There is something really magnificent about these installations by Gregory Euclide made from a mixture of 2D and 3D objects, paintings and model trees. It’s like the end of the world met a landscape impressionist. Well done Sir, I love it.
To see more, visit Gregory’s Flickr stream.
Beautiful mushroom lights, quite like something you’d find on Pandora… I would love any of these. Made from glass, reclaimed wood and LED lights it’d make your bedside table look just a bit more magical.
Director Dulcidio Caldeira put together this immensely technical video for MTV… to make the film, balloons were fastened onto a 200 meter long rail, and lined up via laser guide. “To achieve a moving picture effect, 10 balloons had to be popped per second, or 600 balloons per minute,” Caldeira says. “It took nearly 24 straight hours to shoot the multiple takes needed.”
Breakfast is the best meal of the day and to celebrate this fact (and get your juices flowing) here is a seriously beautiful video from Bruton Stroube Studios All of the most delicious breakfast foods… in slow-motion.
Shot primarily with the Phantom HD Gold at 1000fps, the piece is designed to showcase food in a beautiful and unusual way.
I don’t care if there was orange juice on the bacon, everything looks so yum you would have a serious battle trying to stop me from eating all of that in the end… even if it had been sat under lamps for a long time ^_-
Little Chef has been given an incredible facelift thanks to those creative heads over at VentureThree. About bloody time too, you might be thinking, and as Creative Review has pointed out on their Little Chef special post… let’s hope it still looks this nice when it’s lining the edge of some miserable gray motorway service station.
The giant sized iconic lollies and ketchup bottles are a nice touch, making the whole brand extend into the environment. My favourite part? That they’ve redressed the chef so he’s wearing something a little more appropriate… he is no longer naked except for a chef’s hat and neckerchief. Which, on hindsight, was a little weird.
Which do you prefer, this or the previous version by Praline?
It has been a loooong time since I’ve posted on le blog, work has taken a priority and today is actually my 3 month anniversary at my new job. I love it!
First impressions, it is SO different working in-house rather than a freelancer. Aside from the incredibly obvious things, I have really enjoyed just being in charge of just being a designer. Not an accountant, a project manager or my own public relations rep. Just a designer.
This is never going to be something you wholly understand until you’ve worked for yourself for a few years. Being self employed is hard fucking work, staying on top of invoices, keeping a steady amount of work coming in, and keeping yourself current involves using 90% of your time… ALL the time.
So I am definitely enjoying getting to come home and not stress about work… except that now I have also got loads of freelance work as well as working full-time.
-.- wise idea huh?
Troubled times. It is fair to say that my personal life is taking a complete beating of late, but lots of exciting things in the pipeline too. Some secret things but among them my MA work is going to be featured in the new edition of Visual Research which I believe gets published in September.
I’m currently flat hunting too. I’ve heard alot of people compare the struggle of finding a flat to the struggle of finding a job. I have to say… job hunting was MUCH easier.
I thought I would blog this because it’s a topical matter which really rubs me up the wrong way… and as I can tell by my analytics you guys like it when I rant ^_-
SO, yesterday morning in most papers was the news that graduates are “twice as likely to be jobless”. In one particular article it even said that unemployment rate for grads was at its highest level for over a decade with one in five of those who have left university in the past year unable to find a job.
With more students pursuing further education (though I’m sure that with the tuition fees being raised it will deter a noticeable proportion from the debt they will be subject to) it seems most early 20′s have a degree of some form, and as employers are now bombarded with hundreds of CVs per job vacancy it’s only the best who will get a look-in.
So it only seems common sense that as graduates competing for fewer and fewer jobs you need to make yourself stand out (which is something you might remember me saying if you read my Notes on Design interview with Dave Cuvelot)
Something that I have noticed is that a lot of universities do little to ready students for job hunting… from how to prepare a design portfolio and CV, to even incredibly simple stuff like pointing out vacancy websites!
Since being a featured LCC Alumni I cannot tell you how many phone calls and emails I have had from students wanting to know what to do next. I thought it might be about time I put together an FYI post for (design) grads wondering what is the next step.
