rachelsays...

The end is nigh: Time to move people...

2010-07-25T11:32:00.000+01:00

And so, after just over 3 years, university, life dramas, and all manner of things, this blog comes to an end. Ahhh.

'Oh em gee!' I hear you cry. 'What will I do without it?'

Well don't worry. It's only moving :)

As I have mentioned a few times before, I have moved this blog over to my website, so my blog and portfolio can sit side by side like the good friends they are. If you're reading this in an RSS feed, that means you were nice enough to subscribe the first time round. And so I thank you, and hope you have enough energy in you to subscribe to my new blog address, simply by clicking here.

If you still like to hear about my illustration adventures, thoughts on advertising, design, fashion, culture, music and other bits, then please do subscribe again; I really love having you around. If you don't care anymore then... well. See you around.

Don't forget I'm also on twitter @rachillustrates.

That's all folks! *violins, exit music, woman with handkerchief*

ActionAid targets ASDA in secret message campaign

2010-07-21T22:03:00.001+01:00

Just spotted this via @ActionaidUK's twitter feed and I love the concept. Guerilla marketing/advertising + charity campaigning = thumbs up in my book. If you follow Actionaid's campaigns and efforts then you'll know they're waging a bit of a war on Asda at the moment because of their alleged pay level for their foreign workers who make their clothing for George. "If ASDA paid just an extra 2p on a £4 t-shirt, it could mean the difference between poverty and a decent standard of living for the people who make clothes for ASDA George in India."

NOTICE: I have now moved this blog over to my website www.rachelsayshello.com so this blog is now obsolete - click here to subscribe to my new blog and continue to get my amazing updates! You know you want to. It's way better. This post can be found here.

Sounds pretty fair to me. The rise of cut price, bargain-tastic, too cheap to be true clothing in the last few years has summoned a kind of collective joy and simultaneous guilt in Britain. Think Primark, supermarket fashion - a dress for £9? Why the hell would you shop anywhere else? If you don't mind the quality and throw your clothes out every year, then it's amazing. But everyone who shops there (I hope anyway...) surely has that voice in the back of their head whispering 'cheap labour...' when they make their purchases. I certainly do. I use to shop ALL the time in George at Asda at uni, seeing as our halls were practically in the carpark and you couldn't beat it for student budget, but you do worry where exactly your money goes, or rather, how far it can stretch. That £4 t-shirt, after you've taken into account raw materials, distribution costs, any kind of profit, what are you left with for the people who actually make it? Not a lot it would seem, if 2p is the difference between poverty and stability. I wouldn't mind paying an extra 2p. Hell, I wouldn't mind paying an extra £2. I avoid Primark, George, etc etc whenever I can but I admit I still buy from there. If there was a guarantee the workers got paid enough to live on then I wouldn't feel so bad. Also when I get start getting paid more, i'll be able to afford to NOT shop in horrible, mass produced shops like that.

So ActionAid have summoned up this campaign and I wholeheartedly support it. Here's what they're doing to raise awareness:

"Campaigners from the charity ActionAid are slipping a secret message into thousands of items of clothing at ASDA stores around the country to highlight the company’s lamentable record on paying poverty wages to factory workers in developing countries.
The secret messages will be placed in clothes’ pockets and any customer who finds them will automatically receive an ActionAid t-shirt and entry into a prize draw to win fair trade food and clothing. They’ll also be invited to send a message to the head of ASDA to demand an improvement in workers' pay." Read more about ActionAid target Asda here.
Simple, brilliant. And I bet you it works. There's nothing better than putting on a jacket you haven't worn for months and finding a tenner in the pocket. This works on that ethos; consumers love finding stuff that seems like it's meant just for them, and also free. What's great is that they've thought this through; "The ActionAid secret messages are made from the same material as clothing labels, so they won’t run or damage clothes if the shopper doesn’t find the label and puts it through the wash." Aha. And I imagine they're not doing anything technically wrong that Asda could sue them for or whatever; so long as they don't ruin the garments, encourage theft, or spread lies about the brand (these seem pretty accurate to me) then I can't see any legal problems, really. I doubt Asda will be happy though! They'll probably get their minions/goblins* to ransack the pockets every morning. (*We used to call the Asda night shift workers such names as this as it always seemed a bit Harry-Potter esque when they'd quietly fill the shelves up at 3am, glaring at you. Usually because you were drunk and trying to figure out if cheesecake is a good idea after Oceana. Respect to the night shift workers. They must have hated us.)

An example of the label you'll find in the clothing.

"The campaign, which started 16th July, will take place in ASDA shops in most major cities including London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. Campaigners will keep on placing the secret messages at ASDA stores every month until the company agrees to pay more to garment workers."

I'm going to go to the North Acton branch of Asda tomorrow lunch and see if they've hit that one. They should do, it's huuuuge. Well, good luck to them. I'll be boycotting George until things change.

I did an illustration for ActionAid about a year ago, click here to check it out, and what it was for.

The big website switch!

2010-07-18T16:38:00.000+01:00

Wow. So, I’ve done it! Sort of. Things are in the mid-way between being terrible and being better. Remember I posted about wanting to switch my website and blog over to one place? Well here it is. It’s using a basic template at the moment; I will eventually make a custom one and it’ll be all spangly.
Things left to do are:

Try and reformat the fonts used; not loving these sans serif things. And also get rid of the black on the header! Ew.
Upload my entire portfolio. This will take a while. I’m trying to grapple with plugins etc to make it work.
Contact page, twitter plugins, all the rest. RSS feed. Automatic post to fb and twitter. Etc etc.

But I actually managed to make it work :D Yay me!

Until it's in its presentable state, I'll dual-post over here and over there. Eventually I'll let this blog die. Or do some kind of redirect thing. When I've figured out how to do RSS feeds for it over there I'll keep reminding you daily to resubscribe. But for the mean time, just sit back and watch it ~~fail~~ rise from the ashes.

So once it's presentable, I'll do a nice redesign, get my awesome tech friend to code it up, then I shall surely have a site worthy of awesome-ness.

Stay tuned! I need one of those 'men at work' signs. Hang on.

Audi AreA1 at Leicester Square: Thoughts

2010-07-15T18:13:00.001+01:00

I saw this is the paper yesterday, intrigued me. Audi are showing off their new A1 range using a concept called 'AreA1', which will play host to all those who want to see the A1 and get close to the newest addition to the Audi range.

So far, so boring. I do like cars, me, but I've never really put Audi with excitement. Especially in my age group. Hence why they've come up with this idea. I'd imagine the conversation went like this:

"Hey, we really need to reach out to the arty, trendy, youth crowd, with our amazing and reasonably priced new A1 Audi"

"I've heard of art."

"I've heard of an artist. Let's get Damien Hirst to do a custom car. He is so underground."

"I concur."

And so they did just that. Audi have teamed up with Damien Hirst to produce a one-off painted car, which will be on display in "the heart of London’s bustling West End [sic] Leicester Square, and from the 14th to the 18th of July this iconic destination will have an iconic addition in its midsts – the new Audi A1."

Sounds interesting, they describe the process as "Using Hurst’s ‘spin painting’ technique each body panel was painstakingly removed from the car and placed on a spinning turntable where Hurst dripped brightly coloured paint from above. The body panels were then re-fitted to create a totally unique, road legal work of art."

Painstakingly removed? Don't they just have robots to do that? Hmmm.

My qualm isn't with the idea; it's fairly interesting to have an artist paint a car and have it on show in central London, even if it's been done before in various incarnations. Apparently it's recently been auctioned; one would assume/hope for charity but it doesn't mention which? I do however, think Audi have missed a trick here: Damien Hirst doesn't really need the publicity, it would have been so much nicer for an up and coming artist to have done this. That way it's a 2 way thing; Audi get their 'cool/trendy' publicity about their expensive car (I'm just jealous because I drive a Fiat 500) and the new artist gets lots of exposure. Damien Hirst is extremely obvious. Hey ho.

Having said this, the actual car looks good. Dripping paint is always a winner. The roof is where you can really see the spun paint - quite pretty really. And at least Audi are trying something new and engaging people in a way that isn't a well airbrushed tv advert - not many car companies step out into the ambient marketing area. And I shouldn't really pass judgement until I visit this strange 'AreA1' (which keeps reminding me of Area 51...heh...)

I guess I'm just cynical about big corporations trying to maximise publicity with crazy art/culture experiments. It's just too transparent to me.

AreA1 is on until sunday so if you want to check it out in person, why not? I probably won't make it down; can't afford to come into London this weekend. If you like Audis, and you like Damien Hirst, well then, that's pretty amazing. Go go go.

Screw you, New Busy. I'm just tired.

2010-07-14T12:51:00.002+01:00

I haven't blogged in weeks - this is very bad. It's not for lack of content - I've got 8 draft posts that are half finished! The past few weeks have been so busy and I just have not had time. That's bad I know. Lots of good things have been happening though, as well as work being ridiculously busy at the moment, and swanning off to various places every weekend for various things. That doesn't help. But hey, I like to have weekends!

Anyway, I was talking recently about how I want to move this blog over to my own domain name, and I've pretty much decided that I will do this. Hopefully this weekend if I get time. So even though I didn't mean to not post, maybe it's a good idea not to... then just wait until I move over and start again. I don't really know.

How do you people with full time jobs manage to also blog a lot too?? It baffles me. I think it's my commute though- if I lived in London I'd be home by 6.30 and maybe then I'd have the energy to write. At the moment all I want to do is eat and sleep.

I've also been ill for about a week and a half now and it seems to be getting worse :S right now I have no voice! Very annoying. But I read this post today by Ben Terrett over at Noisy Decent Graphics about 'Being Busy' (have been following the blog for years... you should too) and it's timing is very well placed.

Read the full post but it's summed up in 5 points:
1. Work when you work best
2. Healthy body, healthy mind
3. Don't do everything on your to do list
4. Ask for help
5. Little and often

It's extremely good advice and I really recommend you go and read it. I need to take heed. We covered all this stuff, and more, in the CSM Immersion course I attended, but it's so easy to slip back into 'crazy mode'.

I think the answer is a good ol' break; even though right now that's impossible. This weekend I plan to do nothing social at all (except when it precedes the word media) and sort out my illustration life; that is, email people, so some actual work, sort out my website, you know. I will feel a lot better when that side of me is organised. I struggle with this constant feel of unease when that side of me (illustration) isn't as organised and clear as I would like - afterall, my goal is to be freelance, yet I'm putting most of my energy into my current job. Which is fine. I have a career to forge after all, and I quite enjoy graphic design/having a 9 to 5, but I wish I could have more time on the stuff that I'm really passionate about. Sigh. All in good time and such.

Anyway, the title of this post of course refers to Hotmail's New Busy campaign. I blame this 'new busy' way of thinking for pushing most of us creative types to some kind of melt down. We are made to feel that we should always be on to the next big thing, finding out new stuff, being here, being there, being awesome. I can be pretty good at that, but not all the damn time. Sometimes I need a sofa day watching Twilight (of course), without the nagging guilt of 'you should be blogging/drawing/updating portfolio/networking/running around in circles'.

Well, I'm trying new busy, and although I'm having a great time, I'm so tired. And I'm neglecting important things that need to be done. So I'm going anti new busy for a while. Hotmail? More like Hotfail. Pass the duvet.

New Work! Recipe Illustrations for Cleo Magazine Australia

2010-06-21T15:13:00.000+01:00

This is awesomely exciting: I was contacted recently by the lovely people at Cleo Magazine, in Australia, who really like my recipe illustrations and wanted me to produce some more for a feature in the September issue! Amazing!

So I allowed them to reproduce two of my old ones, and did two new ones for them as well, which I want to post up here:

This recipe is one from my mum - she always makes this at BBQs and get-togethers etc and it's so amazing (as the title suggests), and pretty easy too. The feta and the capers make it stand out against shop-bought couscous, it's perfect for summer days!

I've made this a few times and it is easy - the ready made cake mix is a bit of a cheat so sometimes I do make it from scratch. Using the orange juice instead of water is genius and they taste amazing - especially the next day when the orange zest has had time to sink into the icing and give it flavour.
Nom nom nom.

So these illustrations will be in the September issue of Cleo, out in August. If (like me) you don't live in Australia then you won't be able to get your hands on a copy, but I have some friends in Oz who hopefully can send me it!

This is the first time my work has been published onto actual physical paper so I'm really happy. It's just on an exposure basis but who knows what could come from this? Good times! Thanks Australia, very random but cool!

Rachel's Big Website/Wordpress Debate: To switch or not to switch?

2010-06-20T20:27:00.002+01:00

This is going to a long-ish post so I apologise. It's one of my rare 'thoughts spilling out' posts but I'll try to keep it interesting. If you'd rather have pretty pictures then.... come back tomorrow.

I recently started subscribing to David Airey's brilliant blog and came across this article: Seven blog mistakes to avoid. I thoroughly recommend you go and read it (the whole blog, if you have hours to spare, or just that article) because it's great. And so useful if you write your own blog. It's started me thinking about this blog, and my website too, and now I have a big conundrum that I need your input on.

His first mistake in the article is 'not using a self-hosted blog.' Oops. I fail at the first hurdle. I've known for a while the benefits of hosting your own blog (you will actually own your content) and yet I still use blogger. Ol, faithful, annoying, uninspiring blogger. Why? Because it's safe. It works. And I'm terrified of moving! I wish I had started using wordpress, but I started this blog in 2007 and it was meant to just be a 'this is my work' blog. Obviously, it's a whole lot more now.

I own my own website - www.rachelsayshello.com and yet most of my hits come to this blog, not my website. Here are the pitiful stats: my website (which is basically just a static portfolio which gets updated say, once a month) gets about 6 hits a day, this blog gets about 40. Sometimes a lot more. Basically though, both are really bad. You do the maths! Surely it makes way more sense to host my blog on the same domain as my portfolio? My blog will do the work, being constantly updated with fresh content, and my portfolio will benefit from all the added exposure. At the moment, you have to click on a button over there ----> which takes you to my website; which at the moment is an external link. I've tried to link the two a bit more (the title of this blog is now rachelsays...) but this blog is still hosted at www.rachellewisillustration.blogspot.com, which is a mouthful and nothing to do with my website. And I'm paying for my spangly domain name. Why not use it as much as I can?

Mistake #4 from David Airey's post sums this up quite well: "When I launched my first website about two years ago, I wanted my portfolio to be its primary purpose, and the blog a secondary aspect. Then last year I discovered blogs. It didn’t take long to realise the number of clients I could attract first through my blog content, and then directing them to my portfolio. It’s generally the content I publish that attracts visitors, rather than the work in my graphic design portfolio."

Which is exactly what I should be doing. I write about good stuff. I'm pretty cool, people subscribe to what I say here, they're vaguely interested in my point of view. So I'm missing a huge opportunity in that my work is not easily accessible right from here. And that also, this is clearly a blogger template. E v e r y o n e uses this one because it's the least offensive. But it doesn't stand out! I'm a pretty unique girl, and this blog says 'hey, I use blogspot, cos I don't know nuffin about the mintynet' which isn't true.

So... the obvious answer here, is switch to wordpress (and I mean .org, not .com... download the template and install it in the root directory of my site). Move the whole shabang over to rachelsayshello.com, start again. Stop using indexhibit (it's great, but quite restrictive) and get a custom/nicer wordpress template over there. Make the blog content the primary landing page, and then all my portfolio work as a secondary, but still lovingly presented and relevant.

Sounds great! Except.....

1) I would lose all my SEO and links and everything. I would probably still keep this blog running but everything would die. I'd probably have to rebuild my subscribers again and I'd really miss you all if you didn't follow me over.
2) I know a teeny bit of html but no way could I deal with a custom wordpress thing, with code and all that. I could install it in my root directory, I'd get that far, then I'd have no idea.
3) This all sounds like it's going to take more than a sunday afternoon. I work full time. Help will be needed, help which I can't afford.
4) I'm scared of messing with things in case it all goes tits up.

So, I don't really know. I want to change things up, but I just really don't know where to start. There's a few peeps on my twittersphere who could probably give me advice but generally, I'd have to muddle my own way through. Argh. All I know is that the way things are is not really helping: I'm paying for a domain name which is getting less hits than my free blogspot page. And blogspot isn't really that cool.

Incidentally, my website is down right now and I have no idea why. Which is slightly worrying. I'm sure it's probably just godaddy being weird and it'll be back soon, but I don't like it. Make it come back!

What do you think, minions? Is it worth the hassle, to switch and be all spangly under one domain name, or just stick how I am and be all amateurish but safe. Your insights are very much welcomed, I am trés confused.

Turning Leaf and Basso & Brooke launch at the Shop at Bluebird

2010-06-20T19:03:00.001+01:00

Last Tuesday I was invited to the private launch of the new Turning Leaf/Basso & Brooke collaboration of limited edition designed Wine Bottles and Interior Homeware. You might remember a little while ago I wrote about the collaboration here, and so I was really glad to have the opportunity to see the collection for myself. It really is amazing:

Basso & Brooke are well known for their amazing prints and fashion designs, and seeing their eye-poppingly colourful style (with the Turning Leaf logo/illustration and colour palette cleverly intertwined) on throws, cushions, tables, lamps... pretty stunning. I would kill to have any one of those items in my house - certainly a statement piece if ever I saw one! They are all available to buy apparently (huzzah!) but I overheard a woman saying that prices were around £9000.... so....yeah, that's more than half my yearly salary. I don't think so. In my dreams!

And so the evening was rather in that vein for me unfortunately; everything was in my dreams and out of my price range! The Shop at Bluebird is beautiful and full of amazing designer clothes (all in size 6 from what I could see...) but not one single thing in there could I afford. Boohoo. Except perhaps some of the art books lovingly displayed on the tables. While I wandered through the room with my (free, yay) glass of Turning Leaf Pinot Noir staring longingly at the goods on display, I realised slowly that I was in the world of Prada, but wearing Primark. To be fair though, the evening wasn't really centered around actually buying anything (thank god), just admiring the collaboration and chatting with cool people. It was a shame because my friend got food poisoning and had to pull out, so I'm sure I would have stayed a bit longer if I wasn't there on my own, but I just felt a bit strange amongst it all. We would probably have stood there pretending to be dotcom millionaires and loved being in that kind of atmosphere, soaking up all the designer-goodness aura. But alas. I just wanted to stare at the pretty Basso & Brooke collection all night and if I did that, I'd have looked weird.

The beautiful people. If you look closely you can see ether Basso or Brooke (I don't know which is which... that's terrible of me, I do apologise) admiring their handiwork.

And here they are with their lovely wine bottles. Suffice to say, I did not take this picture. I did see them milling around but was way too scared to actually say anything. I would probably just have said 'omg, you're like, so amazing, eeee' and ran away so it's probably a good thing I didn't.

It was really lovely to be invited (thanks Turning Leaf!) and was great seeing the collaboration firsthand. You just can't imagine the level of detail in the artwork... stunning.

Basso & Brooke and Turning Leaf Interiors Collection available from 15th June at The Shop at Bluebird for June, July and August. They are running the Turning Leaf complimentary bar, every Thursday and Friday 5 - 7pm, from June 17th until 30th July (my birthday... maybe I'll go back!) at The Shop at Bluebird. Check it out if you're ever near Kings Road, it's worth a gander.

