Canvas Shoes Are Silly In The Rain!

144

2012-02-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

I ordered a polaroid back for my Hasselblad which came today, so happy! So here's some cheesy picture ready for valenslime day tomorrow! :)

Also, I have an interview this week! Wish me luck >_>

143

2012-02-07T01:39:00.001-08:00

This is what I did for my dad when I was in my a-levels :) I think it's pretty good. I just came across it again and thought I'd share.

142

2012-01-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

So I just got a film developed, been so excited to get this back as it's been previously exposed to colours and shows up differently depending on how it was processed... And goes all these rainbow colours that you can see here... I love it. It's called Revolog Kolor film and the people who produce it are super nice. Go buy some! It's well worth it!

141

2012-01-23T14:17:00.001-08:00

It was Mikee's birthday over the weekend! We had balloons, saw an exhibition on death, wrote on a chalkboard about what we wanna do before we die, I made cake, we went to the Ritz with our mums for afternoon tea and we topped it off with a rock bar with some amazing friends. Was a great time.

140

2012-01-15T04:51:00.001-08:00

Good morning!

I love this tumblr blog... sophisticated-simplicities.tumblr.com

It's really inspiring, has such a nostalgic feeling, and has led me to find a load of good photographers and the pieces of writing are the kind of poetic flowery writing that I like too.It makes me want to pick up my camera and go and wonder off into the world and take pictures of all the beautiful things I see.

Here are some of the beautiful pictures I've found that have been posted on there. They have loads of landscape pictures but I've picked out some of the ones with people - mostly because yesterday I was trying to find inspiration for clothes as mine all look the same... All of the artists are credited through the website there :)...

Also, in my clothes search, I found all these on asos... I want them all, why am I not rich with lots of money I can spend? :(

139

2012-01-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

Going on a music rampage!! :) It's fun.

This week has been a shoddy week so at least that makes up for it!

I found a lovely studio in San Francisco today as well called Office. They did the new Google Chrome logo and stuff. And their studio space is beaudaful. I have also just realized they did work which is included in a book I have! :)

They love dogs, have good taste in music from what I can see and they were recognized by Cause/Affect, 'a biennial international design competition that honors the work of designers who set out to make a positive impact on society'.

If only they were in the UK I'd be pretty determined to try and work for them. :(

138

2012-01-07T04:51:00.000-08:00

I figure I should probably show you some of the stuff I've helped out on or done at work that are now finished... So first we have a recipe book called Cuisine St. Bernard, this was mostly worked on by Paola and Bernardo, but I helped out with attempting to edit the photographs which was a task and I also helped to design the front cover, which not only meant doing the layout but I got the chance to create a pattern that would be debossed into the cream paper, which looks quite nice. Unfortunately we got it back yesterday and I don't have any photos of it.

I also worked on this, primarily by myself with a bit of direction from Elliot.

It's a temporary moving card for the jewellers Boodles for their Slaone Street store, I used one of Bryan Poole’s illustrations/etchings that he created for the Wonderland catalogue for the back and carried through the colours onto the front. I was quite happy to see it back from print, the stock that was used is not too thick but suprisingly strong and non bendy for it's weight.

137

2012-01-05T14:58:00.000-08:00

Some more inspirational stuff :)

His name is Ryan McGinley and he takes rather nice photos... He graduated from the graphic design course at Parsons in New York, and he currently has a fairly small exhibition of one of his Wandering Comma project in the Alison Jacques Gallery in London, but the prints are enormous... If you're around Tottenham Court Road deffo go and check it out. Here's some of his work.

136

2012-01-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

Here's some of the stuff I would like to achieve this year, I'm posting it mostly to re-enforce to myself that I need to do it.

2012:

- See the world a bit more, it's just affording it >_> ...
. (Would love to go again, so much so I keep checking for the line up and ticket release date even though I can't really afford it) Coachella

if not
. New York over Olympic and maybe I could visit my dad
. Finland to see my family

. Phillipines to see Mikees

- Work on my professional portfolio… DO MORE PHOTOGRAPHY

- Learn to drive... Must do!!

- Masters? Research CSM and maybe even Parsons D:

- Figure out how I can work with the following:
. Music
. Helping people/causes
. Accessible information

- Healthiness inside and outside.

- Save up money and pay back a bit of my loan.

- Get a Hasselblad Polaroid back for my camera.

- Help a cause some how... Maybe Samaritans or Cancer Research with the crap it's caused my family.

- T-shirts's with Christina... Thinking about peoples dreams - if anyone has any suggestions send them over!
. See the world
. Be a photographer

. Own a mulberry bag
. Own a bakery

. Good music everywhere
. Hollywood!

. Be a rockstar
. Do work you love

. Be your own boss
. Self cleaning kitchen

. To make music

135

2012-01-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

Non art related... Well sort of... Not that everything comes to looks, but I got my hair cut yesterday, hoorah! It feels a lot healthier! the last time I had it cut the lady put layers in and I thought it was nicer sans layers so I got my hair to a pretty much same lengthy length. Which meant I had about 6 inches taken off :). Happy times.

I also went to a zumba class today... First ever one, it was pretty intense, quite fun, very sweaty and trying to get my body to move in a non stiff/awkward way was pretty difficult... But I get 19 more, so hopefully my movement and my belly will swap roles and my belly will get flatter and my movement will get more relaxed.

So here's to 2012 and making a healthy start, even though I did just shove chocolate cheesecake in my face. :)

134

2012-01-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

So I want to make sure that I post once a week at least so that I can remind myself what I've been doing, a creative diary of sorts... I'm also going to start posting every now and again about other awesome people/groups and collectives that I find inspirational...

So I'm going to make a start with YBP... The Yellow Bird Project :)

Now these guys are pretty much doing what I want to do, working with music and musicians and illustrators to raise money and awareness for charities and create awareness for awesome bands. Everyone wins!

They're Canada based and I absolutely love the idea of their project/what they do, and their creations are also really nice, my brother bought me the Indie Rock Poster Book for Christmas, and I just ordered their scarf :)... But they mostly make t-shirts. Lovely jubly... Check them out and support what they do :), go forth and help someone else prosper.

Now I pretty much want to find out how it's possible to participate!
The Indie Rock Poster Book from Yellow Bird Project on Vimeo.

133

2012-01-02T14:56:00.001-08:00

So my brother posted about this... And I've been wanting to photograph mine and Mikee's :).

These are melted bits of metal that predict the new year!

In Finland on new years eve people melt tiny silver horseshoes over their stove so they turn into metal gloops... once it's all melted you run across your kitchen to a sink full of cold water and you throw the melted gloop into it... Thus the form it creates and that you make out of it should in some way be able to predict your future...

I have a fish this year, which my mum thinks is lucky... He looks a bit like our fish Louis.

And Mikee's is clearly a flame/fireball which I'm taking to mean as finding his passion.

132

2012-01-02T03:38:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

So another year has ended and boy am I happy it has.

2011 had some wonderful moments:

- Mikee was on tour in China at the start.

- I had my first ever trip to the USA with my fabulous friend Christina, while we were there we mini road tripped to Salvation Mountain, which was beautiful, we met some wonderful people who we camped with, I got to experience the American supermarket in it's fully appreciated air conditioning, we went to Coachella festival and saw loads of bands and died from the heat... and we got to see a huge windfarm with over 3000 turbines in. It's definitely set off a travel bug in me.

- I was taken to Claridges for Champagne Afternoon Tea.

- I did the funnest possible project with Christina for one of our final university projects, interviewing bands, fans and venues etc... It's was a lot of hard work, but helped me realize I can accomplish anything if I take the drive enough.

- I finished Central Saint Martins with a 2:1... It was a long slog with so many other brilliant young designers but I wouldn't have wanted to go to any other university, it was annoying and developing in so many ways.

- I had my degree show which was awesome, I got contacted about a few internships from it, and I sold a print of my photography which I am so proud about.

- I met Ken Garland who gave me some advice.

- I interned at M&C Saatchi for two weeks thanks to Sabina.

- I got my first ever paid commission.

- I was offered a three month placement at Walford Wilkie, which has now been extended.

- I went to Savoy for a strange charity auction thing.

- I moved in with Mikee, and remained living with the lovely Mr Simic

- I'm proud of Mikee for having performed with Catherine Okada, Lucy Rose, One Direction (on X factor) and Il Divo (on Strictly) and all the other musical and non musical adventures he's been on.

- My brother has started to make a move on following his dreams and becoming a Photographer...

- I saw Swan Lake performed at the Royal Opera House with my mum.

- My dad got remarried and moved to America (another reason to visit), so I am happy for him.

But also throughout 2011 my family has had to deal with illness and death and people going. My dogs been consistently getting older and iller throughout 2011, my grandads best friend died, my mums oldest friend in Eastbourne, and her husband passed away... and after his long battle with cancer I ended my year on my Uncle Andy's funeral...

