new friends, TEA FRIENDS!

New uni, new friends! We had tea at my house yesterday, it was really fun.

About me

So here are some facts about me...It is just cardboard cutouts of me showing you a few fairly mundane facts about myself. I guess I just wanted to emphasise the facts in a big (comparative to me), and fun way.

I have a twin. His name is Ollie. The photo in the photo is our first day of school and was taken where this photo was 15 odd years ago...

I love bananas..

I like to write lists.

I have always wanted to be a Blue Peter Presenter, I used to collect the annuals like this one.

I live in a pretty village in Hampshire, here is my garden.

One of my favourite films is Shrek, the other is Notting Hill.

I love miniature, if you hadn't guessed..

I really like yoga. I'm pretty rubbish but I like to do this yoga for beginners video on youtube with Esther Ecartes. She's fab.

I cycled around the Isle of Wight this summer.

Where do I have ideas?

Whilst browsing the internet
  When I'm at an exhibition
    When I am about to fall asleep
      Whist walking my dog
        When talking to my friends or my mum
          When cleaning and clearing
            When talking about life, the world and stuff
              When biting my nails
                When wandering aimlessly past shop windows.
                  When I start daydreaming at my desk.
                    When making a cup of tea
                      When I've written lots of ramble around the subject.

I'll add some more when I think of some more ideas of where I have ideas....

Ingleby Gallery

I managed to catch up with two of my favourite fine artists at the Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh at the beginning of September. 

Susan Collis likes to challenge our perception of dirt, makes you think about the shapes and context we associate with it. I became interested in her work when I did a project on taboo. When I walked past her jewel encrusted broom in the Dirt exhibition in the Welcome Collection earlier this year, I huess I subconsciously thought it had been left there by mistake. Even on second approach I thought the speckles were dirt, not pearls. At the Ingleby Gallery she did a similar piece of pearl speckles on the floor like a paint splatter. 

And she did this. Our immediate reaction is that this is a delicate ornament on this pile of paper but on closer inspection we realise the gold is no more expensive or precious, it is also just paper. She cleverly  highlights our preconceptions of this context.

Katie Patterson is also an artist I greatly admire because does a lot of clever information display, mostly about the universe. She made a confetti canon in which every piece of confetti colour matched the brightest explosions in the universe. She created a record that rotates in synchronisation with the earth playing vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Her piece in the Ingleby gallery is this, a set of 289 lightbulbs with halogen filament, 28W,4500K. Each set contained a sufficient amount of moonlight to last a person a lifetime...

hehehehe

Brilliant typography. It's ascetically pleasing, well crafted and has a life of its own; together and the letters separately. Thank you Toby and Pete from Australia, curtesy of BOOOOOM.

Eighthourday blog

http://eighthourday.com/blog/

Here is a great blog. I became interested in it because I found the website of it's creators that described their year long journey in search of inspiration. (What a cool idea.) Anyway their blog is full of really fun stuff like this by Sara Seal. Because the lettering and design feels like a child's hand, it makes my guilty conscience about book reading even greater.

I agree Sara Seal. I agree...

what is Stefanie Posavec up to?

Stefanie Posavac produced my favourite piece of design this year. It was Literary organism at the Pick Me up Graphic Art Fair at Somerset House last March. I think her work is so interesting and so beautiful. I must have been gazing at her work for hours at the exhibition!

This image does not do it justice but basically it is a visual representation of part one of 'On the road'. The simple tree structure splits up the book into chapters, then paragraphs, then sentences, then words.

Check out a better image on her website-

http://www.itsbeenreal.co.uk/index.php?/wwwords/literary-organism/

To my excitement, she has just done some design for Stephen Fry's new iphone app on his autobiography. The App functions as a 'visual index' of key theme tags within the book, all divided into four major groups. You can scroll through the book in themes on a wheel of spines, each spine representing a section of text.

Whilst creating this post I came across this brilliant website of infographics. Each one incredibly interesting and humorously analysed by it's editor Cliff Kuang.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/tag/infographic?page=1

Here is one that might well change my world as someone getting to grips with typography...

Amsterdam zine

Me and my friend Maya went on the mini-break of a lifetime to Amsterdam this summer, we biked, we shopped, we partied, we museum-ed, we paddle-boated and we ate. I came back with a load of stuff like photos, notes drawings, postcards and leaflets so I decided to put it all together into a zine. It's rather rough and ready, I used only the printer copying everything straight onto paper, rather than scanning onto photoshop and placing them on there. However for my first zine, it's a satisfying outcome, just for my own memories sake. The cover is the cardboard that my many photos of the few days were sent in. 

...

An obvious, therefore brilliant piece of typography, by Vikor Herz. One of those, 'how did I not think of that?' ones.

I have a love-hate relationship with facebook, mostly hate actually. I won't start ranting...

