Hello. This is the personal portfolio of Chris Gray based in Manchester. I am available for freelance across the UK. I am also currating and exhibiting in Berlin on February 26th. See Toy blog for details..

2010 will definintely be the year I finally start producing more screen prints. This photograph is of John from Hotbed Press producing one of Robs screen prints for the launch of his 2010 exhibition 'YOU'. Rob will also be joining Toy as the newest artist.

I was asked if I could produce a poster for a lecture series in Manchester. To cut throw the badly produced low quality digital prints littered around Manchester the short time frame was used to create something really simple but on Fabriano hand pressed paper / screen printed / then numbered. Most were stolen.

Another personal project which I abandoned for greener pastures. I think I'll definintely return to all things space in the future. Here is a small section of a space man lost in some psychedlic fog.

I worked on a project with Love Creative to create a series of mugs based on production in China. They were featured by Createve Review and will soon be available for purchase.

I was asked to design a poster for the last London night of 2009. My design will sit with the other posters designed by the likes of Anthony Burrill / Mike C. Place / James Joyce / Kate Moross

In preparation for the Berlin show I have started a new series of prints that will go on show with some of my existing favourites. Here is a teaser of what is to come. There will be plenty to buy by March.

I was comissioned by BJL of Manchester to work on a new design for the launch of the new Liverpool Hilton Hotel. The idea was create a silhoutte of the building using all the things great about the city.

Working with Peter and Paul from Sheffield we created a new brand identity that helps business develop innovative content for new and emerging media platforms.

Screenprint produced by my Southern friend The District that can be purchased from their new online shop.

I was the chosen designer to represent Manchester for a new International team design project. The illustration had to be based on the Devil icon of the team and incorporate the word 'Believe'.

Sweatshirt and Tee for Danish company Superfancy.

Studio AKA are now my new super talented representatives for all things that move. They have pretty much produced anything you have seen on TV and thought was awesome. Maybe this is my chance to finally do film title sequences.

I got to thinking that I never really get chance to produce posters, so I put aside a few hours to design this. If you look really carefully you can see the letters 'HOME' built into all those building shapes. They are on sale for £50 / Giclee Print / 50x70 / 310gsm.

Here is a shot of one of the many walls myself and the other members of the Toy team got to scribble on at the Umbro headquarters in Manchester. It was two weeks of sitting in the sun, drawing, listening to some terrible music and eating buffet lunches.

Another few shots from a recent trip out around Manchester. The best thing about being on a bike is that everyone feels they can talk to you. I think I've met more interesting people out on my bike then in any other circumstance.

I've been doing all kinds of character design recently which is quite unusual for me. Hopefully some of it may lead onto something animated.

I've been saying for too long I'm going to shoot more with film, so it came as a nice suprise to find an unprocessed roll in a hidden bag pocket. I Found a few from Paris and Hong Kong on there, made me want to be a photographer again.

I'm forever meaning to update this website with lots of new bits and bobs I've been working on, but it never seems to happen. Probably because I am now running my own lovely little business working with some awfully talented illustrator / designers /artists.

I never thought of myself as a painter but when the nice people at Common let me loose on their venue I couldn't say no. 12 very stressful days of painting, or "decorating" as my house mate likes to put it and it was all go for the launch party.

It's not very often I get to do random little sketches and colour them in, but that's exactly what I did for a shirt to be produced as part of the Nike Summer Basketball range. Looking forward to getting my own in the post.

Derelict spaces have always facinated me so when I was asked by Nike to go in and shoot the empty floors of their new building as paid work it was like a dream job. There were a few spooky doors and random creeks but I'm still alive.

You have to love the smell of ink. It has to be the best feeling cracking open one of them giant paper bags full of a new batch of screen prints. This was one of the latest I did for the delegates to show Umbros new commitment to football and tailoring.

For the launch of a new Umbro store in Manchester I worked alongside some of the lovely folk of Love to produce this massive wall mural linking everything to do with Manchester, Football and Tailoring. We started at 2 in the afternoon and finally gave up at 4am.

I was lucky enough to get a feature in idN next to some of my heros 'Peepshow'. I have a copy around here under the masses of paper. I should photograph it or something.