Needless to say that I do hope my friends and family can make 2012 amazing for themselves, and that it brings the people I love success and happiness.

Fingers crossed.

131

2011-12-23T17:23:00.000-08:00

This is what I got upto the other week for a friend who is on the fashion design course at LCF, this is suggestions for some of the stuff for his final major project... Next up I have a project for THIS IS NOT A VIOLIN :) yippy

130

2011-12-09T06:12:00.001-08:00

What a wonderful world...

129

2011-12-06T16:40:00.001-08:00

And Christmas Cards are a go... I'm feeling quite festive now, looking forward to getting a tree and everyones pressies, and sending these bad boys off :). Whoopla. Anyway, I couldn't have made these without the help of Mikee so a big thankya to him... He is the master of the guillotine... And these are 3D paper cut tree inspired cards which turn into decorations, so there shall be a message and then you can cut it up and decorate your tree. Hazzah! Anyway, its very late, and I want a wash. Next up - A friend needs an identity doing for a clothing range for his final collection at uni... Should be fun, the clothes designs look awesome.

128

2011-12-04T15:00:00.001-08:00

Thinking about Christmas Cards... there should be more to follow soon!

127

2011-12-03T12:51:00.001-08:00

Been working on this for my brother, little taster for you... hopefully we can get it working and the website design can go live in the not too distant future. The logo needs to be developed a bit more, but I'm thinking he's gunna have a pretty sweet identity for his photography beezneees. Over and out for now.

Also, keep checking the music blog, got some pretty sweet tunes being found and reminded. Go now :)

126

2011-11-20T03:56:00.001-08:00

So hopefully you've been keeping up with our music posts... over at What Ever We Like

Other than that we've been keeping ourselves busy. I've been interning (which is supposed to end soon but I don't appear to be going anywhere at the moment) and also been asked to do lots of work by friends. Which is cool.

I have just finished a logo project for a Brighton/London based live dance music act called Uber-Tone... Find them here...

I may also be able to do a photoshoot with them at some point!

Lovely jubbly. Next up I have some work to do for my brother and work to do for Mikee... who has been making some TV appearances... If you happen to watch Strictly Come Dancing today keep an eye out for the floppy dark haired violinist playing with Il Divo... Discussions about quite a few websites for three people, which should be interesting. But woohoo. Busy busy.

Other things that have been happening... I've been thinking about trying to get a group of people together to start a collective... Thinking it might be a grand idea, but hard to get the ball rolling with everyone.

I've also got the coolest film from a comany called Revolog... It's pre exposed to colours so when you shoot over it you get really colourful pictures... Really looking forward to using it. And I happened to walk past the tallest professional basketball player in the world last week... 7ft8 ... I felt tiny and it was great!

Till next time, hopefully I'll have something more visual to show you :)

125

2011-11-02T05:10:00.000-07:00

Mikee and myself have decided to set ourselves the task of finding a song we like everyday. To make sure we do it, and to see what we have found over time, we've started a blog and a twitter for ourselves.

It's called Whatever We Like - as it's about whatever it is that we like. If you haven't seen it feel free to take a peek here for Blogger and here for Twitter.

It's been fun so far.

124

2011-10-15T16:17:00.000-07:00

Soooo...
I've had a bit of time off from working 24/7... It has been amazing. But I think it's time to bring back a bit more of doing my own thing (creative wise yo)... I've been asked to do a few things which is ace :).
Mikee's been asking me for ages to design him a website for 'This is not a violin'. He also needs a business card, and some promo stuff... I think we can have some fun with that!
My lovely brother is trying to push his photography so I've told him I will design him a logo so he's not using one that looks like it's using papyrus for it's font. 'Cause he likes the swirly g's and h's'... His photographic skills are wicked and he needs to be represented by something wicked looking too.
I also keep forgetting to run to paperchase to get blotting paper to make more postcards. Must go on Monday on my lunchbreak cause I've been meaning to for a month!
I need to visit mr Martin at Eye Creative to get my 120s processed! And I want to shoot more so gotta make some plans!
Also, Miss Alex Plays The Cello has asked me to take some piccys of her which I'm up for so hopefully should have that coming up soon!
And lastly, the amount of times I've been sitting with mikee and he's wanted to write some music. So he goes and writes a tune, and then laments that he can't write lyrics and I've offered, the amount of time is insane. But I really want to do it. I think it'd be great.

The people that I really admire have been in my mind a lot recently and it's really motivational. They do the things I wish I could do and that makes me want to push myself to be able to do things like that. And with a memory of what Choi told me when I first met her on my M&C placement. 'You don't just have to do one thing, you can do what you want'. Amazing woman.

If you're finding it hard to find inspiration, here are some amazing inspiring people/things/whatever:

National Geographic

The natural world is the most amazing thing.

Stefan Sagmeister

Has the most adrmiable work eithic and creations

Big Active

These guys have the dream job.

Steve Jobs

Thank you for having existed, and doing the speech I wish I had for my graduation.

Zooey Deschanel

Milti-talented. It's incredible.

Music
Always motivational. (something new above)

Bikes and videos

This is just cooool!

Animals

Make me smile, how about you?

Travelling plans
Gotta have a desire in life. I want to see the world.

Time to live life, work hard and do amazing things and be that inspiring thing myself.

123

2011-10-15T05:39:00.001-07:00

While I was at Sabina, I helped out on a lot of stuff for Poppy De Villeneuve. She directed this video for The Vaccines recently. I loved Jay Jay Pistolet before he joined them but this song's not bad, and I love Poppy's work so it just makes it even better

122

2011-10-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

We willy while no posty. I have not had internet... nor do I still have internets. Grand. Hopefully soon!

I have managed to get lots of photos back from processing after getting some money and finally being able to afford to do it. Here they are :)

Things are going well at ze placement too. Happy me.

London in Black and White:

California:

Degree Show:

London in Colour:

And some musics for your ear pleasings:

121

2011-09-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

I keep seeing that everyone's gone travelling or been going to New York, reminders of Coachella... and it's making me get ants in my pants. I'm only just beginning to find the motivation to face making a plan, now everything is starting to settle a bit. I think it's going to be a big-ish plan. I'm a bit worried about what I'm going to come up with and how long it'll actually take me to save up for it.

oh dear.

And now it's the latest I've been up in a while, going to be even more exhausted tomorrow.

oh dear.

120

2011-09-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

Long time no post! Sorry for the lack of have been uber busy with moving stuff while working, involving a) finding somewhere to live, b) try to get the place we want to live in, c) packing and cleaning and painting the old house d) moving mine and Mikees stuff into storage and finally e) comes tomorrow... moving in! With the help of my absolutely amazing mum. She's incredible :).

I've also been having a lovely time at my paid placement, it's so nice not to be working at the weekend :) but I'm worried I will be bored after not stopping for the last two years so it is actually kinda tempting to get something to do in the evenings and weekends O.o... which is a little weird.

But enough of all this life stuff. I'm doing a post because I've just finished my first freelance job :) with a Mr James Barrow from Pig On A Hill. Yippy. We had a lovely client, Tom, who runs a video production company Octavo Pictures, he asked us to redesign his logo and website. His current projects are mostly weddings, however he has been doing more corporate work, so wanted to steer the website in that direction whilst looking slightly more professional and still creative and friendly. This took approx a month and half to complete from briefing to build and upload. I did the design and James did the coding. I must say he's been an absolute star to work with the two times I have worked with him.

Here are some screen grabs:

Check out the live site here Octavo Pictures

I'm so proud! :)

Also music wise check out the new Antlers album :) tis tres good :).

119

2011-08-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

So life's getting a bit more creative! Here's some photos I took at Proud in Camden of Lucy Rose who Mikee is performing with! :) (My boyfriends a musician :)!!)

But yeah, I started my paid placement at Walford Wilkie the other day! Woo. Was drawing and painting which was a little odd but a nice break from the usual.

Also enjoy this! I know they had a lot of fun :)

118

2011-08-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

Lots of news.

I graduated! :) I now have a BA(Hons) in Graphic Design... which I can put after my name, but wont 'cause that would be silly.

Did 2 weeks placement at M&C Saatchi... started off in Art Buying, which was lovely but then got asked if I'd wanted to go spend some time in the graphics department. Which was fun! Stayed rather late a few times which was exhausting but really cool to see how an agency works, especially around pitches.

Entered the Taylor Wessing portrait prize which was fun to sort out... O.o

Did a weeks placement at Walford Wilkie, met some lovely people there, did some interesting work, hopefully hear back from them soon! Found out lots of great music from them.

Got epicly sunburned on the beach at home, my legs still hurt a week later.

Currently house hunting for somewhere to live with Aaron and Mikee... Hopefully somewhere crops up... We have found a lovely place but we'll have to see if the offer goes through.

