Blackspade™ is the art, design, sound, ideas & ventures of Chris Sharp

Man this blog sucks, screw design I’m gonna post anything and everything I feel like here from now on so expect more updates. Arrived in London finally and earning some pounds, even if they are taxed to buggery, the ol’ Kiwi dollar is up to fuck all over here haha. Tiki toured around some of Thailand on the way though, that place rocks, took some wicked pannoramic shots ill attach em to this post as soon as I have a decent ISP sorted. *update, here’s one of em….

Starting to warm up here so im warming to the place, wasnt too impressed for a start but I wont complain theres enough to do to keep me entertained for a bit I guess. Scored some short term freelance work at a company called Playgroup but pretty much monkey photoshop work, which gets old fast. Got some more work for a month next week at a co called HowSplendid.com, they do wicked work and are based in the middle of picadilly circus. Anyways Ill post some pics n schtuff soon in attempt to make this blog a lil more entertaining. Chur’ till then.

Design was provided by client I just had to make it work inside the beast. CSS Hackery.

What use is a friggin blog if I dont update it… things have been slow on the design/audio front, so havent posted any updates in a while, just moved into a new flat in central Wellytown after being evicted, had a wicked 10 days in Fiji a couple of weeks back sailing around the exterior islands in a Trimaran yacht, lots of sun, fish, kava, beer and more sun. Cooked a “walu” (fish) over an bonfire on Castaway Island (yea the one from Tom Hanks flick) we had the entire island to ourselves watching the sun go down. Magic. ill post a couple of photos I took with my new Nikon D40.

What else has been happening; ..played my first DJ set up at the ’schnapps’ bar in National Park a few weeks back with Nomad/Antsman, they ripped it up even though it was a small crowd - Last night I played a couple hour dub/reggae/chill set at Sandwhiches bar here in Welly before Nomad and the Versionaries from Sydney, ..so its been nice to actually step out from being a bedroom DJ !

Also, Been working as part of a Team at Shift on a new site for Park Road Post which just went live the other day check it out at parkroadpost.co.nz.

Thats all for now, I think I might use this thing as a half blog/half design portfolio, just to keep things interesting, or maybe not, who knows.

I won a competition Serato/Rane held a few months back to design a promotional Tee for their new do-it-all Mixer the TTM57SL. Scored a Mixer out of it which is my new fav toy.

Tee concept for Chop headwear/apparell based in Wanaka. Look out for this one in their newer Tee range. Chop o’clock alarm! If you havent seen or heard of ‘Chop’ yet keep an eye out, lots of cameo appearances poppping up here and there. Now in stock at your local skate shop.

Im also working on a new website launch for Chop which shouldnt be too far off, ill post as soon as its up @ www.chop.co.nz

Photography, custom type and design promotional for ‘Dub City’ a local Welly Hip Hop gig in July, featuring some local MC talent.

Recently finished this MySpace redesign for Kiwi rockers Opshop, inline with their brand new album and design. MySpace is a beast, and makes a mockery of CSS but with some hacks and work-arounds it is possible (belive it or not) to make things look at least half decent.

Ive just started a Logic Pro 7 production course from 6-9pm 4 days a week after work, my tutor is Daimon aka The Nomad based in his new studio room in Wellington. I hope to have a few tracks to post in the near future, its a steeap learning curve but its a great way to learn by watching someone who really knows their way around the software. Any tracks will be posted under Sound & Production.

Commissioned A1 poster design for the University of Otago. This poster was distributed to every School in New Zealand and proved to be very popular. Recently featured in an article in NZ Pro Design Magazine. Stoked with the response I’ve had for this one. The original Ahua Maori pencil sketch was done by my good friend Matu Pene.

Otago student David Foes dug the design so much he’s had it inked up! still a work in progress in the below apparantly, thanks for sending through the pic David, ..and for asking first! Ill try track down a finished photo.

One of those freakish ‘nothing’ shots that turns out really nice, I love the lighting/angle/anonymity of this shot. It was a holdpage on Blackspade at one stage also. Me and my gurl, late night rollin’ haha.

I didn’t do this, just a random photo down some Dunedin back alley. Dunno what it is I like about it, maybe just the feeling the person had when throwing it up is the same feeling I had off and on at times in Dunedin. Freedom from Dunedin! crack up at the added “Go away then!”

Re:posting this for the new site so its in the archives, ..now that i got shit sorted lots more audio to come.

Re:Fuel is an infamous Dunedin live music venue and student drinking hole. I chucked this one up on the Toilet wall the night of the Dunedin Street Art exhibition. So yea, this one went up the shitter, literally. Dunno if its still up, let me know.

Soundway is a Dunedin car audio company, specialising in custom installs of all sizes. They wanted a sticker for vehicles they had worked on, to get their name out there and advertise their services. Needed to be something separate to their corporate logo that people would want to stick on their cars. It is now also painted up on the wall in their garage.

A tiled poster series for a Dunedin fringe festival project called “Random Graphics”. Really just a personal project for fun and a night paste-up mission. All the text is just random sentences I come up with that I may use again, except the “Who defines you, confines you” which is from K.R.S ONE, and “nothing proper about your propaganda” from RATM. I guess you could say this series had political undertones.”Who owes Who?”
“United stripes of Utopia”
“15 Minutes of Lame”
“It must be true!”