39 Comments Add your own

• 1. Julian James  |  January 5th, 2009 at 7:19 pm

  Hello Mecho readers… I hope you might be inspired to ask me a question… I know pretty much everything about everything* and I’m looking forward to trying to answer anything you can throw at me.

  *This is a terrible lie…

  Jules. ^_^

• 2. Chri Knight  |  January 6th, 2009 at 3:21 am

  HI Julian,
  I Love NewSugar, there are some great interviews in there (!).
  Do you think downloadable media/ mags/ zines will ever replace good old fashioned tactile printing? Have you any plans to commit NS to print?

• 3. Julian James  |  January 6th, 2009 at 6:42 am

  Re: 2

  Hey Chri(s?)… Thanks for the nice comments on NewSugar.

  I honestly don’t think that digital can replace print completely, at least I hope not! There is nothing quite like the tactile (and smelly) nature of a new magazine or book.

  Technically digital does have a million and one advantages over print but if the two can unite, in a way that seems possible with technologies such as e-Ink, you could potentially have the connectivity and immediacy of the net with the physical side of a magazine. And… you would automatically become awesome and hail from the FUTURE!

  Esquire magazine actually released a magazine in 2008 with an electronic cover (see link below). The technology is still in it’s early stages but the potential is massive… and exciting!

  http://mashable.com/2008/09/08/the-digital-magazine-vs-the-digital-magazine/

  As for NewSugar I would love to add print to it’s list of formats but for the time being at least I am enjoying the global audience too much!

  *J*

• 4. Erica  |  January 6th, 2009 at 10:28 am

  Hi guys!

  Very interesting topic! I must say that I never buy any newspapers anymore but do treat myself for a leisure/art or glossy fashion mag once in a while. Agree with Julian that nothing really can replace that feel but I’m happy to save in on money and trees for daily news.

  Jullian, your mag would probably work very well as a print edition as the imagery is amazing! How do you find all these artists? Perhaps you can do an Esquire-like version when the technology is more up to scratch?

  E x

• 5. Luke  |  January 6th, 2009 at 11:08 am

  Dude, nice artwork! You seem to have your own style going on there too. You look at it and can say hey that looks like a Julian James(!) Is it tough being a freelancer but? What type of briefs do you get in and whats a typical client?

• 6. Robbie Q  |  January 6th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

  new sugar is schweeeeet and flash but a bit annoying flicking the pages online… erica is right, you really should release a print version too if you can afford.

  man i really like the idea of combining print and internet too. i use my mobile for net surfing a lot but its really hard reading on the damn small screen but better than lodging a laptop around. maybe the mecho guys can try to dig up some good innovations in this area?? yeah!?

• 7. Julian James  |  January 6th, 2009 at 10:21 pm

  Thanks everyone for the questions and nice comments!

  Re: 4
  Hi Erica

  I am not really a paper reader any more I’m far too suspicious of all the made up news and scaremongering! Can’t help myself with magazines though it’s an expensive habit too!

  The artists come from all over the web but the mighty Concrete Hermit Network is still a major source for submissions. The original idea to do the magazine came from my obsession with the network. I started a group on there to test the waters and the response was great so NewSugar was born.

  It’s definitely worth a look and worth joining if you are a creative – it’s free too! You can see it at: http://www.concretehermitnetwork.com/group/newsugar

  I will be all over the e-Ink technology when it is more accessible! I’m thinking a suit that you can program to show different outfits at the touch of a button… now I’m a Spaceman, now I’m a ninja… Awesome!

  Re: 5
  Hey Luke

  I can’t think of any better comment than someone seeing pieces I’ve done and recognising them as mine by the style. Nice!

  Due to my inability to do anything twice (oversized boredom gland) I didn’t expect to create anything close to a ‘style’ but I don’t think you can help re-using favourite techniques and processes. Also, hopefully (although not always when working to other peoples briefs) you get to draw mostly what you like so a bit of your personality ends up in the image.

  Illustration for me is most definitely more of a buzz than design for that reason really; you get to do stuff you like rather than what the client wants. That’s not to say that the challenge of developing and working with briefs isn’t fun just less self indulgent!

  Brief wise, as I expect is the case with most designers, you get about 80% of anything you can get to bring money in whilst maintaining your moral high ground as best you can; projects like branding, advertising, flyers, menus and sooo much generic design stuff. Then (if your lucky) 20% of projects will be those where either the client knows your style and let’s you get on with it or are incredibly receptive to the creative process so you can really work with them to create something awesome. Although on top of this I do try and get involved with anything outside of the money-work that will push me further creatively or keep the juices flowing. Like NewSugar amongst other projects. In addition to the FUN side the bi-product is a fatter portfolio which helps you get better work anyway so it is a win win.