Mikee's on tour with Lucy Rose at the moment. Got to see him for a short time last night, hopefully I will be able to go along and be a photographer at some point as well.

I quit my job at the Hubbub, will still be doing the design work for them though :)

Also the Octavo Pictures website is coming along nicely thanks to Mr James.

117

2011-07-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

So last night I was lucky enough to be able to go to my lovely housemates private view. Held just up the road from uni, this show was for LCFs pick of the bunch and I went after I'd finished at Sabina (the website is so close to being up it's so exciting).

Anyway, there was some lovely work - if you get the chance to go see it's at Victoria House near Southampton Row, and if you go see you must take a look at Mr Aarons work, it's some of the best in show and congrats to my lovely for getting a First officially for his degree :D. His website is under construction but he has some work on Showtime... so take a looky here. And the lovely lad has his work mentioned here. I'm so proud :D. Go Aaron.

I also got an email from someone who went to the show and saw some work, lovely of them to mention it on their blog and look my grandad is totally ruling the interweb.

I had a lovely chat with Ken Garland the other day, he was kind enough to give me some insight and advice regarding my work, and lovely enough to give me a book. I really appreciated the talk, it made me feel slightly more at ease knowing someone could see something in me and my work that they saw in themselves. And it was really useful to hear some feedback regarding what I have and how I change it to be more suitable job hunting wise. I shall post him a pack of postcards as a thank you as I forgot to take something to give him.

On Thursday I heard back from the people who gave me the interview, I've been offered a one week placement alongside two other graduates which should be exciting. So I have that to look forward to once I've done the week at M&C :) ... and then I have been speaking to a lovely lady from the Myoo blog which looks like a very interesting experience indeed. They've been involved in some really cool projects and she was really nice and reminded me of Mikee's sister. O.o... So hopefully could be doing a bit for them. I'm interested to see where everything leads. I'm gunna be a bit skint for a while though I think... It'll all be good though. We shall see.

116

2011-06-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

Had a lovely afternoon/evening with Sabina... Went to Claridges for Wimbledon Afternoon High Tea... Felt severly under dressed but it was a lovely trip out with everyone, and macaroons are reaaaaally tasty. Nom. Below is a picture Sabine took of Suhui and myself... and I look a bit like a happy peacock with the lovely flower display behind me. Congrats to Sabine for having a nearly one year old company, with everything now going well. Congrats also to Kate and Suhui for completing two years of St Martins, and although they're already both awesome at what they do hopefully they'll get the same motivation from interning at Sabina that I did this last year and that I really needed for third year.

Have also been thinking about the Hubbub work, and Toms work... I'm happy my brain is kicking back into design mode.

115

2011-06-25T17:26:00.001-07:00

...and I got a 2:1...woo. After the awful hand in, I'm gunna say that I'm happy with that although I know I could have done better. But still! Yay.

114

2011-06-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

So this is the final day of the degree show. We get our grades on Friday - I can't believe it's all coming to an end :(!!!

I got a mention on the Art Wednesday blog alongside Lauren Michelle Pires for our photography. And we also got a visit from the wonderful Andy Inglis who Christina and I spoke to about The Luminaire for our music publication. It was super nice to see him as the night we had at The Luminaire was probably one of the best gig's we've both ever been to and we both really appreciated how lovely he was when we visited. He's also mentioned us on his website here: Fivethousand.

I also received an email about an interview for an internship so I shall see how that goes next week... it'll be a good experience to have someone to talk to about my work and get to know what this interview malarkey is like... exciting but petrifying at the same time.

Work for the Hubbub and work on Octavo Pictures identity and website will commence soon - as will spending more time at Sabina, having a short break at home with Mikee and then commences a wonderful week at M&C for a placement.

Got so much to think about but it'll be good, will end up on the right path.

I can't wait to go home though, it's going to be so nice.

113

2011-06-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

Hope no one tried to email me at my website account! It's all set up now though. So sorry to anyone who tried to email me and got a postmaster failure. But it's working now so if you want to contact me email emilia@emiliabuggins.com

112

2011-06-14T13:23:00.000-07:00

Degree show space - mine and Christinas :) woopee... Just have to sort out a shelf for photography for my folio and I'm all set for the evening ahead :)!!
Also, my website is practically finished. www.emiliabuggins.com ... go take a look!

111

2011-06-02T02:10:00.000-07:00

Time to think about the degree show.
Mine and Christina's spaces are next to each other, so we have a sharedish space for the publication. I made a little mock up of our work that we might include and put it to scale on a mini mock up of our space... we have 2.4 meters of space all together and a table in the design section. I think we've concluded this was the better option of arrangements... having the poster in the middle, with the publication and coachella insert... then my work on the right, which will be 2 of the dancing prints, and my post cards on the wall. Plus a book of prints of the dancing images, sketchbook and a pack of my postcards. On Christinas side on the left, she has her Text to Drum project, a space for cupcakes and photographs or her what if composite project... we might think about marking out the sections so people don't get confused with whose work is whose.
As the wall outside our kitchen is the same size as our show space size I tried putting my work up there and it fits so my mock up was pretty accurate.
So now I need to make a book of the dancing images, get my photographs printed and framed big size... and make a few sets of my postcards.

I've also been asked to design a logo and website for a videographer, and promotional material for the bar I work in O.o... which is quite cool! People keep asking me what I would charge... and I have no idea!! What am I supposed to say? Eep. On an awesome note... going to see Bright Eyes in a few weeks, and Mikee is currently living here which is actually really nice having him around :)

110

2011-05-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

I went to a photoshoot yesterday at Webber Studios in Borough with Sabine to get some of her work photographed for her website. Firstly they shot the ISBN book she worked on for Fiona Banner and then the 'If nothing goes right, turn left' book which she's recently been working on with Pomme Chan and that I helped write the poems for haha! Quite an interesting day, and then Sabine made me ride all the way from Borough to Clerkenwell on a Boris bike... considering I've never ridden a bike in London and it's been a few years since I've plonked myself on one it was a bit strange, but fun... and exhausting! She also gave me some advice about looking for work after my mum's been pressuring me even though we haven't even finished uni completely yet with the show still to come, and the hand in was less than a week ago.

I spent today getting back on track of things after catching up with my lovely old housemate Miss English... Re-organizing and re-designing bits of my website, so it's all ready for James to play around with so we can get it up and running before the degree show :)... I will make him a big cake for helping me out so much... or a massive pizza. Or both. Other than that I'm getting a cold which sucks.

109

2011-05-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

The last stretch, one of my housemates had put this on our fridge:

The music publication envelope:

This was the music publication, each copy is Worship 1:F, Worship 1:V, Worship 1:M. There is a perforate highlights poster that would be hung in venues and used to promote the publication. And lastly a colourful Coachella insert about mine and Christinas experiences:

Holographic sticker to relate it to live music and tickets:

One of the spreads on the Fans poster:

The folded out musicians poster:

Coachella, I have orange, Christina has pink, the book flips to see each others perspective. We felt to keep it individual and different so you get variety but also keep it consistent through the design as it was the same trip:

The music poster on the wall, I want to put them all up:

What a degree does to a persons bedroom, it's tidier, but will be cleaner hopefully today:

