British Snowboard Speed Record 151.72kph

So when I am not doing design work, I like to film extreme sports, however sometimes it's good to be the one in front of the camera as take part yourself.
Three years ago I decided that I wanted to break the British Snowboard Speed record, this was currently held by Jamie Barrow, one of the British boardercross racers.

I managed to get sponsorship from Ruroc helmets and Windlip Snowboards, we did some testing of their current boards and developed one specifically for the attempt, it has almost zero side cut, raised rails and carbon fibre topsheet to keep it rigid. Cork was also added around the nose to help dampen any vibrations that might be caused if it was not a perfectly smooth surface.

Although that seemed simple, that was the easy part, the hard part was getting permission to use the slope. With only 3 slopes fast enough in the world to use it quickly narrows down options of where to go, fortunately all of these were in the alps, unfortunately 2 of these were closed. Verbier glacier slipped meaning the slope no longer existed and Les Arcs, famously the fastest and longest of the speed runs was closed by the lift operating company as they did not feel the risk it brought to the slope equaled the monetary gains of those who came to the slope for speed events.
Leaving Vars the only slope still fast enough to reach the speeds needed, being run not by the main lift company or town but by an individual who was very anti snowboard means that it is almost impossible to find out when the slope is open. Two unsuccessful trips last season made me tentative about going all the way again only to be disappointed, however sometime you just have to go for it and hope that things will eventually work out...and they did.
The weather was clear and training was on for the skiers, not all the slope was bashed so we only had some to practice with, I did a few runs getting into it, hitting around 100kph, then 130 kph on the first day. With the slope pisted higher the next day it was great conditions snow wise, however there was an extremely strong cross wind, this didn't cause huge problems for me, just made it harder to keep straight and tucked up.

On my second run I managed to equal the British speed record reaching 151.72kph:





I did one more run, although reaching a higher top speed I had to put in a heavy turn to keep stable, only averaging 138kph average over the 100m measued distance.

Until next year!

2015 a New Year, New designs

A new year and time for a slight refresh for The Kitesurf Centre.

We decided that many of the customers liked their previous circular stickers so we have continued with these designs with a slight change in terms of the colourways. The majority of their clients prefered the Blue with others opting for the purple and a few the pink, the yellow was the least favoured firstly the colours had not come out quite as planned ,the print quality had been quite low and the company has since closed, but also the yellow did not match up with many of the boards or footstraps colour schemes which is where most of the stickers are placed.
Looking into this I have designed this years stickers by first looking at some of the main Kitesurfing brands that are stocked by the centre, such as North, Liquid Force and Airush and seen which are their colours for this season. Using this info and after speaking with customers over their prefered colour of stickers and boards I then proceeded to produce the new circular stickers.
I do the main basis for the design in illustrator as I find using vectors for the kites and swirl much easier especially at the stage where colours are constantly changing and then do any finishing touches in photoshop.

There were a few slight changed to the text to make it a little easier to read at a glance however nothing noticeable without looking at them back to back.

Green is one of the new colours, this is used on many of the 2015 kiteboards and I went for quite a neutral green so that it works with more of the other colours on a board rather than the clashing style I used on the last batch.

The other design idea I wanted to visit was one where the brand name was more prominent, or even the basis for the design itself. An advantage to this is that it could be used more for marketing on items such as car bumper stickers, on seeing the deisgn The Kitesurf Centre chose to do a large and a small of this so it could still be used on board or other items.

Reading Vegetarian and Vegan Society Logo

I have been asked to design the logo for the society, firstly looking at breaking it down into the separate words and how these can be shortened/ linked together

READING UNIVERSITY
VEGETARIAN
VEGGIE
VEGAN
VEG*N
SOCIETY

From here I then put a few ideas quickly together using shorter words or acronyms.

From I then took the idea of the lines and added a background pattern with fruit and veg repeated.

I then looked into actually designing a logo in the style of a logo, one simple and circular, the other more in the shape of something you might find on a pot of Jam. I like them both, although with the natural feeling colour choice neither look over exciting.

I really liked the idea of using the acronym RVVS so had a look at that however I decided it looked more like a banner for a business than a university society logo.

I then looked online at other Vegan or Veggie logo's, many of which involved a plant or one leaf coming off the V at the start. This looks ok but a bit simple for a logo, I thought maybe make a plant with the leaves at the words.

 

Although this doesn't say Reading on it anywhere it could easily be added, perhaps as the stem or the rim of the plant pot. I think this has a much more fun and welcoming side to it and fits in better with the university society style of things.

Finally I took the idea of using words all the way and built an entire tree using words that are associated with being a Vegetarian or Vegan. From famous scientists who have lived in this way to how you will be viewed and feel about yourself.

This one taught me a lot about the life choices that are made from being a vegetarian or vegan but also about many offshoots of these such as beegans or the more extreme animal rights activist, all of whom aim to make the world a happier, healthier and more equal place.

I have used a few pictures and vector art Designed by Freepik, which has been useful to get me stared with ideas, a great place to look for vector files for projects big or small.