Trend Watching: Animal Shape Clutch Bags

2010-06-18T11:08:00.000+01:00

I've come across an interesting trend recently: Animal shape clutch bags! I know, amazing right? Firstly, I saw this post on Krisatomic's blog called Clutch Menagerie and just love love them. Check it out:

They are by Tsurubride on Etsy and retail at $80. Check out Tsurubride's Orwell Clutch bags on Etsy here. She also does purses and other such wonderments.

Then yesterday I came across this amazing Dachsund Handbag via ArtatHeart:

Seriously cute. Click here for the original article about the Dachsund Handbag on ArtatHeart. It's made by Beetrootonline and is £85 - they also do a cute little birdy purse! Ah.

So what's sparked all this animal clutch-ness off then? Maybe it's that people are realising putting actual real dogs in your handbag is silly. And you get hairs all over your stuff. So a better option is to have your bag AS a dog. Excellent.

Or maybe it's this: These definitely wouldn't work as well if they had handles or straps. I think what makes these great is they could be mistaken for just holding a little stuffed animal. Which comes from the whole 'back to your childhood' trend going on right now. I am in favour of this.

The Domestic Sluts have just drawn my attention to this uh-mazing handbag:

Which, as they say in their Domestic Sluttery Bag Lust post, maybe only a child could pull off. Nay, I say to that, I would gladly pull this off and look crazy cool. If a little Gaga-esque. Which is never a bad thing in my books. Being a child has never looked so fun!

It's £65 from Lunacy Boutique and can be pre-ordered now for the end of June. I wannnnt one. *stamps feet*

Get on the wire and get your orders in! Aha. See what I did there.

Exciting Happenings: My work featured on CourtesyoftheApocalypse Blog!

2010-06-17T16:39:00.002+01:00

I'm having lots of exciting happenings recently. The lovely Laura aka JoiePR on twitter has just started the great Courtesy of the Apocalypse blog (sounds ominous... it's not! Just full of unsigned bands ~ music & reviews ~ independent businesses/shops ~ art & street art ~ alternative style ~ burlesque and other such awesomeness) and was kind enough to feature my work! :D

RachelSaysHello on Courtesy of the Apocalypse

"Rachel Lewis’s illustration and graphic design work is so imaginative and playful, it is guaranteed to rock your ankle socks. The use of hand drawn image and text within her work is beautifully unique, and the lady herself says that she is inspired by “culture, fashion, new media, music and the future.” Bedfordshire-based Rachel is also available to do custom work via her website http://www.rachelsayshello.com."

Well that's nice ^.^

I'm going to do a mammoth blog update/posting-stylee this weekend. I have SO many things to talk about and just NO time. How do other people with full time jobs manage to keep their blogs updated so frequently??

I guess they don't spend 4 hours on trains every day. Humph.

New music: Interpol - Self titled

2010-06-08T21:42:00.002+01:00

"The month of September; summer ends, classes begin. The coming of a new season is in the air as autumn approaches. A time of year when the natural world slips into a slumber, and Interpol releases it's fourth studio recording. The self titled, self produced, long-player will be available world wide in mid September."

You don't know how long I've been waiting to read that! Interpol are one of (if not actual... tough call with MCR though) my favourite bands and I've been scouring the interweb for news in the past 6 months or so. Note to Interpol: you're really hard to search for when you share the name of a world-wide police organisation. Or maybe you meant that. You clever weird bastards.

So you can download their new song, for free from www.interpolnyc.com - it's called Lights and it really doesn't disappoint. Insanely melodramatic and melancholy lyrics in Paul Banks' gloriously baritone voice, with a guitar line that builds throughout the song to finally break the tension. That's what's so good about Interpol, that amazing ability to create tension within the songs; sometimes it breaks, sometimes it doesn't. What draws me, unquestionably, are the lyrics though. Beautiful in their ambiguity yet so accurate in their empathy, I literally can never get bored of deciphering them and extracting new meaning and relevances in my life. Because let's face it, that's what makes great lyrics; finding the representation of yourself in there. Plus I'm a massive emo, inside. And a little bit outside too.

Rumours are that the Interpol LP (eponymous, always a sign of getting back to your roots) is a return to 2002's Turn on the Bright Lights; which most fans seem to be pleased with. I'm not too bothered really; I love all the albums, although I actually prefer Our Love to Admire; mainly because of the edge of darkness in the song's themes and lyrics; it felt like an album of anger, of betrayal, of utter resignation to how things are. But then Bright Lights has of course the epic NYC and The New, two of my favourite songs. Basically; I'm happy either way. Give me a smattering of lyrics like 'I've had seven faces, thought I knew which one to wear; I'm sick of spending these lonely nights, training myself not to care...' and I'm off in my melancholic glee.
They're touring the UK in Nov/Dec and I'm going to see them on 6th December at Brixton. That's 6 months away. Sigh. They're one of the only bands in my music collection that I haven't seen live and I'm trés excited. I think tickets are still available.

So we'll have to wait until September for new Interpol, until then, I don't think I'll grow tired of their back catalogue. So good.

Coveting: Hybrid love-child trainers AKA Topshop's Triple Cut Out Peep Toes

2010-06-08T20:40:00.000+01:00

Not quite sandals, not quite canvas pumps... these seem to be the strange twisted love child of both of them. Maybe they had an illicit affair and these were the result.

I love them. And at £20, I'm pretty sure my budget can stretch to that. Check them out on Topshop online here - they also do black but I much prefer white. I'd quite like to get the ol' markers out as well and do a bit of colouring in on them as well actually.

I imagine they're great as transitional shoes (which I'm needing today - massive rain storms then bright sunshine? An outfit's worst nightmare!) because I live in flip flops most of the summer but sometimes need something a bit more sturdy. Like yesterday, I slipped down a couple of stairs in my shiny flipflops. Never good.

I'm going into the West End on thursday after work I think, so I'll hunt them down then. I hope they don't sell out (they are rather cheap...) and size 5 is pretty much the most common size! Damn me for having mainstream feet. I'm sure they have lots though.

Sorry for the lack of insightful, thought-provoking and riveting posts recently; I've discovered continuous blogging and a full time job don't mix. Not like Sandals and converse, oh no.

Harvey Nichols window in The Mailbox, Birmingham

2010-06-01T22:00:00.000+01:00

On saturday I took the train back up to ye olde Midlands (as is customary for me) for a friend's birthday. It was at The Mailbox in Birmingham, which for those who have never been, is very nice. High end shops, with restaurants and bars. You are led there from New Street by abstract lines in the floor:

Which join from sporadically-placed lamposts. Honestly. It's pretty weird, but nice, you definititely don't get lost!

It's also very pretty, especially later on in the dark; this is the walkway up to The Mailbox. Pretty.

So when I came across the Harvey Nichols window, I loved it. They've got the safari theme going on, but to the extreme! I can't even begin to think about high their budget is; they look like bespoke mannequins to me. Behold:

Hundreds of small wooden blocks that make up the lunging panther-type thing. She doesn't look very worried.

The eye is made from coins! I think they're real. Nice touch. That crocodile is just breathtaking, a futuristic space-age safari.

I love the mannequin's silver hair and skin, and amazing eye makeup. The faces look so real.

They're just nonchalently hanging out with zebras, letting them eat strange paper rags, you know. As you do.

That elephant was insane. So huge, really nice. Strange cling-film-esque set up but it was kind of nice. A subtle nod to captivity? Perhaps.

Amazing. Really inspirational window.

Ads I'm not sure about: Hotmail The New Busy

2010-05-29T13:25:00.000+01:00

Ok I don't love this campaign, but it's interesting and has made me think so I'll share. It's more 'Ads I love to think about' really. I'm not actually sure if I like it. I think it's clever... or is it just really annoying and arrogant?

You've probably seen the adverts, they're all over the place; in the tube, in the paper...

From http://www.litmanlive.co.uk/blog/2010/04/the-new-busy-is-not-like-the-old-busy/

From http://el-nicol.com/?p=95

So the concept is 'The New Busy....' and then some slogan boasting about how they can do loads of stuff while still being ridiculously busy. And not stressing at all, and seeming to have an amazing cool life, while working 12 hours a day, and so on. Which clearly doesn't exist. Is it aspirational? I'm sure most of us wish we had a full diary while not having any kind of stress/pressure on us at all.

I'm not entirely sure why Hotmail are advertising, and why this applies to them. I've had a hotmail account since I was 13, and still do, and most people probably do too, but generally have a 'real address' as well. I don't give my hotmail out in a professional basis. Hotmail is not professional. It screams 13 year old girl. And probably always will. They can add all these 'useful' functions like calendars that synchronise with your cat and so forth; but I'm pretty sure 'The New Busy' has an iphone or a blackberry and does all their organising on there. Not on a free, web based, advertising plagued, email service. They just don't.

Plus, wasn't hotmail, MSN Hotmail, and then Windows Live Hotmail? What is it now? Just Hotmail again? It's like when they changed MSN messenger to Live Messenger. We kids still called it msn. You know, back in the day, before myspace or facebook. 'You going on msn after school?' 'Yeah! LOL!!!! :p (Y)' etc etc. Stop messing with the brand names. We don't care.

Some of the slogans are quite good. Some are just weird. Some are just a bit scary:

Crazy eyes? Shut up! It's not my fault I have to get up at 5.45am every day so am generally exhausted mon-fri! Jeez. Don't be mean. I work hard. I'm just not superhuman like this 'New Busy' seems to be. I'd love to be 'New Busy'! It sounds like have some kind of major career focus yet still do the student-stamp-on-the-hand-where-did-we-go-last-night thing:

I miss that! Waking up with stamps on your hands. And face. But I didn't zing out of bed, do some pilates, get the train to work and create something amazing before 11am. No. I texted my friends incoherent words, then found some kind of bacon-type substance. And I did not check my emails. Or schedule my day.

What I don't like about it, is it echoes this pressure in our modern lives to be awesome 2.0. It's crazy. And I'm not immune to it; I do play 'Fill the diary':

And I usually fail. I do 'see things others miss', generally. But that just comes from my general observation powers. And I do wish I had time to exercise, and time to illustrate as well as my full time graphic design job, and I wish I had time to go to cool bars every night, and travel whereever I want on a whim, and time to chill out and not feel guilty. But I don't. I try to do all these things - and I'm just tired.

So I hate The New Busy, with all their smugness and superhuman time keeping skills. I'm pretty sure they don't have hotmail to thank for it though. Actually, do they even exist?

This campaign just makes me feel bad. And guilty for not being The New Busy. And wishing that I was. And knowing that if I was, I would probably be awesome 2.0. But I'm not. I'm just tired.

You can play around with this silly interactive thing if you want. It's not that silly I suppose, it's kind of interesting.

The most interesting part of this campaign for me though is they managed to get an experiential element in there. OF COURSE. The New Busy is allll about the experiential. They practically demand it, from their skinny lattes to their brainstorming sessions:

'Blue Screen Lagoon' at various places, including Canary Wharf. Well of course, bankers are the The New Busy. Basically, you could go along and pretend you were doing crazy awesome things like tight-rope walking. 'All from the comfort of a blue (or even green) screen - oh, that's so New Busy.' What?? That doesn't even make sense!. I hate you, New Busy. It was happening yesterday (28th May) and guess what - I couldn't check it out. Why? Because I was busy. WORKING. Yeah, take that New Busy.

New Busy would probably tell me to shut up and get him a skinny latte.

'Frivolity Fields' - 'The New busy likes nothing more than extreme knitting, circus tricks, sideways guitar....' Ugh. It sounds sickeningly awesome and pointless. If I was New Busy I wouldn't have a 9-5.30 job. Nope. I'd be freelance and could saunter over and do some extreme knitting. See, New Busy just makes me feel bad.

Props to Madmedia though, they came up with it, and it did look good: http://themindtonic.blogspot.com/2010/05/madmedia-are-new-busy.html

If I was New Busy, I would've been one of the marketeers coming up with these crazy ideas. Extreme knitting sounds exactly the kind of thing my busy mouth would have said. But alas, new graduates really aren't New Busy. We're just trying to have some kind of career.

Happy Birthday Blog! 3 years old...

2010-05-25T21:40:00.000+01:00

I nearly forgot this. My blog turned 3 years old (that's quite old in blog years, I feel proud) last monday, on the 16th. Hurrah for me!

It all started rather inconspicuously towards the end of my first year at uni, here, as a way for me to publish my university illustration work. I then started rabbiting on about stuff I liked and my life, and it all spiralled from there. 200 posts later (I was never that prolific, I write much more frequently now) and here I am.

Actually not much has changed, except I now write more coherently (at least I know what I'm talking about) on subjects like fashion, illustration, design, advertising, things I covet, food illustrations and recipes, things that are cool and inspiring, sustainability and of course my work.

Any suggestions about things you want to read on my blog? There are quite a few of you merry little ~~minions~~ subscribers now, so don't be afraid to chip in, I love comments like I love cake.

Coveting: Computer Arts Book of Inspiration

2010-05-19T22:23:00.000+01:00

This is a fairly simple thing to covet - it's not out of my meager price range so will probably be in my happy hands in no time. I thought of waiting until then but I want to share it now - it looks so tasty. Computer Arts' Book of Inspiration:

All images from Computer Arts

Looks pretty sexual doesn't it. "The Book of Inspiration is a new luxury volume from the makers of Computer Arts magazine, featuring 192 pages of the world’s very best digital art, design and illustration."

It's £14.99, and has interviews and work from some really inspirational people - James Jean, Non-Format, Neville Brody, Airside, Hort, Vault49... It's also got a foil blocked and die cut cover, which is always a winner with design fetishists. Like moi.

I wouldn't say that it's particularly groundbreaking - I can't see any emerging artists there, just established ones with amazing work. Which is nice, but these people already have their work everywhere. Inspiration comes in many forms, and it is nice to have books like this to flick through.

Once I've bought it, I'll tell you more...

Exciting Happenings: Me and my work featured on Crushable.com!

2010-05-19T21:22:00.000+01:00

I did this interview a couple of months back, and then my life went into overdrive with my new job that I completely forgot to actually talk about it! Which is crazy seeing as I was damn excited about it.

The really awesome Tom Rosinski, who is a writer and graphic designer at Crushable.com, contacted me saying he really liked my work and wanted to feature me! Click here for the full interview.

Crushable is a really great fashion/design/entertainment/culture online magazine, based in America, I suggest you save it as one of your bookmarks.

Woo!

Inspiration: Turning Leaf and Basso & Brooke

2010-05-18T22:06:00.001+01:00

Wine. Everyone loves wine. Nice nice nice. I generally prefer the red variety, on a friday night to melt away the worries of the week. Or, as tonight, on a tuesday night because it was already open and I like to numb things. Wine labels are quite fascinating to me, as an illustrator/designer it's nice to look at the care (or not, in some cases) that are gone into their designs. Who hasn't bought a bottle of wine because the label was nice? (especially if it's half price, that's always good too.)

So imagine my glee when I discovered that Basso & Brooke, those crazy fashion designers best known for their fearless prints, have teamed up with little known wine company Turning Leaf (well I'd never heard of them) to design these amazing bottles. The first image is from this spanish(?) site, the larger images were kindly emailed to me from Turning Leaf themselves after they saw this original post. Aren't the designs amazing? Here is bit more about the collaboration from Turning Leaf themselves:

- As well as curating a blog for Turning Leaf, where Basso & Brooke will open up their little black book of secrets, the designers will also be developing a range of bespoke, limited edition products with Turning Leaf.
- Some limited edition products will be available to Turning Leaf customers and others via exclusive retail partners.
- The blog will reveal ‘what’s hot’ during the Spring/ Summer months and will be hosted on the Turning Leaf Wines website
- Over the next six months Basso & Brooke will also be launching a series of Turning Leaf events, including an exclusive retail partnership and a pop up shop in April.
- Basso & Brooke will be visiting the Turning Leaf vineyard in California's Sonoma Valley near San Francisco, following their London Fashion Week show on 23rd February

The pop up shop sounds amazing - more info from me on that soon....

Here is a good article from the FT about the collaboration - discussing their inspiration from Jeff Koon's collages, with this great bit - "Brooke presented Dennison with the flamboyant bottle and said, “It’s not particularly conservative.” Dennison inspected it. “And Turning Leaf has traditionally been a conservative brand,” he said.
“But you’ve got to be on people’s lips,” said Brooke. “You’ve got to think out of the box.” Dennison warmed to the idea. “This is going to catch their eyes,” he said. “Then catch their fantasy.”

I think that idea is great - Turning Leaf's motto is 'Taste the Colour' and you certainly get that feeling from the designs, which have snow leopards and volcanoes (how apt) intertwined, among other things. Wine is always seen as so serious - even when you drink it, you feel somehow more restrained, and sometimes wine is fun and you want something that isn't all Serif fonts and cream, heavy matte paper. You know?

As soon as I find more of the shots of the bottles, I'll post them. In the meantime, Basso & Brooke's website is here -beware, you can do nothing but click to open an email, but it's still pretty, and Turning Leaf's site. Here are some images of Basso & Brooke's amazing fashion design to get your juices flowing...

From http://vagarms.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/inspiration-basso-brooke/

From http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050706/biz.htm

From The Swelle Life

From Handbags & FagHags

Just beautiful examples of what can be created with digital printing techniques and genius handling of colour. Oh, to wear something like this... and have the legs for it... ah.

All images credited to where I found them, etc etc.

Ads I love: Travelodge's Mr Sleep and the Zzz Squad

2010-05-16T18:33:00.000+01:00

Now, clearly I'm a sucker for furry animals, but ones with an east london mafia theme and cockney accent? I'm so there.

Travelodge have come up with this great advert for the Zzz Squad, with some great lines in there. Also I do enjoy the shredded pillow and 'Lucky Frank' (not so lucky) on the front of the dustcart. There's some definite 'ahs' in that advert (especially Jon AKA Mad Dog) which I'm sure Mr Sleep would tell you to man-up or something.

Considering most hotel adverts are cheesey or have Lenny Henry in them, this is pretty out there, for hotel-land. Still gets across that you'll have a great nights sleep (apparently) as you'll be looked after by some cute mafia-types who will scare pigeons for you. Rock.

Here's travelodge's little page for you. I'll leave you with this:

Company High Street Edit: Looks I love

2010-05-16T18:28:00.000+01:00

You're getting a plethora of fashion posts, I must say. Lucky you.

I bought Company's first High Street Edit the other day, mainly because it's printed on lovely matte paper. Simple things eh? But seriously, the design layout of it is great and I really enjoyed reading it. There are loads of great looks and trends in there and I'm in danger of wanting it all. Here's one look that caught my eye:

I'm not a fan of khaki usually but it's out there a lot and these high waisted culottes are quirky. What I'm interested in is the layering of cycling shorts under more shorts. Hmmm, I thought, I like that. I finally ended by long hunt for lace cycling shorts with a find on missguided, and also by cutting up some lace tights I bought that were too long for my little legs.

So I've now taken to wearing them up skirts and shorts a lot. I don't own any culottes though; I have awful memories of some blue cord ones I had when I was about 8 and that is a horror that's hard to shake off.

Free stuff: Diet Coke & Nails Inc

2010-05-09T17:52:00.002+01:00

I love free stuff. Especially when I have no money, such is now. You might say 'Yeah but you've got a swanky new job in London, you must have money' I say, oh no friend, not when nasty bank people decide to decrease your graduate overdraft! I have been given warning, I knew it would happen, but 'a year after graduating' seemed like so far away... now I know it's not. So very soon, a large proportion of my interest free overdraft is being ripped from under me like a proverbial carpet, and I haven't earned anywhere near enough what is needed to pay it back yet. Especially as I'm also trying to save money to move out of my parents house as the commute into London is literally destroying me. You know what? Students don't deserve student discount... I think graduates are more in need. I've never been so poor in my life! Graduate discount please.

