TOMS Shoes: You need these in your life

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.

Climate campaign banner now live on ActionAid's website!

I mentioned in a previous post about an illustration that I did for a banner for ActionAid's website. Well...


If you go to ActionAid's Bollocks to Poverty minisite you will now see mine and 5 other illustrator's work up there, as a random scrolling banner; keep refreshing and they'll rotate round. The screengrab above is the page that tells you a bit of background about each of the banners, go have a little read. There I am with my banner ^^. All neon and smiley. Hehe.

Pretty sweeeet eh. Have a read of the site while you're there eh, it's a pretty important cause.

New work: Climate Change Banner for ActionAid's Bollocks to Poverty Campaign

Last week I was working on this banner, which is to be displayed (hopefully, if approved) on ActionAid's website, for their 'Bollocks to Poverty' campaign.

Click for larger image.

The campaign is aimed at getting people motivated to actually do something to help end poverty; instead of just donating money and being a bit passive about the whole thing, it's encouraging people to get involved and get passionate about ending poverty, by putting on events and generally thinking outside the box. Here's a bit from the site:

You can do things a bit differently with Bollocks to Poverty. You don’t need to put on coffee mornings or cake sales, you can do what you love doing. Whatever you’re into you can support people fighting their way out of poverty. Shake a tin at your mates and they might chuck you a pound, but throw them a party and they’ll feel inspired to do much more.

Whether you put on a gig, jump out of a plane, pester your MP or volunteer at a festival, say Bollocks to Poverty and do it with ActionAid.

The site is well worth checking out, there's lots of things to do to get involved in the campaign, my favourite is this, "becoming a Bollocks to Poverty Tour Ambassador to come backstage at this summer's festivals, chat to some bands, write some blogs about it and then organise the mother of all Christmas parties for our amazing tour organisers". Noice.

The focus of the brief for this banner is their Climate Change campaign 'Food vs Dust'. It's basically highlighting the impact that climate change will have on the world's poorest - those who have actually contributed to climate change the least, but who will suffer most through floods, drought, cyclones, all of which will destroy homes and crops and leave to food shortages and ultimately starvation. So banners have been requested to highlight this and to act as a point of inspiration on the website to encourage people to find out more and hopefully get involved with trying to reduce climate change.

I mean, we all know about the damage that climate change is doing and people are beginning to do things to help these days (although my opinion is that its going to take more than a few canvas bags to save us), but people most often think about themselves, and the impact it will have on our children in the future - not about the damage that is happening NOW to people in poorer parts of the world. Just take a look at the photos that the Obama administration has revealed about how quickly polar ice caps are melting - even I didn't think it was happening this quickly.

I always try to get involved with issues to do with the environment, sustainability and living ethically within my work - they're things that I am passionate about and that I believe our industry (design as a whole) are capable of doing something about, even more so than the politicians. We're the ones who design the adverts and the packaging and everything to sell all the stuff - we are the ones who can change public thinking from mass consumerism/needing everything/more stuff right now to... whatever comes next. Post consumerism? Anti advertising? It's still a bit grey. 'Age of austerity' I think David Cameron called it. But it's the designer's who can influence people the most. Interesting really, that this recession has come around now... now that we're questioning what exactly we really need to be spending our money on, we can also start to question not just the impact it's having on our wallets but also on resources and the environment in general. I think most people are agreed that we haven't been living financially or environmentally sustainable for a very very long time. And now look what's happened.

So doing this banner was right up my street - the brief is open and people are encouraged to submit their own banners for the cause. I wanted to create something that had a positive overtone but still reflected the core issues - something to grab people in so they want to learn more, without being too overbearing/negative and more a call to get people motivated to change.

So hopefully it gets used on the site! I'll probably blog about it if it is does anyway.

I start my first day of my placement at The Open Consultancy tomorrow... wish me luck! Really looking forward to it. Early night though defo, had a rather mental birthday party last night so taking it easy today, so that I can be bright and breezy at 6am tomorrow. (Yeah, I have to get up at 6 every day, hello full time work... my student days really are over, aren't they :( can't really complain though, i'm so excited about this placement, i'll practically be leaping out of bed tomorrow).

Ciao for nowwww