First of all, collect your work. Photograph publications, take screenshots, upload videos… whatever. Get your work onto a computer. Look at your work and really analyse it, think about feedback you have possibly had from tutors or peers regarding your strong points and select your best pieces of work that really illustrate why you are brilliant and deserve a job over ‘that guy’.
Secondly get your work on the internet. There are plenty of portfolio/showcase websites online if you don’t know how to make your own. Krop, Behance, Flickr… you could even use a Facebook album (if you are really that lazy.) All you really need is a place to direct someone online where they can view your work.
Of course, If you fancy making your own website then there are plenty of options… Tumblr, WordPress, Indexibit, MrSite, MoonFruit… if you are in the creative industry there is NO REASON to not have your work online.
Once you have picked your work out, and got your site looking magic the next step is to put together your CV. By this point you will have identified your strong points and (not to sound like a dummies guide here, but) you will have figured out what area you want to specialise in. Write your CV indicating this.
Let me tell you, from experience, design industry CV’s are different from the rest of the bunch, employers EXPECT them to look beautiful. I am disappointed if I download a CV attachment and it is a word document.
But of course, you should let your prospective employer know bits about you, there is no need to just list achievements. What did your academic/previous employment teach you? What do you do best and also what is your favourite area of design?These should be easy questions to answer.
Create a pdf of work samples. (Personally I create a singular CV and some work samples on their own and then also a combined CV with work samples.) Export duplicate versions under 1MB. Why under 1MB? Because most job vacancy sites will only let you attach a file under 1MB but 80% of recruiters and adverts ask for one, thus rendering it pointless if it is any bigger…. more on this later….
Business cards. They are cheap, anyone can make them and they are also tiny 90x55mm projects so design them how you want to be remembered by complete strangers. Get some made up at Moo 50 cards for about £15. Bargain. If your card is cool people will keep it, then yours is the name they will remember next time they need some design work.
Most people will have (hopefully) got themselves this far, it is the next steps that show you are actually trying all you can to get that job…
Work on self initiated projects. This is very important, if not *the* most important point worth observing. So you’re not getting the projects you quite hoped you would with freelance? It’s taking you a while to get your new job and your portfolio is getting a bit stale? Or just finding yourself with some time on your hands?
Think of a brief and start making. If you want to get into the publications industry, your dream job is designing editorial content but your portfolio is lacking examples page layout, then get creating some feature spreads.
It is just common sense but you would be surprised how many people apply for jobs without thinking about it.
Blog. A lot of people think that “I can’t blog, I don’t have anything interesting to say”… um, hi. I just wrote a blog post on things grads should know before job hunting in the design sector. Do you think that means I am ‘interesting in real life’. No. But you make your passion into a living and if you like what you do then you will have a lot to say about it.
A blog is a great way to generate interest in your work, let people know what you are working on, upcoming projects… etc and it separates out the people who think of design as a living and not a life.
Get a LinkedIn account. Some people are dubious about LinkedIn and debate about whether it is worth it. I argue, you cannot LOSE jobs through it, so what is the harm? Twitter is also a brilliant way to give yourself an internet presence. Yes, whether it is a positive or a negative presence is up to you, and you should think about current or prospective employers views of what you say BEFORE you say it. Tweet pictures of projects you have recently completed, use it as a tool to keep people updated about what you have been up to… and how about, let people get to know you through it?
Job websites that are a great place to start are DesignWeek, CreativePool and Reed. There are hundreds of agencies signed up with these sites so it is worth contacting them directly and don’t just copy and paste the cover letter because some adverts are placed twice under different names and there is nothing more embarrassing than sending the exact same cover letter 3 times to the same employer, I can promise you it will just get trashed.
Only apply for jobs you actually want and write a custom cover letter detailing why you would be good in this particular position but keep it short because the majority of the time employers will skip the cover letter and go straight to the portfolio link to see your work… after that, (depending on the area of work, but especially in digital) they may even google you. (hence why having a web presence/rep is so important)
As an example of this, google my name and lots of related articles and websites will pop up… but also a girl with my name who is not me interferes with my search results and, let’s just say, she doesn’t seem too worried about how people view her online reputation.