So, I've basically imposed a minimum 3 month ban on shopping/spending. I've allowed myself the odd coffee (or in this case, diet coke) and the odd alcoholic beverage, but that's it. No clothes, no books, no CDs, no cinema (yeah, like that's going to happen, with Iron Man 2, Sex and the City 2 and Eclipse all here to tempt me) and basically, no fun. Boo.

So free stuff is what it's all about. I've been raping my boots points (I had so many.... waa) and grabbing every free newspaper and magazine in the street (Metro, ES and Stylist are now my staples), so I was tres happy when I saw this in the meal deal section:

I had a blood test* on thursday so was in Boots in dire need of sugary substance. I saw that they're giving away Nails Inc nail varnish when you buy 2 bottles of diet coke! So bargainous. Considering my medical need for diet coke, I figured this was very worth it. I realise that there's no sugar in diet coke but... it still seemed to work so sssh. I picked up the first one in from the left, as I'm all about pale shades these days and this is a great purple/grey colour, really interesting:

It matches perfectly with some tights I've got too, was very happy.

In fact, it's very much like that Chanel 'Greige' that everyone's been going crazy over - yes, that's grey and beige, folks! Here's the Chanel one:

So, I've now got a designer-ish nail colour for free. Ace.

I'd never bought Nails Inc before but I'd heard they were good: I've been wearing this since thursday, (it's now sunday) and it's held up really well, only chippage on two fingers:

And that's my fault from where I'd picked it. Ha, look at my weird bent fingers, I'm sure this angle exacerbates it, i'm not that strange. Nice colour though huh? I love it. Apparently it's worth £10.50, which I don't think I'd ever pay for a nail varnish, but if they last this well... And I'm sure these are going to fly off the shelves, there's great deep reds and purples too.

So now I have my latest beauty/consumption fix, for NUFFIN'. Hurrah! I'm sure I'll be posting/whining in future about my financial situation, so any other free stuff that I can "review/keep" would be amazing. You know, for research purposes. Of course. /shameless

*Pretty sure it's nothing to worry about. I'm not dying, just getting many many stomach pains. I am a complete nightmare with getting blood out of me; I have very deep veins (she had to stab me 3 times!) and I go totally weak, sick and dizzy as soon as any is taken out of me. I have no problem with the sight of blood at all, it's just this horrible aversion my body seems to have with letting any of it go. God help me if I ever meet a vampire, I wouldn't survive a sip!

New Work: Leith Festival Fundraiser Poster Designs

2010-05-05T13:00:00.023+01:00

Never underestimate the power of Twitter. I would never have got involved with this if I hadn't seen the RT on my feed. Leith Festival (just outside of Edinburgh) needed a poster doing for their fundraiser, which sounds like it'll be great - Leith's Found Fashions:

'The Evening will showcase outfits designed by local designers and outfits created in association with local charity shops!

There will be Live music from Leith's Very own Obehi: www.obehimusic.com
www.facebook.com/obehionline

There will also be an opportunity for you to purchase the fashions on show and fashions that were not displayed on the catwalk!'

So I sent them a few rough drafts and they chose mine for the final designs! Nice.

I wanted to give the designs a real vintage feel, so used found imagery coupled with classic fonts (Gill Sans and Futura to name a few) and am really happy with the outcome. The first is a much more fun, kitsch tongue in cheek look & feel, with a cute curly typeface called 'Kushtie' which I love. The second is an old Vogue Pattern Design amended to include all the information and to show off the idea of Vintage Fashion.

It was a pleasure to be part of this and I hope they do well to promote the fundraiser. Click here for the facebook group which has details of the event. If you're anywhere near Leith (I am not... lol) then do go and take part!

What do you think?

I am of course available for future design and illustration commissions :)

Glug Notworking at Pick Me Up, Somerset House

2010-05-04T12:18:00.001+01:00

Last wednesday I hauled a tired and stressed body over to the Embankment for another Glug Notworking session. You remember I reviewed the last one at The Book Club, and said I'd prob go the next one.

I really wanted to go see Pick Me Up so it was great they held Glug there - killing two birds with one stone so to speak. Like I said, I was tres tired and really stressed from work so was really looking forward to a fun evening and lots of wine. That turned into 1 small cup of wine as it was so expensive! £4 for a small glass of what tasted like very cheap white wine wasn't fun :( What I really wanted was a Bulmers but they told me they had sold out - which was strange as I got there early so they must have only had a very small number. Anyway. No cider for Rachel.

I went on my own this time as I wanted to try and actually network - but actually bumped into Cynthia off my Immersion course while we were waiting to be let in, and I'm so glad I did - it wasn't really an environment conducive to real networking! So we spent the evening together, chatting about our work and what we were seeing etc. We also saw 4 or 5 others off our course too so that was really nice :)

Everyone got handed a free Mr Bingo print at entry so that was ace. Here's mine on my wall of my 'studio' (...desk in loft...)

Lovely.

Because of last time's issues with the talks (just too many people; couldn't hear/see very well), they decided to do a raffle type thing this time - there were 3 talks, 90 people in each, and you can only see one of them. To get in it was a free ticket thing, first come first served. We got there early so got a ticket easy, although it wasn't very well organised - just girls standing around handing out the tickets - they very easily got mobbed. Would have been better if they were behind a desk, and you could queue for the respective talk number. We went for talk no.2, which had Chrissie Macdonald, Emily Forgot and Sam Arthur from Nobrow. I really like Chrissie Macdonald's work for Orange (have talked about it before) and the other two seemed interesting. We met Sam before the talks actually, he was really nice and was telling us a bit about how Nobrow works and how it started, we also got chatting about Wolverhampton as he went to school there! He hated it lol. I still have fond memories of it obviously, from going to Uni there, but we agreed it was definitely a place you had to escape from!

We mooched around for a while, got some overpriced drinks and checked out all the art. There was a lot of it! Some really big names too, like Hellovon, (who makes me sick because he is so good) Hvass & Hannibal, James Joyce, Mr Bingo, Peepshow, and Rob Ryan. There was also Erin Petson, who I'd never heard of, but is my new favourite love:

Her work is amazing and seeing it on screen really doesn't do it justice. It's totally mixed media and experimental with a really strong colour palette and definite roots in fashion. Close up it's so delicate yet strong and we both agreed it was our favourite - a lot of the other work there was amazing too but very digital-heavy. Don't get me wrong, I love using the computer in my own work but I've always favoured the handmade quality and such a lot of illustration at the moment is too digital, in my opinion. It was so refreshing to see Erin's work.

When it was time for the talks we battled our way through (it was very busy... again... and hot! So hot) back to the entrance, and after asking around figured out the talks were right outside of the building and then back in again. I've heard some people say they couldn't find the talks at all, which is bad... but it wasnt that hard, bit tricky but not impossible. I think it's just the nature of Somerset House that it's very twisty and lots of little rooms that it's not the easiest to navigate.

The actual talk was great though, we got in in time to get a seat and it quickly filled up. The basis was for each speaker to briefly talk about 5 things/images which inspire them and their work. It was really nice to hear this from other creatives and the variety of things which inspire them and why. I loved hearing inside Emily Forgot's random mind, she definitely made us giggle the most. Sam's confession of his love of Ladybird books was great too.

After that we decided to check out all the big rooms around the exhibition where the live stuff was happening - Print Club London doing live screenprinting, Rob Ryan's fully functioning studio, Landfill Editions with their crazy Risograph Printer (which we'd never heard of and were fascinated by), etc. Rob Ryan was in his studio but we couldn't think of anything to say to him except 'you iz well good innit' so we decided not to. Great studio though, and it solved the mystery I always wondered about how prolific he is when his creations must take hours - he has minions! Many minions! Who sit there scalpoling his creations and screenprinting others etc etc. Ah. When you are successful, you can afford minions I suppose. Here's a video from Creative Review of Rob Ryan in his pop-up studio:

We ended up leaving at about 9.15 I think - I had to drag myself back to Euston and then home to Leighton so couldn't stay late with work the next day. All in all it was a really inspirational and fun evening, so thanks Glug. Just wasn't really a networking event! If I had have gone on my own, I fear I would have just walked roun don my own wthout really talking to anybody - I didn't see anybody else on their own, everybody seemed to be with friends again. Which is fine. I just think that the exhibition was too interesting and immersive to really have to make the effort to talk to new people. Especially with the lack of free flowing cheap alcohol.

Click here to see some photos taken by the Glug team - good stuff.

Pick Me Up finished today so I'm really glad I got round to see it - if you didn't, then it's too late. Boo to you.

Fashion Illustration Workshop @sketchbookmagazine's Pop up Shop

2010-05-03T17:08:00.001+01:00

On April 17th I made my way down to Carnaby St on a lovely sunny saturday for Sketchbook Magazine's Pop Up Shop. After fighting my way through the crowds and tourists around Oxford Circus (and holding my bag like a baby after it was broken by the tube barriers shutting on it!! Not happy, it literally opened for less than 2 seconds) I got to the shop on Newburgh street for a 12pm Fashion Illustration Workshop with a lovely girl called Gabriella, who is currently on her MA and was teaching the workshop.

Picture taken from Sketchbook Mag's online blog.

I had a little mooch round the shop before going down to the workshop - it's a great little space. I was going to take photos but after the great bag debacle I really couldn't be arsed to dig around in it, risking serious overspill, to find my tiny camera (one of the reasons why it ripped was possibly because it was full of heavy magazines and everything I lug around with me all day) so... there. Plenty of other bloggers have taken photos though, like Diamond Canopy's Winnie, so don't feel too hard done by.

I absolutely love Annie Driscoll's illustrations that are around the place - http://www.anniedriscollillustration.com/ so amazing. Really beautiful.

Images from Sketchbook Mag's blog, copyright to Annie Driscoll.

Oh, and free Vitamin Water though, that was nice :)

I love fashion illustration and it's one of those things that I always tried to do a bit of at uni, and love it (especially people like David Downton, so amazing) but was never any good. Drawing people has always been my weakness - I loved life drawing at uni but our course never offered enough of it, and the variety of model was very poor. I tend to draw people with strange proportions, which is fine, but not great for representing clothes.

The workshop was really nice, only about 8 of us I think, and we were all pretty much beginners when it came to it so it was good. Gabriella started right at the beginning, with proportions and how to get it all right.

I knew how it normally works, with splitting the body into sections, etc, but I had no idea that fashion illustration proportions were different to normal ones. It makes obvious sense because all fashion illustrations have really long legs, but I never gave it a thought before. You basically move the navel up higher than you normally would, and then split it up as you would from there. Aha.

The above one is an attempt at giving the model some kind of pose, with hips onto one side. Harder than it looks. A lot of my sketches came out looking like aliens.

After we had our poses though, we could then use our magazines to cut pieces out and collage over the top. I love collage, and do a lot of it, so I found this much much easier than the drawing part.

This was my best attempt I think. I loved finding pieces that were out of proportion to the others, I think it gives it a great effect. Her head looks funny though. You can see some of the other's collages at the Sketchbook Blog.

It's definitely given me lots of ideas with regards to how I could use this in my work in the future, and I really want to keep practising at it and get a lot better at the proportions. I also reeeaally need to go life drawing again, I miss it. It's just time though.. I don't get much time to do any illustration these days with my job now. Which upsets me. Sigh.

The workshop was great and really relaxed and fun. I definitely recommend it if they run it again: Sketchbook have announced they have extended the shop so I'm sure they'll be doing lots more workshops. If you have time, check it out.

Afterwards I crossed back over oxford st to H&M and got myself a new bag. Turquoise! Nice. Old bag was duly recycled.

Review: Reebok Easytone Trainers

2010-04-26T10:10:00.001+01:00

Edit: July 2010: I've been wearing these for about 4 months now and they've actually ruined my feet. Ignore what I've said in the initial review; they are so painful. I don't know whether it's the hot weather or what but the inside backs of the heels in the trainers have completely disintegrated and given me painful blisters - the backs of my feet are in tatters. I've taken to using bandages on the inside as a temporary fix and wearing plasters every day but COME ON - I paid £80 for these and they last 4 months before they shred my feet?? Reebok, sort it out. I am a standard size 5 and I always buy that size in every type of shoe I buy - yet these have either a) shrunk or are sized completely wrong, they are incredibly tight and I get pins and needles across the tops of my feet. They felt fine for the first few months after the initial 'wearing im' period but now they are so painful.

I took to recommending these to everyone I know but now I don't. The opposite in fact. Oh dear Reebok. Sort this out now.

Original post: Now that I work in London but don't yet live there, it's a 45 minute walk every morning from my house to Leighton Buzzard station. At 6.45. It's pretty terrible having to walk that much at that time in the morning, but I was wearing pumps/kitten heels/etc as well; obviously whatever I was going to wear during the day. It wasn't long before I'd destroyed my feet, and a few heels too. I didn't like the thought of wearing trainers (I never do) but figured it would be so much better for me: I'd take my shoes in my bag and change on the train.

I'd heard of Reebok Easytone and even though I was a bit skeptical, I thought if I was buying trainers I may as well pay a bit more for some that are supposed to help tone even more. I've seen Skechers Shape Ups and MBTs all over the place and I hate them: they're just so ugly, no matter how good they're supposed to be for you, they just look like orthopaedic shoes! So I was glad that Easytone look just like normal trainers.

There's a few different styles, in the end I went with the Curve version, which you can see above. I couldn't bring myself to buy white (and wear) white trainers, so had to go for the black ones, at least they sort of go with my clothes a bit. Althought tbh, it's not really about fashion at that time in the morning.

I wanted these ones but I couldn't find them anywhere when I went shopping.

So I ended up paying £80 for my pair. Which literally hurt me: I never thought I'd spend that much on a pair of trainers. So what do I think?

I've had them about a month now, I wanted to wear them in a bit before I reviewed them.

First off, they initially felt extremely comfortable. When I tried them on in the shop they felt great, and really springy and nice. I didn't feel unstable, even though the blurb says:

"The EasyTone Curve, built on Reebok’s patented muscle-toning sole technology, creates a slight instability, much like walking on sand. They encourage toning through increased muscle activation in three key areas of the leg: the gluteus maximus, hamstrings and calves. Up to 28%, in fact. Like we said, sharp curves ahead.

EasyTone balance pod technology encourages up to 11% more toning in the hamstrings and calves, and up to 28% in the glutes
Synthetic/mesh upper for comfort, support and breathability
Dual density medial post provides superior stability, while adjustable heel strap reduces heel slippage
SmoothFit design ensures minimal rub and ultimate comfort"

They definitely don't make you feel wobbly; just a lot harder to walk in. But not in an uncomfortable way, it is just like walking on sand. You need to put a lot more effort than you normally do to walk at the speed you want, which is where I assume the toning comes in.

Comfort:
At first, like I said, they were really comfortable. The first time I wore them, taking the dog for a short 25 minute walk, I came back and my heels had been rubbed raw and were bleeding. Very painful. I perhaps should have worn pre-emptive plasters, but still, I hadn't imagined they would rub like that. I had to wear plasters for 3 weeks after that to stop the pain, and thick pairs of socks for the first week or so. Not great.
I also realised, after a few days, that they were extremely tight over the bridge of my feet. I have wide feet and a high instep so have trouble with some shoes because of that, but I've never had trainers that have been so narrow. It got to the point that I was desperate to take them off on the train because I was having pins and needles. Luckily, things seem to have stretched a bit and they're not so tight anymore; I loosened the laces a lot as well which helped a bit. They don't make my feet feel numb anymore but they're still slightly tight. Perhaps Reebok should look into this and realise that quite a lot of people have wide feet/high insteps and trainers should accommodate that.

Toning:
Despite them not being very comfortable for the first few weeks, I still wore them everyday because 1) I'd spent a considerable amount of money on them and 2) I could actually feel some effect, which I was surprised about. Even after the first week, my legs were aching more than I usually felt when wearing normal shoes to work.

After a month of using them, my calf muscles are definitely more toned. Not too sure about my thighs but that might come later. My mum commented that my hips looked slimmer so that might be an effect. But they definitely worked my ankle and calf muscles more, and I'm still feeling it when I walk to work, even on friday, on a very fast pace because I was late, I could feel my ankle muscles really working and they ached the next day. Which is a good thing of course.

Overall, they're alright. If they weren't so tight and caused rubbing at the beginning I would have hailed them as pretty damn good, as they do seem to be toning much more than normal walking. The fact that I'd already walked for a month every day to the station in normal shoes, vs using these, and I could tell there was a marked difference.

The other thing I have found is that I am able to walk faster in them, too. The springy base of the shoes is much better at propelling me forward and I can get to the station in 35 minutes now, if I walk really fast. Which means 10 extra minutes in bed/eating breakfast. I like that.

I haven't yet tried them out running; I'm not entirely sure if you're supposed to but I don't see why not. Apparently Reebok are bringing out Runtone and Traintone later.. for running and gym respectively. Slightly skeptical of that; possible money-making scheme saying you need three different trainers for three different types of exercise. I don't do a great deal of running and never go to the gym so I have no use for either. I'll stick with my easytones I think.

My verdict: If you do a lot of walking, and have the spare cash (which I really didn't buy hey ho), then you might as well. If you have wide feet, I wouldn't recommend it. It's taken a month of walking in them every day to wear them down to be comfortable and not tight or rub.

Coveting: Missguided Clothing

2010-04-25T10:00:00.000+01:00

I've stumbled on a bit of a gem here. Can't believe I'd never heard of Missguided before but they're clothes are my new favourite love. Think a mix of Motel and New Look, with a very tasty pricetag. The current collection is growing all the time, and they've got some great dresses and some really fashion-forward stuff. Par example:

Deepa Dress, £31.99

Black lace, ruffles and added beaded detailing; you can't really go wrong. It comes in cream and pink as well I think, but the black kind of gives it that gothic twist that I love. Could be a winner.

Hollie Peek-a-Boo Dress In Black & Cream, £27.99

I've got a similar top to this, but without the lace. Panelling and cutaways are big news but I think you need and amazing stomach for this one. Perhaps not. I love the monochrome slashes though, it's a good little find.

Heidi Floral Lace Bodycon Dress In Cream, £15.99

Lace and floral are really great friends. They love each other. My current wardrobe is pretty much lace and floral-based. And so this dress kinda ticks both boxes. And it's that lovely cream colour. I don't even have a floral bodycon dress so it's fiiiiine, I definitely need this. Yup.

Jess Contrast Cup Mesh Dress, £31.99

This is great for a subtle go at the Underwear/Outerwear trend, without actually showing any underwear. I love it.

Nadine Dress With Shaped Hemline In Peach, £22.99

Now this is amazing. I'm definitely buying this. The colour is great, perfect for the nude/pastel trend around right now, and the structured hem line is so Lady Gaga. But less mental. I've got an inkling it's going to be quite flattering on my generous thighs, with all the detailing taking away from any unsightly bumps etc. We will have to see! It's sold out in a size 12... size 10 might be too small. Eek.

Bonduca Printed Strapless Velvet Dress, £23.99

This is a little bit different, and not for everyone, but I love the print. Never been massively keen on velvet but this could be quite good. The bubble hem has me a bit worried though, they never look that good on me. I'd have to try it first. It's a great print though, they've only got a 14 in stock right now.

