London Design Festival

Yesterday I took a trip up to London to explore some of what the LDF had to offer...

We began at Trafalgar Square to see the giant chess piece, designed by Spanish artist Jaime Hayon - inspired by English Culture and London City. Then on route to the V&A we stumbled upon the Young Creative Poland exhibition and The Incidental studio where I got to chat to the team members about how they were recording peoples perceptions of LDF.

At the V&A we saw the London Posters commissioned by a number of big designers, as well as Telling Tales - an exhibition of Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design, and the Wallpaper* Chair Arch.

Then onto Shoreditch to see the Typographica exhibtion at the Kemistry gallery, and then to Emerge - a selection of talented graduates work. I absolutely loved the work of Richard Carey, definitely some high standards to reach next year - and had an opportunity to chat to some of the exhibitors for some hints and tips! For the exhibition they were set the same brief as the for the London Posters which I saw at the V&A - definitely an interesting comparison between them and the professions...

Freelance work

Record artwork

My brother purchased some decks at the weekend and was given some 90s house records with it, i quite liked some of the cover art and prompted me to dig out some of my dads old records when we were sorting out for a carboot sale... have to say the old stuff was more impressive, particularly the more abstract stuff (before the Photoshop days!) and i really liked the book inside the Hawkwind cover.

Nick Saunders

After a busy screen printing workshop today, it was a pleasant surprise to see a post about our workshop tutor Nick Saunders was on the CR blog for his work for the new Harry Potter film. He is currently recognised as a top 10 illustrator in the UK! read more here

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/august1/magical-packaging-for-harry-potter-film

OXO/Design Museum/LCC

Took a trip up to London today to see a few exhibitions!

30years/30artists - celebrating work of greenwich printmakers was on at the OXO. A great mix of work, i particularly liked the silk screen prints by Jazmin Velasco and was interesting to learn about the association.

A retrospective of spanish artist Javier Mariscal was the main exhibition at the

Design museum however we ended up spending more time in the 'Super Contemporary' exhibition in the floor below. It was based along a timeline which reflected London's diversity tracking its developents over the decades and featured 15 commissions by some of London's brightest designers including Neville Brody, Paul Smith an Ron Arad. Their brief was to give something back to the city and there were some interesting outcomes!

Finally we ended up at LCC to see ANOTHER illustration exhib - 'Images 33' a selection of the best british illustration 2009. The work was incredible, professionals alongside students. Managed to jot a few good names down and was pleased to see some new work by Tim Marrs who's work i loved when I was at college.

Happy Birthday!!

It seems to be everyones birthdays this summer... lots of parties, but also lots of presents and cards to organise!

I made these cards from scrap paper, ribbon, textured tissue, found images, and old jewelry. I really like collage and love the work of Anahata Katkin, so look to her collages when im stuck for ideas.

Freelance Job

I have been earning some extra cash this week creating posters for 2 new student nights in my home town... its about time Farnham got a bit lively! Im hoping this will lead to some more work with the many many pubs in town...

Gardening Festival

This Saturday I volunteered some of my time to help out with the gardening festival at Farnham Maltings - a fantastic centre for art, crafts and theatre. The festival included talks on flower arranging, garden design, local growing initiatives, a photography exhibition, an allotment competition and an out door exhibition of Falmouth University students work which was commissioned by the National Trust.

I helped out with the children's workshops where they could decorate their own garden lantern and make their own cress pot, which was delightful! I also supervised the schools 'garden in a biscuit tin' competition (ages 4-9), and as you can see from some of the entries below, they definitely used their imaginations!

Interview @Antidote

On the 17th June I took a trip up to London for an interview at Antidote (Soho) after applying for a graphics internship which I saw advertised on YCN. I really love their work as it is very varied but always conceptual and exciting! I was unsuccessful in securing a placement there, but found the interview itself quite a valuable experience. They were really friendly and were helpful in giving me constructive feedback about my work. I was also pretty happy with being one of only ten candidates who got an interview out of 200! :-)

Speaking of entrepreneurs!

At the beginning of this year my friend Cat set up her own business selling these beautiful dresses she made from indian silk scarves, and shes doing incredibly well! This summer she has been featured in Company and M8, and is out in Ibiza right now selling them at the hippy market. Check her out at www.catrionarose.com

supermarketsarah

Whilst doing my daily summer job hunting on gum tree today, I came across an advert for a PA for 'supermarketsarah'. Intrigued, I had a nose at her website and its very interesting! She collects items from random sales/carboots then photographs them and posts them on this 1 page website where people can buy them.  She also has a stall at Portobello market where she sells her stuff...

A very simple, but clever idea, I find entrepreneurial people like this very inspiring! 

Visit to Purple Circle

12th June 09 (me in the flowery shirt!)

For our final project of the year we collaborated with purple circle to do the NCHA annual report brief (below) and as part of this we had the opportunity to visit them and present our final outcome. It was a really valuable experience and I received some very positive feedback. They liked the visual metaphors that I used and commented that it was a very realistic outcome in consideration of costs and suitability. I was also complemented on my typography which I found encouraging as it is something which I have become quite of conscious of this year.

Shed loads of ideas

I took this picture when I was in Cornwall a couple of weeks ago down by the beach of Harlyn Bay and contributed it to Purple Circle's shed loads of ideas website to celebrate their 18th birthday. 

I used poladroid to convert my digital photograph into a polaroid image. It is a fantastic new application that coverts your JPEG images to polaroids at 400dpi actual size. It uses a filter to create a colour cast, vignette and blur - it is a great way to fake the effects of a polaroid & even gives you the texture of the paper!

NCHA Annual Report

(Brief set by Purple Circle)

A conceptual design for Nottingham community housing association’s anual report 08/09. The idea is themed on a cardboard box, symbolic of people moving house, which is appropriate to the NCHA who aims to provide affordable housing to those in need. The design uses the symbols which come on cardboard boxes as visual puns relating to the information on the page. A series of these symbols have the versitality to be applyed throughout the report not just the ones in these examples.

The front cover for this report is made from cardboard with the design silkscreened onto it. The inside pages are printed onto an uncoated paper to give a rough, textured feel, similar to that of cardboard. I wanted this report to have a slightly gritty feel to it to relate the senses to a cardboard box and the connotations which go with that. I largly looked at the work of Vincent Frost for inspiration on how to do this and for innovative layout ideas. The report is landscape to give the shape of the side of a box and to add to the feel of opening to reveal the contents.

Bristol cont.

Bristol

During Easter I ventured to Bristol for the first time, a vibrant city with loads to see. I was particularly excited by the Bansky artwork I managed to hunt down alongside other equally impressive graffiti.