  *J*

• 8. OzTroBoy  |  January 6th, 2009 at 10:45 pm

  hey James, haven’t i seen your artwork in a caRtoon or comic b4?! they are soo cute

• 9. Julian James  |  January 6th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

  Re: 6
  Hi Robbie

  Warning: Excessive geekery below!

  Glad you like NewSugar! I will pass on everyone’s feed back to the artists too… We all love a good ego massage!

  e-Ink has been developing (as have a few other manufacturers like Sony) flexible electronic paper display that can sit inside your mobile device and actually be un-scrolled to potentially provide a much larger viewing area. I’m sure it won’t be long before we see netbook style screens on PDAs and mobiles. In fact Plastic Logic (another electronic paper developer) is apparently working on A5-sized (14.8x21cm) standalone screens that can become scroll-out auxiliary displays for mobiles. A5 I tells ya!

  Non- of this will really matter soon anyway as phones are due to start shipping that have projectors built into them… Just point it at a wall and enjoy a 50″ version of your mobiles screen. makes A5 seem a little sad…

  *J*

• 10. Julian James  |  January 6th, 2009 at 11:28 pm

  Re:8
  Hi OzTroBoy

  Don’t be fooled by the cuteness of the characters! I am pretty sure they all eat children… and, worse, they hardly ever fill out their tax returns on time; horror!

  I haven’t been in any comics to date but this is mainly due to my inability to do anything twice. Which, I am pretty sure is an essential skill in comics.

  I am hoping to collaborate on some animations with a super talented guy called PYKY for the new NewSugar site. Although I am sure my repetition disability will rear it’s ugly head when I do.

  *J*

• 11. Robbie Q  |  January 7th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

  hey j! lucky for you, i’m a geek in the closet so you have hit the bullseye. the a5 sounds gimmicky and the mobile thing sounds pretty cool but what do you do if you dont have a wall or are on the train or don’t want anyone to know what you are reading…?

  cant wait to see anything new coming through but i always find it theres lot of talk but never much done. think electric car, robots in everyones home.. they talked about that in the 80′s and now its 2009 and still we are running on petrol and i got no robot cleaning my dishes! lol

• 12. Julian James  |  January 7th, 2009 at 8:58 pm

  Re:11

  Very valid points! Although the train issue won’t exist for me as I will be travelling only via my single seater rocket powered HovaPod(TM).

  I fully agree about the serious lack of roboty goodness in the household. My cat walks like a robot when you put Smartie tubes on its legs though. ^_^

• 13. Julian James  |  January 7th, 2009 at 11:35 pm

  +Re: 11

  Bizarrely I just opened a belated Christmas present and it was a book called ‘Where’s My Jetpack!’.

  http://www.amazon.com/Wheres-My-Jetpack-Amazing-Science/dp/1596911360

  Definitely worth a look!

  *J*

• 14. Lisa  |  January 8th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

  Hi Julian,

  I really like your work and wondering if you illustrate by hand or graphic design? If so, what programs do you use? Are you self-taught or did you do any study to get where you are?

  *Smiles* at the vision of your cat wearing Smartie tubes…

  ~Your new fan~

• 15. Robbie Q  |  January 8th, 2009 at 5:20 pm

  chucks! cool xmas pressie man. tell me if any good!

• 16. Julian James  |  January 8th, 2009 at 9:03 pm

  Re: 14

  Hi Lisa, I don’t think I have ever had a self proclaimed ‘fan’ before maybe I should make you badge with FAN No.1 on it? Thanks ever so!

  My illustration skills are self taught. Actually I am self taught at everything as academia has never really worked for me (despite several attempts)… I tend to learn more on my own just getting on with it rather than writing endless essays. I’m either lazy or academically challenged I’m not sure.

  As for technique laziness gets involved there too as despite drawing constantly nothing I do on paper ever ends up on the screen as it seems like such a chore to plug my scanner in. That sounds terrible now I have written it down!

  The stuff I do on paper is quite different too. Less detailed and more bizarre. You can’t beat digital methods for insanely detailed work. I some times spend half a day adding elements that are completely invisible to the naked eye when the final piece appears on screen. Pointless fun.

  Oh and it is Adobe all the way despite their preposterous prices. Grrr!

  Re: 15

  Yo…

  Read a chunk of the book last night. It goes into mad detail on stuff like Quantum ‘teleportation’ and stuff… awesome! Regurgitating extracts from it is a great way to stop people talking to you too!