Luisiana Lace Cycling Shorts, £5.99

Can you actually believe it?! My search is over. Ages ago, I posted that I was coveting lace cycling shorts. This was before the high street had jumped on the trend yet so as usual, I was hanging around waiting for them to produce something affordable. And here we are! Tres happy. And can you believe, only £6. I am so there.

Annie Crop Jumper In Grey, £15.99

I really want this, it's the cutest ever. Crop jumpers are great, and this would look really cool with high waisted denim shorts I think. I just love the print! Aw. It's sold out though :(

Eunice Floral Blazer, £25.99

I heart blazers. I heart floral. You can see where this is going.

Carlene Nautical Dress In Cream, £23.99

The nautical stuff they've got is great too. I really like this dress.

With all this, I'm trying to find the perfect going out dress; it's a friends birthday this friday and I haven't had a proper night out in so long, my stock of dresses now all look very last year. Which is because they are. Haven't bought a new dress since December! I just need to figure out which sizes I should buy (I hate shopping online, I range from an 8 to a 14 on the high street, does my head in!) and then inevitably there will be some returns. I've gone for the structured peach dress and the Deepa Dress as well, in case the peach one is too small at a 10. I hope it's not :(

So go and check out Missguided anyway, and I'll post pics if the dresses look good.

Coveting: Hush Puppes Shoeperstar winner...

2010-04-18T13:35:00.000+01:00

I saw this Hush Puppies Shoeperstar competition when it came out and thought it was a great idea. I didn't take part because... well I can't design shoes. I wasn't entirely sure what the outcome would be, because while Hush Puppies are amazingly comfortable (I bought some while I worked at Schuh, in a plum kind of colour, so nice to walk around in heels that don't kill you) they're not exactly Irregular Choice in the looks department. That's fine for most who need them for work and who can't wear crazy shoes, but I likes crazy shoes. That's why when I saw the winner, I was most excited:

So cute! And so summery. They also come in black too:

Which I like, but not as much as the purple. I like the white heel and the floral strap, and I'm rocking a lot of purple right now thanks to my splurge at H! by Henry Holland (Henry likes purple, it seems...) so they would go with so many outfits. And the best part? They are guaranteed to be comfortable, cos Hush Puppies rock like that.

The only downside is that they are £65... oh if only I still had my Schuh discount! I will have to save up for a summer treat.

They are designed by Laura Berry and you can buy them here.

"Laura is 36, a mum to one year old Bonita and currently teaches textiles part time in Turves Green Girls School, Northfield. When not teaching she spends the rest of her time painting and does portraits, designing women’s clothing and accessories as well as working with local artists in the community to coordinate and implement a programme of arts events for disadvantaged youths.

Laura’s shoe design was inspired by the need for a funky, feminine yet practical shoe that could take a working mum from school run to office to evening drinks – all in relevant comfort. The shoe itself is an all-season style and has vintage influences with a modern twist."

Coveting: Topshop Makeup

2010-04-18T13:21:00.000+01:00

I heard about Topshop Makeup a while back but it's getting quite a bit of press now, and some images have been released too. Initially I wasn't majorly excited but now I'm getting a lot more intrigued: firstly the packaging is quite cute:

Monochrome stripes and spots, quite nice. Now I'm assuming it's all cruelty-free, it would be disastrous not to be. I'm hoping the packaging is minimal like this; and that none of it comes in additional cardboard boxes: that really annoys me. Like when nail varnishes come in cardboard tubes. It's made of glass, it's ok, it doesn't need extra cardboard. Foundations and moisturisers do this too: it bugs the hell out of me. I bough L'oreal's new youth code moisturiser (which is great btw, really like it) but it's in a glass tub, and then with a cardboard box. So not needed.

The main thing that got my attention is that the makeup is seasonal; the first being aimed at the festival season. So lots of bright summery colours and crazy glitters to go raving in. Personally, when I go to festivals, I wear nowt but eyeliner. You can't really be doing with anything more than that when all you have to wash yourself for 4 days are babywipes. 4 days of built up mascara and foundation is pretty... gross. But then there are those who do the hotel/VIP thing and who treat festivals like a fashion show, and would go crazy over this stuff, and there are those who like me, wear the same denim shorts all weekend. What I'm more interested in is that this stuff will be great for colourful nights out. I love to experiment with eye makeup, at uni I always had people saying 'you're that girl with the mental eyeshadow/eyelashes' (usually while spilling drinks on me):

And so on. These were all taken on nights out/varying stages of drunkenness so not exactly model shots. Ha. But anyway, I like to do crazy eye stuff, and hopefully this topshop makeup will be good for that, as I can't always afford to buy Illamasqua and Barry M. As the images I'm about to scan from this week's Grazia will show, they've thought about this range in terms of what crazy looks you can pull off. But the main thing I'm excited for is the nailvarnishes, in particular this one:

This shade is called The Big Easy, £5. It hasn't scanned brilliantly but I LOVE it. I'm suddenly reliving my 14 year old obsession with nail varnish these days and this is an amazing colour. If I just buy one thing from this Topshop Makeup range, this will be it. I just hope it's fairly long-lasting and doesn't chip after the first day: as so often happens with cheap nail varnish that clothes brands bring out. However we are assured that this will be far from tacky, cheap teeny-y stuff:

"Designed by Topshop designer, Lizzie Dawson, whose day job is whipping up to-die-for blouses and lingerie, the range plays on the experimental nature of the Topshop customer, who’ll think nothing of throwing hair up into a grungy bun and sticking a giant flower in it, wearing a belt as a headband, a scarf around a handbag, and so on.

Expect the unexpected, especially when it comes to colour. Shades like The Big Smoke – a putty-coloured nail polish, not dissimilar to Chanel’s sell-out Particuliere, and Thistle – a pretty purple kohl pencil, are inspired by fashion, not makeup trends. And whilst the makeup finish on all products is professional standard, there’s not a huge focus on foundations. Skin Tint, a second-skin tinted moisturiser and Skin Glow, a face brightener (amazing under Skin Tint) are the only bases in the range. ‘We want girls to look real and their makeup to look lived-in,’ says makeup artist Hannah Murray." From this Grazia article.

I love that look with the feathers, I so want to try that. These pages are both scans from this week's Grazia btw, images belong to them.

The range hits stores in May: I foresee a big rush personally. I'm just going to hunt down that nail varnish. Mine mine mine.

What I wore today: sunshine saturday outfit post!

2010-04-17T21:28:00.000+01:00

What's wrong with this picture?

It dawned on me today, while on a train into London checking twitter, that something was wrong with the sky - not that it was abnormally blue and cloud free for April in Britain (that alone was ace), but that there were no aeroplane trails. Once you noticed it, it was hard to not notice it. And it was quieter, when I was in the garden later, when this picture was taken, I couldn't hear any planes from Luton airport. Nuffin'. It was so nice. And it got me thinking - I know the airlines are going on about how many millions of £s they're losing because of this Volcano (don't ask me to spell or pronounce it, I'm good but not that good) - but how much CO2 are we saving? It's nice to think about it. I like the notion that Mother Nature could be spewing out her guts so that we stop polluting her... makes sense innit. There are lots of people that have been put out by this, and I can see that it would be so annoying if you were on a holiday or worse, business trip - even the F1 has suffered, many mechanics haven't been able to get out to Shanghai for this weekend.

From an environmental perspective though, it's ace. And it's given me a crazy thought - we should have 4 fly-free days a year. The airlines would hate it, but just think - 4 days of no aeroplanes in the sky, no pollution, no noise... and you could easily plan your holiday if you knew exactly when those days were. Hmmm. I'll just ring the Big People In Charge of all the Aeroplanes.com and let them know.

So as I said, I went into London today for a fashion illustration workshop at Sketchbook Magazine's Pop Up Shop in Carnaby St. I'll blog about that separately, but it was really nice, and the sunshine made the busyness of Oxford Circus bearable. I've persuaded myself to do more outfit posts: I've been rocking some good outfits lately (if I do say so myself) and so I really should share them, being that I am a hybrid fashion/design/trend blogger person. I can't really define what I blog about. Cool stuff that you should know about. Hmmm.

Skirt: New Look, lace vest: Primark, bra: Urban Outfitters, cardigan: New Look.

Every year, nautical comes out, and I'm never massively excited. I don't know why, it's just one trend I'm never really a part of. However this year, it's got a military twist and I'm all about the military: this skirt from New Look is subtle; just navy with gold military style buttons: not an anchor in sight! I also got a white stripey tshirt to go with it - it's made me realise I don't have any navy or white shoes though. Which is weird.

Hope you've all had a lovely sunshine-y saturday, I spent a good hour or so reading Grazia on the hammock in the garden ^.^ good times.

Selfridges: New online shopping and brand identity

2010-04-12T13:43:00.000+01:00

Surely, you could buy online. Surely. But no. It seemed the 21st century had slipped Selfridges by... if you wanted their stuff (and there's a lot of it...) you had to get down to Oxford St or the Bullring (or the one in Manchester, but I've never been there) and buy it in person. Or get a minion to do it I suppose.

I think originally, Selfridges didn't want to get into e-shopping because they though it would take away from their in-store experience. After all, they're pretty good at putting on experiential shopping and buying something online, they thought, would dull that experience. Also, there was a thought that luxury shoppers wouldn't want to buy online - if you're going to spend a couple of K on a handbag, you want to do it in person, you want to see it, feel it. Not so. While I was on placement at Open, we undertook some trend and consumer research for Selfridges, particularly into the habits of high-end luxury buyers, and actually, quite a lot of people do want to buy luxury goods online. Maybe they're not the type to splash the cash and show off, maybe they're just too damn busy to navigate selfridges on a busy saturday. In any case, there was a need. And it seems Selfridges listened.

The homepage is nice and clean, with good interactivity and not too much flash-usage. All those boxes you can fling around with your mouse. I've spent a good while stacking them up neatly. Slightly calming, yet alarming.

The Selfridges blog is just starting up too, called Selfridges Says... (slightly familiar don't you think! I know I'm great, but no need to rip me off ;) haha.)

What I really like though is the identity of the branding. It comes across best in the emails they send out:

It's just really fun and quirky, I like the hand drawn illustrations and the fact that the product shots aren't just cut outs of flats, they are displayed like an exhibition, curated almost. That's a word we threw at Selfridges. Actually that's a word that's being thrown around a lot recently. It's a good 'un.

The Wish Rooms

This is brilliant. It's like Wish Lists 2.0. As you browse the site, you add things to the Wish rooms. Then you can hop on over and create outfits from what you've added, arranging them on the mannequins. You can then send to a friend (ah, sharing, way to go) or just rush and buy them cos you're so rich and NEED that Stella Mccartney jumpsuit. Sharing them is good as your friends get to see them on a mannequin, as an outfit, and can give you advice! I also think it would be good for fashion bloggers who don't like awkward outfit posts (like me...) - you can just stick the stuff on the perfectly formed mannequin and all is good.

I also love the Inspiration trend boards:

I do a lot of trend boards at work and these are so inspiration and amazing. Defo something to aspire to!

Nice one, Selfridges. You made us wait a long time... But I think it's worth it.

Glug Notworking & Noma Bar at The Book Club on 24th March

2010-04-11T18:03:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I got myself down to The Book Club in Shoreditch, for a Glug Notworking event. I'd heard of these for a while now and finally got my act together and joined, because I need to meet more people in London (don't really know nobody *sniff*) and networking is fun. But mainly, there was alcohol and arty-types, and that's what I wanted. It was on March 24th, btw.

There was live screenprinting, free food(yay!), a couple of talks (including Noma Bar) and a live DJ after I think. In the end I went with my friend Tom off of my Immersion course, because I thought that would be better than going alone and not talking to anyone. I was right; it seemed that everyone there already knew everyone and it was a bit clique-y. That's the way I saw it anyway. Might have just been the Shoreditch effect. (Those crazy kids!)

Overall though, it was worth the £5, and I think if we'd have been more drunk/less shy, we would have ~~talked to some hotties~~ networked for the good of our careers. Maybe.

Having the chance to see a talk by Noma Bar was pretty good - I love his work. For those that aren't familiar with it, here you go:

He is the master of negative space, no doubt about it. What's genius about his work is that it looks deceptively simple; but you just know it takes him hours, days, to hone it to work properly as a visual trick.

He also has a couple of books out, which I will now shamelessly plug through Amazon:

I joined that amazon affiliates thing. Still not entirely sure how it works. It'd be better if it was amazon.co.uk as well - no-one wants to use dollars. Hmmm. Research needed.

All the images are taken from his portfolio site at Dutch Uncle - you can see more there.

The next Notworking event is on 28th April, and I'm definitely going - it's £7.50 and it's being held at Somerset House, during the Pick Me Up exhibition which I really want to see:

Here's some info about it. Need to get my act together and buy my ticket! Will do that in a sec. The line up is immense! Including Jonathon Barnbrook, who I met about a year ago at the Penguin Design Award ceremony. Really nice chap :)

Introducing mflow: It's going to be huge...

2010-04-11T12:54:00.000+01:00

The music industry is changing. We know that. What with the digital economy bill being pushed through parliament last week (boo), and a general shift from buying physical music, to buying digital downloads, and now, with spotify, not even owning music anymore, things are moving pretty fast.

The latest music tool to hit t'internet is mflow - billed as 'spotify with twitter', it's a new way of sharing music (yep, sharing music, legally!) and discovering new music in return:

"We believe that music's better shared...

We don't want to be told what we 'might like' by a software program.
We don't want to stare at an empty search bar... "a whole world of music at my fingertips, and I can't think of anything to look for..."
We don't want to have to subscribe to anything.
We don't want adverts.
We just want a way for our mates to send us music they think rocks."

It's quite simple really - you download the software, register, then start following people (as you would in twitter) - they 'flow' songs that they like, and you get to listen to 1 full preview, then after that, (any) 30 seconds of the sog . You can flow songs that you like to your followers, write a little comment about why you like it, and so on. The great thing is that if any of your followers buys a track after you've flowed it to them, you get 20% of the price! Which is nice. The downloaded songs can be moved to your itunes folder and played on any mp3 player and ipod.

They haven't got the extensive library that itunes does yet - but they're getting there. And if you're going to buy a track off itunes - check if it's been flowed to you already, and you may as well buy it off mflow instead - then you give someone 20%! Sharing is caring, folks.

It works best if all your mates/network are on there; I'm always saying 'have you heard this song?' to people and they're like 'eh'... now you can just send it to them. It's great. If you're already someone who uses twitter a lot, then you've got the right frame of mind to use mflow - that desire to share something new and fresh that you've discovered with the world. It's my favourite part of it.

I think the only downfall is that you only get 1 full preview - sometimes you need to listen to a song a few more times than that. Spotify, while it has adverts, obviously lets you listen as many times as you like. I wouldn't mind mflow having adverts if I could have unlimited plays.

Unfortunately, I was lazy and never got round to downloading spotify... now you can only get it through invitation only! And you can only give invites out if you pay for it. Well gutting. So if any of you have an invite, wang one over my way, cos I am silly.

Mflow is currently in beta - which means you can only try it at the moment if you have an invite code. Luckily, I have three left! If you want to try out mflow, the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post get a code off me! Don't say I'm not generous.

When it comes out of beta then anyone will be able to download it I'd imagine. But by then everyone will know about it and you won't be one of the cool trendsetters. You have been warned.

If you already have mflow and want to follow me on there, search People for 'Rachillustrates' - then you can start receiving my awesome taste in music.

Check out mflow's blog.

New Work! Illustrations for Amelia's Magazine - 'Inside The Book Club'

2010-04-09T16:07:00.000+01:00

Tres exciting news guys! I've loved Amelia's Magazine for ages, and even though it's not published anymore, the website lives on and also has a plethora of great articles up there.

I was asked to illustrate an article about The Book Club bar in Shoreditch - a really great place that I went to recently at the Glug Notworking event. Here are my illustrations: Higher res will be up on my website later.

I was supplied photos and told to put my stamp on them; I really enjoyed doing these and am so pleased with how they came out - I haven't done line drawings with collage for a lonnng time and they've ended up summing up the place well I think. It's really eclectic and so much creativity goes on in there, but it's also very grungy in feel - low ceilings, warehouse-y, exposed bricks, rooms leading onto others etc, so I wanted to get that across too. I also cheekily put my own artwork in the frames on the walls! Ha. I wish ;) It's a bar primarily, but it also holds club nights, life drawing classes, club nights with live DJs, it's got a table tennis table and pool tables, they serve food (gooood food), it's pretty damn awesome. I'd be in there all the time if I lived anywhere near Shoreditch. Maybe soon. It's on Leonard St, quite tucked away... I've had a hard time finding it tbh before.

As Amica's article explains really well; there just isn't this kind of place very much in the UK. In New York, I feel right at home there because there are so many venues like this, that go from cafe in the day to nightclub at night, with a healthy dose of alternative culture thrown in. It's great. (And one of the many reasons why I want to move to NY, eventually) but The Book Club is pushing the boundaries over here and I love the concept so much.

Anyway, don't take my word for it, read the article by Amica Lane, then get yourselves down there!

Stylishly Sustainable: Urban Remade Shoes

2010-04-07T22:03:00.000+01:00

I'm posting a lot about shoes recently. But then again, I love shoes.

Urban Remade are particularly great though. I discovered them through Fashion-Conscience, and I love the concept:

"The collection exclusively incorporates rare, vintage and ultra rare iconic retro textiles from the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's reclaimed from seats on London's Underground tube carriages and buses." Read more here.

Not only that, but the trim is 100% recycled or repurposed leather, the Sole is 33% recycled tyre rubber. All 100% salvaged UK waste. Awesome.

District Line - Such a bad print that it's good, so good. They don't make 'em like this anymore! £66.41

Central Line - I spend 1/3 of my commute (yes there are depressingly 3 parts) on the central line, so this is fitting. A lovely utilitarian print, it says 'I'm going to work, and the central line is generally reliable. At least you're not on the circle line!' £91.96

Another 1/3 of my journey is on the Victoria Line - where this print is from. Vintage! £66.41

They don't have any London Midland fabrics. The other 1/3 of my journey. Unsurprisingly. I'll help them tear a few strips out though.....

The Island Line - 'The line from Ryde St John's Road to Shanklin was originally built as part of the Isle of Wight Railway, which opened on 23 August 1864.' Apparently. Best found print though, check it out. Snazzy. £66.41.

So they're not cheap, but you know exactly where the materials have come from and who made them. And they are of course very rare and basically one of a kind.

Own a bit of British Transport history! Yeah! Go railway!

Ads I love: Wrigleys Extra 'Banish Smelly Followers'

2010-04-07T20:57:00.000+01:00

Now. This isn't a clever viral marketing campaign, or guerilla gardening, or anything of that jazz. This is a plain, straight-up TV advert. And generally, most of them are bad. Not this one. It made me laugh and go 'aw' and feel fuzzy all at the same time. Possibly just a girly reaction, but my dad also immensely liked it too. And he complains about adverts more than I do.

Banish Smelly Follow..
Watch the ad...

Watch it. Why do I love it? Cute characters. Nothing gets me more than cute, slightly helpless characters. It's why I also love the Orange adverts.

And that it also works, at telling you what the product is (or reminding you of it) with none of that cliched icicles/arctic wind/cool fresh breath/breathing on a mirror stuff that most adverts of similar brands come up with it. It's just a visual representation of bad breath. In a cute way.

