My friend Vincent wanted a quick logo for his new site HadYouKnown.com.
The concept for the site is “Had you known then, (could be 20 years, 10 years ago, 5 years), what you know today what would you have done?”. The goal is to have people share their life experiences and the decisions they have made, and how it had shaped their present.
The only requirements for the logo was something that represented past reflection, and had the text “Had You Known” on it. I came up with this…
Coronation Street star Jack P Shepherd who plays David Platt on the show, is lesser known for his other starring role, the face of Poundland, Europe’s biggest single price discount retailer. Last year on average, he opened a new Poundland Store every eight weeks and four days. He also sticks around afterwards “to sign autographs and give away Poundland vouchers”. Classy.
This morning I was tasked, at short notice, by the UN Refugee Agency to create a small graphic to accompany a press release about Camp Ashraf, (now being called “Camp New Iraq“).
With little information to go on, I decided on a simplified map of Iraq, depicting the location of Camp Ashraf, and it’s proximity to Baghdad. I produced this graphic in under an hour, and I was quite pleased with the outcome.
Ashraf is a city turned 25-year-old refugee camp, just 40 miles north of Baghdad. It’s residents, Iranian militant opposition group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), were exiled when they fought alongside Iraqis soldiers against Iran’s cleric leaders in the First Persian Gulf War.
Despised in their own country as traitors, and with little sympathy remaining in post-Saddam Iraq, the fate of the residents of Ashraf now hangs in the balance. The risks of violence are high, and come from both sides, with frequent clashes there resulting in loss of lives.
I am a British web designer and developer, working for the United Nations out in Geneva, Switzerland, where I live with my lovely wife Zoe.