Tumblr

I just set up a tumblr (and how amazingly and satisfyingly easy it was, too), does anyone else have one? I've wanted a 'dumping ground' for images, links, and little snippets that aren't suitable for this blog for a long time, having never got an elusive ffffound invite. I think my tumblr will be a very useful (and addictive) little gadget. I'm constantly finding inspirational things around the web and forgetting where I saw them so a digital scrapbook like tumblr is perfect.



Find me at whatkatiedoes.tumblr.com.

Edit to add: Might as well go the whole web2.0-hog. Kick-started my Twitter again.

Burn After Reading

I saw Burn After Reading at the weekend. It's so funny and well-made with brilliant performances from some of my favourite actors. Rarely for a comedy film, it's worth going to see on the big screen so you can enjoy everyone else's reactions too. There's one particular shocking-yet-hilarious moment when the whole cinema erupted.



The website is quite nice too; better than some film sites that are either shoddily-made or over-the-top pointless Flash. Nice use of masked video on the background of the homepage.

Yasly for Threadless

I love the new Threadless Select shirt for this week, The Discovery of Geometry. It's by Yasly, whose work I'd never seen before. I love the mystical, mathematical feel of everything and his other t-shirt designs are super-sweet.

Poladroid

Everyone's been blogging about this, but that's because it's so cute and damn fun! Poladroid is an app which creates rather life-like fake Polaroid photos (Fauxlaroids?) out of your digi snaps. My favourite part is how they slowly develop, just like a real 'roid. Check out the flickr group or my flickr for more examples.

Crafty superstar

I'm quite proud to say I was chosen as a Crafty Superstar on the wonderful website Cut Out & Keep. Thanks Cat! I wish I had the space and time to do some new crafting and get some more projects up there.

New portfolio site

Finally it's done(ish)! My new portfolio site is live, you can view it at whatkatiedoes.net/folio. I suggest you don't even try to view it unless you're on a super fast computer with at least 1200x800 resolution. I realise this isn't best practice (and it was a bitch to work on using my 3-year-old iBook) but the idea for the site has been in germination for about a year and I had to make it super-sweet.

It was a lot of fun - and a steep learning curve - to build. I used Tweener for the structure, and in the process learnt a lot about arrays, loading external swfs and how to make flash not crash when you're trying to move a hundred things at once.

Please let me know any feedback; I'm sure there are bugs and broken bits which I will endeavour to fix after I've had a lie down in a dark room for a little while.

Glove to bear how-to

How cute is this - make a bear/chipmunk toy from your lonely glove that's missing a pair.

Talking of Etsy, I've added some Christmas cards to my shop. Sorry for the lack of any other new work lately, I've been working on a BIG project that will hopefully go live by the end of the week..

Beautiful Losers

I saw the documentary film Beautiful Losers at the BFI at the weekend. It introduced me to some inspirational artists I hadn't previously heard of, and I particularly liked the work of Margaret Kilgallen, who sadly died far too young. Her work has a delightful folksy, retro appeal.



I related to this quote of hers from the film: "I like things that are handmade and I like to see people's hand in the world, anywhere in the world; it doesn't matter to me where it is.". Even when I do purely digital work, I try to keep some evidence of the handmade in it, otherwise is can feel pretty soulless. It's a shame the Beautiful Losers show isn't stopping off in London - it closes in Madrid next month.

JAQK by Lab Partners

You may remember my small fixation with modern interpretations of playing cards. So of course I love this branding work by Lab Partners for wine label JAQK (and how clever is their company name, too?). The rest of Lab Partners' work is worth a gander, too.

Harriet Russell

I'm in awe of the illustration and design work of Harriet Russell, especially these Envelope puzzles, which you can buy in a book.

Ant farm

I've got a new pet - well, several to be precise. We bought a few ant farms in work and I adopted one. It's filled with a bright blue gel that the ants burrow in and feed on. After some teething problems trying to get them into the tank and stop them escaping, they're now settled down and started digging. It's really quite fascinating to watch.



They built this little 'nest' then every so often some will leave and do some more digging. More photos on my Flickr.

Sumo Paint

Sumo Paint is like an in-browser Photoshop. Pretty fun to play with; I was particularly taken with the 'symmetry' tool. There's some pretty cool user-created art on the site.

Mmm type

Mmmmm, TYPE. Lovely old specimen book pages on Depression Press's photostream. The first one is similar to a project I'm working on at the moment...