Late blog update: we were supposed to do this before the weekend but never mind, it's more for myself. The final hand in is done and my work is being graded today, there's nothing more I can do… which is relieving and scary at the same time. The future of uncertainty is scary, but at the same time it'll be exciting and new to be away from education. It's the reason I didn't want to do an MA… real life experience will be more valuable to me if I wanted to do one in the future too. Over the past year my confidence has grown as a designer, I've learned more and accomplished more than I have in past years, and I feel like I'm developing my way of thinking. I have discovered I love graphic design, and I love photography and I could very easily try to follow both as a career. I feel slightly torn between two… but I'm realising I'm not just restricted to one or the other. I can do both… I'm quite happy with my projects for the year. I pushed myself to make them the best I could make them; especially in the time frame. We created the work in one term. Six projects in twelve weeks. They were born from nothing, and made to as awesome as we could do in two weeks. With a few days to make each project awesomer in the last few weeks. The night before the final hand in was ridiculous. Christina and I were waiting to pick up our photography for 5 hours. The man should have told us to go home and come back later rather than saying they'd be ready every half an hour. We did not get home till midnight - giving us 9 hours to prepare our portfolios and everything else for hand in. Luckily - photography was sorted out once we had our prints. We had dropped off our film and digital files on the Monday, so I don't understand really why ours took so long. Andreas picked his up at 2:30am… crazy. I had decided to get printed what I wanted in my portfolio, after receiving no help from the photography department, I was quite miffed: The previous Friday I had asked Dave to take a look at my work and help me make a selection to print. He had helped me on the first one. Then Tim wanted to buy a shirt, and needed Dave's approval, so they left me and Christina in charge of the photography studio while they were gone. Tim had told me a few days beforehand I couldn't stay in while no one was in there 'cause he gets moaned at: make up your mind. Once they returned, I asked Dave to help me with the rest, he had to put on some music first, and sit there listening to while drinking Guinness while I showed him my work: I'm not sure he was paying too much attention. He got halfway through before we had to leave and he started calling me and Christina 'fucking annoying because we've got potential to be quite good photographers, but we've just nibbled, not taken a full bite'. Most photographers take years to build up bodies of work, me and Christina have been sat in that room constantly over the past year. It was just annoying. I then made my own selection over the weekend and went to the photography meeting on Monday, only to me told once again, that'I'm fucking annoying' and also that I've 'fucked around for the year'. This past year I have been interning, consistently working the busiest day of the week where I work, trudging through solidly on my design projects, trying to do my own photography and dealing with family, friends and life issues, the biggest probably my dad moving to a different country. I wish I had been fucking around for the year if that's the kind of reaction my work gets. Anyway - end of rant. Earlier in the day we had picked up our screen printed posters… folded them, and printed an envelope for them to be held in. We still had to complete the Coachella insert which luckily just required printing and binding. We also had to glue the envelope to hold the posters. After having made doubles of everything for the poster project - after screen printing, we were both only really happy with one of each pair, so decided to hand in one copy of the publication, it made me more comfortable to have it in mine for some reason so Christina was awesome enough to agree to let me have it in mine. My boyfriend came round after he finished work at around one, he stayed up with me till three, and then had a two hour nap while I wrote my process booklets, I'm not sure they describe what they need to describe but I wasn't entirely sure what should have been in them. He woke up at 5 when I started printing them, and when I got frustrated that none of it was working and started crying he made me take some time out in the kitchen and told me I had to get on with it. So while I figured out a plan B, he was helping me fold paper, staple stuff, order stuff… he was amazing. I don't think I would have made it through the night without him there. He also helped carry my portfolio to uni because it was so heavy and although I may be taller than your average girl, I'm probably weaker. My portfolio consists of three 'boxes'. The first two are my design. The third is my photography. In box one: 6 process booklets with scans and photos from the research, ideas and experiments and a short walk through on each project. Finals: A CD with a short film on and pdf of my website design. Postcards. The balsa plane instruction manual. Smile guide. The music publication. Work in progress for: Music publication, rhythms and the postcards. The second box was my rhythms project. Lastly was my photography. Everything was colour co-ordinated. Hopefully it made sense; as I was doing that at 7am after no sleep. I think overall I'm happy with the work I handed in, it's of a much higher standard than most hand in's I've had before. I know how I would like to make each project even better as well. I think though this was one of the most stressful and hard hand ins I've ever had, I worked my butt off for four weeks, I have never been so tired or so angry either. I tried to be organised. We did read in a magazine something by my favourite musician though while waiting at the printers on Thursday: All that matters in life if the moment you are born and the moment you die, nothing else really is that important, so make the most of it, enjoy it and have fun. Which is what I intend to do. Work won't be like uni, weirdly competitive because you're working to get grades. I wish I could have experienced CSM as an Art School, I think the learning process' would have made more sense in my head. But I'm still happy that I did have the experience, I've made some fabulous friends who I wouldn't change for the world and gone through things which wouldn't have happened had I have got to another uni. Now for some different things this week :) which should be nice. Will upload photos of my portfolio once I get it back.

108

2011-05-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

PRINTER WIN! The first time I've not had to adjust things to get them to align on my printer :) hoorah. Mine and Christina's Coachella insert to go with the music publication. Here are some of the de
signs in the pagination set up. The book flips to read the two different perspectives of the experience. We used orange and pink because these are our colours and we both love the combo of them. The cover will be a screen printing accident that happened yesterday.

107

2011-05-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

Update:

Plane Instruction Manual - Complete

Cancer Website - Complete

Rhythm - Complete

Music Publication -
Waiting for the ink to dry, fold, put stickers on and print and make the 'envelope' they'll be contained in.

The Last Flower - Completed

What if - Completed

Photography portfolio -
Waiting for prints.

106

2011-05-15T17:16:00.001-07:00

I hate writing about myself :| it's so difficult!

105

2011-05-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

Christina and I got our A0 posters printed :). Huzzah! They look pretty damn fine, can't wait to get the colour on there. And I can't wait to put them on my wall after hand in. The poster backs look so freakin' cool. I've only noticed one mistake on them after looking... It happened after editing the text after having edited the design.. it was checked over but I think with the mass of it all it probably just got missed.
After spending time in photography, and being told that it's 'fucking annoying' that both Christina and I could both be quite good photographers and that we've 'nibbled' at projects. Been slaving away editing them down. I have come up with a selection of photographs for a series of mini projects based around the observation of adjusted spaces as a key theme to hold them together. I mostly took them 'cause they're interesting to me and 'cause they look nice... but for the sake of being academic for my degree that's my 'fluff'. Most of them need editing, colour correcting, cropping etc.

As for my other work, it's coming along: here's the current status.

Plane Instruction Manual -
Get it chopped down so all the edges are flush, and give it a cloth spine.

Cancer Website -
Ensure the typography looks good... Photograph a narrative of someone using it in context.

Rhythm -
Screen print title on case and pick up prints.

Music Publication -
Screen print colours, fold, put stickers on and print and make the 'envelope' they'll be contained in.

The Last Flower - Completed

What if - Completed

Photography portfolio -
edit images + print

We also have to write a mini statement about ourselves and our work and I have no idea what to write. It feels pretty alien to write something like that... I also don't want to present my work with dog clips... So I think I will colour code it with the booklets I'm producing to explain the project ideas and process' etc. Fun times.

104

2011-05-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

Our layouts... Not the final colours... And as you can see, 1 still to go. Deadline is Thursday AM when we've said we'd take stuff to print. Got a lot of work ahead tomorrow. Bed time now, so tired.

103

2011-05-07T18:12:00.001-07:00

Potential venues, need to chat with Christina but it's 2am and I have work tomorrow. So after work :)

102

2011-05-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

Musicians layout, unless anyone has any suggestions of what to do to change it I think it shall remain like this. Take a peek of some of the details. Christina worked on the Little Comets and We are Augustines interviews, I did the others and then adjusted them both to fit in with each other, tweaking the details and discussing them with Christina. I think we're both quite happy. Next up - Venues. We've concluded Christina's better at throwing stuff at a page, and I'm good at refining the details of it. We're aiming to have them ready to print on Tuesday, and have to contact a screen-printers on Monday to see if they can work some magic for us on the backs.

101

2011-05-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

I'm definitely in panic mode. But it's very productive. Current project status' on my to do list are:

Balsa Wood Plane Instruction Manual. Almost done.
Print and bind with cloth instead of sandpaper.

Cancer Website. Almost done.
Ensure the typography looks good.
Photograph a narrative of someone using the website and how it helps.

Rhythm. Almost done.
Wait for prints, then collect.
Screen print title on folio, then contain the prints.

Music Publication. Still a bit to do.
Complete final designs of layouts.
Print text at service point.
Find somewhere to screen print the back for us.
(Coachella fanzine to include)

This is the current progress of the posters. They need a fixing, but they're on their way. Next up is fans and highlights.

The Last Flower - Completed
Postcards... Just waiting on a printed ribbon to contain them.

What if - Completed

Photography. Almost completed.
Scan, edit and print finals.

Portfolio - To do.
Design and print each project's information.

Will post a images later of how everything is coming together, all I currently have is my shoddy camera on my phone.

100!

2011-05-05T05:33:00.000-07:00

Holy Macaroni!
We did a lot yesterday... I managed to scan some more negs, we went to the talk about the degree show which was kinda daunting... I'm not sure how ready our year is for it but we'll pull it off...I got a copy of one of my posters printed with Malcolm, getting all of them printed will cost £40, if I don't like the Printspace copy... which will cost a hell of a lot more. We went to John Purcell paper in Brixton... which was fun, we now have most of the paper we need to finish our projects, (I was going to go into uni and chop them up, but I think I will do that tomorrow. It was fun, we ended up with paper bags... literally. I managed to finish my postcards as I've received most of the things I ordered now... and we finished all the transcribing for our project... most of this was listening to rather badly recorded audio, so it's taken some time... but the word count is close to 30,000 words without a couple more fan interviews... that's 5 dissertations worth (at our uni)... holy mcmacaroni. Today we are designing after discussing last night what we shall be keeping the same throughout the document, so we can work seperately on the projects without them looking too different... as it'll be nice to have the variety of us both working on it. I may also pick up my print space order as well... as we seem to be able to do a lot in a day. We're getting into the swing of things :)... though I must say I'm exhausted already.

