A selection of recent projects that have been working on — a mixture of live projects, speculative designs and personal work. I have always believed that the projects that sit outside or your regular portfolio are often the ones that gather more attention in interviews or from peers, as these are the projects you have chosen to pursue.

CURATIVE VIBES

Having created the branding for the MMICC (Melbourne Malaysian Indian Cultural Club), the director of the club asked if I would put together some concept work for her latest business idea. 

Curative Vibes is an event, music and infotainment company with the ethos of “Entertainment not just for the sake of entertainment but something that heals, gives joy and makes a positive impact.”

RECORD SLEEVES CONTINUED

As a personal project, I have set myself the task of creating a series of record sleeves for imaginary bands, using a mixture of illustration, photography, found slides and photographs. These are the most recent designs that I have been working on.

MMICC

My wife’s friend asked me to create a logo for her new venture, the Melbourne Malaysian Indian Cultural Club. I took inspiration from the Malaysian ‘wau’ kite, Indian clay oil lamp and Australian boomerang — creating the logos device. The 3 main colours were taken from the Malaysian flag.

SCANNER SHIFTING

I have always loved photocopiers and the techniques that artists and zine makers of the 80’s would use to create artwork, so I decided to try to replicate them using my modern scanner. By moving the paper as the sensor scans down the page, it creates these fluid shifts in the lettering.

I juxtaposed the random, glitchy lettering with a clean line illustration of a floppy disk and bright block colours — to create a poster for an imaginary new single.

Arkwright Forsyth was the name of the ill-fated band I had with some old flatmates — a mixture of Richard Arkwright (the inventor of the Spinning Jenny weaving machine from the Industrial Revolution) and Bruce Forsyth (the British entertainer).

FESTIVAL POSTER

I was doing some painting experiments with my daughter last week, using cardboard to spread the paint around. I really liked the results, so I thought I would mock up a fake music festival poster, complete with invented band names and sponsors logos.

TOTEM ONE LOVE

A speculative rebrand of concert and music festival promotion company, Totem One Love. 
I presented 2 designs, one with the elongated ‘O’ motif and the other with the ‘O’ forming the body of a totem pole — which were both really well received, but unfortunately the brand has been retired.

RECORD SLEEVES

This year I set myself a little side project to create a series of record sleeves, as I have always wanted to have my designs on a physical vinyl record.

For this design I used photography from a shoot I did a few years ago with model Thanatphon 'Bella' Boonsang and I did some handwritten lettering with my eyes closed and using my left hand, to give a free and loose style. The full set of photographs can be seen over on my photography website.

NEIL RICHARDS
UX, UI & DIGITAL DESIGNER

I have been fortunate to work for some of the best agencies in the UK and Australia, across a wide range of projects and sectors — with a career spanning over 25 years. I am currently on the look out for the next step in my career, so if you have any exciting opportunities, please contact me via email to request my CV or arrange a chat.