Click the image above to see a selection of spreads from Oxfam Action, or download a pdf of the entire issue here

Date created: Spring 2011

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/about/oxfam-action/

About the Project: Issue 2 of Oxfam Ireland’s magazine for supporters.  I did the complete layout and design for this issue, and also wrote a number of the articles.

Click the image above to see a selection of spreads from Oxfam Action, or download a pdf of the entire issue here

Date created: Autum 2010

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/about/oxfam-action/

About the Project: For years, Oxfam Ireland had three separate publications for our supporters: Oxfam Reports, for donors; Campaigner, for, well, campaigners; and The Engine Room, for volunteers. Our Marketing and Communications department led the initiative this year to combine all these publications into one single magazine, to save on costs and to try to move away from the tendency to segment our supporters.

I coordinated this project and led on the design and content of the new magazine. I have worked on magazine design before, but this was my first project where I was required to conceptualise and design one from scratch. It was a very interesting and challenging process, and I owe big thanks to magazine expert James Kelleher who gave me a lot of useful advice and feedback.

Issue 1 of Oxfam Action was circulated to Oxfam supporters and our shops in October 2010. The magazine contained a survey to gather feedback, and the response was overwhelmingly positive – 88% of respondents rated the magazine’s design and content highly.  Issue 2 will be published in February 2011; you can sign up to receive it on the Oxfam Ireland website.

Click the image to see a slideshow of materials from the Haiti Lives exhibition

Date created: June 2010

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/haiti-lives

About the Project: Haiti Lives is a photography exhibition that was organised by Oxfam, to show the recovery work that Oxfam is carrying out in Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake of January 2010. The exhibition featured 30 beautiful, inspiring images taken by photojournalist Ami Vitale, Jane Beesley of Oxfam and Jorge Silva of Reuters, and was on display in Dublin’s Powerscourt Townhouse Centre for the month of July.

I was in charge of designing the identity and all materials for the exhibition, and preparing the photographs for print and display.  Materials included a brochure, a poster, exhibition display graphics, the photo captions, large form prints for the windows of the exhibition and giant round 4m² displays for the Powerscourt Centre.

The exhibition’s run in Dublin was extremely successful, attracting a large number of visitors and garnering very positive press coverage, including a feature on RTE News.  You can see the photographs that appeared in the exhibition on the Oxfam Ireland website.

Date created: May 2010

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/shop/oxfam-donation-days/

About the Project: Attracting a sufficient number of good quality donations is always a challenge for Oxfam, and Ireland’s recent economic downturn has made this even more difficult. Many of our shops were in urgent need of stock, and so the Donation Day project was devised.

Four Oxfam shops around the country were picked to host the Donation Day events – a day of music, fun, treats and celebrity visits.  The events attracted a great deal of excellent media coverage, and over 400 new bags of stock were donated.

I created the posters and banners that were used to promote the events.  The brief was to create something fun and light-hearted, encouraging people to come down and get to know their local Oxfam shop staff, as well as bringing down their unwanted clothes, books and homeware.  I used a mix of stock images (tying this campaign into our ClearURGear campaign) and hand-drawn type.

Watch out for a Donation Day in your local Oxfam shop, and of course, any time is good for a spring clean – Oxfam is always happy to accept your quality unwanted goods.

Date created: From May 2010

Web Address: www.oxfamirelandshop.com

About the Project: The press team at Oxfam had the idea of redesigning our Fair Trade product press releases, which were previously just Word documents with no particular design, to make them more attractive. We regularly send out releases for our extremely wide and eclectic range of products, and have started displaying them in a magazine-spread style layout in the hope that they will catch the receiving editor’s eye. It’s had some good success: we’ve had lots of positive feedback and Oxfam’s Fair Trade products have been featured in a huge range of lifestyle spreads in magazines and supplements, such as the Sunday Independent, Prudence Magazine and Kiss Magazine.

Click the image for close-ups of the bookmarks

Date created: April 2010

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/shop

About the Project: Every year, Oxfam prints our own charity Christmas cards, and the offcuts from the printing run are used for a variety of purposes. This year, our retail managers asked me to do some bookmarks that would encourage donations to our shops .  I designed a set of three, each with a retro design theme and text that aims to remind people that there are plenty of goods that Oxfam shops are delighted to accept and sell on.

