Nick Coad

I submitted custom illustrations for the art book by the company Printed In Blood, Based on John Carpenters 1978 horror classic, Halloween.

I tried to approach each design in a different style for a few reasons. Most importantly was to showcase versatility as an artist , as well as appealing to different tastes of the individuals looking at them.

Each image was created to look like they were made with different mediums to help create a tone.

I feel design 3, perfectly balances the illustrator and graphic designer in my style.

Printed In Blood

Bernie Wrightson artbook : a tribute

I submitted work that was chosen to be included in the book Bernie Wrightson artbook : a tribute, published by Printed In Blood in 2022. The work included art from artists around the world, including comic industry legends such as Mike Mignola and Eric Powell.

I have three pieces in the book that were inspired by different work by the horror comic great Bernie Wrightson.

I was commissioned to collaborate with another designer on designing an album cover. The brief was do design images to correspond with individual song titles. I was in charge of designing the graphics, the other design was in charge of font/font layout, I came up with idea of taking the basic line drawings the client wanted, and changing them into glowing images to suit the music genre.

Nationwide Savings Ad Comp

I submitted this design for Nationwides open brief to design an advertisement that helped promote the ease of families saving for homes. The main stipulations were the brief should include families and the colors used are those used in the companies branding.

Daisy Jenkins Branding

I was commissioned to create a brand identity for Scottish Wrestler Daisy Jenkins. This involved creating a logo and designing ring attire, which then evolved in to creating a variety of merch including t shirt designs, stickers and art prints. All designs were made to compliment the 80s wrestler character persona.

College Brief:

The aim of the brief was to create a logo, trade magazine ad, website, icons and shop front mock up.

Lava Java Coffee Project

This was a mock up for a made up coffee company to challenge myself to design a logo, cups and advertising for a reusable cup and for an instant coffee social media ad.

College Brief

The product design brief was to design a high end alcohol bottle aimed at young people who go out.

I wanted to combine and middle eastern feel with royalty. The gold filigree would be gold foil to give it texture and the bottle to resembles a crown.

We also had design an accompanying gift to go with so I decided to on a shot glass as it would be practical, but also a unique glass, making it a talking point

August 2022

I challenged myself to make a new product and advert for every day for a week. This meant each day I had to come up with a product, name and ad that had to be completed in the average work day (no extra time).

The challenges were:

Horror Themed Bottle Of Wine

A Shampoo Bottle

Mens Aftershave

Superhero Themed Fast Food Burger

Low Calorie Iced Cream

I wanted to make sure it was different products, that were aimed at different groups of people to make sure each set of designs were unique from one another.

College Brief :

The brief involved creating a complete rebrand of Holly Fulton fashion house. I feel the minimal use of colour creates a stronger logo with maximum impact. the website uses some of Hollys design patterns to create a flow on the web page .

Bitmap vs. Jpeg

College Brief

The purpose of this brief was to explore the advantages and disadvantages of using bitmaps and jpegs, seeing which one worked better. I initially thought I would find jpegs more effective coming from an illustration back round. In the end I found bitmaps design made in Adobe illustrator allowed for far more impactful designs.

Also , a roll up standee was required to show hot it would be advertised during an event such as a book signing.

College Brief

Design a vinyl album relating to the theme of Paranoia.

I wanted my design to use a camera on every page of the cover (including the record itself) to create a sense of being watched all all times. I gave the camera a red tint to create a mood of being recorded.

I opted for a version with cold metal everywhere to give a sense of technology watching compared to the all black back rounds that have more of a person watching feel.

The middle page had a cold blue to contrast the red and give a robotic feel. The cameras on the inside panels were tweaked so it looked like a set of eyes when unfolded.

Advertisement Submission

Bottle design for a water bottle to promote Skwishee.

I designed the bottles to represent the different flavors the company produces. The artwork was designed to fit coherently with their existing logos style.

The facebook advert was designed to be vibrant and eye catching to generate a fun and engaging social media post.

I included a mock up what the Skwishee rebrand could look like on a normal plastic cup in store.

College Brief

The brief was to create a direct mail campaign for the British Red Cross aimed at younger people. My thought process was making the leaflet with info look like a phone, as it would immediately grab the attention of someone looking at it, causing them to pick it up.