Colour me Happy by Group 13

I was suddenly reminded of a show I saw at Edinburgh Fringe the other day when I was clearing out my desk drawers. I found objects I haven't seen for ten years- finger puppets, a book of upside-down faces,  a colourful sleepover invitation from an old friend...nostalgia hit me very hard.

I nearly cried in this show, Colour me happy, as it too, appealed to the childhoods of girls of my age group in an incredibly surreal and beautiful way. From the moment The Spicegirls was played on a tape-player on stage, a whirlwind of memory rocked all my senses. For an hour, three girls played on stage in an experimental theatre production using bubble-wrap, a blue puffa jacket, blow up chairs, The Spicegirls, dressing up, jelly shoes, diaries, whiteboards, crayons, and even the shoe box underwater set everyone made at primary school. They might as well have raided my attic, they even had the same duvet cover I used to!

I think the show was so successful not only because of the genuine old school props, but the incredibly creative way they used them all; dancing, acting, exploring, miming, imagining, and puppetry. And because it was so relatable, the audience was absolutely sharing their journey of discovery back into our childhoods. And although they were just moving from one memory to another with no breaks and no going off stage, they kept the show rooted by repeating one scene. They would turn a giant board around that revealed The Spicegirls but fill the face spaces with their own and mime an interview.

They were group 13. Here is their website and the image on their flyer, which I also love. Their facebook group is also worth a look because they have some great videos of experimentation to create the show.

I'll be watching their movements carefully...

http://www.group-13.co.uk/home.html

My love for Sian Bonnell

In conjunction with the creation of this blog, i've been asked to talk a little about a photographer I really admire and show a photo of theirs I most relate to.  I have always been a huge fan of Sian Bonnell because she spurred my first interest in photography at school and uncovered the trail of thought that marked the work I did from then on. Here began my interest in object and context and how we could feel about things when they are put out of context and how different their story and purpose can be. I especially like working with food because it has such a big soul purpose that when put anywhere out of context, it is interesting and somehow relatable. Bonnells' work is so inspiring for me because of the many creative methods she uses to make the objects in her photos alien to their original purpose; depth of field and a low perspective I love most of all.

This photograph here is...In fact...A Jelly Mould! How beautiful.

Thanks Scott

I love this blog linked below. Me and Scott appear to have a lot in common. From bicycles to William Eggleston. This is the first blog I have found where I find all of the posts and comments really fascinating and up my street!

http://blog.iso50.com/author/admin/

John Hegarty

John Hegarty. Legendary creative and co-founder of global ad agency BBH. I am so totally in awe of this man and I want to be a creative director in his company in ten years time.
I became interested in him because I was lucky enough to get some work experience with BBH this summer. I read his book and went to his talk at the V&A before then. His emphasis on the ideas being the "most incredible thing we possess" is inspiring. I especially love the quote in his book "process is trying to make order out of chaos. Creativity is trying to make chaos to create order." Yes, he paints advertising in this very overly glamorous light, showing up creatives as being the maverick geniuses of society but I can't help but be taken in by it. I also keep finding out that most of my favourite ad campaigns are in fact BBHs'.

Here is their very first ad campaign for Levi's that brought Levi out of a very desperate low of their brand into renound global success. It was an add run in desperation by them despite their horror that it didn't even show Levi jeans in the image. I think this pretty much sums up the ground-breaking nature of BBH.

This is one their latest campaigns that I love. I also think the campaign itself is a fantastic one. The link to this the video and facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=108620322565194

John Hegarty passed me in the corridoor of BBH. He smiled and I blushed, looking down as my cheeks flushed a crimson red, I went weak at the knees and my heart started beating manically. Talk about a respect crush.

On the subject of blogs...

Woweeeee, just found the most beautiful blog I have ever come across to date....just simple sets of beautifully photographed artwork, no massive amounts of boring chat, just a simple tagline at the top to make you think and some links to get you addicted at the bottom.

Look at these, I won't put up pics on my blog because I want you to see them all together...

http://www.butdoesitfloat.com/7605/In-the-end-however-all-roads-lead-to-the-same-destination-pretty

Moustaches make a difference

http://ffffound.com/image/b1e9b9ceba62fae61d8d2d67e9c46dfbcc188c6e

I found these images on fffound.com a great website for sharing images of any kind. I love it because it covers such a huge range from graphic novels to bike design to posters like these and you often find links to brilliant blogs. 
How clever and funny are these? Simple and effective. On the face of it they display an interesting point about moustaches, but I can't help but feel like I feel enlightened by each  discovery of a man without a moustache only because it has been dictated to me...


Interestingly these images are infact an ad campaign by TBWA Singapore: "The whiskers make the difference." An initiative to show its support for research against prostate cancer. Many examples in the sequel to Super Mario, Einsteinor Gandhi.