Date created: November 2008

About the Project: These posters were created to raise awareness for World AIDS Day (Dec 1st) and to encourage people to show support by wearing a red ribbon. They were printed in A2 and A3 size and displayed in Oxfam shops around the country

Date created: October 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/oxjam

About the Project: I put this flyer together this morning for my colleague Pip’s Oxjam fundraiser. It’s a very quick and simple job, but I love the colour combination of black, white and aqua, and may try to use it for another project soon.

iPod photo from www.sxc.hu

Date created: Spring 2008

About the Project: Every year Oxfam Ireland prints about a billion Christmas cards, and our printers allow us to use the offcuts from these cards for other projects. This year we used them to print off little handouts for Oxjam; they’re business card-sized and can be filled in on the reverse with details of gigs. I’m really pleased with how they turned out, the colours are really vibrant and I ended up using the artwork in lots of other Oxjam projects.

I designed this voucher for Oxfam which was handed out at the Festival of World Cultures. It’s perforated; one half promotes a competition and the other has a ‘€10 off’ voucher for our Fair Trade Shops. The reverse (photo below) has the competition entry form and a map showing the location of our Dublin Fair Trade Shop.

Date created: Summer 2007

About the Project: I created a shed-load of large print materials for Oxfam last summer, for use at outdoor events. The above are large vinyl banners showing our logo and a welcome message, and our logo and the url of our website. The photos were taken at this year’s Electric Picnic; see our Flickr stream for more.

A recent episode of This American Life really struck a chord with me. I’ll just copy the relevant bit:

A couple of years ago some friends were travelling through Europe, walking through these old buildings. And these people do not know anything special about architecture, but, you know how it is when you’re a tourist. So they’re walking through these buildings and they’re looking at these doorways and pillars and they decide that this one building has a very Moorish influence. They’re pointing out details, saying ‘the Moors this’ and ‘the Moors that’. And finally one of them turns to the other and says, “You know, we sound like we’re in a magazine. A magazine called ‘Modern Jackass‘.”

The person who originated the concept, Nancy Updike, disarmingly compares it to Post-It Notes – we didn’t know we needed them, but once they were introduced we used them all the time. Modern Jackass is exactly the same. I am a contributing editor to Modern Jackass, as are many of my peers; I blame it mainly on the Sunday papers, from which we half-digest bite-sized nuggets of unreliable information. I love the concept so much that last night I designed a cover for a mock edition. Maybe someday we’ll see Modern Jackass on our newsagent shelves? Until that happy day arrives, we’ll just have to make do with all the other ‘by jackasses, for jackasses’ magazines out there.

There are many other Modern Jackasses across the web, who have shared their thoughts on and moments of Modern Jackassery in these blogs:

• The Anchored Nomad
• Murfins & Burglars
• Wandermama
• f-words
• Nick Hornby

You can get a printable PDF of the cover if you click the image above. And if anyone has any suggestions for cover stories for Issue 2, please send them to me at Modern Jackass Towers (hello {at} jeanobrien.com).

My moo.com minicards arrived this week – they’re very cute and dinky, and the print quality is lovely. An informal poll carried out outside the Royal Oak in Kilmainham on Thursday night confirmed that they’re a good size for catching people’s attention. Also, regrettably, the perfect size and texture for picking the teeth.

Date created: Summer 2007

About the Project: This was a postcard for an Oxfam Ireland competition at the Festival of World Cultures in 2007.

Date created: May 2008

Web Address: Download a pdf of the newsletter here.

About the Project: Issue 4 of Oxfam Ireland’s newsletter for volunteers.

Date created: August 2007

About the Project: A3 size full-colour posters created for a Stop EPAs coalition. The same poster was used by various different organisations such as Trocaire and Comhlamh.

Date created: Jan – Mar 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/passthepresent

About the Project: Children who participate in Pass the Present receive a birthday pack from Oxfam, including a Puzzle Pack with activities and games. I laid out and designed all 8 Puzzle Packs (from ages 4-11 inclusive), which amounted to a hefty 32 pages of activities. It was such an enjoyable project though, I had so much fun with bright colours, patterns and cute animals. The image above links to a pdf with some sample pages from the packs. The birthday pack also contains a certificate and other goodies.