What's the song in it? If anyone knows, say so. It's nice.

I also love the bit at the end where the lil ickle onion gets stuck in the lift door. I hope he doesn't get squashted >.<

Alright, enough. I've made my point. It's fun and happy. The way ads should be!

Nonsensical Spam Project: Sleep Late...

2010-04-05T17:23:00.000+01:00

New work! How exciting. Been so busy with new job and everything that I haven't done a new illustration in a while.

As soon as I got this spam comment, I loved it. It's not even that nonsensical... in fact, it makes perfect sense! Click for larger.

"Since it is the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late...."

From the comment on my H! outfit post here. Just don't click the dots, pretty sure they're links to porn sites. Excellent.

This has been the Easter bank holiday weekend, so it's been ALL about not getting eaten by the early bird, definitely. Been getting up at about midday every day, it's been amazing. It's going to be a shock going back to work tomorrow, with my 5.45am getting-up time. Sigh.

It was so great drawing birds again, I really enjoy it and haven't for ages. Here are a few scans from my sketch book, some of which made it into the illustration:

To see the other illustrations in the Nonsensical Spam Comment Project, click here!

All illustrations copyright to me, Rachel Lewis, 2010, ta.

Oh, also, the type used in this illustration is called 'Arsenale White', found on Dafont. It's cute.

If you like this post, don't forget to tweet about it! Seems rather fitting, said the birds...

Coveting: The Garden Collection at H&M

2010-04-04T20:10:00.000+01:00

First off, love that type treatment. Love love love.

It's spring everyone! The cold and rain could've fooled us, but the clocks went forward, and the high street has gone into floral overdrive. It's inevitable; out comes the sun (sometimes...) and in comes all the 'florals with a twist of... grunge/irony/retro/futuristic...etc' (*delete as appropriate). This collection however, is unashamedly florals with a hippie twist, with an even better twist of sustainability! Hurrah. Rachel is suddenly much more interested. Boasting recycled polyester and organic cotton, it's not ground-breaking, but it's certainly a breathe of fresh air, especially when we all know (and, admit it, try to ignore) the facts about how much virgin fabric is used by the fashion industry every year, and so forth. It's shocking, but we still don't stop the fast fashion train. I'm guilty of it, for sure. I feel guilty every time I shop at Primark, or every time I think about how many tonnes of textiles go to Landfill every year. (you can put clothes in your recycling bin you know peeps, I just recycled loads of old bras, things that really can't go to oxfam!) Even that though, is getting ridiculous, read this article about the steady increase in our clothes usage that means recycling plants are full to the brim with cheap, barely worn, unwanted clothes.

So at least H&M are making some headway, and bringing recycled polyester into the mainstream. Here's an avant-garde thought, high street, how about all of your clothes using recycled materials? I know, crazy. But H&M prove that it an be done, and it hasn't even changed the price points in any way that I can notice. Let's take a look at the collection, it fuses a bit of romance and exotic garden, and has some really great pieces. I popped in to H&M yesterday after seeing the collection online, and these are my favourites:

Love this floral body; the right mix of the underwear/outerwear trend and inky florals. Would look great under a loose cardigan. £12.99.

I love love love this vest top. Nudes are of course massively on trend right now, and I love it, it's such a pretty, girlie look. And the swirly rose relief pattern gives it a bit of interest without taking away from the fragility of it. £12.99.

These shorts are so cute. Not sure how they'd look on my terrible legs, I didn't get the chance to try them on (either couldn't see them, or they weren't there), but I like them all the same. £14.99. And they'd go great with the vest top.

Oh em gee, I love this dress so much! It's so pretty. I didn't get the chance to try it on though because again, I couldn't see it in my local branch! Damn you, Milton Keynes. Either it had all gone or they're not carrying the whole collection. I think I'm going to have to hit Oxford St after work this week and see what they've got. You'd have to wear nude underwear under it obviously, and it wouldn't go with everyone's skin tone, but it's great. So feminine. £19.99. Bargain!

This however, is my favourite of the whole collection. I think it epitomises it, with the clashing florals, girly empire line, hippie flowy dress and BIIIIG pockets. I am only little and I love big pockets! ^.^ Especially in dresses like this, you can just shove your hands in and stand around in faux-nervousness, looking cute. ALAS, they'd run out of my size!! They had 8's and 14's. No 10's or 12's. Unless they were lurking in the changing rooms. I'm usually a 10 in dresses but H&M has been coming up really small recently on me so I'm pretty sure I'd be a 12, but I'd want to try it I think. Anyone else finding that? I bought jeggings in a size 14 and they're basically too small. WTF. I'm not a size 16. No way. Anyway, this is the way to wear it:

Except I'd wear it with a really light denim cropped jacket, and some pastel-y tights until it warms up a bit. £24.99. With this scarf:

Which is cute and is only £7.99. A great way to wear the nude trend if you're worried about getting washed out. And I'd also wear it with...

These shoes! I haven't got any new pumps for this season and this might be a good way to start. It's almost pump-wearing weather! £9.99, cheap as chips.

I think this collection has got some really good mix and match pieces, but too many tunics (not a fan of the tunic...) and not enough skirts I think. I would've liked some more high-waisted, billowy skirt I think. And maybe the odd denim jacket. But I think it's great that they are using these sustainable materials, and hope they continue to do so. Click here to view the collection! You'll have to buy it on shops though, H&M still don't have online shopping.

Another great thing that H&M are doing online though, is the Style Guide - I really like the part where you can drag your favourite items from the guide across (it tells you the total cost) and then you can 'blog' the image - although what it really does is send you a jpg of your selection, you have to actually blog it. It's a nice touch though. Here's my quick selection:

See, the awesome floral dress with a denim jacket. Looks nice :)

Organise or Die: 88 Illustrations from Rework by 37Signals

2010-04-04T18:13:00.000+01:00

Ah, I love my RSS feed. So much useful stuff, in equal amounts to so much crap. I subscribe to about 3 cupcakes blogs (...why?) and all kinds of weird stuff, but I also subscribe to many useful design blogs, which churn up some great stuff.

At the moment I have nearly 2000 unread items on my feed.... you can see why. I may just cleanse the whole list. I'm not ever going to read all that!

Anyway, after my Organise or Die post, Sian Louise from One Last Thing got inspired and made her own To-Do list. This is highly organised of her and I approve. It's even in a pleasing shade of magenta. This is a good thing because it sounds like she's in that Easter phase of her third year... i.e, freak the fuck out, the end is nigh, omg I've got so much to do time of year. I remember it with great fondness. At the time I was in a constant state of mentalness/drunken denial. I have no idea how I got it all done. LISTS, that's how. Lists and Relentless. So so much Relentless. My degree should have been sponsored by it.

To continue with the theme, and other productivity ideas that have been put to us on my Immersion course, I found these great illustrations on my RSS feed, via Swissmiss.

There are from a new book called ReWork, by 37 Signals, which is all about streamlining the Creative business, productivity, what to do, what not to do, etc etc. You know the drill, one of those business self-help books that everyone raves about and I should probably buy. But the illustrations alone are great:

Illustration for the essay "Learning from mistakes is overrated" - This is interesting. I'm constantly being told, and have been all through art education, that making mistakes is how you learn, your best work can come from mistakes, and that sort of thing. But they're saying the opposite here. I think I should read the book to understand it completely, but I know what they're saying - sometimes mistakes aren't acceptable. We shouldn't be so brainwashed to think that they are - mistakes can cost time, and even money, and that's not good. It's ok if you learn from them, but don't expect to make mistakes, and don't think it's your right to.

Illustration for the essay "Start making something" - This is good, and something that is being drummed into us at Immersion. Instead of procrastinating and worrying what/who you are, what you do, what you make, etc etc, just go and make something. Just go. Stop being afraid of failing and actually start something.

"No time is no excuse" - Aha, another good one. I'm sooo guilty of this. We all are right? "I haven't got time to exercise, I haven't got time to blog every day, I haven't time to draw every day..." Well I've got time to watch Glee, and 24 and Lost, and all kinds of other things, so I pretty much do. It's more laziness. Damn.

"Building to flip is building to flop" - I don't understand this one so much, again I should prb read the book. I just like the hand drawn type, and that it sounds good.

And so on. I could post them all really, they're great. And some are worth printing out and sticking next to your mac I think. One of those daily reminders.

Remember I was saying in my last post about the talk from Max Fraser, where he had loads of good tips? They were all things like this. We got sent round a hand out which rounded-up (I'm sure that's terrible grammar... round-up in past tense?.... summed up! That's better) which summed up the session, here are a few golden nuggets:

Get on and do something - do projects for real - have tangible experience
Notice what you “have” rather than “don’t have”
Look at things from different perspectives - things haven’t failed just because they didn’t turn out as planned - they are just not what you expected
Build “can do” networks including people who believe in you and your idea.
Find your niche - whats unique in your process? How can you collaborate, or link different interests, worlds and ideas?
Success comes through the hard graft, bringing together the nitty gritty with the ambition. So where do you go for your inspiration fixes? What rocks your boat and will keep you going through the tough times?
Spend time doing what you are selling, creating, writing, producing - nurture and give time to your creative practice, keep it finely tuned, and nourished
Give “time” to “time” - it is important to slow down sometimes
Identify, create, go for and seize opportunities…
Nurture “Luck”
Always follow up leads
Make some tasks a regular part of your diary – e.g. each week email 4 new contacts while you are raising your profile, the following week phone them and try and make an appointment.

There were a lot but those are some of the good bits.

P.S, Happy Easter! I'm up here blogging because dad and brothers have put some god-awful football match on (Everton v W.Ham... why... why... they don't support either...) but it's prob only fair because I did watch the Grand Prix for hours earlier. Good one, it was as well.

Did you get lots of nice Eggs? I hit the jackpot... Green & Black's and Lindt. Get in.

Illustration Dust Collective - Now featuring moi

2010-04-04T17:40:00.000+01:00

Exciting news! I am now a part of Illustration Dust - a really exciting blog full of great illustrators, all showcasing their best work and getting much needed feedback from each other.

I am yet to post, but I have a couple of new illustrations that I have done so will put those up there in the coming week hopefully.

Go and check out the blog and all the other work up there!

I have written before about the importance of collectives and how I always hoped to join one; I think working in isolation isn't really conducive to creativity in the long run and it's very difficult to work on something by yourself for ages without any feedback from anyone else. This is what's great about the internet - even if you are physically alone in your workspace, there's always someone out there to contact. This is what I miss most about university; the ability to just turn roundto whoever in the studio and say, 'hey, does this look alright?'... for the time being I can only be a part time illustrator and when I am, it's just me in my loft.

Eventually I would love to set up a studio with some like-minded creatives (all from different disciplines mind, I believe that's the way forward) and all work together and seperately within a shared space. This may become a reality with my Immersion group - we are looking into using a pop-up space/empty retail space and what possibilities are out there. Exciting stuff. More in a few months, I'd imagine.

Immersion 2010: Session 7

2010-04-02T23:26:00.000+01:00

This session was really great; enjoyed it a lot. It was back with the original course leaders, and was all about Ambition again, or rather, refreshing our ambition after being halfway through the course! A lot of us have clearer thoughts, while even more were more confused than at the start! Which I don't think is a bad thing. Just means that we are thinking about things more, at least.

We started by getting into groups (Janie and Sian love group work... quite a lot... 'get into groups of 5!' 'get into groups of 3!' and then it's the whole 'soooo..... who wants to go first...' thing. It's fine after a bit and generally no one can stop talking after a while. It's just makes me laugh everytime they say 'We're going to get you into groups...') and talking about what we are learning about ourselves, what's changed, what do you want from today's session, what values do you have around ambition. My general thoughts were thus:

What are you learning about yourself?
That I'm really impatient and am always chasing the next big thing. It's why I get bored in jobs quickly and why I think freelance is the best road for me in the long run. But I also know I need to stop being like this so much; I've just started (well, I say just, been there 4 weeks now) a great job which I'm learning so much from and I'm already thinking about where I want to be next in my life. I need to slow down and chill. There are so many things I want to do and be involved in, some of which will take years to get established in, not months. Chill. Out. Rachel. All is good.
What's changed for you?
Well, I have a job. That's good. Also, I'm much more clear about how I want to work, in what fields, and what I need to do to get there. I'm also finding that London is great, and I will live there soon. I have changed as well I think. I'm learning to link various parts of my life together, and how things can lend itself to others. (Like blogging, that was just a fun thing for me before, now I'm seeing how it's a vital extension of my professional self and is a great way of exposing my talents to the world. Mmmm. Sell out.)
What do you want from today's session?
For it to be different and useful. Simples.
What values do you have around your ambition?
We didn't really get this question. Still don't, really. My values don't change, my ambitions do... so... I don't know. I know I don't want to sacrifice my values to get my ambitions. I aspire to work in an ethical and environmental and social way. So... yep. Can you be ethical and ambitious?

We were then told to look up B.J. Cunningham. As he is a branding guru. Apparently. Noted.

We then had to get into a different group? I think? Maybe? To talk about how our ambitions translate into a tangible vision. I couldn't answer this as well. My tangible vision is to be living in a cool part of London, running around London working for cool brands and agencies, designing cool stuff, writing about cool stuff, drinking cool drinks, eating cool food, sleeping with cool people. Asking the existential question, what is cool? Am I cool? As I ponder my greatness. Is that shallow and consumerist? Possibly. I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect, but oh, to be a cool kid. I'm not ashamed to aspire to enjoy my 20's, for sure. Bring it on. And listen to The Common People by Pulp, by the way.

We then had two speakers for the day, the first was Hannah Martin. Hannah is a luxury jewelery designer; her work is gorgeous. I have written a separate blog post about her work because I feel it's easier that way. Click to read and have a look, it's not long.

She was such an inspiration. We graduated from St Martins, had work experience at Cartier(!) and then decided to go it alone. She works so hard and seems to be doing well from it. She had interesting advice as well, best for those of us in the course who are actually jewellery/fashion designers. But just generally, you have to see just how much she adores her work, and quite rightly so. I do too:

All her collections have characters and stories behind them, which I love. That narrative behind her work is fascinating and she puts a lot of effort into really inventing this character, and who would want to buy into it, and why.

After that talk, we got back into groups (see...) and talked about, who benefits from our ambitions? Who else? What is the risk? What wouldn't you risk? What will help you to take those risks? What do you need to make it happen? Which were strange but good questions. I know I wouldn't risk my financial stability (not like I have massive financial stability right now... but there you go...) It was nicer just talking about looser things really, our group got into a tangent but that was good. I like to hear other people's answers more than talk about my own, so groups is good, so long as I don't go first :) Ha.

After lunch, we had a talk from Max Fraser, who is a) really nice b) a design commentator/writer/critic guy c) writes books and d) boyfriend of Hannah Martin. So therefore one half of the most awesome design/creative couple I've ever met. Damn them.

His website is also 'coming soon' (how annoying), but he has twitter, so that'll do.

Max is a freelance journalist, events producer, writer of design books, does something called 'production', and many other things I'm sure. He basically reports on the best of contemporary design, and has 3 companies - MaxFraser, which is him, Spotlight Productions, and Spotlight Press, which handles the publishing of his own books.

One of the biggest things he is known for is writing the London Design Guide:

And so I bought a copy off him. He signed it too! Which was cool. I will add it to my signed Sara Fanelli book, and start my collection. It's one of those books that you see and think, yeah that's really great! And then never get round to buying it. So now I have. I heard about it last LDF and mainly wanted it because the cover is graph paper. And we all know how much I love graph paper.

But it's packed with really useful info and will be great for me; even though I've gone in and out of London all my life, I'm yet to live there so really only have a base knowledge of places to go and things to see, especially from a design point of view, aside from all the obvious tourist-y places. Secret London is also proving extremely useful for this too.

Max had so much useful advice that it was hard to take it all in. He had so many great stories and anecdotes too, like how he scored sponsorship from Mazda to get his first book publishes, which they then backed out of, but he still got loads of money because they'd signed a contract, etc etc. Tales of just being a bit gutsy and not being afraid of getting what you want. Tales of luck, but also of seizing opportunities. A lot of Max's stories were about luck, but there's a saying that has stuck with me, ever since college where it was taped up on the studio wall by my tutor: The harder you work, the luckier you get. I kind of live my life by that. And I think that Max seems to as well. Which is cool.

He also encouraged having a mentor of some kind, but acknowledged that mentors aren't something you actively look for, they just happen to you.

Don't seek praise, seek criticism. If you get stuck, draw with another pen. Learn to trust your intuition. Nobody owes you anything. These were all great bits of advice from him; there were about 20 more I didn't write down.

So another really good session, I love seeing other people's (successful people especially) work and learning stuff from those who have actually gone out there and done it.

For all the other Immersion posts, click here.

If you'd like to share my ramblings, please do:

Inspiration: Hannah Martin, Luxury Jewellery Designer

2010-04-02T19:27:00.000+01:00

At a recent Immersion session we had a talk from Hannah Martin, who is a really talented Luxury Jewellery Designer. She works with silver, gold, diamonds, all kinds of expensive stuff, and produces work such as...

All quite expensive. I say quite. You can guess... gold and diamonds ain't cheap. But they are beautiful.

The thing that really struck me about Hannah's work is that each of her collections have a story behind them. Her first collection was called 'It's only Rock N Roll' and was based on the hedonism and raw masculinity that a rock n roll lifestyle produces. It's the perfect collection for aspiring (or real) rockstars, with pure sexual charge and excitement, she describes it as a collection for men that their girlfriends will want to steal. The silver spikey rings above are in that collection, and that first example, I simply love. I dread to think how much, but I would love to own something like that.

She really gets deep into the character and story behind each collection, and the current one is no different: It's called Vincent and is based on the character of an old-school gangster, or maybe a russian mafia type, but is so stylish and slick and cool. She really thinks about her target market with each collection, not only who they are bit who they aspire to be; after all, jewellery like this is such a statement of intent - not only your status but who you want to project yourself to be.

"An oligarch of the underground, a shadowy patriarch of a Russia imbued deep in the flesh of London society, Vincent is Hannah Martin's prevailing infatuation.

In a sinister world powered by the furtive dealings of presumed businessmen, his disquieting charm impeccably masks a cold and brutal core. He moves untouchable, wielding an enigmatic power over those naively daring to cross his path.

Infiltrate an unscrupulous realm of disquiet, to command allegiance amongst the fallen angels of a brutal empire." That's pretty cool. Take a look at the pieces:

Silver cufflinks, £335. Only 500 will ever be made.

Silver ring, £350

Silver necklace, £995. Only 25 will be made.

£2995. Diamonds, Gold, Hand Cut Onyx. Only 75 will be made.

It's all pretty amazing. She graduated from St Martins and had work experience at Cartier for 4 months, then decided, after no-one would take her on to do what she wanted, she would do it herself. She said at times it had been tough, but it was all worth it, and every year gets easier, every collection gets more press and she's now trying really hard to get her pieces into places she aspires to sell in. She only ever works with people she admires and I think that's an important lesson.

Click here to go to her site, and if you have a few spare K, buy some amazing pieces of hand-crafted art. Then give it to meeeeee. Haha.

If you liked this post, don't forget to share it with my shiny new social networking buttons... )

Immersion 2010: Session 6

2010-04-02T18:06:00.000+01:00

Bit behind on posting for Immersion - just soo busy right now. But in a good way :)

Session 6 was all about Costing and Pricing - really useful because it's so hard to know how to value your work. Being an illustrator, I'm a member of the AOI so I can always ring them up and ask for pricing advice; but I know in future I want to work in other areas as well as illustration, areas that might require having an hourly/day rate, and it's hard to know what to charge people.