  *J*

• 17. Lisa  |  January 10th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

  *Blush* Are you a fan of anyone yourself?
  I want to learn graphic design but I find it so confusing with all the applications and things you need to learn. You seem to need to be both an artist and a tech whiz to be succesful in graphic design.. Just trying to find some motivation to get started! Seems like there is a hope for lazy peeps! *Lol*

• 18. Darren  |  January 11th, 2009 at 9:42 am

  whats your best hung over cure,mate?

  D day

• 19. Luke  |  January 12th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

  Re what you said last week, I reckon you got a style, so keep it real dude. I hear you about working on compromising briefs and money talks. Illustration is back in all types of ads right now so you should be in a pretty oily seat

• 20. Julian James  |  January 12th, 2009 at 11:52 pm

  Re: 17

  Hi Lisa

  There are loads of people who I’m a fan of! And the list usually changes everyday too. Very fickle!

  Today’s fav’s are:

  tado.co.uk – there is a new teaser site up.
  rainbowmonkey.de – check out his ‘hairy’ font!
  meomi.com – love this site design and their characters are really sweet.
  curseofthemultiples.com – Who are going to be featuring in NewSugar this month…

  And for a bit of ongoing inspiration check out a blog by the lovely Honey at:
  http://www.sweet-station.com/blog/ There is a some unbelievable stuff on there!

  As far as starting a career in design, to steal a tag line off Nike, ‘Just Do It!’.
  If you can get hold of a copy of Adobe CS3 or 4 just play about with it to start off with. It is amazing what you can pick up that way.

  Or… just draw draw draw and spend loads of time observing other peoples work. I think most designers spend 24 hours a day being designers, geeking out over every font, colour scheme and line they see. It’s a beautiful curse! I think you kind of learn how to design by observing as much as doing.

  Reverse engineering other peoples stuff is a good way of learning too. Trying to figure out how something is done and re-creating it teaches you heaps.

  This site is quite cool too… a free online design suite. http://aviary.com/home

  Re: 18

  Hey Darren

  I probably should have answered this question in the weekend! May have been more helpful… ^_^

  It has to be Iron Bru and salt and vinegar crisps. Works every time.

  irn-bru.co.uk

  Re: 19

  Hi Luke

  The more work the merrier!

  Love the idea of an oily seat by the way it conjured up all kinds of nonsense in my broken mind.

• 21. Alexandra  |  January 14th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

  Oh wow Julian!! Your artwork is soooo cooool. Love it, you really should do a cartoon with all those characters. There must be a way to work around you inability to do things more than once but guess thats what makes it unique too tho as your stuff are only one-off!

• 22. Luke  |  January 14th, 2009 at 5:01 pm

  Dude, maybe you can translate all the kinds of nonsense of your broken mind visually for us.

• 23. Julian James  |  January 14th, 2009 at 9:06 pm

  Re: 21

  Hey Alexandra
  Yay! Thanks for your lovely comment.

  I would love to make a comic but I think the name of it would have to be ‘The Incredible Changing… Thing! At least that way I could just use different characters in every frame. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before! Lol.

  I am hoping to get some new characters animated for the new NewSugar site and if they work out maybe they can look forward to a feature length film career!

  Re: 22

  Lol… I’m going to need a bigger pen. ^_^

• 24. Darren  |  January 15th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

  thanks for the hungover tip, mate. better late than never. we dont have iron bru here but ill try to find something similar to go with the salt and vinegar chips this weekend. cheers!

• 25. Julian James  |  January 15th, 2009 at 8:53 pm

  Re: 24

  Hey Darren… Try full fat Coke or Dr. Pepper if you can get it. Pretty sure the only real cure is more booze though!

  Or… forgive me for saying this ‘no’ booze? Actually forget that it didn’t make any sense… ^_^

• 26. Julian James  |  January 18th, 2009 at 11:33 pm

  Re: 26 Hi D’maggio Good question… insomnia. Sorry.

  Honestly though, at the moment, it’s films like ‘Zeitgeist’ and other infomentaries that the Internet has made freely available to everyone who’s curious about the World.

  If you are interested check out http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ they are long old movies, but mind blowing all the same.

  Warning: Watch at your own peril… sometimes ignorance really is bliss and once you delve into these so called ‘conspiracy theories’ there is no turning back!

  I won’t go off on one, and I honestly could (for hours!), but there is a lot we don’t know and are not told and it’s the frustration of that keeping me awake at night!

  Oh, and what kind of illustration I’m going to do next. ^_^

• 27. mecho team  |  January 19th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

  Hi Julian,

  Hope you had a great weekend and did not had to go to any big extremes for hang over cures or did you try no booze

  Just a note as you mentioned Jon Burgerman in your profile, we have added an URL to his name above to link to a new feature we just posted up about his designer wallpaper. Hope you like and feel free to leave comments under the product.

