ZAPHO is an up-and-coming female electropop artist from Dublin, Ireland. I was commissioned to create an identity and single artwork for her debut release.

My approach was to bring the essence of ZAPHO to life - strong female authority wrapped in elegant femininity. This was carried through to all elements of the design from the logo to the photography.

For the wordmark, the boldness of the chunky typeface is offset by the soft pastel colour pallette. For the portraits, the strong iconic poses were lit with soft gels to create a polished pop aesthetic.

Overall the clean, pared back visual identity had a sense of clarity that would cut through the noise of social media and reproduce strongly across digital music streaming formats like Spotify and iTunes.

The scope of the project expanded to include promotional photography, social assets, video titles and release poster artwork.

Client — Interactive Music Ltd.
Photography — Stephen Kiernan

Inside the Ropes is a branded community initiative designed to generate sponsorship for the European Tour’s Irish Open and other marquee events. A series of speaking events offer senior business leaders a view from inside the ropes of the European Tour in an invite-only, private and exclusive setting.

The identity steers clear of clichéd notions of the golf world and heightens the sense of access-all-areas exclusivity. It was rolled out across various digital and printed formats including in-event staging and graphics. The first event invitation was comprised of a bespoke metallic foiled box which housed one of pro golfer Rory McIlroy’s own used golf balls.

Client — PGA European Tour
Photography — Kieran O'Donoghue

Quest is a series of adventure races held around Ireland where competitors run, cycle and kayak through some of the most scenic environments in the country. The routes are designed to be physically challenging, while incorporating the breathtaking splendour of Ireland's landscapes.

Atomic was tasked with moving the Quest brand from the crowded category of novelty fun-runs, to a position of its own: a premium experience for competitors in search of a unique outdoor adventure.

The completed brand design features a new refined logomark, inspired by the mountain summit, and utilises striking duotone images showing the epic terrain of the race routes and the competitors enduring the tough physical challenge. A modern sans serif font was also used to complement the brand's understated tone of voice.

Client — Elite Events Management
Photography — Michal Dzikowski
Additional Design — Eamonn Hall

For their second EP in the hex series Les Marionettes wanted to continue to pay homage to their 80’s influences and introduce more illustrative elements. For the cover I wanted to try to capture the essence of one of Les Marionettes’ lives shows which feature heavy use of vintage lasers and dramatic lighting effects. This was achieved by creating a geometric, crossing pattern with overprinting layers and spot varnish, creating sub-tones and shapes, and a contrast between the non-reflective stock and the highly reflective varnish.

Client — Poor Boy Records
Printing — Plus Print

CPI and ICAD joined together to launch the Young Directors Awards. The aim is to find, award and nurture the best of the up and coming directors in Ireland today. The Irish commercial and advertising industry invites young and recently established directors to enter work for consideration.

The identity is split into four segments, referencing the crosshair of a movie camera's viewfinder and the radiating ring sections suggest that the director is at the centre of the creative universe, surrounded by many moving parts.

The 2016 award ceremony took place Sugar Club on 23 February 2016 and saw a diverse range of entries with an extremely high level of quality, including 'Stutterer' by Benjamin Cleary which won the Oscars 2016 for Best Short Film. 

Client — CPI & ICAD
Motion design — Hugo Johnson

As part of a new national tech talent attraction initiative, Atomic were tasked with branding Ireland as a top international destination for techies to come an experience a work/life balance like nowhere else. Our initial design concept was to show how tech and life are intertwined in Ireland, how the work life balance would allow a programmer in Dublin to be surfing in Donegal in just a few hours. We adopted the principal of ‘By Techies, For Techies’, conducting interviews with real techies and feeding that back into our design. The result was a clean, direct, no nonsense design with a focus on clarity of information and non embellished/naturalistic photography.

Client — Tech/Life Ireland
Motion Design — Steffen Knoesgard
Icon set design — Eamonn Hall

Cycling in Ireland is back. Proof of this can be seen in the decision of the Giro d’Italia to hold the ‘Big Start’ of the 2014 edition of the race on the island of Ireland.

The Giro d’Italia represents the pinnacle of the professional cycling game. An institution in itself, it is passion, speed, intensity, drama. Our task was to educate and excite the cycling public about the race itself, and most importantly, the culture and style of the race and it’s entourage.

On top of the sea of pink that descended on the country in May 2014, the Cycling Renaissance project was designed to prime the corporate and commercial world for the opportunities that cycling in Ireland will represent in the coming years.

Client — Shadetree Sports
Photography — Graham Watson

Póg Mo Goal have teamed up with Irish graphic designers to deliver a series of match-day posters for the Republic of Ireland’s qualification campaign for the 2016 European Championship in France. I was approached to create the third poster in the series. My contribution commemorates the mammoth task which faced the Boys in Green when Ireland played World Champions Germany in Stadion Gelsenkirchen on Tuesday 14 October. I drew inspiration from the 1990s green German away kit and used a German proverb "Wer nicht wagt, der nicht gewinnt." to highlight the spirit of both countries. Learn more about the series here.

Client — Póg Mo Goal

For the rebrand of Irish based Indian Takeaway food chain Bombay Pantry, I created a design style that was contemporary while being characterful and craft-inspired. This was complimented by New York photographer, Collin Hughes' warm, lifestyle images.