We were broken into 2 groups and each had a workshop, then we swapped round. The first workshop I had was with Catherine Gregg, from Make:Good. It was a really practical session; we analysed a live prject that one of the group had coming up and broken down exactly how much time and money it was going to cost him, so a day rate could be worked out based on how much he needed/wanted to earn.

The one interesting thing that came out was that say you wanted to earn 30,000 a year from freelance work, you can't just break that down into 365 days and say "ok I need to earn £80 a day"... because that doesn't take into account any weekends or holidays. You can't even say "I'll work 240 days a year, which means I'll charge £125 a day", giving yourself weekends and 20 days holiday, because that assumes you have a constant flow of work every working day of the year. Which just isn't going to happen. You need a few days a week of self/promotion/looking for new work, and sometimes there's work that needs to be done for projects that you just can't bill for. Things like that. So automatically you're looking at an actual working year of 100-120 days a year. Which is £150 a day. Which actually sounds kind of reasonable. If you're lucky.

Anyway, to dream of 30k a year! That's nearly double what I make now. Ah, bottom of the ladder and all. Got to start somewhere!

The advice was basically, pick a salary you want to earn, then using above workings, work out a day rate. Apparently you should be aiming for £300 a day! I know, that seems really high. If only!

Another tip was to avoid working for free. However, most of us have to do that. So ask for something in return - meetings with their contacts etc.

The second workshop was with Magnus, who has been great and done quite a lot of sessions with us. His was more about if you're selling actual physical projects, how to cost and price them. Taking into account everything like manufacturing costs, distributor costs, stuff like that. So less useful for me but still good to know.

He also talked about royalties and how they work, which was good as I didn't really know a lot about them. Sounds like a really tedious way of making a living actually.

Lastly, after lunch, we had a talk from Rachel Smart, who is one of those horribly annoying people because she was just so good. At everything. Just good at life. Irritatingly awesome. In a good way of course, she was really nice, just one of those people that makes you feel crushingly inadequate. Lol. Check out her blurb:
"Rachel Smart Limited is a management consultancy providing services to design businesses. Sectors served include architecture, interior design, interior products, fashion design and accessories, graphic design, designer-makers and public arts. Consultancy advice is to assist in the development of long term business strategy whilst also enhancing the operations of those who work to commission and/or produce product ranges.
Whilst serving the needs of clients on a one to one basis, Rachel also teaches in universities, leads professional practice seminars and researches management and entrepreneurship in the design sector."

See. Just too good. And so, inevitably, she had really amazing, yet simple advice. Things like, if you have questions about tax, phone up the inland revenue. Just phone 'em. Simples. And also, to have separate bank accounts for personal and business - makes working out tax etc much easier. And also the basics of book keeping, just looking after invoices, purchase orders etc.
Get a boxfile, put all statements, receipts, invoices etc in there.
Get a ringbinder and dividers
One section for sales invoices
One for purcahse invoices/receipts
One for bank statements.
Then you can match all ins and outs to the bank statements.

She also explain what expenses were... things bought by your personal money, the business then owes you that money. Reduces profit, reduces tax. Basically a loan. All these things I did not know! So much clearer.

Rachel also does surgeries to help businesses at Craft Central, based in Clerkenwell. Seems like a good place actually, membership is £40 a year. Might be a useful thing.

So this session was really useful and gave us a lot to think about. Came out feeling good, if a little overwhelmed - and quite glad I have a full time job at the moment and don't have to think about these kinds of things yet. Although I'd love to be freelance full time, I'm glad I'm working for someone else as I want the experience before I start out on my own.

To read all the other posts about Immersion 2010 at Central St Martins, click here.

(oh, also, I now have re-tweet buttons on my posts from now on, and other social networking and bookmarking buttons too! Share me around people, if you like what you read!)

Grazia Does Augmented Reality

2010-03-28T17:48:00.001+01:00

This time last year, Augmented Reality was this hip new buzz word I'd just heard about and it seemed that everyone was whispering 'Is this the future??' in sci-fi voices. It's a groundbreaking piece of technology but a lot of people didn't quite know how to apply it, and brands weren't really sure what it could do for them. Cool for cool's sake, were a lot of people's first thoughts.

Now though, it's really beginning to pick up momentum, and perhaps it's now burst onto the mainstream with this week's Grazia Magazine doing a '3D' (term applied loosely...) issue.

I wrote about Augmented Reality and it's uses in a post I wrote a while back about my Ted Baker project. I (regrettably) never did submit that project to YCN because I got a full time job and that's against the rules :( My idea was great, as well. Yep, genius almost.

Anyway, the example that still stands out is Hugo Boss's augmented reality shop windows:

I liked how the technology takes the image of what you show to it, and manipulates it, moves it around etc, so that it looks like what you are holding is moving in front of you.

When I saw that Grazia were using AR, I assumed it would be a similar thing - hold the page up with all the fashion pieces and the page would come to life in your hands. It's almost that, but not quite. Instead of something like the Lego AR...

...Where the 3D image of the product seems to appear in your hands, instead the webcam/iphone app is activated by the little black and white logo, but then just reverts to a pre-made video which displays the content, with no interaction with your individual copy of the magazine. For example, on the cover, I thought that when you held it up, lovely Florence would dance about within the confines of the cover, weaving through the 150pt type and knocking silly subheadlines away with her mega-voice. But... not really. This is what happens when you hold your cover up:

Not what I was expecting. It's still cool and fun, but not as interactive as I thought.

Also, I don't have an iphone so had to use my imac's camera. The online content delivery bit at graziadaily.com/3D is a bit flaky, I've found. I don't know if the app is better, but my cover didn't want to work at all, and when I went to activate the tutorial on creating smokey eyes, it activated the fashion editorial instead =/ Not cool. So perhaps needing a bit of work.

That said, the idea behind it is great and definitely a step forward in bridging the gap between physical fashion magazines and online content - after all, these days you can find out about new trends in an instant - weekly mags seem old within days. I'd like to see this being a permanent feature within the magazine. Get rid of the cover shoot bit- it's nice but flashy and doesn't actually do anything except give models/singers/whoever a platform to prance around on. But the fashion editorial section could really benefit from this.

If they changed the format to be more like the Lego example above, it would be brilliant. I'd love to be able to hold my iphone (future iphone) over any garment/accessory/whatever in the magazine, and it would come into 3D life on my iphone screen - I could rotate it, see what it looks like at all angles - this is especially good for bags. Then there could be a link to buy it straight away online - done. All through the app. This is a solid way of ensuring fashion magazine's relevance in a digital age. Or even simple things like, you've read a really great, interesting article in the magazine, and want to tweet about it straight away - hold the app up to the title, or photo say, and it will automatically tweet a link to the digital article online. Or an extract of it. Things like that would be so great if they were incorporated into Grazia as a normal, weekly thing, instead of a special one-off 'collector's "3D" edition. Cos it's not exactly 3D is it... no yet. Things aren't jumping off the page at me.

I don't even know if AR has the technology to do all this yet; although I'm pretty sure it can; especially with games such as The Hidden Park around. So it's a step in the right direction, and props to Grazia for having the balls to showcase technology like this, it just shows they're a forward-thinking mag. I just hope they expand on it in the future.

Meanwhile, next issue they're doing a big 'Culture Special' focusing on what's cool this spring. Trend hunters, keep an eye out...

Look what dropped through my door.... H! Outfit post

2010-03-20T18:10:00.000Z

When I started this blog, it really had no direction and was just for me. Now I realise it's a great outlet for my writing (which gets a bit pushed away in the career of a visual-type person) and my love of sharing new stuff and talking about what's hot and what's not. The perks, which I'm just starting to see, are that sometimes, people send you stuff. Which is amazing! It doesn't happen often (some bloggers get tonnes of stuff, if you are one, tell me how ;) not that I'm a sell out....) but it's really nice when it does.

I blogged about the new H! by Henry Holland collection at Debenhams a few weeks ago, because I love it so. I also talked about how much I loved one of the cardigans, but super couldn't afford it because I'm not rich and famous yet. Anyway the lovely people at team Henry at Debenhams spotted my post (this always surprises me, generally I feel that I talk to no-one, seeing as I get hardly any comments! Do comment, people, it helps me feel loved) and kindly sent me the cardigan! I know! I couldn't believe it. I've literally worn it everyday since. I'm not even joking, mum had to pry it off me to wash it. That was a sad day.
Oh, outfit posts. The eternal conundrum; how to pose? Do you smile and look like a holiday snap? Do you chop your head off? Do you look all model-y and weird? Or do you just not smile much and look a bit awkward, like me? This picture confirms two things for me 1) Get a bloody haircut, those roots are not rock n roll and those ends are just bleh 2) I really need to get contacts.

Anyway, so there's the lovely cardigan from H! by Henry Holland :) It goes with everything, as far as I've found so far. Ace. Rest of outfit: lace top Primark, floral top underneath H&M, floral skirt Primark, tights Debenhams, bra (not normally a fan of bra straps showing but I felt lazy) La Senza. That's quite a cheapskate outfit =/ I don't normally wear lots of Primark. I have the guilt. But also, I am poor. Ugh. Hopefully not for long! You know, with employment and all. Yay.

So thanks friendly Debenhams people ^.^

If anyone else wants to send me stuff, feel free....*

*only half joking. Mmm stuff.

Featured: My work on Photo-Nomads.co.uk

2010-03-16T21:30:00.000Z

A nice surprise the other day was being featured on Photo-Nomads.co.uk. It's a lovely little blog by Richard & Sue Broom - take a look.

Thanks for featuring me guys :)

Ads I love: Marmite 'That May Be Too Far' Campaign

2010-03-16T21:14:00.000Z

I'm starting a new post subtitle - Ads I love. There are many. Considering I want to work in advertising and I'm quite adept at thinking up concepts (apparently), and I have tonnes of opinions about advertising, I don't actually post enough about it. I think it's because I have too many thoughts on the subject and don't know where to begin.

Well I'm beginning on a brand that everyone knows and you either love it or you hate it - The new Marmite ads of course.

I've been seeing these everyday on my way through Euston station and they make me smile, and think as well - which is a good thing. What I love about these ads is Marmite's willingness to embrace the knowledge that many people hate them, and using it to their advantage. I'm sure a lot of people would think 'A Marmite cereal bar is a bit too far' so they have hit the love it/hate it discussion head on, with spoof products that marmite lovers may buy, and marmite haters would subsequently hate them for loving it. Nice.

Brands that are brave (ish) with their advertising like this make me feel better about the state of the advertising sector. Apparently they even put up versions of these posters without the strap line, and marmite lovers were actually asking where they could get these products from. They make me think when I look at them as well because they are representing advertising stereotypes and taking a satirical view on them - how much do these adverts look like the real thing? How many times have adverts like these been plastered in front of our faces? Especially the perfume one... Gucci anyone? I like that these adverts are saying, 'Well we may as well make these products, there are people like you who will buy them with advertising like this'. Which is true.

The ads are from the ever-successful DDB, executing them with a confidence and hitting the target audience head on. Even if you hate the taste of Marmite (like I do), you can't help but love the brand. It's a British icon but it hasn't kept itself in the dark ages; especially with a fresh and fun campaign like this. Keep it coming.

Found the pictures via the blog of Sell! Sell!, which is a great Shoreditch based creative agency I've just recently discovered. Here is their website. From reading the stuff on their blog, they seem pretty cool though and I'd love to have a chance to work with them in the future.

Immersion 2010: Session 5

2010-03-16T21:04:00.000Z

Last week we had a really good session actually. It was called 'Nuts and Bolts' and was focused on the specifics of being self-employed/starting a business. Talking about the differences between Sole Traders, Partners, Limited Companies (which I learned in Business Studies GCSE but it's always nice to have a reminder) and making us think about ourselves as a business and we would probably be. I'm definitely of the Sole Trader/Freelancer kind, backed up by being a normal employee for the foreseeable future. Being a normal is good for the bank balance but bad for my lifestyle, I think.

So we had Magnus Long from Viable London back in talking about his route to where he is now, and how some of it he spent as an employee and then taking the decision to form a partnership, then a limited company, and the pros and cons of each.

He said a really nice quote - "It's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb, instead of halfway up one you don't." Which I quite like.

He also told us about Hidden Art, which I'd never heard about but seems really interesting and useful maybe in the future.

"Hidden Art helps designer-makers and designers transform their passion into products.

We do this through promoting and supporting members to place their products both nationally and internationally through international trade fairs, the Hidden Art E-Shop, global press coverage, Hidden Art Awards and our annual pre-Christmas Open Studios event." It's about £50 a year; I think probably more useful to product designers and designer-makers, that is, people with physical things to sell. I don't really have any of that yet.

We then were given a talk by Be Kaylor-Blake from Futureheads Recruitment, who gave us advice on job hunting through recruitment agencies, what to do, what to expect, that kind of thing. I'd always thought recruitment agencies were a really good idea but according to Be, the process in London/Uk as a whole is quite bad - and other people had bad experiences too. Which was interesting to know, I had assumed they were a good route to go down but maybe not. She said it only worked if there was a good relationship between you and the agency, you had a strong relationship with someone in the team and that it was a two way street, you had to work on it.

Lastly there was Catherin Gregg, who was really nice and has a great company called Make:Good, who "are an architecture and design company working to make public buildings and spaces more friendly and enjoyable places to be. More than this; we empower the very people who use these spaces to be at the heart of delivering the transformations." She had good advice as well, simple but valuable things like, you need to offer things that people actually want, and to have a distinction between yourself and your work. It's ok to sleep! I know I have guilt over being tired a lot and thinking 'but I must work 16 hour days to make it' and actually... no you don't. Chill. Sleep. Sleep is nice. Mmm.

In the evening, we had a panel session with Sue Odell, who does casting, styling, production, and is a general whirlwind of energy and amazingness - the stories she had! And also Gail Gallie, who works in marketing/strategy, and again had a really interesting background and seems to have done amazing stuff.

Sue Odell has shot the images for so many ads that I like -

That toblerone one is great.

She's had such an interesting life - and the one thing that came through clearest is she never set out to be any of the titles she puts on her career - she started out as a graphic designer, then kind of fell into casting by working with Lord Snowdon and other amazing photographers, then through that fell into styling, and so forth - she never set out saying 'I want to be a stylist', she just did what she enjoyed every day, always grabbed new opportunities, got a bit lucky, and so has had a really exciting and varied career. She also admitted to being a complete control freak and never relinquishing control over her projects - hence why she still runs around like a mad woman when she cuould employ 'people' to do what she does.

Gail Gallie was equally interesting - she was behind the labour 1997 campaign, (which proved to be successful), and then moved on to become the head of marketing and events at Radio 1. Which must have been such a great job! She was also behind setting up the Electric Proms too, which was a brilliant idea. I think she ended up moving on to be the head of marketing and events for over a third of the BBC in the end. Crazy stuff.

She then moved on to working on the development and fundraising at the Roundhouse in Camden (if you've never been there, it's a really great venue, lots of nice exposed brick and glass stairways etc). From there I think she worked more freelance and now runs her own campaigns agency, GallieGodfrey as a partnership. That's one varied career.

To read about all the Immersion sessions so far, click here.

Combining Fonts: 4 ways of getting it right...

2010-03-16T20:48:00.001Z

In my new job as a graphic design assistant, I'm having to play with type a lot more than I usually would on a daily basis. This is a good thing, for the most part (isn't leading fun?) except I hate trawling through fonts trying to get things to work and match up. There are brand guidelines/default fonts to use most of the time but I'm always trying to mash it up a bit. I've just come across this really great 'Four Ways to Mix Fonts', found via Swissmiss. It's a really simple and clear way to explain how best to use 3 or 4, or even 5 fonts in the same design. I was always told 'less is more' and be simple with things, but I'm definitely from the maximalist school of thought and love when you've got typefaces all over the place - but my challenge has always been getting it to look right. Eclectic but not cluttered. Well this little guide has simplified things quite well and it's definitely worth considering next time I do something with a zillion typefaces:

Wit, Energy, Poise, Dignity. Read the full page because it's really interesting and makes some good, obvious-now-you-say-it points. Things like giving each typeface it's own role (header, body text etc) and enforcing that separation. And mixing fonts that are all from the same era, or have the same proportions.

Also, aren't those examples lovely in themselves? Especially No. 2. Really crisp and pleasing.

Mmm, letters.

Organise or Die

2010-03-15T21:02:00.000Z

Bit of an ominous Post Title there. I like to be melodramatic. In my Immersion course that I'm doing at St Martins at the moment, a lot of emphasis at the moment is being put on organisation - having lists, priorities, goals, ambitions, and a system in place to record them all so that they can be acheived. I generally use my diary and lists on random bits of paper. But I've been coming across a few things that would make the process entirely more fun, or at least a bit prettier.

First up, these genius Reminder Magnets found via Art At Heart:

Great if you keep bills/random stuff/your entire life stuck to your fridge. Time to bin those awful novelty seaside magnets and put all that important and forgotten stuff under the right magnets! I particularly like the 'fyi' and 'etc' ones the most, as they are the most ambiguous... and thus least useful I suppose, which kind of defeats the object. Whatever, I just like the thought of having a pile of stuff under the title 'etc...' They can be bought from See Jane Work, which is full of other lovely 'I will find a use for this' things like these Day of the Week pegs:

Next, also from Art At Heart (great blog btw, I recommend it), is this rather awesome All in One Wooden Desk Organiser...with iPhone charger! Nifty:

Actual wood with actual charger for actual iPhone. Nice mix of organic and technological. Made to order though... $199. Maybe not eh.

Next is one of my favourites. It's from Erin Vale Design, free printables for Blog Post topics!

Anything DIY is cool in my books. It's a downloadable PDF that you print out and then either just stack up or be a bit adventurous with it - I discovered it via Gingham Cherry and she made this ace little book using it:

Having a blog post schedule is a really good idea and something that I don't adhere to enough. Bloggers like mrYen have got it down to a T - what with his Weekend Goodness and WIP Wednesdays and all that. I don't really have that discipline yet - difficult with a full time job though. But I'm always writing down ideas for blog posts in random places so this is perfect for me, and a step in the right direction! Going to make this this weekend I think, will be nice. The only thing I find is that I have post ideas anywhere - not usually when I'm sitting in front of my computer. So should probably keep them in my bag or something. Although I usually end up noting things down on my phone. Hmmm. When I get an iphone this will all be solved. Atm my 2 year old phone is driving me crazy. Tiiiny screen =/

I saw these in Paperchase and still need to get them. Get The Hint mini sticky notes, I want to use them for bookmarking my magazines etc when I'm in the middle of reading them. And also just for sticking around the house. Or on people's faces.

More fun than actually critically important but still ace. And less than a fiver. Very needed.

On to a much more useful item; a real to-do list. With an octopus. You basically can't get any better. From Shanalogic, the octopus to-do list:

And it's printed on recycled paper! Bonus points all round. I like that it has 'Done' and 'Not yet' boxes... no pressure, like it.

A really good online tool for those who 'don't do paper' is Teux Deux - which is basically To Do in a french accent. How very high brow.