Date created: April 2008

About the Project: A simple poster for the Oxfam shops, featuring a beautiful image taken by Michael Kelly.

Date created: April 2007

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/clearurmusic

About the Project: Here’s our ClearURMusic Month poster – big thanks to Sleeveface.com for their help with this project. I’m currently very keen on posters that feature a big striking photo and just a simple black footer, there’ll probably be a few more produced in this style.

Date created: February 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/passthepresent

About the Project: This leaflet was created to promote the Pass the Present project. It’s a full-colour 4DL leaflet with a detachable slip, and the artwork was created in InDesign.  Click the image to open the full PDF.

Date created: February 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/whatyoucando/volunteer

Click the image above for the pdf

About the Project: Designing a form doesn’t allow for much in the way of creativity, but I’m fairly pleased with how this one turned out – it’s legible and ordered while having a few nice design elements. Also photocopies well, which is important for the Oxfam shops.

Date created: February 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/passthepresent

About the Project: Children who participate in Oxfam’s Pass the Present project receive a pack from Oxfam, including this certificate of thanks.

Date created: March 2008

About the Project: I laid out and drew the illustrations for this invitation in Illustrator (with some drawing done in Flash).

Date created: January/February 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/passthepresent

About the Project: An a3 poster for the Pass the Present project. The poster will be displayed in Oxfam’s shops.

Date created: February 2008

About the Project: A2 poster created to promote Fair Trade in Oxfam’s shops.

Date created: March 2002

About the Project: I created this poster for Dave’s ‘Small Things’ show in collaboration with the man himself – he wanted it to be reminiscent of the old Blue Note album covers. I’m searching my (untidy) archive for a larger version of this picture and will upload it when found.

Date created: Designed Summer 2007, produced quarterly.

Web Address: Downloand and read Issue 3 here, or visit the Oxfam site to read the older issues.

About the Project: The Engine Room is the newsletter for Oxfam Ireland staff and volunteers. I designed the layout for the magazine in Adobe InDesign, and am responsible for laying out each issue.

Date created: Summer 2007

About the Project: This standing banner was created for use at Oxfam’s travelling stands and displays – they were used in summer 2007 at Oxegen, the Festival of World Cultures and the Electric Picnic.

Date created: September 2007

About the Project: I designed and laid out this booklet, which serves as an introduction to Oxfam for new volunteers.

Date created: October 2007

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/shops

About the Project: This poster was created to promote the Monthly Music Quiz, which is held on the first Tuesday of every month, to raise funds for the Oxfam George’s St shop.

Date created: June 2002

About the Project: I was commissioned to design the cover for a football single for Universal Music, for the 2002 World Cup. The photo on the design was taken of my brother Steve at Italia 90. He pretended to be annoyed that I used an embarrassing knock-kneed picture of him without his permission, but secretly he loves the attention. I will upload a larger version of this image once I locate it in the rubble of my office.

Date created: October 2004

About the Project: I made stickers for Heather, Sue and Rercy using elaborate type treatments of their names. The stickers were gifts for their joint 30th birthday party. Two things I remember about this project; it’s really difficult to get short runs of stickers printed, and the party was one of the best in living memory.

Date created: April 2005

About the Project: A gift card to accompany Alice-Mary’s 30th birthday present – a subscription to McSweeneys. A McSweeney’s subscription is a great present – it’s the gift that keeps on giving! (for the period of one year only)

Date created: March 2007

About the Project: Poster for Stevestock, the world’s premier Steve-themed Music Festival for Steve Fans and Aficionados of Steve.

Date created: March 2005

About the Project: An invite for me Julie’s 30th birthday. This was emailed around and printed out. It’s based on the original poster for ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’, a film that is very close to our hearts. I should add that Julie is absolutely my muse when it comes to creating frivolous and ridiculous artwork, and she has created many beauties for me over the years.

Date created: April 2005

About the Project: I created this flyer to publicise Oxfam Books’ sale of crime fiction. Click on the image to see a full version of the flyer. Thanks to Crimeboss.com for permission to use the original image.

Date created: February 2006

About the Project: This poster was created for Comhlamh, to publicise a course for teachers.