99.5

2011-05-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

I don't want to make this 100 yet. Here are some of the photos from Birling Gap, I was too excited about them, now I'm a bit disappointed in them. Nevermind.

99

2011-05-03T17:05:00.001-07:00

I got into the photostudio today to scan, only managed to make about half a dent in my negs but it's a start I suppose. Hopefully one more day'll get them all scanned... Starring Holga, Hasselblad and my grandads old compact camera.

First up we have the Holga for Coachella. I have more shots on 35mm but these are most of the ones for 120, there's still some slide to scan but I'm not sure they're any good.

Next up... The very few Salvation Mountain photos I managed to get on my grandads old camera before it decided to rewind itself... I may be able to work with them but they wont be very big, which is what Salvation Mountain deserves. It is a mountain after all. I want to go back.

And lastly the Windfarm on the Hasselblad... I like these photos a lot, I think I prefer them in black and white however.

And my to do list is going like so, it's still quite a bit of work to do but not as scary as I thought it would be:

Plane Instruction Manual.
Almost completed

Cancer Website.
Almost completed

Rhythm.
Almost completed

Music Publication Collab.
Most work, but not a terrifying amount

Venue books.
A bit of work to do

The Last Flower in my own way.
Almost completed

What if.
Completed

Photography portfolio.
Need to scan and print...

Hoho, well Mikee's currently editing one of our transcriptions... So I shall go and finish my Coachella diary...

98

2011-05-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

Am currently working on editing the content for the music publication :) its all dandy... But in the process I have also managed to talk to my lovely friend James and work with him on getting myself a place to put all my work on the internets. There's only a holding page but it's nearly ready to rock, will get it going and organized after the hand in! :)

Take a looksie here!

James is the best!

97

2011-04-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is as far as editing the dancing images will go! I'm happy, the test will come for printing, I need to get Malcolm to do me a copy of one image and get a C-type print done... to see which will have the best effect I want :) ... Last time I got the image printed I was in a rush and didn't resize the image correctly, so all of the images have been transformed to A1 and then place in an A2 document so hopefully the resolution will be fine :)... Here we are. Now to face the music project. I'm excited to be getting back to it with fresh eyes.

96

2011-04-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

So! Have decided the final designs for the flower project. I will actually print on the thicker card instead of the water colour paper, after looking at it in daylight. Need to get some more though. And I need to get something to round the corners, but you can get punches to do that so it shouldn't be too hard. I'm deliberating if I should design a box to put the cards in? it's just I'm rubbish at making boxes. Anyway, here are the designs. The cards are roughly 6x4... This is the back.

The top card is like so, explaining the set. I know all caps body text is a big nono but I like it here and I feel it's still readable.

And here are the illustrated cards! There are 12 of them. I had a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to not make them feel as if they were just sitting in white space, but the illumination and border came through to save the day and tie it in with the back of the cards. Over-all I'm quite happy, as it's taken ages to try and think of an outcome for the project and I didn't think I'd be able to hand it in, and I really wanted to use my drawings in my portfolio. Happy times.

Next up! Dancing images and some David Attenborough.

95

2011-04-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

So I begin probably the fiftieth post of the week! Sorry! Well, have added illumination to the postcard that I needed to... and tested paper to print on. The clearest and most suitable seems to be a thick water colour paper. I quite like it. I'm also surprised that I'm happy with the illustrations small but I think they look quite nice shrunk down from A3 to small... I also took some time to edit the dancing things some more but will post about that tomorrow?

Happy Wedding day for the UK btw, I will probably be avoiding it like the plague to do work/sleep... but for every little girl out there wishing she were a Princess, she can get to see that dreams do some true :)... which is sweet. Also, Happy Happy Birthday to Bella :) ... Mikee's niece... She's 7... and the sweetest kid ever.

94

2011-04-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

I'm back to regular updates it appears.

So this morning, mum and I took a trip to Camilla's Bookshop ... This tiny shop in Eastbourne which is a complete labyrinth of secondhand books. There as so many books in this shop that they reach the ceiling in small alleys and there are a few little rooms and an upstairs. We spent our time downstairs looking through the botany books to try and find some classic Victorian botanical books as I wanted to see something related to the flower project. I also trawled through the boxes of postcards and photographs that they had... And found some treasures which have been very helpful indeed. I was mainly looking for the typography and illumination. So here's some examples of what I found!

This was for a photographer, I suppose as a business postcard... From research, it looks like he was around in St Leonard's from 1870.

I also thought this postcard was quite sweet, and I like the dotted square for the stamp... Though I think I will keep the centered line to keep in line with the layouts of the images.

This was some of the illumination on the photographers card, I think it's quite suited to the style I want to draw influence from so I may see what the design looks like in combination with my layout.

This was the main style I was looking for, it's not like anything I've really done before so I thought it might be a nice challenge to see what my attempt would look like for my cards.

And this was the book the drawing was in :)... some nice finds I think!

So next up was my attempt at the style I wanted to embrace, with a slightly modern twist. I think with the addition of the illumination this might look quite elegant :)... I've gone for the theme of being lost in thought when you write and when you draw, and analyze things, so the black and white images are related to stories/memories/ thoughts... and the coloured images are related to analysis/fact and logic. Hopefully the combo of the two, should demonstrate the idea of reflection.

Lastly, this is Shaun, my dog who's having trouble walking still. I'm quite worried something is going to happen to him over the next three weeks while we complete the last stretch of uni... which is just going to add more stress on but I will keep my hopes up for him. He's 14, used to be jet black with light brown eyebrows, he turned into a fat lump, and now he weighs as light as a feather and has a rather big lump under his leg which I think might be the problem. But he's adorable. I really hope this wont be one of the last times I see him :(! Anyway, back to London in a few hours, which sucks.

93

2011-04-27T19:53:00.001-07:00

Orchid postcards... will explain later... and will work on a bit more. But aha! Should be cool. Will hopefully print on an off white stock. Sleep now. Yes!

92

2011-04-27T18:11:00.000-07:00

So my super amazing monkey picked up my negs from Bayeux cause I couldn't wait, I shall get to see them in the flesh tomorrow I hope!! he scanned one and sent it over :) the colours are so vivid, I had one really loose film, so it got quite a few light leaks... I think this is the one it happened to... Shot on my holga, so not too bad :)... The colours are very vivid :) horrah for Velvia :)

I'm currently in the middle of making my flower things into postcards. I realized that most of the time I was drawing the flower, I thought about people and memories... and although the project was about the flower... the process helped me to think about things that were happening in my life, so the beauty of the flower and its life, similar to a humans, while reflecting on that, helped me to reflect... Something about the analysis of the flower, and disection of it, I think it might be nice for people to potentially use it to reflect, and tell other people about their lives and happenings. So... postcards... However, I currently have the attention span of a poodle. So it's taking some time.

91

2011-04-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

Hello hello.
Me and my mum took a trip to Birling Gap today and I shot about 4 rolls of Velvia somehow, I'm not sure if I messed up with the light reader on one of the films but oh well if I did... The weather was quite nice, not completely sunny but not cloudy, just nice, slightly hazy, and the sun was close to setting... hopefully should look quite nice on the slide film.
Birling Gap is a small hamlet on the Seven Sisters cliffs, otherwise known as Beachy Head... Down the road from the mildly famous Bell Tout Lighthouse which got picked up and moved back 56 feet from the cliff edge and saved from the cliff erosion a few years back. Birling Gap isn't going to be so lucky, there are a few houses and eventually these will fall into the sea as the cliff erodes. Some of the houses are still lived in, one is use by the coastguard, some of them are empty... it's such an odd place, my dad used to take me there as a child, across the South Downs and up until he recently moved to America, we used to take trips up there to eat fish and chips. I always took this scenery for granted while I lived here, and now I've taken a step back living in London, I can see the beauty that is on my doorstep at home for what it is. I find it quite amazing that one day I will have children, and hopefully be able to take them there and hopefully they could experience that place before it gets lost to the sea forever too.
Should be able to process the photos when I get back to London.

My dog seems to be picking himself up. He couldn't walk a few weeks ago and is still finding it a little difficult to move around, and he's wearing a nappie and braces to keep the nappie on. But my mum keeps commenting that he's doing things that he hasn't been doing. So things could be looking up for him. I hope anyway, even if he does get better it probably won't be for long, which is sad but he's lived a good life, and if that's what happens, that's the way it's meant to be. We've had him since I was 7. It's been a bit of a strange year. My grandads best friend passed away last month and my uncle has found out he has cancer. It feels like a big year for ends. The end of uni and preparing for it is scary enough by itself without having the added pressure of these other things happening. But que sera sera.

