Studio Walden

27/10/2023

Digging Deeper: Uncovering Roman Carlisle

Working again with the exhibition team at Tullie, we produced a modern exhibition to display the great new Roman discoveries of the recent years including those brilliant (and huge) sandstone heads.

It was a treat being able to inject some illustration into this project, leaning on the faces that Vincent can be found constantly doodling, elevating them to simple character designs.

If you know your Intaglio from a Caladarium, it’s a great exhibition to set your eyes on some rather impressive local history.

Client:
Tullie Museum and Art Gallery

Outcomes:
Interpretation, Signage, Advertising & Illustration

Team:
Damon Mahoney & Vincent Walden

01/08/2023

New branding, live and out there!

30/09/2022

Creative deskspace in Carlisle 👀

In July myself and a friend moved into a bigger studio with hopes of filling it with more people, plants and art. Though we might have enough plants, we are looking for the people to fill it now.

From October I’ll have a number of spaces available for the grand people of Carlisle to rent, on a permanent or ad-hoc basis.

Situated in the attic space of the historical Atlas Works, we have views over the whole city and enough space for you to flourish.

Features include:
- Large desk space with 80mb 4G broadband
- Private and communal meeting space
- Access to podcasting equipment
- Full bathroom and kitchen
- Mini-workbench with communal tools
- Street-level access
- Storage for artwork or gear

We’re looking to build a little community of creatives in the city, with a low-cost and low-commitment space.

£10 per day or £180 per month
Get in touch for a tour 👀

21/09/2022

Does the emergence of creative AI tools spell the end for creatives?

You may have recently seen many tools producing very in-depth work, turned around in a matter of seconds by hugely complicated systems called neural networks.

Popular tools at present include; Dall•e 2 and MidJourney, which use huge banks of visual data to scrape keywords and construct new, unique artworks from assets of images and a sprinkling of AI.

These tools are the Frankenstein's Monster of the creative industry at the moment, functioning like a creative practitioner hopelessly stumbling around creating soulless artworks with an undefined purpose.

That said, I see why many people see it as a threat; as it can access, retain and draw upon the creative resource millions times larger than any human.

If that's you, then a question worth considering is whether these tools have the right to harvest and reference the imagery they currently do?

If so, how can it rightly claim copyright in a commercial setting as nothing it creates is truly original and its creator exists with out any legal rights, being that it is merely a computed process.

And last of all – perhaps the biggest issue here – at present all these tools have a specific 'feeling' when they generate an artwork that is hard to tangibly describe but if we look to the past, these artworks feel like the paintings from various movements like Expressionism and Surrealism, which were hugely popular and then faded into history because its visual style was no longer the 'hot thing' and didn't serve the mass market for the taste of the artists or the consumers.

My feeling is that any creative worth their salt should just see these tools as (funnily enough) tools and not competition. There is no way to replace skill and experience with AI alone because creativity is born from an individual perspective which these tools distinctly do not have by design—pulling reference from millions of data points rather than one.

01/09/2022

Evolution of the brand 🌟

Your logo isn’t your brand and your brand isn’t always going to be the same because like your business, it can always evolve.

I’ve worked with Kayleigh on a number of her businesses but most recently it’s been on the meteoric expansion of her Laser-based business.

Keeping the icon the same as the brand changes it’s name isn’t a common practice but in this case it enhanced brand recognition alongside a premises move—allowing customers to understand the developments the business was undertaking.

Plus; I also rather like the icon so it’s nice to see it stay.

Using the workhorse that is Helvetica Neue to simplify it’s visual identity, allowing for the business to host other professionals without encroaching on their brand.

Sometimes working for yourself can prove difficult but getting the chance to work with a client (and friend) through all their business ventures feels very empowering and uplifting.

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Created in collaboration as part of the Cairn Collective ✌️

18/08/2022

Have you ever done a “working holiday”?

This week, I’m doing exactly that after fashioning the idea early in Studio Walden’s history—having already booked time away before booking lots of work when the company was young.

Spending half your day at a desk and the other half loitering about in the sun and rain with my family.

Perhaps you may argue that a holiday should be for rest only, but if I can sink my teeth into some exciting branding work in the morning and then ride the Ratty all afternoon—what else could a boy want!

05/08/2022

A brilliant response to such a worthwhile cause!

Also a slight reveal to my biggest branding project to date, full case study to follow in the near future.

