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 :)
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!
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.
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 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).
I've just been catching up on my RSS subscriptions and generally surfing the mintynet and I've stumbled across some awesome vintage finds.
I know it's the latest thing to love everything vintage but I genuinely do; things that have a history, a feel of the old, like they've been places, are very exciting to me. It's also a great thing to keep old things and reuse them instead of always buying new - a great help to the environment and something we all need to start adjusting ourselves to doing, now that the recession is changing consumerism, and the way we see buying new commodities needs to change.
Anyway.
I came across Andrea Garland, who has an amazing range of handmade, organic and ethical lip balms, body balms, all kinds of things, that are all sold in old vintage one off tins and pill boxes! They are so cute and I desire one or many greatly.
There's something so pretty and delicate about these - you know they're all handmade and lovingly stitched onto clothing. I just love the old school italic type and 'made in..' you don't get that anymore. Unless it's made in oh holy topshop. And they look like they took time to design and actually make something of. Check out Kindra's Blog for more vintage yumminess and happy things.
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
Firstly, good news: I found out today that my design for the Penguin award has been shortlisted! Which is so exciting. So fingers crossed for that... :D
Next, I finished my self promotional postcard design, which I'm pleased with in the end:
It went through about a hundred different versions but I finally cracked it. I think it sums up me and my style of work quite well :) Just got to finish my business card and website now.
Also, I'm getting on with my Sustainability/Don't upgrade your phone project, I finished the 6 escalator posters and am now working on the 'main' poster: This is going to be the main element in the poster, with accompanying slogans/text. I'm really pleased with this so far though, it's the '&' logo for Together.com, with my twist on it. Retro-tastic!
So things are going well (work-wise, anyway, don't get me started on the rest of my so-called life), I had my interview at st. martins and am nervously awaiting the result. Still petrified.
I've been working on my sustainability/mobile phone project a lot recently, it's really coming along. I'm doing a mini branding/advertising campaign, as if it were for the charity Together, which helps people fight climate change. A made up brief but I'm basing it around them because I like what they do. The posters I'm doing are being made as if they'll be displayed in the London Underground; 6 escalator posters that you see as you go down into the tube, giving you first exposure to the campaign and intriguing people with the imagery. A big 16 sheet poster across the tracks on the platform that ties all the visual links together and encompasses what the campaign is about, and then a tube car poster with more text on to explain exactly what the campaign is and what you can do about it. So a coherent campaign that you are exposed to as you travel on the underground.
The campaign is to encourage 16-25 year olds to consider whether they really need to upgrade their phone to the latest model, for the sake of the environment. Using the device of retro/vintage is cool, keep your old phone if it still works, etc etc.
So far I'm working on the escalator posters, these are 3 that are nearly done:
There's going to be 3 more, imagine them in a series as you go down the escalator. No thieving! :)
Other exciting stuff:
After the disappointment of not being accepted into the RCA for my masters ('twas a long shot I know), I found out yesterday that I have an interview at St Martins! Which I'm so pleased about because I really want to go there. The course looks so great. So that's exciting/tres scary.
Also, I now have a website! Well, I bought a name. www.rachelsayshello.com There's nothing on it yet. But there will be! It shall be immense. Or something. That's my May project; once I've handed in all my Uni work, I'm building that, in time for the Degree shows. I really like the address, it's going to fit well with the branding ideas I'm coming up with for myself.
I'm submitting my Penguin Design Award entry this week; I'll be posting the final image on here this weekend hopefully. It's driving me crazy though, all these minute little details that I still can't get quite right. But it's 99.9% done.
Um, I think that's it right now. Oh we had a lecture this morning by the guys at Nolan|Ross (ooo I figured out how to do the | thing!) who are a cool little multi-talented design company. They do loads of stuff, have a look. It was nice to see past students doing well for themselves, gives me hope! :)
This has taken me a while to post this. Anyway, the charity Chickenout! and Compassion in World Farming ran a competition a few weeks back, to redesign the Standard Chicken label for Tesco.
"Pick up a standard chicken in most supermarkets and the package is unlikely to tell you much about how that chicken was produced.
Around 90% of chickens in the UK are farmed in intensive systems in conditions like those shown in the video here.
By law, egg boxes must be labelled with the farming method and this has decreased sales of battery eggs. So why can't chicken be honestly labelled too? "
That was the basic premise. Come up with a chicken label that depicts honestly the lives of the chickens that most people buy: the standard ones. This is so that consumers can make a more informed choice about where the food they eat comes from; but making sure it's not a high-horse 'you should eat free range you're so bad' type of thing, because some people (myself included, being a student) can't afford to eat free range chicken. I wish I could, and I aspire too, but it simple is too expensive.
This was my entry :) It's not the most amazingly beautiful piece of work I have ever created, but I think it did the job.
Anyway I didn't win. You can see the winning entry here. There are also some 'highly commended' ones up there. I disagree wdith the winning choice for 'best design work' but there you go... design is opinion after all, and just because I didn't like it, doesn't mean I'm right I suppose. That's not the point really, the point is to get the message across to Tesco, the other supermarkets, and eventually you and me, exactly how our chickens are kept before slaughter, so are choices are clearer.
It's catch 22 really though because as I said earlier, I can't afford to buy free range all the time. I'm a poor student. But if everyone bought free range, there'd be more demand and it'd be cheaper. Something to think about... consumer deman can be a powerful thing. It's just getting that message across to consumers that there are alternatives to the fast-grown, barn-reared chickens that most of us eat - it's sad, when you see it, they have such poor life qualities. Watch this video, it's only a couple of minutes long, but it explains exactly what I mean:
From the Chickenout.tv website
And that's the job of design, I think. That's our responsibility, not just to design stuff to sell to consumers, but to design stuff to make consumers more aware. The power of design is huge and it's in our hands to do something about causes and topics such as animal welfare. The same goes for environmental issues and sustainability - I wrote my Dissertation on this exact topic, and it's so important that designers and artists of all types recognise their responsibility when it comes to environmental issues. We are probably in a greater position of power than anyone, including government, to change attitudes towards the environment - images and words can be extremely powerful things.
I want to post more about this subject in the future - possibly bits from my dissertation, and my opinion on the whole environment/sustainability debate. Watch this space (or blog ;)
On the subject of competitions, I'm entering the Penguin Design Award again this year, so I'll be posting my work in progress for that this weekend I hope. It's going well ^.^
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