Well, it is summer again and time to release a new Portfolio Highlights PDF.
I particularly enjoy putting this together because it allows me to reflect on all the wonderful projects I have worked on during the last twelve months. I used to do these twice a year, but due to my heavy workload I am only going to create them once a year from now on. There were loads of projects I couldn't fit in, and as the title suggests, this PDF contains just the highlights - as well as things I am particularly pleased with. As always, there is a balance between print and web work.
This year's PDF is the biggest ever at 44 pages, but I have managed to keep it to just over 33MB in size.
I am also starting to turn my attention to a redesign of this site. You know the story, there is never enough time to work on my own stuff, but I am seriously starting to think about it and produce mock-ups. Hopefully I can have it up before 2010!
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
I've worked with New Dawn Magazine for a few years now, but they have exceeded even their usual high standards with their latest Special Issue. Just released, this issue, Special Issue No. 4 is titled Prophecies and Predictions. Is 2012 going to be the end of the world as we know it, or just another date in the calendar? I designed the cover for this issue and it was a lot of fun as always.
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
I have recently been working on a book just released by Daily Grail Publishing called Darklore. I designed the cover along with a number of illustrations.
Volume 1 is out now and it is a great read. Greg Taylor from the Daily Grail sums it up better than me when he describes what Darlore is all about:
Welcome to the premiere release of Darklore, a journal of exceptional observations, hidden history, the paranormal and esoteric science. Bringing together some of the top researchers and writers on topics from outside of mainstream science and history, Darklore will challenge your preconceptions by revealing the strange dimensions veiled by consensus reality.
In Darklore Volume 1 you'll find discussions of subjects such as the age of the Sphinx, 'Flying Triangle' sightings from yesteryear, evidence for the afterlife, the strange sounds heard during paranormal experiences, new revelations about the Knights Templar, psychedelic use in ancient Peru, Bigfoot strangeness, the Hellfire Society, Roswell, and much more.
The idea is to release these on a regular basis so don't miss the first instalment of what will surely grow into a great series.
For more details on the look of the book, check out my portfolio page for the project.
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
Earlier this year I accompanied Simon Cox to Egypt where we were doing some research for an upcoming book project. While there we visited once again the Layer Pyramid at Zawiyet el-Aryan, south of the Giza pyramids.
This hard to find pyramid is way off the beaten track and usually deserted. It doesn’t help that the name Zawiyet el-Aryan has reportedly not been used in many years, so asking for this small village only produces puzzled looks.
Today this pyramid is a mystery, and we know hardly anything at all about it. Dated to the 3rd Dynasty and given a tentative construction date of 2,600 BC it is only attributed to this era because of its method of construction, marking it as a possible 3rd Dynasty monument. Some have suggested that it was made by a pharaoh called Khaba, but only because vases bearing his name have been found in a nearby tomb. That is literally all we have to tie him to the site.
All of this of course is just conjecture, the best guess of academics, and the truth is, nothing is known about the Layer Pyramid for certain.
For example, it is said that this pyramid was never completed because no casing stones have ever been found, but it could be that these were simply removed in antiquity, as with other pyramids, including the Great Pyramid at Giza. A complex set of magazines and galleries exists beneath the pyramid, and while they don’t prove by themselves that the pyramid was ever completed, they do indicate that construction had progressed to quite an advanced stage at the site.
So, who did build the Layer Pyramid and when?
The view of the Layer Pyramid from the nearby village
The exposed, interior layers are all that remain today
On top of the pyramid, with Simon Cox (far left)
Filming with Simon Cox
Inside the underground passages with Ahmed Abo el Ela
The false entrance that leads to a dead-end
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
Today sees the release of my latest book, An A to Z of the Occult. Once again written with Simon Cox, it is the fourth in his A to Z Series.
This one was a lot of fun to write. Since my late teens I have taken a keen interest in the subjects covered in this book and it is great to be able to release some of the material I have acquired during those twenty-plus years of research.
