alex canning // sparetimedesign

iPhone cases.

Alex Canning — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:01:40 +0000

It’s nice when you get to flex your creative muscles in a job which might not require a great deal of creativity. The firm I work for is soon to get into the iPhone case game and I, as well as some colleagues have had the chance to design some. Hopefully the project will be a huge success and we’ll be commissioned to design some more! Here are the cases I designed:

Mixtape iPhone Case

Comic Book iPhone Case

It’s All Happening at the Zoo.

Alex Canning — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:19:58 +0000

Ah a new year and with it, new playlists. Aron and I have created many of them, yet only a few have come to light. Maybe I’ll post a few more in future. The theme for this one was simple: Zoos! I really enjoyed this one for the following reasons:

The easier the theme is, the easier it is to find songs to go into the playlist. Keep it simple, stupid!
These playlists are a great way for me to discover great music I might not have listened to, this one was no different.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did, I definitely reckon this was one of the better ones. It’s All Happening At The Zoo

It's All Happening at the Zoo

Simon & Garfunkel – At The Zoo
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – Anne Elephant
Mew – The Zookeeper’s Boy
The Phantom Band – Crocodile
YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO – Lions, Then The Donkeys
Cass McCombs – Cuckoo
The Whitest Boy Alive – Golden Cage
Caribou – Pelican Narrows
Ratatat – Wildcat
Subtle – A Tale Of Apes 2
Le Loup – Planes Like Vultures
Dosh – Wolves
Console – Dolphin Dos
Au – Are Animals
Animal Collective – Lion In A Coma

2009 Wrap Up.

Alex Canning — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:00:02 +0000

2009 has truly been a rollercoaster ride for me and it feels odd that it’ll soon be over (only for a new ride to begin, no doubt). The year started with the threat of redundancy, which was soon rendered a reality when in March I lost my job. Some six weeks later, I’d be starting a new job with Mobstar Media which would give me my first taste of working in a studio. Things have more or less turned out alright, and losing my job earlier in the year really gave me a kick I needed to reboot my career.

Whilst I’ve had some great support from family and chums, there are a few guys I’m indebted to, namely: Aron for his unparalleled HTML/CSS assistance and for being an awesome sounding-board, Huw for giving me career advice throughout the year, Jon for giving me the job at Mobstar (and saving me from further dole-queue perils!), Simon for all kinds of worldly/design advice and keeping me working and Lisa – it’s been a pretty tense year for us both and she’s been super supportive through it all. Also, cheers Sam and Nick at BPWEB – these guys very graciously provide my web hosting.

Also, thanks Mum!

Spotify Playlist: Red Beret, Yellow Beret.

Alex Canning — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:38:31 +0000

I’m fortunate enough to be able to listen to music whilst I work at my current job but this freedom comes at a price; I’ve listened to the music on my MP3 player so much that I get bored and don’t want to listen to any of it. Spotify has been a blessing in this respect, giving access to a wealth of material I don’t have in my possession though despite this, I can still be left lacking in inspiration. A friend Aron recently suggested we try out the collaborative playlist feature and ever since then we’ve been construction our own inter-office playlists, no more than an hour long and loosely held together by a theme we take turns to pick. With his blessing, I’d like to share some on the site, as I’m certainly quite pleased with the outcome of them.

One playlist in particular was Red Beret, Yellow Beret, suggested by Aron – a Jacques Cousteau inspired theme.

Red Beret, Yellow Beret

Swell Maps – Midget Submarine
The Spectors – Swordfishtrombone
Stereolab – Silver Sands
Modest Mouse – Ocean Breathes Salty
The Shins – Sea Legs
School Of Language – Marine Life
The Flaming Lips – Aquarius Sabotage
Little Barrie – Bailing Out
Longwave – Meet Me at The Bottom
Thee More Shallows – Night At The Knight School
Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
The Mountain Goats – Oceanographer’s Choice
Kings Of Convenience – My Ship Isn’t Pretty
Dirty Three – Sea Above, Sky Below
Minotaur Shock – Six Foolish Fishermen
Man Man – Whalebones

GPS.

Alex Canning — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:13:23 +0000

I was sent this video by my friend Paul, and will certainly make me more cautious about using the GPS feature on my phone in future. The video also seems to have been shot in my neck of the woods of Brighton, which is nice. I’ll add that to the list of features which already includes the masterpiece that is Wimbledon.

BPWEB Site Mockup.

Alex Canning — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:26:34 +0000

I’m fortunate enough to get my webspace provided by the good guys at BWPEB who have been friends of mine since college. Definitely check them out should you need some hosting or a dedicated server. Anyway, as an exercise I mocked up a new design for their site, complete with new logo.

Logo Mockup

Site Layout

Dirty’s Akai Repair.

Alex Canning — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:12:55 +0000

Dirty's Akai Repair

This morning I was thinking back to a time in 2005 when a friend of mine – Dirty Hairy – tried to fix his broken Akai sampler. I think the floppy disk drive had broken and I had a spare, though this may have been a seperate incident – Dirty has had many more Akai mishaps since then. Opening up a sampler or any piece of electronic kit, consumer or otherwise is probably not a great idea. I can’t imagine they have a great number of user-servicable parts. Nevertheless, we had a go and I guess everything went ok as the machine lasted for many years after. I thought back to some photos taken at the time and had the idea to turn it into an advert for a ficticious advert. I was going for something vintage (70s/80s maybe?), and I hope that, for a morning’s work, it is successful!

Click on the image to view it

Test Valley Broadcast Services.

Alex Canning — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:01:04 +0000

TVBS Logo

A current project is the design of stationery and a website for broadcast consultancy Test Valley Broadcast Services. The bulk of the work is still in production and under wraps, but an “under construction” (how nineties) site has been published and can be viewed here.

Portfolio.

Alex Canning — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:51:20 +0000

I’ve taken the time today to update the pages of my portfolio, to give some insight as to why the artwork was produced in the first place. Before, it was merely a collection of images so hopefully now they accompanying text gives them some reason or justification!

CV.

Alex Canning — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:47:35 +0000

A mixture of reasons has meant the development of my site has ground to a halt, and being a designer with an under construction page is slightly (highly) embarrassing. For the meantime then, this will serve as the front-end of the site. With this in mind, and if you’re visiting to download my CV, please visit the link on the right or right-click and save as on the button below.