As well as our trip to Birling Gap, I have been preparing the information and layouts for the rhythm project, I still have to create the cover for the folder they will be held in, hopefully will be able to print it all when I return to London. And the last thing I have planned for this evening is to complete my Coachella diary, so me and Christina can create a quick fanzine from our journals, to include in the music project. Tomorrow, I shall be doing something with the flower drawings I did at christmas. I think they're lovely as analytical illustrations so I may create a sort of botanical illustration book, but make the analysis of the flowers metaphors looking at what was going through my head and in my life at the time. The project reminded me of this quote: I see peace in the falling leaves, I see their same fate in my own body'.

Right. Time to put Buffy on in the background.

90

2011-04-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

Have recovered my plane instruction manual but didn't take a photo of it before I meandered back to Eastbourne while my dog is ill... So will post a picture when I get back... still feel like I could have done better though, so I might try again.

And I have decided to miss the last person for the dancing project which means I will have 8 images all together for the songs. Which I feel is still enough. I'm posting them one by one as I go so this will be updated.

Nine to Five - Dolly Parton.
Time: 2:28

Last Nite - The Strokes.
Time: 3:24

Undercover Martyn - Two Door Cinema Club.
Time: 2:48

Twist and Shout - The Beatles.
Time: 2:33

Dancing With Myself - Billy Idol.
Time: 3:23

Love Rollercoaster - Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Time: 4:36

Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode.
Time: 3:39

Slam - Pendulum.
Time: 3:04

89

2011-04-23T18:35:00.001-07:00

Not quite resembling the imagery I had for this project before but it still works for the project I think... 1/10 for the rhythms project. This is Twist and Shout by the Beatles at 2:33 and 78 bars equaling in an amalgamation of 156 photos in the one image to demonstrate the energy and moment created by two different people dancing to the same song... hopefully by the end of this my eyes won't be boxed shaped.

88

2011-04-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

Wind Farm Scans... I'm a little bit happy with these but wont be able to tell if I am actually happy with these till I can scan them properly. Boo.

87

2011-04-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

Here's some screencaps of some of the scans I have from the films from America... First up are a few out of the miniscule amount of photos I have from Salvation Mountain that look like any of the pictures you would find on google. I was so bummed out that I didn't really get to shoot any, but it was an epic camera fail where even the most hardy of cameras would have been a failure in my hands. It was just amazing to experience though.

These are in general from the trip. I think Christina looks nice in them hence posting them, but the lady herself seems to hate my photos of her so apologies to her but I like 'em. So quit moanin!
Enjoy Palm Springs! also please see previous post if you're curious at all about the toilet photo, if you can even make out anything in these shitty scans. I am still to pick up the slide film from Bayeux. Probably look naff too.

86 Coachella Special

2011-04-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

AMAZING This is the only word to completely describe it.

.Memorable points.

Flight there:
Crazy taxi driver to Heathrow.
Miniature sandwiches. Big plane (for me).
Chinese man sat next to Christina in a slanted position (looked uncomfy).
Flew over the ice off the coast of Canada.
America is very gridded.
Meal had a bread bun, which resembled a bum, and was half white half brown bread.
New-wave radio.

Chicago stopover:
Motorway 20 feet below runway.
Toilets which had wrapping which moved on the seat.
DLR train between terminals.

Flight to Palm Springs:
Met a man called Rick who was mighty friendly.
Flew over the Rocky Mountains.
Flew over the Colorado River + Grand Canyon.
Very very turbulant landing.

Day 1:
Collected luggage and car keys, checked in at the travel lodge.
MOUNTAINS.
Palm trees!!!
1 and a half hour drive to Salvation Mountain.
Saw the Salton Sea.
Saw a crazy religious hick village.
Saw the sign for Slab City.
Massive freight trains.
Desert.
Salvation mountain at sunset (felt like invading someones home, Leonard Knight coughed from his trailer but we didn't get to meet him.
Camera + Jet-lag fail :( - bummed out.
Long drive back, got lost in Grapefruit.
Noodles for dinner eaten with a straw.
Amazing sleep in a big bed.

Day 2:
8am wake up.
The toilets are stupidly full there.
Porridge for breakfast... already getting hot.
Met Almanita and James (both lovely)
Went to Will Call and picked up our high-tech wristbands.
Supermarket trip :)
Waited about 2 hours to get into the campgrounds.
Met our neighbours, Kevin, Conor, Emily and Kayla who lent us their shade.
Put up our tents and blew up our air mattress.
Pizza for dinner.
Wrote on the wall to say where you're from.
Saw the 'Extasea' tent down the 'street' from us, where they had a full on rave going on in car camping.
Strawberry lemonade.
Sleep!

Day 3:
Wake up and wait in line for shower - got sunburned back already by 10:30am.
Went to the 'Farmers Market' and got some juice and fruit.
Found some extra stalls selling random things :).
Sat in camp for a while then went to explore the venue.
You had to scan in to get into the venue using your wristband.
It was HOT so hung out in our neighbours shade.
Saw the Morning Benders perform.
Very strong Margeritas.
Hiding under a bench for shade.
Went back to camp to drop stuff off and get changed - the shade behind the car was the best thing ever.
Saw a section of the Cold War Kids.
Saw Interpol :)
Saw a bit of the Black Keys but decided to go on the ferris wheel as they were a bit boring.
Ferris wheel!!! So much fun, and the man gave us free necklaces.
Caught the end of Cut Copy which was really fun!
Saw the Aquabats while everyone said Aqua wrong, they were pretty funny and apparently Danny Devito was on stage with them
Heard Kings of Leon and made up own Kings of Leon cover band - I think we'll be very successful.
Saw a bit of the Chemical Brothers - everyone apart from us was off their faces on acid and you could see the whole place dancing while the music was incredibly loud and the light show quite trippy.

Day 3:
Massive ques for showering so decided to use the solar shower - it did it's job though still felt pretty grimey.
Went and found some sustainance.
Bought some flip flops!
Decided to go to the supermarket for air conditioning and cause it was too hot - went on a really long walk to find the shuttle and missed the last shuttle :( and got very very sunburned in the process.
Went and saw the Foals.
Went back to camp to cool down and get changed etc
Saw the end of Broken Social Scene.
Saw Bright Eyes!! :)
Got crushed by an angry mob coming out of bright eyes who wanted to see Mumford and Sons.
Got some food, and sat back and listened to Mumford and Sons, watching everyone dance.
Animal Collective was very odd.
Arcade Fire were amazing - the balls which dropped down during Wake Up were beautiful and Sprawl II was amazing.
Had a most impressive sleep.

Day 4:
Woke up, waited ages for a VIP shower - shoulda just gone in the regular ones.
Went to Ralphs the Supermarket.
The Shuttle had air con, the supermarket had air con and ice cold things, it was very much a highlight in the intense 36 degree celcius temperature. Had a brilliant ice cold drink, peanut butter and chocolate ice cream and sushi and capri sun - felt a bit sick after eating all that.
Our neighbours left so we had to steal the other neighbours shade, I slept a bit cause of feeling sick.
Most of the day was spent hanging out in the shade as the heat was crazy.
Decided to go see Death From Above 1979 at half 5 and went and got some merch, while a very angry man was very angry and didn't get served.
Saw Death from Above 1979, then Duran Duran, then went to see The National... all amazing.
Went to find food, and on the walk back some man who was very clearly on drugs wanted to take our pictures on my camera, then wanted his picture taken with us, and asked me if he should put on a jumper, and asked me to be honest. Tried to pull us to go see The Strokes and we told him we'd see him there.
Found food, and then went to see The Strokes - danced a lot and had a lot of fun!
Caught the end of PJ Harvey then left Kanye West to do his thing so we could have one final shower and gave our neighbours our Malibu.

Through the three days at the festival:
We ate a lot of frozen lemonade and drank a buttload of water and took a lot of photographs over the three days.

Day 5:
Woke up super-early and got ready, packed up our stuff, left out air mattress, solar shower and on sleeping bag to lighten the load.
Almanita and James needed someway to get to LA so they thought about the train.
Stopped off at a supermarket and they pointed us the way to the amtrack, so we drove there with a pit stop at starbucks and a place to get some breakfast. I had a vanilla rooibos latte which was very tasty.
When we got to the amtrack - in the middle of nowhere, there was no real station, just freight trains going past.
And got stuck in a bit of a sandstorm.
MASSIVE wind farm next to the am track so seized the moment to take photographs.
Drove to the airport and waited till Almanita and James had sorted transport to LA.
Then checked in.
Airport security checked my bag cause the scanner couldn't see in it properly, all that was there was a camera and a lot of films.
Waited around and then got the bumpiest flight on the smallest plane out of palm springs.
We thought we were going to die again.
Got to LAX and then got our plane to London which was quite surreal.
Time travelling 6 hours.

I cant wait to see the photos!!!
I'm meeting with the art buyer from M&C Saatchi tomorrow for an internship and it's 5am and I'm still awake, not sure how this is gunna go down.

