Welcome to rachelsays... The blog of Rachel Lewis, containing my thoughts and musings on illustration, design, fashion, music, cakey-bakey goodness, culture and things that I generally find cool. There's also a good chance my own illustration work will pop up on here.
All work on this blog is copyright to me unless I state that it isn't. Obviously. Don't do stealing, kids.
So come on in, have a look around, and leave a comment if you like what you see.
"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!
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 :)
As I mentioned before, I'm going to be exhibiting at D&AD New Blood next week. That in itself is pretty damn exciting, but my tutor also told me that they'd be booking me in for a portfolio review with an art director/someone in the industry/person. I got an email today saying that my Review will be with Chris Rain, who is one of the Senior Designers at Airside. So exciting... I did a little girly squeal when I read it actually, I love Airside's work and they've cropped up in sketchbooks of mine here and there. I can't wait! :D
One of my favourite projects they've done is the Identity for Airplot, a Greenpeace initiative where they've bought a piece of land right where the proposed 3rd runway for Heathrow is going to go. Which means they can't build it, if Greenpeace have got anything to do with it. It's a great cause and I love the identity for it: Taken from their blog post: "In 2008 Greenpeace secretly bought a plot of land within Heathrow’s proposed expansion zone and asked Airside to develop an identity that would be able to weather the storms of what could be a very long, unpredictable and difficult protest. With the need for clear communication amongst fast changing circumstances, Airside’s goal was to create an identity that would stretch much further than a single logo. Greenpeace’s latest campaign would have to communicate many different things to many different people and considering Airplot’s abstract form of protest, Airside made a conscious decision to make what needs to be communicated central to the identity. A volatile campaign such as this needed a language."
What I also love is this post here, which explains the process behind creating the logotype, sketches that sort of thing.
Cardboard stamps, printed then scanned in. Sooo simple but looks great. I love this kind of thing - reminds me that I need to experiment with printing so much more.
and... (weirdly/coincidentally) the Identity and interior for Wolverhampton Art Gallery's new Pop Art gallery. I didn't actually know that. This was a big deal when it opened for the city, I remember being bombarded with those pop stickers in 1st year. It's actually had some pretty amazing stuff in there so far, I'm not a huuuge fan of Pop Art (take it or leave it, me) but for lil' ol' Wolvo, it's quite spesh.
All of these images are from Airside's website and so copyright is theirs, obviously.
So yeah, pretty excited/scared/humbled to be having a Portfolio Review with someone who is part of a design studio I admire so much. Better make sure my portfolio is as good as it can be, now. Which reminds me I need to go and pick it up from Uni tomorrow so I can work on it a bit. So much to do....
I'm also going to be attending 8x8 on 1st July as I'll already be in London for D&AD so making the most of it! One of the members of Airside will be giving a talk there too, as will 7 other design-type-people, like Matt Dent (who designed the new coins, surely you know that), Alex Bec & Will Hudson from HudsonBec, and each will be speaking for 8 minutes. Hence 8x8 :) I'm looking forward to that too, should be fast, intense and inspiring! Like it.
Well, I think it's awesome. My business cards turned up last friday, they are pretty damn cool. I used alocalprinter.com who turned them around in 5 days, and are environmentally friendly - only using FSC certified or 100% recycled stock. Naturally I went for the recycled of course, and they look ace. You can see the flecks in it as well which I love. They use Revive recycled paper, i'm super pleased with how they look. AlocalPrinter is a great printer actually, I recommend them, and it seems it's no more expensive to print on recycled paper than normal paper, and the quality is excellent.
There's way more than this, I had the massive urge to chuck them all in the air, just for the crack. Luckily, I didn't.
The design on the front of each card.
I printed them single sided, as I planned to use a stamp that I had ordered to stamp the back of each one - this was for 2 reasons, firstly it worked out cheaper and I can use the stamp again and again for future promotional materials, and secondly, it gives it that handmade quality, which is really important to me. It's going to take ages to do them all though... I'm working in short shifts lol. Stampy stamp stamp. Each business card is then going to be put into one of these small envelopes, which I die cut with a speech bubble cutter (can you tell that 'hello' and speech bubbles are my branding thing? hehe)... except that using that cutter is so painful after a while, oh the things I do for my art.... And it means I get left with literally hundreds of these cut out speech bubbles. They look cool but not a clue what I'm going to do with them.... any ideas would be appreciated! (confetti at a wedding? maybe? who knows....) And so the die cut hole lines up with the 'hello' on the card... isn't it lovely :) I like them a lot, and it was relatively inexpensive for the whole thing... all 500 done with envelopes and everything for about £60. Which is nice. Considering whether they need anything extra on the envelope... hmmm.
I plan to get badges and/or stickers made up, to put inside the envelopes as well for the D&AD New Blood exhibition... didn't have time to get them done for this friday though, unfortunately.
Also, I've got my promotional postcards back from the printer too, which will be there to take at my degree show. They too look cool. Hurrah! :D :D
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