Summer Video Edits - The Kitesurf Centre - Liquid Force

Over the summer I have been doing a few edits for The Kitesurf Centre, this involved filming in a range of conditions and then putting a quick edit together after.

Some are about equipment, others have been used to advertise lessons and even a few mini vids to help show off a trend or new sport such as the Kite biking (BKX) video .

Here are all of the clips and videos I have created on this project over the summer:



















There are quite a few but it has really helped me work on my filming and editing, trying a range of cameras and techniques, I will soon be upgrading from the GoPro Hero 3 to the Hero 4 which has just been released and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of a DJI Phantom 2, which will greatly open up the angles available to film with it's superb versatility. Kitesurfing videos with a drone will be following soon. I have had some issues with editing a lot of the GoPro footage that is taken straight into Adobe Premiere, with much of it often having to be put through GoPro Studio first. For a couple of the mini vids where little editing or posts production is required I have just used GoPro studio as there was little need to move it across after.

The Snowkite Centre leaflet design

This project was helping out a friend, he already had an idea for the design but just wanted it tweaking and smartening up.
The snowkite school he is starting in Italy plans to work with The Kitesurf Centre by advertising to the Kitesurf students there and to try and bring them across to Aosta near the French border in Winter for some snow kiting.
I first showed him a few other leaflets to help with some ideas and looked at the current website - uk.snowkitingcentre.com

Here is the first design that we came up with:

This looked ok but we decided that the "Lessons and Hire" was the most important text on the page and needed to stand out a little more, we looked into making a curving white line between the text to make it look like a snowboarder had gone down a mountain. However we soon found that this was very difficult and didn't looked good so we took the idea of the Bold white block around the text on the kitesurf centre leaflet and tried with that.
We also thought that the whole document was a little flat and lacked a bit of life and the winter feel that it needed.
Here is what I came up with as a finished product:

The new pin shows the location a little better.

The "lessons and hire" really stand out well and the snowflakes bring a nice sparkle and winter feel to the whole experience. The large snowflake has also given us an idea of where to go with a logo so this should be coming soon.

See more on the subject at the snowkiting centre

2014 Promotional work

With the new year starting The Kitesurf Centre has brought in all of the new gear and so with that comes all the new promotional material and banners to go with it. These were all created using Photoshop CS4
Here are a few examples:

These two were used as part of a scrolling banner on their shop home page.

This was actually used around November although I found it so fun to make and decided it was worth putting in the post.

The other main pieces of work has been a of a similar nature, a desk front, holiday adverts and end of lesson hand out packages.
 

Next post all about photography and how to create circular panoramics!

Freeze Frame Filming and editing #Ridebarinvalthorens

#Ridebarinvalthorens

With this as the name of the short video I was making it roughly gives away what it's all about.
I joined a group of bar staff on their yearly trip to the alps to film and edit their trip together as part of Freeze Frame a company based around extreme sports filming, they can either rent the cameras out to you or if you are feeling lazy or want something slightly more professional they can film, edit and do it all for you.

It was perfect weather for filming in the days:


With all the footage collected and some tricks with the panoramic shots it was time for some editing.

I use the adobe suite to do my editing however I am still on CS4, with a little research into making a good intro in after effects and a voted choice over which song to build it to by the bar it there was only one thing left to do, cut it all together. Here is the end result, they had a great time but many are learning so it's no Art of Flight

Logo Design - Donegal Kitesurf School

So I have been sent a request to create a logo, the rough idea had already been doodled down so this project is more how to turn a doodle into a completed logo rather than any initial conception of ideas.
I was sent this sketch and so based all my work on the notes it gives.

I had a look at the mountains first and looked around online to get a good idea.

This is the coors light mountains he was thinking about.

Using this I created the first idea taking a section of the mountains and drawing a path around on Illustrator.

Although I quite liked these I felt it wasn't quite right so created the mountains myself.

I also added the sea and the kitesurfer as the sketch and notes requested to make these 4 variations.

These were almost completely created using Illustrator (CS4) from paths and solid fill or gradients, there was a little photoshopping at the end to finish this off.

The bottom right is nearest to the design requested however I quite like the design with half or no circle around it.

Van Vinyl Design

I have worked on other designs for vans, however it is always difficult to show how it would look with the designs on 2D drawings of a van, this time only the design will be done by me and not the vinyl cutting or fitting which is the tricky part for a rookie.

First looking online to get some ideas of what the customer needed and the best colours to be easily readable. Here were their top choices:

A key point here is that the vans are either black intially or have a full wrap on them which will be expensive so the aim will be to design something similar but keeping the white.

Here was my initial design that I send off to gain quotes. We expected that the large blend on the blue wave would end up increasing the price quite dramatically but we liked the design and so wanted to keep it. The budget for the van was around £500 including VAT so we would have to keep the design within this limit.

I received a range of quotes from companies from £425+VAT all the way up to £945+VAT

I checked that they would all be using the same material and methods and proceeded accordingly.

