This was the second year I got to work on my alma mater’s annual student fashion show, Runway. This year was even more rewarding as Block Club hosted two Buffalo State Communication Design students, Cody and Laura, who came to the office and worked with us to design a poster, the event program and a lookbook showcasing the fashion students’ collections.

They did an awesome job developing a concept for this year’s theme, City Bits / City Bytes, using deconstructed concentric circles in bold colors in contrast to the stark white, statuesque photos Luke Copping shot for us of two dresses from last year’s Cotton Inc. challenge. Great work guys!

Runway is next Saturday, April 27. Ticket information here.

- Julie

 Rocco Malatesta presents a series of famous hands. 

- Maggie

As designers Julie and Tim laid out the graphic backdrop to the new Block Club Creative website, they had some fun with the “About Our Team” section. Check out Tim’s amazing movie poster designs for Block Club’s film picks, above.

Playing with a minimalist, vintage-inspired look, his designs strip an iconic image or scene to its bones, evoking the endless potential for inspiration and imagination from these favorite films of ours.

- Maggie

“The Dubai music scene is barren at best. The Fridge is one of the only live, grassroots music venues filling this cultural-void… The posters created follow the feel of the venue: organic, approachable, down to earth. The ‘musical creatures’ invite people to find music in the most unexpected place - maybe even a remote, industrial warehouse.”

(Dubai’s The Fridge keeps it simple with these intriguingly illustrated black and white ads. Less simple: Ardvark? Elephant? Tenderly mutant Ard-phant?)

- Maggie

I’ve recently stumbled across the work of Neil Stevens, the artist behind these beautiful Tour de France illustrations. Based in the UK’s St. Albans, Stevens has worked with the likes of Wired, the Guardian, Financial Times, Savills, Sotheby’s, Computer Arts, and Deutsche Bank. As he plays with graphic symmetry and balance, Stevens’s folk-inspired work pops with color.  (Prints are available on his website, Crayonfire.)

- Maggie

Graphic designer Simon C. Page has created a beautiful series of posters in celebration of 2011, the International Year of Chemistry. With a nod to the theories and advances of famous chemists from Marie Curie to Albert Einstein, his minimalist designs bring the appropriate throw-back feel as chemists celebrate their past, looking ever forward. 

- Maggie

Every few years, Road Less Traveled Productions brings Alec Baldwin to Buffalo for a professionally directed, staged reading of a play to benefit the theater. This year, Mr. Baldwin is reading The Big Knife by Clifford Odets. As you can imagine, we were stoked when they asked Block Club to work with them on the creative.

We were inspired by the film noir style which was popular when the play was written and the movie was produced. For the website, we wanted to create a scene which depicts the opening setting––at the bar in the main character’s Hollywood home. 

Take a look at the website, digital billboard (which will countdown each day!), ad/poster and other materials we created to promote the event.

View the full case study on our website. 

-Brandon