All this may sound like a lot of effort, but that is what getting a brilliant job takes… effort. Getting yourself on the first rung takes determination and perseverance, and where a lot of grads will bail if you go the extra mile you will stand out of the crowd from all the other thousands of job seekers and it will be you that gets the job. Or at least the second interview!
More on this to come…
Insightful video above showing the design process and all the hundreds of iterations for the Rio 2016 Olympic logo… and its counterpart, the Telluride Foundation’s logo. The question is, was it really copied? Or was it a genuine accident that just developed into something similar out of mere coincidence. I mean, it isn’t identical? It could happen… couldn’t it?
There are some rather interesting observations of the logo here and here on Creative Review, so rather than just regurgitate what they have written click through and take a peek at what they’ve said. The comments are worth a look!
I’ve been working for this company for nearly 3 weeks, it was a perfect fit. As I’ve said before everyone is friendly, the work is fantastic as I’m working in the same skill set as before but able to apply it to a different area, the subject matter is almost totally new to me professionally, also it’s in a great location – more on that later (also there’s usually an abundance of leftover boardroom sandwiches, cakes and cookies! A delicious plus!)
The fact of the matter is, in case you haven’t already noticed, I am torn about whether to disclose where I work. There are pros and cons.
The pro’s are obvious, I want you to know where I work. It’s a great company who make fantastic designs. Serious innovation with some really talented people, working there is a joy.
The cons? Well, the cons are completely self induced. I would say a lot of you have noticed, I am unable to keep my trap shut about work. Even if it’s something stupid like a blog post/project on the importance of doing a project properly based on my experiences with clients to date.
Likewise I share a large amount of myself on my blog my twitter page and my dribbble account …some might even call it ‘venting’ ^_- so what if I slip up and say something that inadvertently gets me the sack?
I’m not stupid, I know that slagging off my boss is a bad idea… Dooce. (FYI Heather Armstrong has lead to the term “dooced” being used to describe the act of getting sacked for something you say on your website) but it’s not always as clear cut as that. Making your company look bad can be done in many, many ways. Directly or indirectly, they might not like the image you are painting of someone that represents their company.
So I guess I had better lay off talking about work issues altogether? Watch this space.
The last couple of weeks has been a serious attempt at getting up early arriving at work on time (I’m always on time but it’s a challenge when you’re half asleep) and likewise not immediately falling asleep when I put my foot through the door at night. 5/6 years of freelancing has done me absolutely no favours when it comes to early mornings, my desk was a mere 4 metres from where I sleep… hardly a commute? Not to mention I don’t drink coffee, I’m never hungry in the morning and I stay up late… a recipe for disaster.
HOW do commuters do it?? By the time I am walking home from the tube I am ready to sleep, or the other end of the spectrum, flip-out at meandering pedestrians, also pedestrians who wave their umbrellas close to my face or smokers who aren’t aware of their cigarettes proximity to my clothes/body.
Do not get me started on the tube…
I have decided TFL don’t deserve a pay increase. Yes, me. I’ve decided. If you disagree with me, try getting on *any* tube from London Bridge from 8.00 – 9.00 any weekday. It’s pretty obvious it is one of THE busiest tube terminals in London, how long has that tube existed I ask you? do you think commuters have suddenly decided that it would be a good idea to start coming through there? No, it’s been there for decades, and for decades it’s served the same purpose. So you would think there would be some kind of system in place by now to ensure people can get to work on time? …right? Wrong.
To date, I have been working for 14 days. Out of those 14 days 6 of them I haven’t been able to get a tube from London Bridge. Locking the gates to the underground, Inspector Sands, evacuating the tube because of dust… yes DUST. (Not something out of a Philip Pullman novel.) Then just random “severe delays” of the Northern Line. Good times… or not.
Needless to say, we will be moving out of this house in SE1 sometime this year and I intend on finding a new location which doesn’t see me sat on a filthy seat, in a smelly tube, surrounded by miserable buggers, every day twice a day. Bikes are the way forward.
This rant has been brought to you by a drawing of a smiling cat. He doesn’t like mornings either.