Behance

I set up a page on the Behance network last night, check it out.

Why I hate being a designer sometimes...

...When you've been working on a project for 2 months, then the day before launch the client decides they don't like the concept (which you didn't even come up with, but made the best of) and scraps the whole site.

Off to cry a bit now :(

Weekend in London

Last weekend we went to the Taste Festival in Regent's Park. It was a great evening of sampling all kinds of food, from Isle of Man cheddar to organic yoghurts to taster dishes from top London restaurants. For the £10 of show currency, I ate a Theo Randall courgette fritti and chocolate fondant, Sizchuan spicy tofu, Indian poories form Café Spice Namaste and many many more free samples.



And on Monday we went over to D&AD New Blood. I was particularly impressed by the Duncan of Jordanstone College show and I liked that you could make your own badges at the LCC stall.

Yesterday..

..Popped over to Brick Lane to check out the Free Range degree shows in the flesh. Particularly impressive was Middlesex University's Jewellery show, and of course the Brighton University graphics and illustration work (where I picked up a lot of beautifully designed 'calling cards' which will be gracing my wall soon).


Illustrator Aimee Holmes from Brighton


Jewellery by Charlotte Mobbs from Middlesex

Cooked a lovely dinner afterwards. I love summer food - the tomatoes are so juicy and inviting.


Red onion, tomato, asparagus and mozzarella tart, salt'n'chilli roast new potatoes and some more asparagus.. yum

Faub - cool portfolio

I found faub.org via ffffound - I have no idea who they are or what they do, but I love the site. Great posters in the shop, too!

Honda's live TV spot - Difficult is worth doing

Tonight on Channel 4, Honda are taking part in a world first - a 100% live TV ad, to promote the 'Difficult is worth doing' campaign for the new Honda Accord. Skydivers will be attempting to spell the word 'HONDA' in the sky in a 3-minute ad break broadcast live from Madrid. Wonderful concept from W+K (and my company Collective built the gorgeous accompanying Accord site).

Read more here.

Ceiling cat is watching you...

I love lolcats - my life has been made infinitely better since adding the feed to my blog reader. Now you can download and fold your very own Ceiling Cat from right here. Super cute!

Copycat

Is it just me or are these two a bit too similar for comfort?
1. Herb Lubalin hand-drawn type, 1985
2. Not Bad for a Girl logo

I actually own one of those t-shirts, I love it, but I'm a bit sad to find it's apparently a blatant rip-off.

Recent del.icio.us

While I'm saving two very exciting posts for later this week (exciting to me, anyway), here's some recent lovely finds I've del.icio.us.ed (can we use that as a verb yet?)


Peele Lemos - a delightful portfolio of work


Suzanna Treister Alchemy series - goodness, I just adore these; a wonderful concept beautifully executed


Mira Ruido - a nice folio of Photoshop work. I'm working on a similar piece at the moment just as an experiment, will post results when I'm done.


Design & Typo - fantastic resource of scanned typography and design books, great for an inspiring browse.

Pecha Kucha

Last night I went to the D&AD's Digital Pecha Kucha night with some guys from work. Pecha Kucha is a lecture concept where speakers get twenty seconds to talk about twenty slides, on any subject under the sun. Great in concept, but in reality.. I was disappointed. About ten of the speakers (digital creatives from the cream of the UK's digital advertising agencies) spoke aimlessly about random 'inspiring' artists and things they've found online lately. I find out about more exciting goings-on from reading my daily blogroll in the morning. As leaders of design agencies, I was hoping these people would be talking about the cutting edge of what they do for a living, but most of them came off as either frustrated wannabe artists or people who'd reached their creative peak long ago (about four of them showed slides of their children, forgodsakes).

The only people who impressed me were the ones who really used the talk as a pedestal to talk about something they cared passionately about. Nat Hunter of Airside spoke about how our industry is not as envionmentally-friendly as we'd like to think, and suggested some measures we can take to correct this. David Streek from playerthree gave a funny and personal history of video gaming, and Tom Bazeley of LMFM gave a typically offbeat presentation comprising a long list of simple pleasures and everyday delights ('sneezing', 'coming back from a beach holiday and walking on carpet', 'wanting sugar in your tea after being outside for a long time') chosen by members of the agency. Overall though, it didn't give me much hope for the people in charge of our industry. Thank god for the new young designers doing amazing things!

New coins

These new coin designs from the Royal Mint are almost too pretty to spend...