David Mach: Precious Light

Whilst in Edinburgh, I went to the David Mach exhibition at the City Art Centre. To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, David Mach has created tons of collages that convey stories in the bible. It was absolutely mind blowing. The craft of these vast pictures, put together with painstaking detail. It was interesting to realise that this exhibitions was an amalgamation of so many real life people and situations, many violent and full of horror, but brought together in very fantastical images. David Mach is not a religious man himself but concluded that they do indeed represent mankind.

A piece that interested me most was a triptych consisting of a central collage flanked by two photographs of eyes, the left young and right, old. The impression you get from the middle collage is that it is heaven and hell, top and bottom. Within the eyes are two different sections of the central collage, but which, by themselves could be heaven or hell. For me, it raised interesting questions on attitude, mindset and opinion, perceptions of good and bad, right and wrong.

Also on one floor of the exhibition, you could watch the artist and his team make the final collage of the exhibition, there were stacks of boxes at the back of the room each labelled with a genre of photograph like cars or houses. Having done a lot of collage work in the past, this was a fascinating and brilliant exhibition to go to.

Here are my favourite pieces from google, I was sad I couldn't take photographs but like most things, you have to see the real thing to appreciate the incredible scale and detail of these creations!

Friday Late

I received the V&As' catalogue of events this morning in the post. Firstly, what a great lot of stuff going on this season! The large amount of Postmodernist talks and workshops greatly excited me, a free puppetry making weekend, a talk on all design of the 1980s and the cheeky How to wear Perfume event in December. Anyway, on the back was an advert for Friday Late, the weekly event at the museum of live music and DJ sets. I just loved the typography for it. Lovely lovely.

Mirazozo

Amongst the noise and buzz of festival gardens at Edinburgh Fringe Festival's Assembly gardens stood a huge tacky looking, plastic blow up structure. It looked strange and it was called Mirazozo. I went inside and it felt like I was going into a cathedral because of the immediate calm and tranquility that I experienced, life was put on hold outside as I entered. The architecture inside also reminded me of romanesque cathedral because of the high rising sections and pockets like apses. I was in a beautifully colourful temporary structure that relied only on natural light to create this extraordinary environment. The walls felt delicate as you lay on their curves but inside you felt safe, it reminded my friends and I of being inside the body, perhaps the womb.

Here is the architect talking about the structure.

The perfect book.

I'm not an impulse buyer, rather the most annoying, dithery shopper known to man. Until I found this book at city art centre in Edinburgh, also newly released in Magma books. It amalgamates my greatest obsession. Miniature. I love miniature, drawn to it like a moth to a flame, every time I come across it my heart jumps. Imagine what it was like when I saw this book- Microworlds by Marc Valli and Margherita Dessanay....A collection of works by artists working with miniature.


http://www.magmabooks.com/content/bookshop/book.asp?disp=0&id=7460&page=1&c=ART&sc=0


Here are a few pictures of me and my book...enjoying it and playing with scale a little.

7 day drunk

I have just returned from a glorious month spent working at Edinburgh Fringe festival. I watched over 40 shows and one I came across was one called 7 day drunk. I loved it and hated it. Artist Bryony Kimmings stayed drunk for seven days as an experiment to judge the quality of her work during this time. The one women show is performed sober but she performs some of the creations resultant of her experiment as well as video footage. When i heard about it I thought- what a fantastic concept, she must be mad! She was mad, in a inspiring, loving, 'doesn't care' kind of way, but I was disappointed. I couldn't gage any progress or story during the experiment, no analysis or conclusions of her condition from the many experts that were present. Also with such a subjective thing as art, how can anyone conclude if her work got better during the week as she became depressed with drink?
However I am rather in awe of her imagination, the show was full of very weird and wonderful things and I love these photographs of her I found on her website.

http://www.bryonykimmings.com/photos.html

creative philanthrophy

I came across this website which I think is just genius. Creative genius for creative people. Creative philanthropy began when a girl who remains anonymous was given lots of money. Being of a generous nature she spent it on her friends, but found this unsatisfactory, so gave her friends each $100 to give away in a creative manner. This they did on the condition that they all met up a year later and share their creative stories. They did. And they gave money to their friends, and it begun, a huge network of people are giving money away in $100 in creative ways all over the USA. How beautiful?!

http://www.creativephilanthropy.org/

Now this is all very well but and I would love to participate, but it is not exactly appealing to poor students such as myself.

My idea-with £50 of my own money, I want to ask all of my friends to offer an creative giving idea for a small fee say....£5. A meeting is held to chat about all the ideas submitted and vote for the best one. Whoever wins will get the £50 to use as they suggested. The total amount of money made by ideas submitted would be the next amount used to creatively give away and boom! The ball is rolling...

so..this is me.

As requested, here is a portrait of me. I chose this film a) because it is absolutely me. Me being me, reacting to a camera filming me whilst on a work break and b) because my very wise friend Richard said that if you know me, you'll get it.