Loved working on this project, through all it’s challenges and now with it’s great triumphs.

We are absolutely over the moon to announce that.....together.....

WE DID IT!!!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳

Together, we have made history by successfully raising £2.2M to double the size of the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve in what is the largest community land buy out in the South of Scotland.

The generosity of so many people locally, nationally and worldwide has been amazing. Our heartfelt thanks go to every donor, supporter and volunteer who helped us overcome what so often felt like impossible odds.

We could not have done this without the combined efforts of absolutely every single individual who has pitched in along this epic journey to ensure we arrived at this incredible milestone. Your messages of support have kept us going throughout and have meant so much.

In our closing days, thousands of pounds continued to pour into the public crowdfunder which was just totally incredible, there were significant donations of £300,000 from Alex Gerko, Founder of algorithmic trading firm XTX Markets, £100,000 from Anne Reece of the Reece Foundation, and £50,000 from John Muir Trust.

We are also so grateful to the Scottish Land Fund, Rewilding Britain, Dumfries and Galloway Regionwide Community Fund, our major private anonymous donor as well as the thousands of public donors through Go Fund me and community fundraisers who have all helped us to ‘repeat the impossible’.

Together, we secured our second stage buy-out in just 9 months, you are all amazing!!

This is a truly historic result for the community now and for future generations. We also hope our story will inspire other community-led nature recovery projects across Scotland and beyond. We know that communities can be powerful forces for positive change and we are living proof.

The community owned Tarras Valley Nature Reserve will soon span a total of 10,500 acres. This is where the hard work really begins, we’re ready for it and we are so excited. We can’t wait to welcome you here!

Thankyou for everything you have done to help make this historic achievement possible. Here’s to a very bright and hopeful new chapter.

📸Mark Hallam

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clk9rkrk1zko

02/08/2022

🔖 Morrey Limited
⚒️ Branding & Uniform

Designed to bring large and high impact graphics to the local construction industry, created in collaboration with my friend Harry, earlier this year.

The branding proved to be rather tasty when produced through embroidered, providing Brian and his team a uniform they can wear with pride whilst providing great recognition for their work.

In my eyes at least, it’s the strongest “M” icon visible around Cumbria even above the Golden Arches themselves, though I suspect Ronald may disagree!

Created in collaboration within the Cairn Collective ✏️

20/07/2022

New from the old ✌️

Whilst learning to animate logos for my new website, I obviously decided to start on this classic bit of branding from the start of Studio Walden.

Creating something new from the old, is surprisingly suitable for the boys at who spend hours repairing, restoring and polishing beautiful bits of furniture.

08/07/2022

Earlier this year, I helped Richie apply some branding to his CIC, Forces Link CIC—which serves to support the individuals and family’s of ex-service members throughout Cumbria.

I believed in his cause and offered to do the work for free and it truly pays dividends to see how proud he and his team represented themselves under the branding at their launch night towards the end of Spring.

My feeling is, if a logo doesn’t look good when embroidered, you’re doing something wrong 🤔

09/06/2022

Two whole years! 🌟

Yesterday marked two whole years of working for myself and operating Studio Walden, and life is quite different from that day two years before.

Firstly, we’ve slowly worked our way out of a pandemic even though some numpties did their best to prolong it through selfishness and the naïve desire to be more correct that the scientists.

Secondly, I became a father.
Though you won’t see him shared much on here due to a self-initiated strive to protect his digital privacy, he does exist and has changed my day-to-day enormously.

And lastly, I’m no longer working on my own. As of January this year myself and Harry started a project which is slowly growing (swipe for context).

Under the name of Cairn Collective, we’re building a full-service design agency for Carlisle and the wider areas of Cumbria.

Having never run a business like this, we’re 6 months down the road and still panicking and learning but most importantly, we’re also succeeding.

There’s no profile to link to here, as we’re purposely standing away from most social platforms, focusing instead on making the work the best it can be.

Here’s to the next year! ✌️

24/03/2022

A dream come true 🚲

As a huge fan of two wheels, I’ve always been surrounded by cycling culture, the brands, the fashion and obviously, quite a lot of bikes.

So to see the Zetland Cycles branding I’ve only recently finished, be so quickly applied to Will’s first bicycle is a blowing me away, nevermind the cracking photography he’s also done for the stead of steel!

That’s one dream branding project ticked off the imaginary ticklist of dreams ✅

📸 &