It's not everyday you get an e-mail flying over from Singapore asking you to work alongside some of Asia's finest. The work will be showcased to a global audience through the Tiger website and at a series of events and exhibitions. Past events have been held in the likes of Mumbai, Beijing, Bangkok, New York, Berlin and London. You will be part of a global publicity campaign, gaining exposure in titles such as Creative Review, IdN, Computer Arts, Shift & Theme.

I asked Jon Boam if he would come in and draw on my glass. He arrived with no plan and a bag full of pens and got busy! This guy should be famous for his drawing ability.

Another shirt from the Archives was lovingly produced by the clever people at Beautiful Decay. For a few dollars you can make yourself look this sexy.

Nicolas Saunders popped into the studio so we could tackle photographing his very snazzy work. After faffing around for a good few hours we gave up and just took some pictures of us attempting to shoot his work. Turned out it was more fun.

I've had rolls of film lying around my room for weeks so today I braved the cold to get them developed. The results are always worth the wait. The 5th picture, the man was wearing is skirt.

I thought it a good idea to stick some of my unused tshirt designs onto the LaFraise website to see what resposnce they got. Luckily enough people liked it for it to get produced. The attached image is from the Vice page, I just need to learn German now. Thank you to LaFraise / Vice / The Photographer

I like doing what I can to help every now and again. I was asked if I could work on a poster to promote tree planting in certain areas of Kenya. I'm hoping I can design something that will work across 5 languages and multiple tribes. No pressure.

I've been perusing the BBK website quite often recently incase I spot any hidden gems I can use for future projects. I thought I would chuck up something bold and simple that I wouldn't mind turning into some kind of cushion. It is based (loosely) on the shapes preduced by floating oil.

Matt Judge from SEA Design asked if I would like to be a contributor for his new project, Design Assembly. The aim is to give a sub-narrative to contemporary design inspiration and not be afraid to ask the question "Why?".

I am currently working with the lovely people at The District to prepare an exhibition as part of the Room Art project. It will launch at the end of November for anyone wanting to bob in and visit their Cambridge Studio.

Glenn from the ever so popular Form Fifty Five asked me contribute a design to the 6x10 project whereby ten illustrators are given six words to come up with a design for. The first issue is "Given up yet? No still trying". It should be out in a few weeks and I will be sharing pages with the likes of Andrew Shannon, Ben Smith, Chris Ro, Edward McGowan, Jez Burrows, Jon Boam, Lizzy Stewart, Merijn Hos, Robert Hanson.

Finally it is about to hit the streets. The truck tarp I designed a few weeks ago is all printed up and now beautifull shot by Noë Flum. Freitag were brilliant to work with and a big thanks has to go to Rahel, Ralph, Daniel and Marcus Freitag.

I've twisted the bosses arms at Love into letting me put on a YCN Live event in the Studio. With some free beer, some superb prints by Jesse Auersalo and a bit of live wall painting in the office it should be a lots of fun.

I decided to setup a seperate online portfolio for my illustration work and random thoughts. Hopefully it will grow into a never ending series of imagery. Click the link below to have a gander. E-mail or ring if you would like to colaborate.

Its not everyday you hear Peter Saville say your name so I was pretty suprised when I got commended by the legendary Peter Saville at the 'Best in Manchester' awards. Especially when I didnt even get an invite so had to get in using someone elses unwanted one!

After collecting the Dont Panic! posters throughout university, I thought I would have a bash at doing a poster and managed to win it!

Some recent photography from Hong Kong using my trusty film camera. Thanks to Dee for being a great sport (and photographer!). Thankfully, no Photoshop was needed.

Working with some chums outside of working hours, we are in the process of building a new website to help you find house-shares with other creative/like minded folk. Should hopefully go live within a couple of months. Fingers crossed.

Toy is a very sparkly new personal project that will have a shiny launch date sometime at the end of September with lots of drinking and crazy dancing, followed by lots of hard graft. It's all a bit hush until then.

