Sam Needham | Blog

JD Cycles got in touch with a brief to design an advert that would appear in Singletrack, MBR and Cycling Plus magazines. The brief was to create something that was a little different, eye catching but to the point.

Being located in Ilkley, JD Cycles have a huge moorland which is an awesome, natural, bike riding playground. 5 minutes is the time it takes from stepping out of JD Cycles, to being high up on the tops, looking back down on the town and riding some wicked natural single track. I thought it would be great to portray this idea in  an illustration and use it as an integral part to the advert.

Below is the original drawing, which is an emphasised take on the idea above. But i thought it worked well, and in an illustration, it sums up what the moors is… a great place to ride your bike without having to journey to far.

The artwork was then scanned and traced in Illustrator. I didn’t have a lot of room to play with composition, so the info on the advert had to be very concise. I originally used a flat colour background, but the whole image looked pretty 2D… so to give the advert a little more pop and catch the readers eyes I used a sky from a photo I took in the Peaks.

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After just over a month of being online, ‘Into The Trees has really popped off all over the internet. I couldn’t be happier with how well its been received. Between Vimeo, Pinkbike and Mpora, Into the Trees has accumulated around 40,000 hits in a single month, and is still getting great comments and bumping further and further up into the viewing figures.

Im a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to anything work wise, in fact anything creative. I didn’t really want to simply make a film that was just a cool film to watch. It had to tell a story, immerse the viewer, inspire and set a mood.

Robin @ Altura and myself got together to talk ideas and pretty quickly got set on the story of showing the trail as a living, breathing entity within Whinlatter. We wanted to show that the trail was intricately woven deep into the woodlands yet was its own being within the forest.

Heres the blurb:

Woven throughout the depths of the woods, and the heights of the mountain are a network of super fun, fast, flowing trails. ‘Into the Trees’ is a short film showing the Altura Trail in its best light. A trail that flies you 1600ft above Keswick, carves you round berms and switchbacks, takes your breath away with beautiful views, inspires you to get loose on the trail, but most of all… a trail which never fails to bring a smile to your face. 

Thanks to Matt Wight and Ross Parkinson for their rad riding in the film. I hope this film makes you want to pick up your bike and take to the hills.

Film by Sam Needham & Robin Puplett

samneedham.co.uk

twitter.com/#!/SamNeedham_couk 

To those who have been dying to know… here is a bit of info on the film and how it was made: -

Camera: Nikon D300s
Lenses: Sigma 10-20, Nikon 50mm 1.8, Nikon 70-200 F 2.8
Extras: Tripods/Cam Slide
Edited: Final Cut Pro X

Intro Music: Kryptic Minds – Fade to Nothing
Main Music: Phontaine – Golden Banjo

Fixie Hipster Chris Akrigg showing us how its done on the big wheels. FIXED Mag is a pretty rad little magazine, so it was pretty cool getting the chance to shoot for them.

To see someone ride a 26″ or BMX in a skatepark is cool. But to see Akrigg boot out of the quarter and stall on the rail, on a Fixed road bike, is just insane!

What has been a hectic few weeks, has also been a brilliant few weeks. The image below is a real sneak peek of some of the shots from last week. Im afraid thats all your seeing for now… sit tight!

Howdy

Its been a little while since my last post… a mixture of being super busy with my photography and design adventures and moving house have meant the blog as been pushed aside a little. Here we are though, back again, and i have plenty of updates for you.

First of all, you may already have seen my first jump into the video SLR world, with the film i put together for Altura called ‘Our Neck Of The Woods’. The film was captured over a day in some local woods. The rain poured to a stop, the mud got thick, and the winds were wild, but all in all, it was a wicked days shooting Matt Wight getting a slide on in the woods.

Having only ever done little bits of film work ages ago, it was a bit of a learning curve to me. After making this little flick, and having plenty more to film in the pipeline, i have discovered it is key to own a good weighty tripod… a faster mac… and some pro video software, an expensive months awaits me.

Below is some bumf on the film.

‘Our Neck Of The Woods’ is a light hearted film which takes us through into the Autumnal rustle. The idea of the film is to portray the essence of good old fashioned fun on a bike. Mountain biking isn’t always about being out for hours on end, or pushing your own limits to another level. Sometimes an hour after work, up in the woods, getting a drift on and sliding your way to a smile is the best ride you can have.

Grab a cup of tea, and enjoy the film!

—Sam—

samneedham.co.uk

Rider: Matthew Wight

Music: Bonobo – Days to Come

Please click below to view the film!

Our Neck Of The Woods

Second day in, and i thought i would post a little info behind the crafting of the ‘Soaks and Co’ logo i was commissioned to design.

Soaks and Co is a new company about to be born, and i am lucky enough to be behind the branding of the company. The company has got some cool ideas, and the people at Soaks and Co specialise in crafting a lovely range of  handmade soaps, bath bombs, shaving foams and plenty more bathing and skin care products.

So the idea behind the logo was to create a brand image which drew a line between modern and traditional, the font works really well in portraying this. The logo had to look clean and simple, yet also stylish. And preferably have some sort of tie in with bathing, without looking very obvious (such as a bath in the logo). As for the crown above the o and a, this is intended to be a simplified spill of bubbles, signifying what Soaks is selling. Also it gives the brand a sense of quality as it acts as a crown.

I hope you like the look of the logo, and keep your eyes peeled for Soaks and Co coming soon!

Hello…

Welcome to my new blog, or the hub of all my on goings.

I will be doing my best from now on to keep my new website (which has had a nice face lift) and my blog up to date and as fresh as possible. On the topic of my website, a big thanks to Jojo Bonham for working his coding magic on my template.

As this is my first blog post, i thought i would share a little out take photo from the weekend. The shot is of good friend Ross Parkinson getting a wee bit loose at Scratchmere Scar in the lakes. A wicked day out was had on the steep slopes of Scratchmere.

So continues another busy month with plenty of varied work on. I will keep you in the loop, but in the mean time… enjoy the shot!

Sam

One man down... one flash still standing!