The occult has had a lot of bad press over the years and is still viewed as something of a taboo subject. Why this should be became very clear to us during the writing of this book, because we realised that what we today term 'the occult' seems to encompass anything that cannot be explained by the twin pillars of mainstream science and religion. Today we rely heavily on these two disciplines, expecting one or the other - or both - to have all the answers for us. So, it is no wonder that the occult is often viewed as frightening and something to be feared if it lies outside the comfortable and familiar fields of religion and science.
The A to Z format of the series works very well when looking at the varied subjects found within the occult and the book itself is rather like a Grimoire of essays examining the esoteric.
On a design note, I also put together the cover and this one is my favourite jacket from the A to Z Series. The fantastic photo on the front was taken by Dawn Allynn and it was great raw material to mould into a cover image. Photos like that are a designer’s dream.
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
Just a quick plug – my first book has just been released and is out now in the shops. Co-authored with my friend and prodigious author, Simon Cox, it is titled An A to Z of Atlantis.
The book serves as a guide to the many mysteries that surround the fabled lost continent. Quoting from the Introduction:
There can scarcely be another subject that has courted as much controversy over the years as that of Atlantis. Thousands of books have been written about the lost continent, literally millions of words, and today the subject generates just as much interest as it has in the past, if not more.
An A to Z of Atlantis is the latest book in this long tradition. However, unlike many of the books published about Atlantis, the purpose of this A to Z is not to promote one particular theory or to argue why one location is any more likely than another to be the site of Atlantis. Rather, we gather all of the disparate strands together into one volume in order to try and present the reader with the broadest possible range of ideas.
Both myself and Simon have been fascinated by the subject of Atlantis for many years, so it is great to be able to get some of our ideas and theories down on paper at last and out in print. It should be a great read whether you are new to Atlantis or a seasoned seeker of the lost continent, and hopefully we have something new and enthralling for everyone.
On a seperate note, I also designed the cover and it is one of four covers I have designed for Simon Cox's A to Z Series.
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
It’s being reported today that London-based guerrilla artist Banksy has struck once again. In a highly imaginative coup he swapped 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s new album with ‘doctored’ versions of the CD. These altered CDs were then slipped back into record shops across the UK. They still contained the original bar code, so customers bought the Banksy versions without knowing. Genius.
These Banksy versions of the album have new tracks, supposedly just breakbeats with Hilton samples over the top – her repeatedly saying ‘that’s hot’ – a phrase she uses on one of her mindless TV slots. The titles of the tracks have also been changed from the original running order and the CD now contain such gems as ‘Why Am I Famous?’ and ‘What Have I Done?’ As well as the remixing the CD sleeve was altered and the front cover changed to show a topless Hilton, while other ‘messages’ were inserted into the booklet such as ‘90% of success is just showing up.’ The image behind the CD itself shows Hilton with a dog’s head.
For people who aren’t familiar with the work of Banksy, his website is well worth a look. Is it art? It is in my book. In my opinion art should make you think and Banksy's work certainly makes you do that.
'Withus Oragainstus.'
For fellow Londoners or anyone interested in seeing more of his work there is also a Flickr group that documents all the instances of Banksy street art in the city.
I've seen a few pieces round here where I live, but my favourite story is how a sign on the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens that gained one of Banksy’s rats was pinched and sold for an extortionate amount of money online. It’s a good job most of his work is found on solid walls or someone would no doubt nab them too. So what next? Are buildings with his graffiti on the side going to be sold for a fortune because they have become a piece of art?
This is what I love most about Banksy, the fact that unlike a lot of so-called contemporary artists he really seems to be blurring the boundaries between what is art and what isn’t. Oh, and there's also the fact that he shakes up the world a little every now and then, and boy do we need that.
Anyway, bringing this post back down to earth, I guess it’s only a matter of time before these Paris Hilton CDs turn up on Ebay!
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
I've been doing a lot of research recently for the book I am writing with Simon Cox, An A to Z of Atlantis. What's great about this book is that it enables me to use some of the fascinating stories and oddities that I have collected over the years.