85

2011-04-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

We turned our kitchen into a work studio... after discussing what we liked from each others designs after working separately for a while, just to generate different material... and now we've been working on designing posters and experimenting with production.
This is what we've been getting up to: screen printing with flourescents, photo screen print attempt which was naff, print transfer using acetone based nail varnish remover, screen printing with stencil.
The designs are 3 A0 poster - back and front, one for venues, one for musicians and one for fans.. the coloured blocks in the background represent the letter of the publication, M for musicians, V for venues and F for fans, the trianglar shapes represent the light streams from live music and using flourescent colours hopefully enhances that. The posters fold up to make booklets. We still need to keep designing over easter though... alongside finishing litterally all our other projects. Eugh, I feel quite drained.

We've also been preping for Coachella, we're off in 8 days. Have bought 25 rolls of film: 10 rolls of Fuji Velvia 100F (120 slide film), 10 rolls of Kodak Portra 160 VC (120 colour negative) and 5 rolls of Fuji Superia 200 (35mm colour neg)... lots. I'm excited to go and to use them, hopefully can get some amazingly colourful photographs.
I shall head off to sleep now though, sorry to cut you off early but today's short and sweet.

84

2011-03-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

Catherine Okada and Cloudboat opening for James Blake at St Pancras Old Church on the 24th March 2011

Plenty good indeed.

83

2011-03-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

So I will start this post by paying my respects to my grandads friend Ivy who passed away on the 21st (my brothers birthday - Happy 31st to him!)... She was very important to my grandad so it's quite sad :/... her funeral is on my birthday next Tuesday... I would be going but we have uni that day...

Moving on. I went to the Pick Me Up show at Somerset House... some lovely work there and nice to see workshops happening in the space. Loved Rob Ryans work there last year too.

I also found out my grade for my dissertation which was an 80... I'm pretty happy with that! I wasn't expecting to get that high at all, and it's only 5 marks off a first. Celebratory mint and lime milkshakes were pretty yummy. Well done to all the girls in the house I live in for doing well :)... and well done to A-Ron for handing his in the other week.

We've done a fair bit of thinking and work over the past week and have had some feedback from tutors which was both helpful and critical... and felt that the best way to show what we're doing is by talking to you via video, this way you get to see how we're working together and hear what we've been doing and what we're proposing, as we've now reached a stage where we know what we want to accomplish. So for your viewing pleasure, may I present us: *lights dim*

These are the website designs Christina has been working on and that we've both been discussing:
I love the gigantic arrows.

I also really like the way that once you've read it the information could be crossed out. As we're thinking of conveying the idea of the one time experience through the website. It's a neat idea but not bang on nail as one might say.

I quite like this typography but as Paulus has suggested Futura and Avenir are a bit safe, so we shall raid my CD collection to see if we can find some nice fonts.

This was using the spectrum of the soundwaves from the interviews and recordings in the background. The colours are amazing.
This was using the layout of the poster as reference for the layout of the website.
Each of the Interviews gets highlighted...
But will disappear of the selection once you've read it.

This was also looking at the idea of the text becoming unreadable once you've read it.

And some photographs of the poster...

So now we're going to go to the steam room - we have three weeks till we're off to Coachella. (Been trying to find cameras to take and figure out film to take eee...) but we would like to look nice for when we go :) ... it will be my first time outside of Europe so I'm getting super excited!!
And when we get back, find typefaces and choose the artwork selection we want to use.
Tomorrow we shall go to St Pancras Old Church to see James Blake and Catherina Okada perform, hopefully get some nice snaps that we can use!! I'm feeling pretty happy. Now to figure out what to do for my birthday...

ALSO: LOVE THIS WEBSITE...
and the lovely quote I found on there by the dude from My Chemical Romance (not really my cup of tea) but I think he's underpinned who our audience are perfectly. Look here.

AND... This video is AMAZING

ciao for now!

82

2011-03-14T15:56:00.001-07:00

Some shots from the past few weeks of the venues we've visited :)... Christina had her presentation with Rathna today, doesn't sound like it went too well so I hope tomorrow goes better with Sheena... but yes these are the images I scanned today - there are more from the 35mm from the little comets gig but I figured it best to show another time.

I also got my new laptop today so the project had to go on hold for the evening while I've been setting it up!

81

2011-03-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

Haha! After a long weekend which involved working on the project, emailing people, working and finally a send off party for the lovely man who has been my manager for the last year and a half. I can kind of relax, and do some more work O.o.. Christina's worked hard on it too, we're doing work separately at the moment

to try to develop a couple of ways to tackle the design, so check her stuff out too. But yes, I stumbled upon an image that was taken about threeish weeks ago. My friend Dan Keys asked if I would model for his final project at Middlesex Uni on the photography course, I agreed and went up to where he lives and he put me in a white dress and took me to a random ladys house and made me look at her white umbrella in her garden. It was pretty strange but fun to do and he's finally managed to sort which one he wanted to use and I think get everything on track for his project. Here's the image he's decided to use for the shoot I was in. Check out his work, it's not bad at all!! :)

80

2011-03-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

Publication cover initial experiments. Lots more to come!

79

2011-03-10T19:07:00.000-08:00

What an amazing day! Another one.

We were fortunate enough to have an interview with The Boxer Rebellion, a band I have known and admired for a few years now. The meeting got rescheduled to a few hours later till they had completed their sound check... So we went to drop off films we needed processed, got some tea and cake, picked the films up and went to uni to scan some of the negatives in the time we had. I only got a few done, will head in Monday to finish the rest, got some of the Little Comets concert we went to at XOYO and some of our venue research.

We then went and met The Boxer Rebellion and spoke to them rather hap hazardly, we walked in on their sound check still going on, and heard a snippet of No Harm which sounded beautiful. Their rep took us to them and left us to wait, and when they were done, both Christina and I, rather timidly and nervously made our way up to them and introduced ourselves and headed on to do our "interview"... The guys were nice, had some interesting stories and when we were done we headed downstairs again, and watched We Are Augustines sound checking. Unsure if we should really be hanging around, feeling a bit like creeps, we just stood there, wanting a chat with them too. Luckily their sound check was pretty rad and as we meandered closer to the stage the singer asked us if we were okay, to which we replied with a question asking them for a chat. They were super nice and enthusiastic and left us with a lovely memory. We then hung around the venue and spoke to a bouncer who had some funny stories. We Are Augustines came on stage and only having checked them out the night before the one song I recognized fully was Chapel Song. They performed fantastically and looked as if they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. The dude next to us was really really enjoying himself as well.

The Boxer Rebellion came on stage next and as much as I was expecting a good gig, I never expected it to be that amazing. The completely blew my expectations out of the water, they were incredible, they looked as if they were enjoying themselves and the music was just fantastic. It's always so hard to put an experience into words, you can show the excitement but it'll never compare to the moment, which'll remain with us as a memory - which is even lovelier.

When we got home we decided that we needed to come up with a plan for designing our publication. So we made a mind map of everything we could thing of related to this project and things we found interesting from our research from speaking to so many people. So we made this: We then highlighted and discussed what elements were important to represent through our design. Which has given us a sense of direction. We hope to do this over the weekend. Once we have a design sorted out it'll be easy to sort out the content and then apply it as we do already know what the content is. We've spoken to nearly 15 people, and estimate by the time we're done for this issue we'll have about 20 peoples stories within the space we create as we still have more to come. I could quite happily do this for a living!! I'm excited about designing.

78

2011-03-08T18:00:00.000-08:00

Today was epic, we spoke to Marek at XOYO and had a tour, Catherine Okada came to meet us for tea and a chat and we took Deady Circus Fire to the pub for a lovely chat too... then I ran home to meet my mum and took her to see the Royal Ballet perform Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House... It was beautiful, and subsequently I have Tchaikovsky running around my head, and the slight want to be a ballet dancer or learn to play the harp.

I did miss out on pancakes today though. :(

This was the view from our seats in the Royal Opera House. I took a sneaky one after the show cause you weren't allowed to take photographs, so I decided to be nice and take a sneaky one of just the building... cause it was rather pretty.

Tomorrow I'm at Sabina ... Oh, and the Poppy De Veilleneuve website I helped work on has now been launched :) ... it's pretty rad. Click on her name to check it out. And then we shall get back to transcribing - as we have so much to do... we also need to email a few more people... And somehow we've managed to shwing a 15min interview with The Boxer Rebellion on the show at Heaven on Thursday!! So excited, they're such a good band, my friend Mark introduced me to their music a few years ago and it's fantasmic!! We also get to talk to the Little Comets and Joe from Broadcast 2000 which is amazing...

Val has also been kind enough to send me the contact detail of someone she knows we can speak to :) ... yay. I initially thought the research for this project was going to be quite difficult, but it's turning out to be a hoot!! And people are so nice to talk to about it... It's so nice to combine something we love with another thing we love. We're learning so much and gaining such a lot personally from this project that I feel that when it comes to designing that whatever we make is going to end up so precious to us that everything is going to be perfect.