I was fortunate to attend an Art Direction day course by the one man myth Paul Belford last week. Learnt a shocking amount in one day especially how not to always rely on old and boring methods of plonking on logos.

After working with the Neighbourhood earlier this year with their website concept, I'm now illustrating some of their new stationery.

Gold Award / Roses 2008

I was having a spring clean and decided to pinch a spare monitor that has been collecting dust. In one go I've found a new home for the CR issues and tackled my duel monitor wallpaper issue.

Commissioned by Nick Knight through the YCN I was asked to design a piece of art relating to football for Nike, in 6 days. I chose to produce a 10ft tapestry based on the epic journeys the ball takes after I scream one over the bar at the local field. Tapestry should be going on tour sometime this year.

I was asked nicely to design a print to promote new fair trade coffee. The brief was to have use a classic style seat that doubled as a coffee cup. The brilliant writing by Dave Bevan made my life easier.

Some of the biggest PR brains have recently come together to create Life. I was asked to create a brand logo/image for them. Can you tell I've had a few late nights? I did however discover I really like MS Bananna Milkshake.

I was asked to film a fly on the wall documentary for the England kit photoshoot. After fighting not to soak the camera for an hour, I managed to finally film something. The Photographer was Jon Shard and the video will be available to download soon.

I decided to work on an entry for the Freitag design a lorry competition. They have an amazing shop/office/place in Zurich worth checking out.

Just a quick Chritmas card design to help raise money for the Salford Graphic Design course exhibition. Illustrators included Andrew Rae / Jeremyville / Matt Sewell / Paul Davis / Deanna Halsall and many more.

Absolut ® Invitation to a Studio 54 themed roller disco, launching the limited edition Absolut Mirrorball bottle. Foiled and embossed mirror board with a baked on label.

Sonicstreams is an exhibition at Fact in Liverpool that looks into how sound can effect how you feel. After many very interesting conversations that nearly blew my mind on what sound can do, myself and Wez Crozier designed and built a sound reactive website whereby you can navigate by creating a frequency....or by clicking.

Umbro asked myself and Gre to shoot and produce a short film that could really give a feel about those who are ridiculously passionate about Football. After spending 3 months in different locations meeting all kinds of mad characters the footage was made into a 60 second cut.

Coming Soon

Doc Martens wanted to thanks its top 200 international retailers, so working with the wonderful family at Love we created a limited edition yellow pressed disc. My personal favorite part was getting thick black screen printed onto cardboard.

An on-going project with illustrator Deanna Halsall to create a hundred different ways of saying hello. I'm only up to two, so only a mear 90 odd left.

The photographers Shaw and Shaw let me follow them for a day to document the goings on of their shoot. It was really surreal to be at locations I walk past everyday and see them captured in completely original way.

This is a personal project from when I had an urge to make something after dealing with endless amounts of paper. I bought myself a screen printing kit and dug out an old sewing machine and started to make and print stuff.

I had the pleasure of shooting a short film following Klaus Thyman on his photoshoot for Umbro. I showed him one of the snaps I took and he said "Your contrast is all wrong".
What a dude.

This was a print for an exhibition held at the Night and Day in Manchester to showcase 5 bands playing over a period of 6 weeks.

On a freezing winter day, myself and Deanna Halsall though it would be a great idea to see what was happening on Formby beach. I took my little point and shoot camera and took a selection of snaps. Made me want to shoot more stuff in the wrong season.

I had to do a concept for getting hotmail on the radar for key sponsors. So what better way then to throw a brick at them.
(Sponge of course)

Paul the owner of the three bars asked if we could design a website that could connect the three venues whilst still being individual in their own right. I wanted me to make something whereby you simply click what you want to see.
No messing..

This was a print for an exhibition held at the Night and Day in Manchester. The idea was to try and show my Utopia of being connected to colour and shape.

Daniel Perez a young Spanish film Director contacted us to create an online presence for his visually stunning film titled “LEB ENS RAUM”.

Cube Gallery (Manchester) asked myself and Pete Jarvis to re-design their exhibition sign-age system, as well as create a brand to be used for a refreshed look launch of the space. After everything went live we even got to attend the launch party with plenty of free drink vouchers.