I heard of it a while back now through Swissmiss, who I believe had a part in its creation. This blog explains Teux Deux very well, (which is also where the above image is from), but is beauty is it's simplicity; it's not got loads of gadgety extra bits, it's just a simple list format, with a week to view - type in what you need to get done, and if you don't do it, it gets moved on to the next day. As soon as they do an iphone app, I'll get it. When I have an iphone. Which hopefully will be soooon =/

Last is from See Jane Work again - these cute and slightly sarcastic sticky notes for the office:

I need these a lot at the moment. Especially the 'Do This By' and then the 'Yesterday' box. And Note To Self, that's great. Seriously though, I can see these actually being quite useful around my mac area, being a fan of the overuse of post-its myself. With these I can stick my to-do lists to things like... lightswitches so I remember to do them.
"Blah Blah Blah'. We all need a pile labelled that.

So hopefully one or many of these items will inspire you to get yourself organised a bit. Or just laugh at the lack of organisation you currently have. Either is good. The plan for me next is to develop some kind of planning system for my life. Hopefully using the above things!

Coveting: Irregular Choice 'Iced' SS10

2010-03-14T19:04:00.000Z

Any girl who loves heels and isn't of the wall-flower variety probably owns several pairs of Irregular Choice shoes. We all know how amazing they are, but let's just remind ourselves anyway...

And so forth. I could post them all - they're just so beautiful. I cannot possess them all :( That last picture there is called 'Crystilina' and I love it. Words cannot express.

I think the one fault of Irregular Choice is also the one thing that makes them great - they're just so lovely, works of art sometimes, that you don't want to wear them. I had a pair years ago and loved them so much that I barely wore them in case they got ruined - now they're too small. The trick is just wear them and not get too precious I think. I mean they're not that expensive - clearly not high street, primark price range, but then you get what you pay for - here you get amazing, creative, wacky, out-there shoes. Just don't wear them in the rain. Or snow. So basically summer. Which brings us to their new SS10 collection...

The thing about Irregular Choice is that sometimes you have to choose prettiness over comfort. They do flats, but I have stupid high-instepped feet and can't get my hoofs into most of the flats they do, especially the ones with the straps. Like the one pair of flats I chose to feature at the top, I can't wear those. Silly square feet, me. Seriously. Wide as they are long, I swear. Anyway, they now do a collection called 'Iced', which is much more casual type shoes - think trainers and flip flops. But MENTAL. They have names like 'Galactic Fire' and 'Electrokill'. Check it out - Irregular Choice Iced:

Just.... woah. I love it. I don't wear trainers myself - not exactly the sporty type and so feel a bit weird wearing puma/adidas/nike whatever - I'm more of a heels girl than a 'street urban' type person. Trainers etc are so dull and really don't go with much in my wardrobe - I like to make some kind of a statement most days. But I would definitely wear these. What a statement! Perfect with leggings or jeans or even dresses actually, you can't go wrong. And those flip flops are immense - I love flip flops, I live in them during summer. Remember my weird feet? They have a mahoosive gap between the first two toes which makes them perfect for wearing flip flops - no pain ever :) yay for my feet. So I'm saving up and getting those as soon as they are available! Amazing geometric panelling, lightning bolts are a love of me and Gaga alike. And the peep toe boots are great too. Oh I just love it all! Again, in the higher price range - something that is going on my wish list again =/ Expensive taste is annoying.

You can buy most of the range at the Irregular Choice store here - not the flip flops yet though. When? When? I don't know. Hopefully soon.

Oh wow and I've just spotted this bag they do as well:
Sigh. So good. Enough now.

All of the images here are taken from the Irregular Choice website, except for a few which were taken from this blog post at High Snobette. Copyright remains with original owners, I'm just ranting about how much I like them.

Banner featured on the homepage of Red Lemon Club!

2010-03-08T20:01:00.000Z

Red Lemon Club is a nice little website giving loads of good advice on Online Self Promotion for Creatives. If you're a freelancer then the site is a must to check out - some really useful hints and tips on there.

I entered a competition to get free advertising on the site for a month - it was one of those 'Retweet to win' competitions on twiiter, always good - and I actually won! So my humble little banner...

...With a link to my website is now up on the homepage for the next month!

I can be a bit jammy sometimes, me ^.^

Immersion 2010: Session 4

2010-03-07T14:35:00.001Z

Last week saw the 4th session of Immersion, only a half day this time. It meant the train was cheaper (hurrah) but I prefer having a whole day, I can really settle in and get into learning mode. This session felt like the least useful of them all so far, in terms of things that I gained from it. It was more of a continuation of the previous time-management/organisation session, and the tools to use.

Planning as a Creative Process
We looked at:
-Different ways of working
-Why planning is important
-How planning can be a creative process
-Visualising the business of 'you'.

The two speakers we had in session 2 came back, Gavin O'Connell and Marcus Long, and they both gave presentations on the tools they use to organise their days/months/years. Both seemed to use iCal/Google Docs type things - the latter useful as it is able to be shared with colleagues, thus making scheduling meetings etc easier.

Gavin also talked about a really useful tool of putting lists into priorities: There's a name for it but I can't remember. It's about asking if the thing is Urgent? Significant? Important? Or a mixture of 2 of them. For example, something could be Important and Urgent, but not Significant. Or it could be Significant and Important, but not Urgent. So it's easier to prioritise things that way. Asking yourself, will be day feel complete if I don't do this? Generally things that are Urgent should be done first, but if something is Important, or even Significant, it should be given more attention as it's something that will move you/your business forward. See? Kind of complicated but also quite simple really. It's made me think a lot more about prioritising my lists: I often write lists everyday of things to do but often with no hierarchy of what must be done, what should be done, and what would really help me if I got it done. So now I will start doing that, hopefully with some kind of cute notepad. Heh.

Other things Gavin talked about were the books 'Getting Things Done' and 'The 4 Hour Work Week', both of which apparently really helped him. I will check them out I think. Maybe at the library.

Magnus talked more in detail about his day and the way he organises his business. He kept a spreadsheet of actions that he took to get an internship - who he called, what they said, any leads etc. As a matter of fact, I did (and do ) the same thing with my self promotional efforts - who I've sent a postcard or handmade book to, when I followed it up, what they said etc. The process could be more efficient but it works quite well at the moment.

He also uses a colour coded calendar, iCal thing, which at a glance you can see what youre doing when. I use this too, more loosely (I have a colour for 'work' a colour for 'freelance' a colour for 'social' etc, it works quite well, especially for adding up working hours!

Also prioritising actions into what you get out of them: Are they short/long term gain, just for cash flow, for PR value, or for relationship building. What are the most important to you at this time? Etc.

We then had to consider:
-What drives you?
-Personal values
-Visualising dream business/job
-What makes what you do special?

So like I said, an interesting week, but a lot of the things mentioned were things I already have in place, but could use a lot more efficiently.

We were also made aware of Futurising, a two day event aimed at graduates. Think I might go, depending on work etc. Looks interesting and useful.

Next Immersion session is this wednesday :)

Co-Creation Hub: Logo and Branding Co-Creation Day

2010-03-04T18:59:00.000Z

Back on the 15th January of this year, I took part in a Co-Creation day at the Co-Creation Hub, London. We couldn't post about the day until after the Co-Creation Hub had gone live - now it has and I've got some time to post about it.

A group of abut 15(ish?) of us got together, via Headbox, and spent a day thinking about what the Hub stood for, it's values (we picked them apart pretty good and proper, it had lots of marketing speak which gets on my nerves a bit and other people all felt the same too - values in plain english please), it's brand, it's name, and it's logo. Everything really, it was an intense day but really fun.

We were shown logos that had been sent in by Jo Public as part of a crowdsourcing competition - as their blog says, some were good, some were... not.

But some bits were quite good so we took a bit of inspiration here and there, and also sat down with our amazing marketing minds and come up with some more, in groups. There were 3 groups I think:
To kick us off, each group was given a few different words to inform the logo and drive us forward - words like Diversity, Communication, etc etc. Top left 1 and 2 were mine :) Hurrah. I think that was based on conversation/exchange, I can't quite remember - I just drew a circular object with a back-and-forth line to represent a back and forth conversation and we all kind of went 'yeah... quite like that!' As so happened with lots of other ideas that came out of our group. We had some good thoughts I think. The fish came out of our group too. Oh Em Gee that fish caused some controversy. Let me state right here that I wasn't keen on it from the outset - but as should be done in group brainstorms, no-ones ideas should be shunted. I'm sure some of my ideas weren't liked by everyone either. Anyway everyone else in the group loved it so I'm not one to dampen people's ideas... I just way wasn't keen on the cartoon fish. I liked the thinking behind it though, it was all about Evolution, you know evolution of ideas through co-creation etc, and a sea-creature coming onto land and evolving.. etc. It's just I hate cartoon-y logos, especially ones with animals. And I think the meaning would be so lost. Normal people would be all 'What's co-creation, and what's a fish got to do with it?' But I think this point was lost on people.

Anyway it got to presentation time and it was definitely a Marmite moment - some people liked it some really hated it. Being part of the group that presented it made me feel like I had to like it but I really didn't. Maybe this is a lesson in telling people if you think the idea is bad. And just sucking it up. But I kind of believe co-creation is all about letting everyone put their ideas on the table without scorn or ridicule or whatever. Hmmm.

Our group also took the typographic approach and started from one of the competition logos, where they had made the word 'HUB' and joined the letters together - we liked that, but simplified it without the speech bubble etc. This was my favourite I think, and I'm glad they took the initial idea and used that as the final chosen logo after we were done:

I think they also took ideas from other groups where they made another version of the logo using loads of different coloured handprints:

Which I really like. It upholds the spirit of Co-creation too :) Here is the blog post they wrote about the whole process.

I really enjoyed the whole day, I love brainstorming and collaborative thinking, especially when it comes to branding and marketing projects. I miss it actually, did it a lot at my placement at Open and don't get to do it so much anymore. Hopefully in the future.

The Hub are now implementing an initiative called Co-Create London where they ask a very simple question: ‘What Would You Do To Make London a Better Place?’ By gathering ideas, solutions and fresh thinking about the city the site hopes to address issues that are important to people of London and give citizens the platform to make positive changes. It's a nice idea and it's gaining momentum - follow them on twitter for up to date examples of what people are saying.

A bit about the background of the Co-Creation Hub London:

"The Co-creation Hub is a collective of organisations, academics and individuals who believe in doing things ‘with’ people rather than ‘at’ people.

We currently work in the branding and communications industry, but we think our approach can be applied to any number of industries and organisations in order to solve almost any problem.

We believe great ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. And that means there is a huge untapped resource of creativity out there that co-creation can allow to flourish."

You can get involved with the Hub here.

Exciting Happenings: New Job!

2010-03-04T16:17:00.002Z

Very exciting news! I have a new job! :D And not a job working minimum wage in retail, exhausting myself on a daily basis with the constant 'I am better than this' running through my head, oh no. An actual real graduate job that I need my degree for! I'm so happy it's untrue, I've been despairing recently over my work/general life situation and now it's seems things are really looking up! It's a full time Junior graphic design position in London, which I'm so happy about because it's been my ambition to start my career in London. (It's the place to be, really, isn't it.)

is the company I am designing for, they are a small range of clothing companies such as Yumi and Uttam London. You've probably seen Yumi in House of Fraser.

Yumi clothing.

So my role is designing things like brochures and POS, and also helping out on pattern designs and illustrations on the clothes. Really exciting, and exactly the kind of thing I love doing. I start on monday!

So what does this mean for my personal and freelance illustration? Well, this is a full time job so I may not be able to undertake as many personal projects. However I am still (as always) available for commission for editorial and other work too. I will only ever take on what I know I can manage.

I will still of course continue blogging :) Maybe i'll invest in a netbook to make use of my commuting time. The joys of trains and tube at rush hour will now be mine! Ha.

So hopefully this is the beginning of a really great career for me. Sooo happy. There's hope for us recession graduates yet!

Immersion 2010: Session 3

2010-03-03T20:40:00.000Z

The next session of Immersion had a change of leadership, from the Palmer-Hamilton Partnership. This session was all about Action Planning: putting targets, dreams and ambitions into realistic goals with timescales that are achievable, and ways of organising/streamlining your time and your life to be more productive. 'From your dreams to your diary'.

A lot of this stuff was things that I was already aware about from my Creative Industries module at Uni, things like S.M.A.R.T goals and having a diary (duh), colour coding, lists, mind maps, wall pplanners, all sorts of things that I already utilise, but probably not the fullest of advantages. So this session wasn't midn blowing but really useful for visualising and solidifying goals.

Action Planning and Tools
A lot of people don't organise their lives very well - I like to think I'm a naturally well-organised person and I've had a diary for years. I live by it. If I lost my diary I'd go mental. But it definitely could be more organised; they suggested using pencil so things can be changed easily; there are so many scribbles in my diary where my life changes from one minute to the next! Here's my diary:
Which is slightly silly but I love it. I used to have a moleskine one, last year, which is week to one page and notes on the other. SO useful. I sort of wish I'd got that again this year; it's dull looking but brilliant to plan on. This diary hasn't got as much space for notes etc. So it may be that I need to get a small 'ideas dump' notebook, which they suggested as a good way to get all your ideas/thoughts down on paper to then action into things to do, instead of keeping them in your head. A good idea.

I also use lists - religiously so - but to the point where I make huge lists, often with no timescale or sense of priority, and then get the fear/depression at the end of the day when things aren't done. This is due to my goals for the day being unrealistic, not because I'm lazy. So I'm learning to separate lists into order of priority, to be more realistic, and to set a time limit on them. This is already helping a lot, especially with things like emailing people, blogging, etc.

I don't write down big goals or milestones I want to achieve and I've learnt that this is really useful. I've also learned that there need sto be timescales attached to them, and that they also need to be broken down into smaller goals. And obstacles and resources that I may need also need to be listed so that these can be taken into account. I haven't really started doing this yet but I shall.

I also have a wall planner that I use for 'big' things like events etc so I can look at my year quickly.

We also discussed the digital vs paper debate. I sort of use both. I have iCal on my mac which I double up everything that's in my diary - just in case I lose it. But I prefer using an actual physical diary; I've never been one of those to use the Calendar function on my phone for example. Maybe when I get an iPhone this will change; afterall you can sync iCal with iPhones so this might be something in the future. But you can't beat the freedom of scribbling Things To Do on an actual real piece of paper. It feels more vital and urgent that way, and less easy to forget.

We also talked about the importance of leaving room in your diary for social/you time. This is something peopl eforget but that I feel is so important - every so often you need a sofa day, right? I definitely do. A day where you have nothing planned, have a lie in, eat nice food and watch good films/telly, or go out with friends for the day, or anything like that which isn't work. Most people fit these things round everything else in their life but I'm a firm believer that you'll burn out if you do this. So it's ok to have a blank day in your diary every so often. In fact it's good for you. I haven't had one in months.

Visualising Goals
We then got on to the subject of visualising goals. We had to do an exercise that actually turned out to be really fun - draw, using as little words as possible, how we felt about our life now, what we had etc, and then what we wanted our lives to be in a year's time, if everything went to plan. Here's mine:

What my life is now

What I want it to be in 1 year's time.

I found this really fun and amusing. To sum it up:
My life now - Working in a well-known shoe retailer as a sales assistant to make money; not that enjoyable and a waste of my talents, to put it bluntly. A means to an end.
Having to do the thing I love - design & illustration - at night, when I am tired.
Tired and unhealthy, need a hair cut, a little bit doughy round the middle. (lol).
A bank account that is in bad shape with not much coming in and quite a bit going out.
No social life to really speak of - I love dancing and having nice cocktails in bars and dressing up and going out - who doesn't? This is how I enjoy myself. As I live with my parents I mostly drink wine with them. That's about it. All of my friends are up in Wolves still so if I want a night out I have to travel 200 miles.
Generally unsatisfied. Single. Grumpy.
1 years time- Working and living in London, nicer clothes, good steady cash flow. Thinner. (lame but I don't care. I want to be healthier.) My hair is better. I work during the day on what I love, i a studio/freelancing, whatever. I make my living on a mac, basically. I travel to cities for random breaks. I'm totally in the middle of cosmopolitan culture and know all the cool places and people and things. I have a varied social life. I have a boy-type person. I am busy and happy about it.

and I know it seems a weird task but it's great to do - in fact I think I'll match it up in a year's time and see what I've got - then I can do another one for the following year. Who knows if it will all come true - just aiming for it is the main thing. And if I'm still single in a year I may die.

Then we had to look at the gap between the two images and write down what we needed to bridge that gap. It was really great to clarify the things I seek like that.

Priorities
Following on from this, we then had to write down a list of priorities, things we want to do, what obstacles are in their way and possible solutions. An example of my priorities are:

Leave retail job - Obstacles: Need to have a new job to go to. Solutions: Apply to graduate jobs I know I want to work in. Not just any old job. That's how rubbishness happens.
Live/Work in London - Obstacles: Need enough money for a flat, need a social life/friends to live with. Solutions: Live at home and commute for 6 months, build up social circle. See what happens.
Continue with freelance illustration career - Obstacles: Not enough time to focus on it, not enough regular clients yet. Solutions: Set aside certain times of week to focus on work and then on self promotion, keep at it.
Extend social circle down here in London - Obstacles: All friends up in Wolves, don't know many peopl ehere to go out with etc. Solutions: Meet new people on evening classes/through work/exercise classes, be more confident.

HOWEVER. As we've just seen, I achieved my first priority! I now have a job in London :) So I need to rethink all these priorites now; I know things will shift. I need to spend time on doing this. Some will change, some will stay the same. Exciting times.

I have also decided that I need to get feedback on my website - critique from someone who knows what they are talking about, are things clear, does it run smoothly, what should I change. That's on the list.

Presence
The last section of the session was run by a Theatre Director, who helped us with our confidence and physical presence. We had to do silly breathing/shouting exercises which were loads fo fun and actually really helpful. Also helping us to think of our confidence as a scale - 1 to 10- someone who is a 1 being so shy that they barely talk and have no presence at all, to someone who is a 10 who is so loud and confident that they must be slightly irritating. It's best to aim for an 8, for things like presentations, interviews etc. And it really worked to think like that! 'I am an 8' You remembered eye contact, pace, breathing, smiling, etc. We all left feeling great about presenting ourselves and our work.

Immersion 2010: Sessions 1 & 2

2010-03-03T20:31:00.000Z

A couple of weeks ago I started a brand new course at St Martins, called Immersion. It's a short, one day a week course aimed at design (any discipline) graduates needing help and advice getting into the industry/where they want to be. In a nutshell. It's really varied and has loads of advice, everything from time management and planning to nuts and bolts of setting up a business. There are tonnes of different people there from all disciplines and walks of life, some graduated like me, some wanting to change their career direction etc. I decided to do it because I felt that after Uni I missed having that support network of creatives, I wanted to meet new people to network and collaborate with, and also to help define me and my work and what I want out of my career; not as a tool just for getting a job/placements etc in the short term, but I want to use it to help me build my career from the foundations and assess what I want to do, the kind of company I want to work for/if I just want to freelance, or if, as I have found out, I want to do both! It's about realising your dreams and ambitions and making the most of yourself and your career. Good stuff.

I've been a bit slack about blogging about it because I've been so busy and putting it off because I know it involves a lot of typing. But I want to record the process and it helps me to validate things in my mind if I assess and write about them, out loud. That's why I've decided to do public blog posts about them; it's mainly for my benefit but if anyone wants to read about the course and what I'm learning about myself as I go through then go for it :)

So the first 2 sessions were 2 consecutive days and were really intense. We had a guest speaker who runs the Digital Health Service, so is going to be with us throughout the course, talking about his journey and the mistakes and triumphs he has had to get to where he is.

