I am almost embarrassed to mention how long it’s been since I’ve blogged. So let’s not go ‘there’. Needless to say, if you are in my life currently you will know how much my life has changed and why I have dropped off the radar… three words: *15 hour days* (that’s before I’ve started on the freelance)
I can enjoy the irony in this situation a certain amount right up until it becomes more of a joke-on-me. Let me explain…
I picked this web domain (as regrettable as it is when I am reading my email address down the phone in a whiff about bills) because it highlighted a fundamental belief of mine that you should design like you give a damn. Not just for the money, but because you enjoy it. You want to make something that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional… and perhaps also because you care about the process.
**Disclaimer: With hindsight you should really do everything like you give a damn. Pick a sandwich filling, clean your teeth, choose a holiday destination like you give a damn …but arguably top 5 in the list is more importantly, your career. **
At the time I picked my domain name I was at university. It was 2006, and in all honesty I was surrounded by people who could not give a fuck about getting a career out of their degree… they just wanted *a* degree. Perhaps as a bit of a dig, I wanted to show it wasn’t just something you did as a degree, not just because your parents wanted you to go to uni and you thought it would be a laugh “cus you’re good at computers an’that”… design, if you want it, was something you did in your spare time too.
Oh. And don’t I know it. I do. The design in my life has become a monstrosity that now feeds on my entire waking day. It. Is. My. Essence. Go to work, be the last one to leave, come home, freelance until your eyes are sore. Then it’s microwaved beans hunched over a sink. In Charlie’s world you don’t “do” design, design does you.
A cautionary tale. Design like you give a damn… but not too much. M’kay, kids?
Having said that. I LOVE to design so much I do it when I don’t mean to… and as noted in the last 4 weeks – even when I don’t particularly want to.
But I love my job, my career, and I put effort in BECAUSE I want to look back in a few months or go into a store and see products and packaging I’ve worked on and be proud and not regret that I didn’t um and err over the details enough, or that I didn’t push back about keeping a brief a certain way so instead watch it morph into something ugly or something dysfunctional.
Sigh.
It is this attitude towards my work that might have landed me working long days and longer night but it’s also that which got me this fantastic job. Every single stressful day, low budget brief, and late night has been worth it because, along with the projects I get to design for, working in-house has one main perk… these ones here. And I am lucky because they give a damn too.
For the Visual Research book launch the designers featured will be offered the opportunity to exhibit their work for two weeks following the release date.
Russell Bestley, one of the writers and one of my fantastic tutors during my MA, suggested that the work exhibited should lead on progressively from the work featured in the book so that the audience can see where it developed.
For me, this means exhibiting that insane perspective installation. Great! I mean it went down a storm before so it makes sense I showcase it again… right?
Wrong.
What with scooting home for Christmas before I started my job in January I totally forgot to dismantle the horror which was my final project. It is definitely in the bin now, it’s August. So that means recreating it from scratch.
That thing took me 5 whole days to make when I worked freelance… now I work in house. to say that this is going to be an ordeal would be an understatement. I have actually had nightmares about this.
You are probably thinking to yourself, why not just show a video of it?? Well, I will presume you are not familiar with the concept behind the project, so I will explain. Essentially the project was based around the fact that when you capture a scene with photography, you lose the depth. You also lose the context in which the photograph was taken and in-turn you are only seeing the scene in the way the photographer meant for you to see it.
I made the installation so that, uninstructed, the viewer could stand infront of it, look at it and find the two different positions in which they need to stand so they can see the quote. Its composition was self instructive.
However, to cut a long story short, I fucked up. The room I built the installation in was not going to be part of the exhibition like I had previously thought, I couldn’t move the installation (as it was fixed to the ceiling) so I had to film it, on a craptastic 8 year old camera in the most shocking low resolution.
But it would have to do. And the people downstairs at the exhibition never got to see that nightmare of a project first-hand like it was meant to be… but this time they will!!
I remember the first time I mentioned this exhibition and it was miles in the future, but now I have a month-ish to construct this again from scratch. Getting the laser cut foam, stringing it up in place, projecting and painting onto it. While at the same time putting it on something that can be relocated. /headache.
If you’re still reading you deserve a medal, because I’ve even confused myself.
I am naughty because I haven’t blogged in months.
But I have many excuses prepared! Since I last blogged I have moved house, from the super central Tower Bridge Road to a cute [read: "small"] house in Clapham Common near my work.
I’m counteracting aaaaall the complications in my current personal life by throwing myself into work, both at my full time job and some fantastic freelance projects.
Silly? Possibly. Disfunctional? Perhaps. But right now it feels like a comforting blanket of graphics and nerdery, where the only problems that exist involve fitting 40 words of 3pt type into a 10 x 10mm print area. As difficult as this is (go on, try it) the alternative is a lot worse.
8 months into my job and I am having the best time, the only downside is that I can’t share the work with you as often as I’d like to. Because what’s the point of creating pretty things when it has to stay a secret?
NDA’s are far more difficult to keep track of when you work in a product design studio. There are more ongoing projects and brands… time lines are longer, it’s easier to not mentioning anything than blab about something that’s not released yet. Just you wait. Shiny things are coming.
Last but not least, I graduated from my Masters in Graphic Design a couple of weeks ago, even though I finished the MA way back in December. There I am, in the main image of this blog post, queuing to pick up my graduation gown. I went with my dear old Dad and in return I introduced him to Pieminister… which later lead to me introducing the entire design department to Pieminister. <3
Many, many fun things approaching in the coming months, mega portfolio update. Some gorgeous stuff from the studio... if I do say so myself! But until then, keep your eye on my Dribbble account for updates while-I-work. I am a busy lady after all. ^_-
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known” – Carl Sagan
I got this fantastic timelapse video from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, and I defy you not to find this ALL absolutely fucking amazing, as it’s completely real footage taken from the Cassini orbiter. I wish I were an astronaut… or a martian.