I love it.

Will post how Thursday goes with The Boxer Rebellion, listen to Evacuate below, it's beautiful!! (I think I may end up a little star struck on the day...

77

2011-03-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

Today started with a crit with Val... Christina had Paulus... Both tutors offered some useful advice. After we had half showed what we had, as everyone kept butting in while trying to explain apparently. Val recommended we focus on a sub group and make it really really personal about the experiences of the people in that group and make the format really different to what a lot of people would expect from a publication of the sort, kinda of like an olde style fan-club that's accessible to loads of people... as I said we didn't want to create a fanzine. Christina got told we should push the project as far as we could and possibly try and get sponsorship - if this is possible, I have no idea. I don't think we should currently let ourselves be restricted by overly thinking about what we could potentially do.

Anyway, for now, we have one final visit with XOYO tomorrow, and interviews with Catherine Okada and Deadly Circus Fire, before I take my mum to see Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House as her Christmas present.

I will fill you in on the basic details of our day today however before I go to nod. We went on a backstage tour of the Royal Albert Hall - unfortunately we could not photograph, but I managed to sneak my phone around recording the man talking, if it's clear that's another thing, as I was trying to be sneaky. The weather was lovely today. And our seats for Bright Eyes in the summer we discovered are pretty awesome :)... found out a lot of stuff about the history of the place... although I must say, it felt mildly disappointing to visit but I'm not sure why. Perhaps because our trip to The Luminaire surpassed our expectations so much that everything else is seeming like a bit of a bum deal... but we wanted to get the range in just for this initial research and idea development. Anyway I will describe some of the things the man said in a bit more detail at a later point.

And secondly, we visited Wilton's Music Hall, it's an absolutely beautiful run down Music Hall from the 1800's in Limehouse. We were on tour that was surprisingly packed and were allowed to photograph which was nice. The lady explained the vast history of the building and some of the stories surrounding it which were really nice to hear, and it was nice to see it in a bit of detail again after having visited last summer to see Mikee play in Broadcast 2000 on my old housemates birthday... There will be a video at the bottom. Also, Mumford and Sons recorded their Little Lion Man video in the same hall, and the lady also explained the most recent thing they had in there was Sherlock Holmes 2 where they transformed the building. Anyway here's a few photographs.

and

We've started transcribing some of the interviews, it is quite a difficult task!!! Time consuming at least. But we will continue with this over the next few days... and I shall report back once we have stuff from XOYO and talking to Cathy and Deadly Circus Fire :) and will post up how the ballet was too, it should be fun!

Have a lovely pancake day peeps.

76

2011-03-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

So we started our music research by contacting lots of venues and musicians asking for tours and interviews. Managed to shwing some with The Troxy, The Union Chapel and The Luminaire, The Royal Albert Hall, XOYO and Wiltons Music Hall for venues... and We're going to speak to Catherine Okada and Deadly Circus Fire, and spoke to Peggy Sue and Lulu And The Lampshades last night, and have an email address to speak to The Mariner's Children... and also managed to interview the guy who runs Platforms: Live... we also managed to speak to a couple of fans in the que for The Luminaire show we attended.

I'll run through some of our photos and what we found out on the visits.

The Troxy:

Quite a large venue, we saw Monsters of Folk there... It's a 1930's art deco grade 2 listed building... which holds events of all sorts: award ceremonies, gigs, fashion shows... Even cage fighting! The lovely Mannie showed us around. It has a 2600 capacity for concerts and has kept it's pretty cool deco. It opened as a cinema, turned into a bingo hall in its past and finally became a venue.

The staff there mostly don't have much interaction with the artists who perform there, they mainly sort out the front of house while the artists crew set up and keep themselves to themselves. Mannie showed us all around the building: we got to see the main hall, the entrance, the backstage rooms for the performers, they're getting an organ installed, and they also have a rotating stage which Mannie wants to get working. She also showed us the toilets, the upstairs and where they hold their after parties: the room could potentially hold approximately 200 people. I loved this sticker on the door. 'Smile you're going on'

The main hall for performances. The stage looks slightly like a typewriter.

This was the after party room - pretty swanky eh! It was called the white room because it has a white marble floor, which was being protected when we visited... it looks like it'd look like something out of the 70s!

The Union Chapel: I have worked here for a wedding before, and came to see First Aid Kit here last year, we spoke to Becky the admin lady and the Director, I think his name was Derek. Have yet to listen back to the recording. Both of them were lovely. And gave us some awesome stories. The Union Chapel is owned by the church, who're pretty open minded and put on gigs where the profits go towards keeping the church and the venue open and running. They also run a homeless project and art group. Some of the performers they've had are Elton John and Tom Jones in the last year... They told us some stories, one was how the Big Chill began... which I found particularly interesting because of going there last year. It started out when loads of E-heads used to go to the chapel on a sunday and hang out on a mattress in the back getting stoned... There was also someone called Acid Andy I think was the name who had a 'Brain Machine' which was a pair of glasses with LED lights taped to them. It was quite funny to hear about. They have a massive organ in the main hall, and the shows are all seated due to the fixed seating. No alcohol is allowed in the main area, and they sell ice cream in between shows like when you used to go to the theatre. This was on of the hallways.
On the wall in the main venue

This was the hall for the main venue, you can see the stage at the front. The sound is lovely in there. As they're in a residential neighbourhood, they have a curfew of 10:30 and a sound restriction of 85dB which is quite quiet, and this was once broken by the guy from Korn coming to play with his other metal band, so people weren't very happy!

This was one of the rooms in the Chapel, it had an interesting board illustrating the venue and the seat layout and where pins had been placed, I expect to how where people sat when they attended church. Becky who showed us around mentioned that she liked the aspect that they were selling experiences in the church which profit something good, rather than selling material objects, as she was interested in the sustainability aspect.

The last venue we visited yesterday was The Luminaire (named after a light fitting and the room fitted the name. The will be no second Luminaire) which has closed but was putting on one final week of shows - dubbed Wake Week by the owner Andy, who was incredibly kind to us. We got there, just as the band showed up for sound check. We were planning on attending the show, and hoped to be able to buy tickets at the door. Andy came down to let us in, nothing like we expected he showed us in... while a crazy lady tried to get in, she started walking up the stairs and he had to stop her and send her on her way - she was rather out of it... Anyway, we got in and a member of staff greeted us, asked which band we were in, when we explained she looked a little confused but still happy. Andy asked if we were coming to the show and if we had our tickets, and I said we were hoping to buy them and he said we could just come, he'd put us on the list, which was really nice of him to do! He showed us around the venue, telling us some of his experiences, some of the history, we barely had to ask any questions cause he was so forthcoming with information. We have about an hour of audio to go through to get all the information he told us. He showed us the main space, his office, the toilets which they'd graffitied themselves. The green room and the DJ booth. Told us some of his favourite stories, what he thought of the music industry and small amount on what he felt about the closure and the future for him and the future of small venues... all in all: it's all fine and he likes a challenge. He was really sweet and gave us artists passes, so we could go in as and when we liked, he let me leave my bag and coat in his office, let us photograph whatever we wanted, gave us drinks, let us sit backstage to watch the bands and we were able to stand and talk to the bands after they had been on. He also told us to draw on the wall, so we drew a view of the stage we could see, and wrote that we would never forget the day we'd had there. It was a fantastic day. We managed to speak to s many people and find out so many interesting things, and really get involved. Perhaps the best research we've ever done. Actually talking to people was brilliant.

Anyway, this was the DJ booth backstage.

This was the main stage. Quite small but they made the most of the space better than some other venues we'd seen. He said when they close they're taking the PA, the red velvet curtains, his desk and a thinking chair. Everything else is for sale.
The venue full of people.

Lulu and the Lampshades who kindly let us speak to them.

Peggy Sue performing... seen from inside the DJ booth.

And lastly, watching the Mariner's Children. The singer was too nervous at the time we asked if we could speak to them after so he asked if we could do it by email, shall be emailing them soon!

It was a fantastic day. Me and Christina had a blast and got a lot of material, which we need to go through. We still have places to visit and people to speak to so hopefully we shall have a lot of stuff to use. We also have our own experiences, and another gig to attend next week at Heaven - seeing the Boxer Rebellion.

Today we also went to the O2 to see the British Music Experience, we got to go through the rooms and see loads of memorabelia from the years, a lot of inspiration was found in some of the things they had around in terms of design which we took note of. You could also play on some instruments so I brushed up my piano skills before me and Christina tried our hand at dancing like loonies in the dancing booth: Please see video below!! Fun times to come.

75

2011-03-02T06:05:00.001-08:00

This made me giggle...