leave a message if you know more creatives with multiple disciplines, for example.

Het bericht CREATIVITEIT HOUDT VAAK NIET OP BIJ ÉÉN DISCIPLINE. verscheen eerst op Stylus Design.

Writing these blogs is, for me, recording what I have ever experienced in the world of tenders, retail and advertising. Because this world is so incredibly broad and embraces all forms of work, you can find yourself in unexpected situations. But sometimes you don't even have to leave your house, because at certain times call centers commissioned by marketing companies can surprise you with a questionnaire.

This was a very long time ago, I just had a new girlfriend from Wales living with me and it was the end of summer. I remember it was still light.

I answered to see if I had time to answer some questions. You can also learn something from such a survey yourself, so I sometimes liked to participate in it. – Did I ever go out to eat? But of course! – Where are you going to eat then? A restaurant, that seems obvious to me. It went on like that for a while. With a detour I ended up where he wanted to go. It wasn't about eating out with your girlfriend like a normal person does, but about whether you ever get a quick bite when you're away from home. And I actually had to pull that out of him. Soon questions went from me to him instead of the other way around.

If we were going to dance around the issue, I had to get to the heart of the matter. I asked him if it was a hamburger seller. They are not allowed to answer that otherwise they will “contaminate” the survey. But which of the two I liked best was still a matter. My girlfriend and I were unanimous fans of Burger King when we ate a burger. “Why?” the boy asked. Since we spoke almost nothing other than English in the house, “It just tastes better” came out, because we think so too and this was expressed with increasing enthusiasm during the rest of the conversation.

A month later we were walking through the city. You won't believe it, but sometimes things go that way. It is not without reason that you are in advertising and that you are creative. There was a poster hanging in the window of our favorite hamburger joint. “It just tastes better” in yellow letters underneath a juicy burger. We looked at each other and laughed quite a bit. No one believes this, was our conclusion.

I googled the slogan and discovered that they regularly make up slogans or have them made up for various citizens and campaigns. On Wikipedia there are a few. This one is not there, but I still see it coming up regularly and I always have to laugh a little.

Het bericht IT JUST TASTES BETTER! verscheen eerst op Stylus Design.

I once had a friend who worked at VUGA, a scientific publisher in the Zeestraat in The Hague, where I would later also work for the neighbor Panorama Mesdag. Handy of course if your friend is a designer, then you can more easily convert the brochures you write into a usable product.

COVER
After doing this for quite some time, I had to come by for something other than a brochure.

During the discussion it became clear that this time it was a cover of a magazine for the traffic police called “Knooppunt”.

I started working with the indicated points for a new cover for the traffic police junction and quickly came up with a striped construction that ran diagonally together with an acute angle at the end to end straight again - vertically or horizontally. This was a strong presence for a cover along with the headline.

Personally, I didn't think my design for the cover was entirely successful, except for the "knot" and I threw these magazines out of my saved hardcopy files. The digital files are also so old that I can no longer open them. I haven't seen the friend in question in decades. So you might think that this story is completely contrived to be interesting. That seems obvious, but I can assure you that this is not the case and the hard copies are still stored somewhere in someone's archives.

PUNCHED OR INSPIRATION
During the period when these stripes were used for the magazine, and before of course, the stripes on police vehicles were not yet available. When these appeared there was some surprise. This construction was undoubtedly “borrowed” from me or provided quite a bit of inspiration. It is common knowledge that forms and inventions are sometimes invented at the same time. The spirit of the times, fashion and current affairs can sometimes lead to this. However, this form was 1 or 2 years old and was for a traffic police magazine. Then some sirens go off.

WHO OH WHO
It is not entirely clear who created this version of the stripes. It can be found on the net that Aad Voermans from Aangenaam Ontwerp in Utrecht and Studio Dumbar may have something to do with the stripes. I haven't worried about the issue either, a little boy like me won't get far. There is no point in arguing over who is the spiritual father of these stripes, because before you know it you will see them up close and this design is so old that there is no point in creating a story anymore.

I do hope that someone has a version of my design with the knot, and I will come back to it in this blog.

Het bericht POLITIESTREPEN verscheen eerst op Stylus Design.

If you are asked to be the designer for a tender, it's because you can offer added value. For example in the field of strategy, concept, design or editorial. But sometimes you also turn out to be able to contribute in a completely unexpected way.

The meeting started at 7:30 am. An hour's drive from The Hague, so that meant getting up early. Fortunately, the coffee was ready in the meeting room, because thinking clearly about tender issues at this time is no easy task. A shot of caffeine made it easier. It turned out that I was the only one from outside the company; the others had already jointly drawn up the plan to be discussed.

CIRCUS
The tender manager drew a sketch of a street on the flipchart. A new sewer must be installed, after which the street must be redesigned again. We start the work on the far right, on a square. After that is done, the entire circus moves to the far left of the drawing. From there we work towards the right part.

The plan seemed rather strange to me. After all, the entire street (including seven side streets) must be closed to traffic until left part is finished and connected to the right part. I couldn't contain myself: wouldn't it make more sense to start on the right and as one train to 'crawl forward'? During the work, a maximum of one or two streets will need to be closed.

SUCK
The tender manager did not think this was a strange comment. He asked the chief implementer what the reason was for the chosen approach.

The answer was simple: 'We drain from top to bottom, so that we don't have to vacuum in the morning.

“Vacuum?,” I said. 

“Yes, cleaning up last night's spill.”

“But you can do that with pumps that transfer everything at night to a functioning sewer section?” I said.

PUMPS
“How much do those pumps cost?” the tender manager then asked.

“100 to 150 euros per day,” was the answer from the head operator.

Tender manager: 'That cannot be the costs. What are we going to gain from the train idea?'

It was quiet for a moment and made a quick calculation in its head and said; 'Roughly speaking, we will go from −10 to +10% profit, we will be ready five weeks earlier and we will cause considerably less disruption.'

Tender manager: 'It seems like a good idea to me. This is how we're going to do it.'

OUT OF THE BOX
I didn't come to the meeting for planning, but to discuss the design of the offer. As an outsider you sometimes have a fresh perspective on a situation. It turns out that thinking outside the box can even contribute to optimizing planning and implementation.

Het bericht DWARSDENKEN BIJ TENDERS verscheen eerst op Stylus Design.