NASA said this… “What has the Cassini orbiter seen since arriving at Saturn? The above music video shows some of the highlights. In the first time-lapse sequence (00:07), a vertical line appears that is really Saturn’s thin rings seen nearly edge-on. Soon some of Saturn’s moon shoot past.
The next sequence (00:11) features Saturn’s unusually wavy F-ring that is constrained by the two shepherd moons that are also continually perturbing it. Soon much of Saturn’s extensive ring system flashes by, sometimes juxtaposed to the grandeur of the immense planet itself.
Cloud patterns on Titan (00:39) and Saturn (00:41) are highlighted. Clips from flyby’s of several of Saturn’s moon are then shown, including Phoebe, Mimas, Epimetheus, and Iapetus. In other sequences, moons of Saturn appear to pass each other as they orbit Saturn. Background star fields seen by Cassini are sometimes intruded upon by bright passing moons. The robotic Cassini spacecraft has been revolutionizing humanity’s knowledge of Saturn and its moons since 2004.”
#howtobeanexploreroftheuniverse
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!
So it’s been exactly a month since I last blogged… sorry! What can I say, I’ve been busy? I finished the MA with 83% (thankyouverymuch!) was featured on some fantastic blogs, set up for the MA Graphic Design show and started interviews, got offered 3 (magical) jobs and the next day I picked my favourite.
I traveled home to see family back in Frome, like most of the country I caught the flu, came back to London to celebrate the New Year (the picture above isn’t one of my shots… obviously!) and then I started work on the 4th January… more on that later.
All-in-all, it’s been a busy month. I genuinely can’t believe it’s only been ONE month. 2 weekends ago I had a roast with some nerds at Fakedarren’s, eating some expensive beef and talking geekulent things. Last weekend I was at the Top Drawer show, always brilliant for spotting the new product and packaging trends, also checking out the lovely Jenny Wiscombe’s illustrations and catching up with family, friends and clients old and new.
This weekend will be mainly spent wearing pyjamas and eating baked goods. Join me.
I hope you all have a well deserved Christmas break, ’tis the season of excess… and flu. To which I have already succumb (the flu unfortunately, not the excess)
I made the four hour drive back to my hometown on the other side of England in the snow and the freezing cold with the two cats and a sack-load of gifts. 6 days with my family before I come back to London…
I got that perfect job I have been banging on about, the morning after I went for the interview I was offered the job (So hopefully they liked me as much as I liked them) and I start work on the 4th January.
Here is where the difficulty lies though. I was offered a couple of other jobs in the same week. All these places are great and the positions I was offered were very tempting. BUT! Here is what it comes down to future recruiters… *rapport*
As all the jobs were equally great, they had perks, all provided health care, so the job I accepted had to offer something extra and in the end it came down to the simple fact that often gets overlooked these days… at my new job everyone is friendly and could be bothered to spend time talking to me, even though as “just an applicant” they may never see me again. Because they spoke to me, I learned that they had much the same ideals as me when it comes to designing.
This is important to me because, let’s face it, I might be working with them for the next few years!
Although I’m not going to tell you where this perfect job is yet, I will give you a clue in the form of the image above sent to me by the company in their seasons greetings email ^_- Oh I am a tease!
lol.
I needed to write a post to settle my nerves a bit as I’m about to have the most nerve racking 24 hours in history!! It’s no surprise that, having finished the MA a few weeks ago now, I have been applying for some jobs. I’ve been really fortunate and have alot of really exciting positions and interviews lined up. Among them, I have a 2nd round interview tomorrow morning at 9.30… which lasts 3 hours. Nervous.
The design vacancy for this particular job is at a brilliant company based in beautiful Kensington, lovely people, great work. It couldn’t be better, could it? I’m stoked to have an interview (and the 2nd interview) now to bag the job, atleast that’s the plan.
Then at 4.00 I get my final marks for the MA. Double nervous.
I am trying not to stress about it too much, I got brilliant marks for the first and second unit of work, I am hopeful for this third and final unit too… doesn’t mean I’m not going to be having stomach flips all day though. Especially because one of the tutors on my course has been quoted as saying “there will be tears” when referring to the collection of marks tomorrow.
I am holding it together and trying not to work myself up into a state, there is a second evening viewing of the MA work on tomorrow night so there will be an opportunity for me to celebrate (or commiserate?) with my classmates and get a peek at the work I missed out on seeing on Friday night at the private viewing, because of how absolutely packed it was!!
Try to beam me some happy thoughts tomorrow (or today depending when you read this) believe me they will be really appreciated! <3 Expect an update soon!
Ohhh! So I am SO close to finishing my MA. Just 33 days to go before the final hand in, everything is finalised, just need to make my final outcome and send everything to print and I can sit back (er, not really) and wait for my marks to come in.
I attended the Brand Licensing event in Olympia the other day, to catch up with developments in upcoming projects and chat to Aardman about some exciting new stuff. Some things that are so new that googling it *nothing related appears*… that’s fresh folks.
If you follow me on twitter you might remember me saying that all this work was good timing, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I am about to be hit with a mushroom cloud of freelance and it’s looking like it will be just as I hand in my MA stuff. Perfect timing!
In the title image you can see a sneak peek of what I’m working on for my final outcome for the major project. I’m wishing I hadn’t made this so complicated for myself, but I’m hoping it will be worth the effort in the end. That’s the plan anyway…
Likeyougiveadamn is also about to have a facelift to accommodate the new work that’s going to be featured, it’s all happening. Just a month to go and it’s all change.