Client — Bombay Pantry
Photography — Collin Hughes

Enterprise Ireland commissioned Atomic to develop its first campaign dedicated to building Global Ambition among Irish exporters.

Our concept features the best and brightest of Irish industry and the shared success enabled by their partnership with Enterprise Ireland.

Beautifully shot in stills and video, it depicts the confidence and determination of our world class companies.

Client — Enterprise Ireland
Photography — Matthew Thompson
Videography — Filmular

I got to design the artwork for Cathy Davey's fourth album, her first album in 6 years. The album, named "New Forest", is thematically concerned with the mystical forest and all manner of creatures and weird and wonderful things. For the imagery we wanted to steer away from the typical singer-songwriter clear shot of the artist - while Cathy appears in the artwork, her face is obscured and she's never fully in view. The bold and regimented typography, juxtaposed with the organic imagery, reflects many of the musical gems within... organic melodies underpinned by staccato rhythms and driving drum beats.

Client — Hammer Toe Records
Photography — Pauline Rowan

A nice little 2 colour print job for the 2016 YDA awards. The brochure is A6 folded and opens out to an inner A3 poster and is printed litho onto uncoated stock. The poster features the names of all the shortlisted applicants for the awards.

Client — ICAD
Printing — Inkspot

New Balance are official kit sponsor to Athletics Ireland at a time when there is a lot of excitement around Irish Athletics. New Balance asked Atomic Sport to help them showcase their support of the organisation and the athletes who are performing on the world stage.

The #NEWBREED campaign features elite athletes Fionnuala Brittion, Karl Griffin, Thomas Barr and Jessie Barr in a series of key visuals, point of sale material and online videos.

Photography — Alex Telfer

For their debut EP release, Dublin based synth-pop group Les Marionettes wanted the artwork to pay homage to their 80's influences (Gary Numan, Ultravox etc.) with a modern twist. The custom hexagon shaped sleeve was derived from the shape of old-school Simmons drum pads while the disc artwork is my take on an optical tonewheel. For the tracklisting I used the Astradyne font from Ultravox's Vienna album cover for added retro cool. I worked closely with Plus Print to achieve the high-spec finish which included die cutting, spot varnish and eye blasting fluoro ink.

Client — Poor Boy Records
Printing — Plus Print

Sheen Lane is an Irish owned development company operating in London. They specialise in creating exquisite, intimate developments in the most desirable and premium locations in the UK. They believe in premium build quality, energy efficiency and style and every element of a Sheen Lane home is carefully considered in order to provide an unparalleled and exceptional experience.

We created a mark, a website and a suite of printed assets, all of which allowed the client to communicate their message of refined luxury. We used a minimal black and gold colour palette throughout, gold foil on printed items and commissioned a suite of lifestyle photography. The mark itself is inspired by the gable ends of Tudor houses which can be found throughout Sheen Lane.

www.sheenlane.co.uk

Client — Sheen Lane London
Typeface — Alternate Gothic
Photography — Kieran O'Donoghue 

Luxury brand book to launch the inaugural G-MAC by Kartel golfwear range by Graeme McDowell. The book was printed on Freelife Vellum with a metallic gold Pantone throughout and was case bound in purple binding cloth with a gold foil insignia on the cover. The primary photography was by New York based Collin Hughes and printing was by Hudson Killeen.

Client — Kartel
Photography — Collin Hughes
Printing — Hudson Kileen

Album artwork for singer/songwriter Pearse McGloughlin's latest record In Movement. The commissioned photography featured the artist suspended in an empty industrial space evoking the surreal atmosphere of the album's music and lyrics. The album was pressed on limited edition 12" vinyl and digipak CD.

Client — Urchin Records
Photography — Kieran O'Donoghue

A limited edition hand made cd (run of 100 only, signed and numbered) for the release of the self titled collaborative album by House of Cosy Cushions & Katie Kim. I hand cut the lino stencil and printed the recycled paper cd pockets with black ink.

Client — Granny it's O.K. Records/Seadog Records
Original illustration — Richard Bolhuis

I created the identity for Proxy, a high concept fashion boutique on South William Street in Dublin. The budget was tight for this project so I cut costs where possible by printing in one colour and hand stamping bags. The in-store graphics were cut from matte black vinyl and hand applied and the figure in the doorway was tiled together from A3 prints.

Printing — Speciality Print

A limited edition heavy-weight vinyl (run of 500 only) for the release of the self titled collaborative album by House of Cosy Cushions & Katie Kim. The packaging consisted of two heavy uncoated sleeves with the outer sleeve completely abstract and not branded. The noodle-doodles are by my good friend Richard Bolhuis.

Client — Granny it's O.K. Records/Seadog Records
Original illustration — Richard Bolhuis

The ICAD 2X event took place in The Sugar Club, on Thursday October 1st 2015 and saw two of London's leading creative directors give inspirational presentations.

Umesh Pandya is creative director of ustwo, one of London’s top digital product studios and Terry Stephens is creative director of global design group, Moving Brands.

They discussed their award-winning work, how they developed their companies and their clients’ brands and what they believe the future holds in design, advetising and digital communications.

Client — ICAD