The things we focused on for these sessions were aspects like:
Communication
Presence
Self-belief
Environment
Values - What's important to you
Motivations
Skills
Networks
What you can offer
Curiosity

Environment
One of the main things we focused on was Environment. We had to do an exercise where we visualised exactly the place/space where we ideally wanted to work; what it looked like, sounded like, where it was, was it with other people or on your own, things like that. It's sounds like a really obvious thing to do but actually doing it was quite enlightening. For some people (like me) it solidified things they had an inkling about, for others it completely surprised them and made it clearer about what kind of work they needed to look for. I realised that:

'I want to work in a place that is full of creative, like minded people, not necessarily all of the same discipline, fairly young, let's you get on with it but still there for help if you need it. Focused environment that encourages hard work but also play, social aspect, music in the background. Separate desk spaces, not too precious, with messy areas. Basically a place with people; I've realised I don't work so well isolated on my own. This could manifest in loads of different ways, including a design studio with similar attributes to this, all working together. '

Even though an aspect to what I do (or want to do) is freelance, I've realised I don't have to sit in a darkened loft all my life. I thrive on company and creative healthy competition and the right dose of pressure. Whether that comes from working within a design company or just sharing desk space with other creatives is the thing that is negotiable; and not mutually exclusive throughout my career, I want different things at different times and just because I have or want one doesn't mean I can't have the other in the mid to long term future. Right now I think I need a stable, full time, creative job that will get me settled financially, socially and creatively. But this is approaching 'Priorities' and that's another session :)

Values
We also talked about Values and what our values are and how they should affect your working lives. Things like 'what do you value most' to ethical/environmental/moral values. Kind of similar the the graphic design First Things First manifesto where they agreed not to work with morally dodgy companies, asking yourself if you are the same? If a massive company asked you to do some work for them for quite a lot of £££ but you know they're a bit ethically dodgy and don't treat their foreign staff right or don't trade fairly etc etc, would you take the job because financial security is valuable to you? Or not because you don't want to be associated with a company like that? (even though someone else somewhere will take the job anyway). All open-ended questions to make you think, defo. I still haven't solidifed my values as of yet, we do more work on them in later sessions. Initial values for me are companies/clients that are:

'Social, ethical, fun, reliable, unique, individual, conscious, ambitious, forward-thinking, progressive'

Critique and Feedback
Interesting points made were that you don't always have to accept feedback - if you don't want it. Everyone has opinions and that's great but sometimes you just need your own opinion, and if you don't want someone's feedback, that's ok. It's an interesting concept. Also the notion that throughout our creative lives so far (uni etc) we have been taught very well how to Critique work and pick the negatives in order to make it better. This is fine, but it was said that we also need to learn to pick out positives in ourselves more and look at what we can do, not what we can't yet. We then had to get into groups and talk about something we did/achieved which made us feel really proud and good about ourselves, and identify the skills used to achieve that thing. My skills that were identified by my group were that I am:

Good at researching
I follow ideas through
Have creative flow
A deadline achiever
A hard worker
Dedicated
Attentive
Confident about my ideas
Able to communication ideas
A conceptual thinker.

Which was really interesting to see that written down by someone else. But there you go.

Ambitions
We then were encouraged to think about our ambitions - no matter how big or small- and articulate them. Realise that ambitions change, you may achieve something and everything then shifts to encompass new ambitions. Everyone should have one B.H.A.G - Big Hairy Audacious Goal, something that is so out there and ridiculous, but that you should aim for. Mine is to live, work, and be successful in New York. Not slum it at the start of my career, but really be established and make it and thrive, not just survive, in New York. Other ambitions are have may be more vague and also don't have a timescale as yet - this is something to be addressed in later sessions. In no particular order:

Form/Be a part of a Collective
Do what I love to earn a comfortable living
Inspire others
Be recogised for my accomplishments
Live in London
Be a design writer/commentator (random I know but I still love writing, haven't lost it since English A Level)
Design/work sustainably.

I definitely think these will morph, solidify and change throughout the course, and over the next year too as I start my career.

The last thing we had to do over these 2 sessions was choose 2 pieces of work and present them in a one minute speech to the entire class. Scary scary. This was about developing our 'elevator pitch' and getting more confident talking about ourselves and our work in front of strangers. It went quite well I thought, I hate doing things like that, I get really breathless and too excited and talk too fast, but people said I came across OK so that's good. I've never been a natural speaker and that's something I need to address. It was great seeing everyone's work though and a real ice breaker.

After the sessions we stayed behind for drinks (hurrah) and chatted amongst people. I'm enjoying that aspect of it the most actually; I wanted to meet new and interesting people and I really have, it's quite a journey we're going on so it's good to see other people in the same boat as you, with the same dreams and fears. Everyone is so different but I can already see there are people I'd want to keep in contact with in the future.

So that's sessions 1 and 2 - I'll do 3 and 4 in the next few days. Sorry for there being no pictures. Time to start using your brain, kids.

TOMS Shoes: You need these in your life

2010-03-03T15:32:00.000Z

I just wanted to do a quick post about TOMS shoes, if you hadn't heard of them... then why not? Basically. They are a great shoe company and here's why:

TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we're all about. The TOMS One for One business model transforms our customers into benefactors, which allows us to grow a truly sustainable business rather than depending on fundraising for support.

That's a pretty damn good business model right there. More (or maybe just as) importantly, the shoes are AMAZINGLY COMFORTABLE. If your feet could talk, they'd say 'ahhhh'. So nice. The main style is a simple canvas pump type shoe, they do others but it's all about these really:

Classic colours
They do vegan friendly ones - the ultimate moral/ethical boost; ethically sourced materials that are completely vegan AND you're helping out a child in a a poorer country. Amazing.
Special edition hand painted artist editions...
And my favourite, the plain old cream canvas one - my favourite because you can customise it! Draw on it, paint it, whatever. This is what I plan to do. It may get dirty easier but you can can completely make it your own. Nice. And so great to wear this spring with tights/leggings and a cute dress as it warms up. This brings me on to an event that Topshop help at LFW this year:

The event was called Style Your Sole at took place at Topshop Oxford Circus, of course. This was the "first Style Your Sole event to take place in the UK and was part of Topshop's greater event schedule for London Fashion week. Customers, fans, and fashion week attendees purchased canvas TOMS and had them transformed into one-of-a-kind, hand painted kicks." Sounds like it was great, I really wish I could have gone!

The one thing I really want to talk about is this:

On 8th April, they are holding the 'One Day Without Shoes' event which is encouraging people all over, for one day, to try and not wear shoes. If possible. 'We ask people to go the day, part of the day, or even just a few minutes, barefoot, to experience a life without shoes first-hand, and to help spread awareness. ' Sounds strange (and fashionably questionable) but it's to highlight some really important facts:

In some developing nations, children must walk for miles to school, clean water and to seek medical help.
Cuts and sores on feet can lead to serious infection.
Often, children cannot attend school barefoot.
In Ethiopia, approximately one million people are suffering from Podoconiosis, a debilitating and disfiguring disease caused by walking barefoot in volcanic soil.
Podoconiosis is 100% preventable with basic foot hygiene and wearing shoes.

Its sounds really simple but shoes can change a person's life, especially if they are living in poor conditions. Not because 'Oh em gee these shoes are amazing, they go perfectly with this outfit, this has saved my life', but because these shoes can actually save lives. So get involved, if you can. April 8th is a Thursday which makes it virtually impossible to go the whole day if you have any kind of employment at all; it's illegal to drive without shoes and pretty unthinkable to go barefoot on the tube (think of the rush hour.. all those people treading on your toes... oh my) but if you can do it for a couple of hours, that's cool. Go to www.onedaywithoutshoes.com to find out more!

You can also follow TOMS on Twitter @TOMSshoes :)

I'll be buying a pair soon. I've only tried them on at work (I work at Schuh... not for long though, I'll tell you why in a new post, hint... tres exciting news...) and so I know how comfortable they are but I have 0 money to buy anything right now, including ethical shoes, so payday they are first on the list.

All images in this post are from the TOMS shoes website, copyright is theirs.

This post has a massive gap at the bottom and I can't get rid of it. Stupid blogger formatting. Very strange. Apologies.

Coveting: H! by Henry Holland collection at Debenhams

2010-02-28T17:08:00.000Z

I popped into Debenhams yesterday in a frenzied search for an interview outfit. I'm not going to say what or when the interview is as I have a strong superstition that any mention of such details will jinx precedings. It's the only superstition I have so forgive me. (Except for walking over 3 drains. I won't do that.) Shops were closing and I was all 'omgwhatamigoingtowearithastobeamazing' - I'd already gone into H&M and was sort of trying to build an immense outfit in my head of things I already have plus things I'd just bought out of desperation. So I was wondering round the womenswear floor of Debenhams in a slightly more relaxed panic as the opening hours are later there (thank you department stores, thank you) and I had about an hour. It was then that I stumbled across H! by Henry Holland and nearly yelled 'Oh Em Gee!' out loud. Which would have been silly. Because I hadn't even heard about this collection and it's uh-mazing. It's just me, entirely and thoroughly, every single piece in that collection is Rachel Lewis all over. Henry Holland is of course a brilliant designer, my favourite things he's done so far are his stripey block colour outfits for A/W 09:
So insane. You can get the tights fairly easily, he also did amazing alphabetty tights for the typophile in me:
Mmmm. Hosiery and lettering.

So the H! collection carries on in his normal crazy colours/patterns theme, in a very wearable and mix and match way. Seriously, I've never seen a collection where you can build so many different outfits - everything seems to match and wonderfully clash with each other, it's amazing. So my interview outfit quandry was solved - with a few pieces from the collection and other bits I've got, I've got about 3 different options now, of which I'll decide later.

I want nearly everything in the collection, which is bad as I have very little money; but it's all so affordable, it's hard to justify why not to have it all. It's never going to be one of those things where it's like, oh what do I wear this with. Here are a few of my favourites from the collection:
There are quite a few pieces with this crazy floral pattern in different colour ways. I just love the acid yellow of this one. Nothing says 'come on spring, damn you!!' quite like this dress. £30.
These shoes would go well with it too. Very 80's inspired, they also look quite comfy for a heel-connoisseur such as myself. Purple and yellow used to be my favourite colour combo when I was 7. Then I discovered the colour wheel. Clash-tastic :D £35.
There are a couple envelope style clutches, this one coming in bright pink too. I couldn't choose between them; I'd have to buy both. Perfect for zinging up a boring dress. £20.
I love this bag, mainly because it's called The Hobo Bag, and I love the word hobo. I want to be a dandy hobo. (I invented that term, if I ever become a fashion designer (lols) then my first collection is being called 'dandy hobo'. Ha.) £30.
This body is one of the things I bought; finding a body that fits you like a glove is actually quite hard. I don't have a weird torso or anything, but you want one that doesn't turn into a thong (ew) when you sit down but at the same time isn't baggy around the boobs. This one is perfect for me. And a size 10, I was quite excited that I could wear a size 10 body. I just love the colour more than anything, it's a gorgeous shade of purple and it's going to be the foundation of my immense interview outfit. I might do an outfit post later actually. £12. (bargainous, I thought)
Oh em gee! Cycling shorts! Told you they'd be back. They're not exactly lace cycling shorts like the ones I'm still unable to find but in this shade of pink, who cares. I nearly bought them but as they're not for interview purposes, I had to think of my bank account (which is on it's death bed and pay day is still a month away, slightly scared) so it's on the wish list. £8 though, sweet.

This blazer, is actual love for me. It was one of the first things I saw in the collection and I could not believe the perfection. It's just 'soooo cute', which is what I'd say if I was ditzy and american. But seriously, it's got that preppy/boarding school thing going on, made out of hoodie kind of material and purple check lining which, what's that? Matches the purple body exactly? Really? You don't say. I love blazers. I love school-themed fashion. It also reminded me of that outfit Anne Hathaway wears in Devil Wears Prada which is all preppy too. You know what I mean. Where she delivers the book. Yeah. So! This is the backbone which holds my outfit together. Its smart but not in a suit-way. Because I need to be way more creative than a suit dress, I feel. £35. Done. Hanging up right now. I feel smug.
The jewellry is great too. In a totally silly OTT way, I love it. Like this ring. Same purple. Didn't buy it though. But you see what I mean when I say everything can go with everything? £8. Comes in turquoise too.
Oh, this. This is beautiful. It doesn't look like much, but it's genius in disguise. It's called Holey Boyfriend Cardi and it's exactly what I need. Days are still cold and I love wrapping up in big cardi's but I hate all the thick knitted ones that are out with the belts (you know what I mean) and the oversize jumpers are cool but it's supposed to be spring soon and it's hard to rock a jumper when it's hot cold all the time. You need a cardi, layering style. I love slouchy clothes when I'm cold and one of the hottest trends this year is holey stuff. I know right, let's all rips holes in things, but it's going to be massive and this cardi is bucking the trend. It's the perfect spring piece - keeps you damn warm when it's chilly under a coat, but layer it over an interesting print dress/tshirt and you can see the pattern through the holes when it's a bit warmer. I tried it on and stared at myself for about 5 minutes (which is a long time in a changing room) trying to talk myself out of buying it. It's £40 so one of the more expensive items, and it's not interview material so I cannot justify it. Taking it off was painful. I need this cardi. But there's no way I can buy it until the end of the month. And if it's sold out by then, then I will cry. So please, appreciate it, but just don't buy it nation, ok? Nobody buy this. I want one. Just one, in a size 10, keep it safe for me and leave it on the hanger :) Fanks.

Anyway, after pulling myself together, this is the last item on my list. I usually hate parkas. I generally think that just because it's cold, doesn't mean your coat has to be shapeless and slightly farmer-ish. A good tailored coat will save this country from itself. However. I saw this and had a slight epiphany. It might just be because of the purple check and purple buttons (there's that purple again, good times...) or it might be because I saw a tres pretty girl wearing a parka with an amazing ensemble and forgave her instantly. Don't know. But it's cool. And I allow everyone to wear this. £45.

So that's my top pick of the lot. It's all great though, it really is. I was talking to the girl at the checkout and she was saying it's been slow to pick up but now it's gathering sales; I don't see why not, it's my favourite collection anywhere right now. Yes, anywhere. Debenhams seem to be on fire recently though, first the Ben De Lisi collection for Principles which is back (after folding) and also the size 16 mannequins, Debs is going to have a good year I think.

I'll sort out my interview outfit and probably do an outfit post actually; haven't done one in ages. It's not a regular thing I assure you.

The Daily Ampersand Project: No. 21

2010-02-28T17:03:00.000Z

Ampersand No. 21 is Auto 2, in italic. Really nice quirky font, this. This ampersand was drawn in pencil.

To see the rest of the (Not so) Daily Ampersand Project, click here.

Debenhams: Would you like to see more of me?

2010-02-20T18:57:00.000Z

I read the other day that Debenhams have decided to use size 16 mannequins in their Oxford Street windows:

Image from metro.co.uk

Signs next to the mannequins, which will be wearing the recently launched Principles by Ben de Lisi range, will ask customers: "I'm a size 16. Do you want to see more of me?". If people decide that they do, the mannequins will be rolled out across more stores. Personally, I think this is pretty great to raise this issue. Also, they've done it smack bang in the middle of London Fashion Week, which is very clever of them; every year there's a debate about the size of catwalk models and this is sure to stir some debate.

However, I do have a small qualm. It's great that the majority of women are now being represented in one of Britain's largest department stores (can you believe that the average for UK women is a size 14-16? I feel like everyone's so damn skinny these days), but a small voice is saying that maybe, using size 16 mannequins will mean it's OK to be a size 16. Which, you can argue it is, but also, you can argue it isn't. It depends on your height/weight etc - but if I was a size 16, I'd be obsese. (I'm 5ft4.) I don't really want to be encouraged to be a size 16 - I already have enough trouble with cakes etc! Sometimes I like to look at mannequins and although I feel a bit depressed, it makes me want to keep myself slim(ish). Is that just me? There are of course lots of plus sized shops out there, Evans being the obvious, and they already use larger mannequins. Maybe this is just a rant at my feeling of Britain 'casualising' itself (I made that word up, ha) - think Ugg boots (more like 'Ugh' boots, they're so disgusting and unfeminine) and tracksuits/loungewear/PJs on women more and more these days. And having size 16 mannequins sort of says 'Look, it's ok to let yourself go!' What happened to aspiring to be well groomed, looking after yourself, healthy, fit, and an ideal, curvy weight? I'd say size 12 is more appropriate. It's not skin and bones skinny and it's not unfit muffin top. You know? That's more an inner thought/rambling than my final say on the matter. I'm still happy this has happened; mannequins should represent the minority, after all.

The main positive thing that this will do is inspire debate, and enable people to question why size 8-10 is standard in shop windows. This is a good thing. People come in all shapes and sizes. Especially, as I said, during LFW.

Mark Fast famously uses size 12 models on his catwalk shows and I think they look great:

Taken from Topshop Inside Out

The model in the middle is a size 12 and a University student; she looks amazing and the perfect size for women to aspire to. Not a size 6. Mark Fast himself says he wants his clothes to fit real women so models them on real women. This image is from his new knitwear collection; click the link, it all looks ace. Could do with some of that right now, I'm uber cold.

So what do you think? Is it stupid of Debenhams to try and change the way the fashion industry works? Is it amazing and all shops should have size 16 mannequins? Is it just going to encourage women to let themselves go and accept that size 16 is what they should be? Hmmm. Let it rip.

5oup.net - My profile is featured!

2010-02-18T21:23:00.001Z

A few days ago I joined 5oup, which is a creative social network, portfolio showcase site, that type of thing. Well my profile has been chosen for the 'fresh list' on there and will be displayed on the front page for the next five days!

Go take a look.

Nonsensical Spam Project: Bravo

2010-02-14T17:22:00.000Z

Bonjour! Another nonsensical spam illustration for your perusal and satisfaction. Aha. This one is for the rather wonderfully stupid comment, "Bravo, this brilliant phrase is necessary just by the way". What brilliant phrase? Bravo for what exactly? and why just? Nonsense, I hear you cry. Well it is.

I wanted to do a type-y illustration this time, with lots of fun whimsy lettering. I haven't used victorian etching illustrations (copyright free! ching!) for aaages, not since my recipe book, a la look here, and I forgot how much fun they are! I wasn't entirely sure what the imagery would be for this but the grammar of the sentence just lent itself to upper-class, victorian type speaking, don't you think? So I dug out some very random, very nonsensical etchings and I think it's turned out quite well. I started with just the camel being weighed on the scales and a gramophone, then thought the gramophone speaker thing could look tres random as a ram's horns. Yes. Nonsense abounds! I think I might sneak the odd victorian strangeness into more of my work, I have a couple of books stacked full of these things that I can scan in and use. Hooray amazon.

I wasn't entirely sure of the background, I knew I needed a bit of texture but then it also looked good just plain white. I'm still not sure. I always do more. Maybe I should start doing less is more. But I like more, in general, of stuff. More stuff.

So I've just published the original comment (I keep em locked away until I actually use them).
The original comment was posted for this post right here. Which is a massive coincidence, I've just realised it's the same post I just linked to, with the victorian etchings. I didn't notice until just now. It must be fate! How weird.

You can see the other illustrations in the Nonsensical Spam Project here.