One of my favourite candidates for the lost island of Atlantis is the archipelago known as the Canary Islands. Politically they are a part of Europe, and physically they are a part of Africa - hugging the west coast - however, their topography is like nowhere else on the planent and the islands are home to many unique species of flora and fauna. I've travelled to them several times, but the most memorable trip was a recent visit to one of the most western islands, La Palma.
The island is like a precious green jewel floating in the deep azure of the Atlantic. It contains pre-historic laurel forests that once covered the whole of Europe but that today can now only be found in the Canary Islands and on Madeira. These forests are said to be millions of years old.
La Palma is not as well known as some of the other Canary Islands, such as Tenerife and Lanzarote, and in fact, because of the steep terrain, La Palma is home to just 85,000 people. This population has as their neighbour one of the most unstable chain of volcanos in the world. It is said that if La Palma were to self-destruct in a large volcanic eruption, then half of the island could slip into the sea, causing what is termed a mega-tsunami that could put at risk much of the eastern seaboard of the United States.
If Atlantis did self-destruct and disappear beneath the waves, then the Canary Islands are certainly a likely candidate for its remains. Although the mechanism for a whole continent suddenly sinking goes against what we currently believe to be possible, the sheer unpredictability of the region makes you realise that Atlantis may just have been nearby once, or possibly even formed a part of the archipelago itself.
The Canary Islands were once home to a race of people known as the Guanches. The question of the origin of these people has still not been answered satisfactorily, but if there's any doubt over their beginnings, there is none concerning their demise. Left to the own devices, probably for many thousands of years, the Spanish landed on the islands sometime in the 15th Century and over the next one hundred years the Guanches were wiped out.
What is intriguing about the Guanches is the fact that they told other visitors, notably the Portuguese, that they'd once been part of a much greater homeland that had been destroyed in a huge deluge. Their legends reportedly centred around a story that the survivors of that great destruction had saved themselves by clinging to the heights of Tenerife's huge volcano, Mount Teide, the highest peak in Spain.
Stranded on the Canary Islands the Guanches kept their myths alive but slowly turned their back on the seas. By the time the Spanish arrived it was reported that the Guanches were terrified of the ocean that surrounded them. Could this be a direct result of the great fear that the survivors must have experienced if they had been washed up in the wake of the deluge that destroyed Atlantis? Surely people would turn their backs on the sea after such an event?
On La Palma I managed to glimpse some of the scant signs that the Guanches had once lived there. They left few footprints on the island, but there are clues here and there and more are being found all the time. Some of the most haunting are the caves where they once lived and the cliffs below these caves are inscribed with their megalithic-style carvings and symbols.
The Guanches also have similarities with the Egyptians and they were known for mummifying their dead. Recently pyramids have also been found on the islands.
So, who were these unique people? Are they really survivors from Atlantis and what tales could they have told us today if they were still around?
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
An A to Z of Ancient Egypt by Simon Cox and Susan Davies is out now, published by Mainstream.
My involvement began with the the design of the cover. It's the first volume in Simon Cox's A to Z Series so we had to create a look that could also be transferred to the forthcoming titles and I think we achieved that, picking a different colour and theme for each book.
As well as the cover, I also contributed some material to the book and as Egypt is one of my passions it was fascinating to work on. Simon and Susan have done a really great job on this book and it makes an essential read for anyone, novice and seasoned traveller alike; all-in-all it's a great guide to Egypt's mysteries and delights.
You can see more of my work for this series in my portfolio.
LINK TO THIS ENTRY
A Thorny Issue - 19th June 2006
Chapel of Rest it was not... - 14th June 2006
Tube Companion - 15th May 2006
The Fairy and the Gardens - 12th May 2006
A Book and a Blog - 8th May 2006
A Week in Cairo - 6th May 2006
Corpus Callosum - 2nd May 2006
Mosaic Colour Palette - 28th April 2006
Gnostic Info - 17th April 2006