Below shows a slight redesign by the vinyl company making it possible to be fitted.

There are a few slight differences, some so that the van can have the vinyl applied a little easier, others are because they simplified the design/missed some of the detail.

One of the differences I notices the most was the blend on the wave and how it was not quite as smooth. I will add the completed picture of the van once it has been fitted.

Banners

As many of you might have noticed a majority of my design work is for kitesurfing companies, and most of this is for The Kitesurf Centre, this has included, logo's, clothing, websites pages, flags, vinyl for vans and now includes banner designs.


The aim of this project was to create a banner 8ft x 3ft that would be visible from the road and catch attention of passing traffic. I started off with a few rough ideas to try and get to terms with how they wanted it to look.

Here it was decided that the top banner goes well with the new van design as the sweeping wave shapes links in.

However we wanted to work out a way to show what the sports were to new customers, We tried two methods, one with photo's the other with silhouettes, this was most effective at the photo's were difficult to see at a glance and so not good for traffic.

I then integrated the designs together, changed the font and came up with a couple of final designs to choose from.

The first was more of a concept, just seeing if using a vector wave in the background could work well, the colours were quickly inverted on the silhouettes to see how they might look. It was decided that this was not clearly visible and that the the other design the details were far clearer.

To finally complete the design, Shop, Lessons, Hire, Club were added which involved moving the logo over, you will also notice that the sports have been moved around throughout so that stand up paddle boarding does not have a priority spot as this is a less important sport for the centre.

I liked this final design as it is clear from a distance while still having extra detail in the design faintly which will be noticable to those standing in the car park which should make it more interesting than standard banners.

Since posting this I have also added a Facebook F as shown below so that passers know that The Kitesurf Centre can also be found on Facebook.

Oystercatchers Holiday Cottage Camber

So for this latest project I was asked to design an entire range of marketing material for the customers, this included Website, leaflets, Logo and even some stickers for marmalade and Jam pots.

Initial Planning

Logo and colour choice, while this began the customers chose a name for the cottage - Oystercatchers. This we deemed showed that it was good for birdwatchers but without alienating families who were looking for something near the sea but might not know the connection with something less obvious.

From there I had a few ideas but the main one revolved around making a bird in flight look as basic as possible so that it could be used in a vector style design.

Here you can see the type of bird I was using and the variations in flight angle that I could use.

This I decided showed the most shape to the bird and colours however I did like the look of it with both wings up.

Here is my initial ideas

The clients liked this idea of the other designs so I went ahead using this.

Leaflet

The first issue here was getting a decision on how many sides and the size of the leaflet. To make this easier we collected a large number of competitors flyers/leaflets and any that we liked the look of and laid them all out. This was a very simple way to find the clients needs and preferences, size, colour, fonts layouts were all roughly agreed upon, I went back and made a few ideas of fronts and backs, here are the two final ideas:
    Front                                                                           Back

  

These were about the 5th or 6th edit, there weren't really any big changes the key this was the readability, I enlarged some text, removed others and simplified the map. We all liked these and after some editing to the photo's to lighten some up and make the roof look a little tidier it was off to the printers.

Note: Always make sure you image is saved as CMYK for this otherwise it will usually come back looking not quite as bright as it the RGB that you would have been looking at one your screen. Easiest option is to always work in CMYK and when working online use websafe colours so there is no change on different browsers.

Website

With the rough idea on leaflets sorted through seeing others I used the same method to help diagnose their true wishes for the site.
The key parts that we were aiming for was a "light" site in more than one way, firstly keeping it bright with a white background and also something that is simple and not too overwhelming.
For such a simple design I decided a basic wordpress site would be most efficient so with an appropriate theme installed (lenora) I began.
The header

This I found showed not only the name but also what the site was about and roughly where while also covering up some of the wordpress theme's standard header.

I then took a few photo's of the site for use in the galler (gallery) and on each page before creating the front page (Holiday Cottage Home page).

From here the further pages were designed each with an important section just below the menu, such as an image, map on where it is or a booking calender. To complete the booking and gallery NEOgallery and Bookings plugings were both used. The site was created entirely using free plugings and themes keeping costs down while still keeping it simple enough so that the owners can organise bookings without need for technical support.

Check out the site here: Camber Holiday Cottage

All of my designed sites are hosted at JustHost and usually purchased through GoDaddy.

For further detail, a breakdown on any of my work or interested in having me design for you please don't hesitate to contact me or visit my site - www.rupertcawtedesigns.com

Camber Kite Club Logo Design

Camber Kitesurf Club Logo
The club had been running for around 10 years will little happening the head association (BKSA) said that it had to start running or would be disaffiliated (funding removed)
One of the main points in getting it going was a facelift as all it had before was the bksa logo with a slight alteration.
All members were given a week, here are my ideas and thoughts on each.

1.
2.
3. 
4.
5. 
6.
7.
8. 

When posted online there were many thoughts, number 8 was a recolour of the first as they thought the colours were a little girly so i switched them to match the BKSA colours instead.