paulhazel.com

MP3 Player
I’ve updated the MP3 player again this month, so if you’re a returning visitor you may wish to refresh your browser now. For me the highlight of this month’s selection is The Beach Boys little-known car classic Cherry Cherry Coupe. Not because there’s anything particularly brilliant about the music—it’s just a typical early-Beach Boys mix of Chuck Berry filtered through Phil Spector and topped off with a stunning vocal arrangement, that’s all—but the lyrics are just great. They were written by Roger Christian, who wrote a whole set of mostly car-oriented songs for the group, the apogee of which is Little Deuce Coupe. Anyway, check this out for a couplet:

Door handles are off but you know I’ll never miss ‘em
They open when I want with a solenoid system.

Pure genius! Love the album cover too:

Yes, I know The Beach Boys are about as hip as Englebert Humperdink, but frankly my dear I don’t give a damn….

Jammy
I recently made some damson jam. This is my label for the jars, just quickly adapted from an earlier honey one:

News Wall
Whilst at the D&AD Xchange 07 conference Ulrich Proesel showed a slide of a wall from a village in India, where every week someone paints up a summary of the world’s news. My colleague John Hill was at the show with me and he had the idea of using this as the basis for a little project for the freshers. This was my contribution, based on a news photograph and executed with one 3/4″ inch brush, one propelling pencil (with eraser), one black board marker, and three small pots of emulsion:

Come on you monks!

I haven’t done that much commercial design work for print - just a couple of small magazine adverts - so this unusual job allowed me to get a bit of practice in without a paying customer peering over my shoulder:

A friend of mine has a) an apiary and b) a shop. Ergo, he makes and sells his own honey. He gave me a dozen or so jars from this year’s crop, a couple of sheets of Avery J8161 labels, and asked me to design a ‘Chloe brand’ label. This is it:

It’s not brilliant, but there we are. Typography is definitely not my forte, for one thing, and I probably should have concentrated more on Chloe’s face. I don’t think I’ve done enough to establish what the ‘Chloe brand’ means or represents, either. Still, it does look good on the jar, and the colour scheme is effective: it would certainly stand out on the shelf.

We live and learn. Ciao!