The pages represent reading a message sent to a phone. At the bottom of each page it says to swipe left, which is what happens when the page is turned, taking the reader to a new page.

The logo is similar to the broadband signal to represent how the message of help can be sent , tying into the technology concept.

The freebies again, needed to tie in with technology but be practical things young people can use and promote the campaign. The packaging is also an envelope representing a text message with the phrase “you have 1 new message”

HND Year 1 Graded Unit

The graded unit was to design a brochure guide to the orchestra to encourage children to take an interest in playing instruments and join the orchestra.

I approached it aiming at young children. researching brochures, cartoon characters and logos, sweet logos and musical images to get a sense of what would appeal to my demographic .

College Brief

To design a poster for Graphic Design Festival Scotland. I personally drew inspiration from a Bauhaus artists work I was researching, to an eye exam .

A Naturally Flavored and Caffeinated Energy Drink

I created mock ups for an energy drink aimed at a more health conscious demographic. I designed the logo and can designs, as well as the bus ad for promotion purposes.

COMICbooks

College Brief

As part of my college graded unit, I was to produce comic book covers of famous books to encourage younger readers to take an interest in reading. A lot of research and development went in to creating these pieces, as well as the poster for the event and creating mock ups of room installations to accompany the art work.

College Brief

I approached making the posters as differently as I could. Making sure that they reflected the shows clearly. I felt as a viewer you should get a feel for the show with minimal imagery.

Business Card & Leaflet

This is the completed work for an engineer who required promotional material as a free lance worker

Grafik Magzine Cover & Double Spread

College Brief

The brief involved taking a well known typographer, in my case Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and create a two page spread with my own take on one of his pieces as the cover art.

Outdoor Education Centre

College Project

I was given a brief to design a poster ,custom icons and brochure for Ardroy Outdoor Education Centre. I used different shades of green to convey a feeling of nature to compliment the photographs and give the viewer a feeling of what being there felt like. I also used an orange scheme to give an autumn feeling that could be used at at different point in the year.

Book Cover Design

I was commissioned to produce a cover for the novel Masquerade of Murder. I designed several covers and narrowed it down to the most affective design

SAWDUST

College Brief:

The aim of the brief was to create three separate advertisements that worked as one overall campaign. These had to incorporate photography and typography in an interesting way. I opted using old, metal typefaces as a way of combining old ways of making type with modern photography.

College Brief

My main source of inspiration for the tags stemmed from street graffiti and started thinking about New York icons I could use. This allowed me to use my illustration skills to make bold, eye catching designs.

A series of skateboard decks that were designed for a client.

The NCD was a place holder logo as the clients logo was being designed at the time

I was commissioned to create a logo for the independent music reviews site. I presented several ides to give the client options and made a mock up web page to show how it would look online.

{not all designs are included on this page)

STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE!

College Brief

This was and ad campaign focusing on how people these days spend so much time looking at their phone and how dangerous that can be. I approached from the point of view that if you wanted people to cross the road safe, you would need to text them. I used traffic light colours to reinforce what the texts say and as worked with the three page ad requirements.

Also a graffiti aspect was needed and I thought the idea of a tagline of Screens can be replaced, you cant brings the phone in and puts how important a phone is in perspective.

Anything exciting happen today?

College Brief

This was the alternative ad campaign about how oblivious to the world around them as they are busy looking at their phone. The idea was simple, but effective in its message and worked for a multi page advert.

College Brief

To take the phrase Tribal Instinct and have it relate to groups represented as tribes. The tribes I picked represented different forms of body art (bio organic, Polynesian and Geometric).

It was interesting playing around with composition and line weight to get the final pieces. The bio organic specifically involved a lot varying the line weight to emphasise the important areas with loosing the thinner areas.

The geometric was interesting taking a basic shape (in this case, a circle) and just removing enough from each one to make coherent letters.

I contributed work on comics such as the short story “My Robot Love “ which was included in the CHAS charity comic distributed at the Capital Sci FI Convention in Edinburgh.

I have also completed work on an upcoming horror title for City of Lost Souls creator James McCulloch, releasing later this year called Blitzkrieg 18.