#Benjamin Zephaniah

[mrs-gray]

‘Her name was Elizabeth Gray. She was my Aunt Polly. My Aunt Polly.’

‘Vengeance is for the Lord...’

‘Not in Small Heath, it ain’t. Rest in peace, Pol.’

Peaky Blinders™ – Season 6, Episode 6, ‘Lock and Key’

[skamortuus]

Nature Trail

At the bottom of my garden There’s a hedgehog and a frog And a lot of creepy—crawlies Living underneath a log, There’s a baby daddy long legs And an easy—going snail And a family of woodlice, All are on my nature trail.

There are caterpillars waiting For their time to come to fly, There are worms turning the earth over As ladybirds fly by, Birds will visit, cats will visit But they always chose their time And I’ve even seen a fox visit This wild garden of mine.

Squirrels come to nick my nuts And busy bees come buzzing And when the night time comes Sometimes some dragonflies come humming, My garden mice are very shy And I’ve seen bats that growl And in my garden I have seen A very wise old owl.

My garden is a lively place There’s always something happening, There’s this constant search for food And then there’s all that flowering, When you have a garden You will never be alone And I believe we all deserve A garden of our own.

- Benjamin Zephaniah

[zippocreed501]

Benjamin Zephaniah

photo: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian

[ilovefinncole]

Jeremiah and Isiah Jesus Aesthetic Moodboard

[nofckingfighting]

[ukdamo]

Talking Turkeys

Benjamin Zephaniah

Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas Cos’ turkeys just wanna hav fun Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked An every turkey has a Mum. Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas, Don’t eat it, keep it alive, It could be yu mate, an not on your plate Say, Yo! Turkey I’m on your side. I got lots of friends who are turkeys An all of dem fear christmas time, Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it An humans are out of dere mind, Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys Dey all hav a right to a life, Not to be caged up an genetically made up By any farmer an his wife.

Turkeys just wanna play reggae Turkeys just wanna hip-hop Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying, ‘I cannot wait for de chop’, Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV, Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain In many ways like yu an me.

I once knew a turkey called…Turkey He said “Benji explain to me please, Who put de turkey in christmas An what happens to christmas trees?”, I said “I am not too sure turkey But it’s nothing to do wid Christ Mass Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be An business men mek loadsa cash’.

Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas Invite dem indoors fe sum greens Let dem eat cake an let dem partake In a plate of organic grown beans, Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas An spare dem de cut of de knife, Join Turkeys United an dey’ll be delighted An yu will mek new friends ‘FOR LIFE’.

[acti-veg]

[grande-caps]

Peaky Blinders 6.01 - “Black Day”

size: 1920x960          2,534 screencaps

[redxrighxthandxrpg]

Discord and roleplayer.me based.  Send us a message here if interested.

[joecolefan]

Joe Cole with Harry Kirton, Charlotte Riley and Benjamin Zephaniah at the Peaky Blinders Series 2 premiere in Birmingham in 2014

[rainingmusic]

Bomb the bass -  empire 

[zippocreed501]

Benjamin Zephaniah - Dis Poetry

[ilovefinncole]

Jeremiah Jesus Aesthetic Moodboard

[scenesandscreens]

Peaky Blinders, Season Three (2017)

[harrietjulia]

Talking Turkeys Wreaking Havoc

With this concept I wanted to incorporate some illustrative components to the design. From looking at Children’s Book covers almost all involve some form of visual to accompany the Typography. I decided to try out having the Turkeys physically playing with the lettering as if they are wreaking havoc, protesting changing the letters, making a mess etc. Really playing to that theme within the poems about personification of animals, breaking traditions and rules within the written language and life.

above: initial sketch idea

I experimented with different placements for this cover. In the end I feel there are at least 2 solid ideas within this concept. One idea also creatively uses a microphone stand as a stand in for the letter ‘T’ to emphasis the performance element that Zephaniah uses for his dub poetry. The microphone is also there (and is out of reach) to the turkeys who are trying to have their voice heard and fight for their rights.

above : Illustrated Turkeys that I placed inside the letters

above : Trying out different layouts 

I decided to use a typeface called Chelsea Market from Google Fonts which has a nice handwritten & kid friendly quality to it. I decided to mess the font a up a little and tilted and moved letters to appear as if the turkeys have pushed them around whilst running around and protesting. 

For colour I settled on something that evoked that Reggae feeling and chose a palette with greens, oranges, yellow and black, but brightened and softened it a little to appeal to a young audience. (I discarded the blue) I initially had a solid colour over the full book cover design, but felt it didn’t capture the Reggae theme the way I intended, and so went back and added a colourful spine and different back colour to ensure that the full palette was used across the design. 

I’m still unsure which version I prefer, but at present I am leaning towards the microphone stand as it feels a little more creative and may allow a young audience to ask questions and feel intrigued to what it means without being totally oblivious to the idea. My main concern was over legibility, but after asking several people, it seems it may just be my concern and not others.

Above : I also have sent these designs as line art to my wee niece and nephew to see if they could colour it in for me. Might be nice to consider another option and have some kids input to the design. It also got me thinking that by leaving line art on the cover, kids could just colour in their own book cover? Maybe this would be a nice idea to have under or as a book jacket so their is 2 versions. One to colour in and one as below.

Note : for my final submission I decided on the above, but chose to include the coloured in Turkeys as opposed to black and white as I felt they looked a little incomplete

Below : Alternate design I was torn between these two. But in the end settled on above as I think the design is stronger overall.

[acti-veg]