  Also, great effort in getting back to everyone in this blog so far, whatever the questions may be!

  Love your style,
  mecho team

• 28. ricky  |  January 19th, 2009 at 9:08 pm

  yeah u seem to have an answer to anyting! u got it all covered man… guessstill wonderin how a normal day look like 4 mr james? 4 how long have u been freelancing? how does it compares 2 ur previous gigs? how did u make da leap?

• 29. Julian James  |  January 20th, 2009 at 1:49 am

  Re: 26

  Thanks Mecho team, I’m having a ball doing it too!

  I actually did have a booze free weekend but mainly because I have been working and DUI (designing under the influence) is illegal in the UK. ^_^
  I will make up for it this weekend though no doubt!

  Have left a comment under the awesome Burgerman wallpaper article. A couple of friends of mine have done some animation for the Burger himself fairly recently (one doing the animation and the other providing the sound)… have a look it’s fully brilliant! http://www.js3d.co.uk/flv_burger.html

• 30. Julian James  |  January 20th, 2009 at 7:07 pm

  Re: Answer 26

  Note: The original question from D’maggio was: What keeps me awake at night.

  The question has disappeared for some reason so I thought I had better reiterate it… my answer makes little to no sense other wise… maybe a bit like my other answers now I think of it?!

  ^_^

• 31. Julian James  |  January 20th, 2009 at 7:29 pm

  Re: 28

  Cheers Ricky!

  My normal day consists of waking as early as my argumentative body will let me (or when my cats decide to claw my face to remind me it’s breakfast time) and rolling straight into my office and onto my PC (No Mac for me!). I then tend to stay there for the remainder of the day until it is time to roll back into my bedroom and sleep until the following days computer time!

  This is the circle of (my) life… Cue song!

  I cant think of any reason to leave the comfort of my creative lair… I am pretty sure my wife isn’t reading this blog so I should be safe to say that. She is truly a PC widow and amazingly understanding.

  How I made the leap: I’ve been taking smaller private jobs on top of full time work for ages (keeps the creative juices flowing – and I am a full blown workaholic) but was made redundant back in August from a senior design job (one that I was pretty keen to leave anyway) and that gave me the nudge that was needed to concentrate on my illustration (and NewSugar) full time.

  It’s a little scary at first but if you stay on it and stay positive then once the work starts coming in I can’t think of anything better. having said that if an awesome full time job came up – for an awesomely creative agency – I would still think about it. I love working as part of a team and that is some thing that is missing from my current position. Unless you count the cats but they can’t draw for toffee.

  As for how it compares to other gig’s… I’ll get back to you on that once I have played Call Of Duty for an hour! In the name of inspiration that is.

  ^_^

• 32. D'maggio  |  January 21st, 2009 at 3:55 pm

  thank you for sharing, julian and how weird that my q disappeared!? i often like asking that question as you get a lot of interesting responses of what might hide inside another person’s mind and also a bit of relief knowing that everyone’s human.

• 33. Mischa  |  January 23rd, 2009 at 7:27 pm

  Cool stuff and interesting philosophies you have, Julian. Me like

• 34. Julian James  |  January 24th, 2009 at 9:46 pm

  Re: 33

  Thanks Mischa! ^_^

• 35. Katy Simona  |  January 28th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

  What design/illustration from your portfolio are you most proud of to date and which ones do you hide in the closet?

• 36. Julian James  |  January 29th, 2009 at 5:58 am

  Re: 35

  Hello Katy

  It’s always my most recent piece that I am in to… and as soon as I do another, I get fully bored of the previous one. A fickle man indeed!

  As far as which ones I hide in the closet… I could probably fill a room! Only about 10 percent of my stuff makes it past the doodle stage really mind you I doodle all the time so I guess that is inevitable. I’ve read that a lot of illustrators/designers are the same which makes me feel a bit better. ^_^

• 37. Yannis  |  January 30th, 2009 at 6:07 am

  awesome work julian, i just discovered “new sugar” & i loved it!!! keep up the great work!

• 38. Julian James  |  January 30th, 2009 at 7:04 pm

  Re: 37

  Thanks Yannis! Glad you like it… Issue 4 will be out soon. Well, as soon as I am less busy with paying jobs. Pesky money jobs!

  Honestly though, I’m loving the projects I am working on at the moment so it’s all good really.

  Keep it NewSugar!

  ^_^

• 39. Julian James  |  January 31st, 2009 at 11:42 pm

  It’s the end of January so sadly it’s time for me to go… A big thanks to everyone who asked questions and said nice ego massaging things….and, to Mecho for letting me any where near a blog. Nice!

  ^_^

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