Back from holiday in Turkey, SO unbelievably hot *all the time*. It was a welcome break from how hectic work has been lately, though I’m not sure it helped in the long run!
Of course, everyone says “leave your laptop at home, don’t check your email!” but I took my laptop so I could import photos/charge camera easier, well that was the idea. Then 3 days into the holiday I checked my mail. Schoolgirl error.

500 emails.

Three DAYS I had been gone! It seemed everyone who could possibly email me waited until I was on holiday. On the plus side, there were some really exciting emails to go through for work. New projects to get started on and lots of stuff to look forward to. It is fair to say, I am about to get really busy.

Not to mention the final major project is due in early November, with trade shows to attend and a post graduate show to prepare for all within the same month. I’m not panicking.

Work update coming soon so be sure to check back, but in the mean time think warm sunny thoughts while you look a couple holiday snaps.

I want to give you previews of the things I’m working on but it will have to wait, keep an eye on my dribbble for now. Exciting stuff has been happening and I was even asked to be the featured alumni for the LCC MA graphic design course. I’m honoured!

So much going on at the moment, and so much to look forward to! But first, I am skipping out. Holiday tomorrow, in fact depending when you read this post I am making my way out to Ölüdeniz (Fethiye, Turkey – you can see it in the header image above, paradise!) with Mr Wiscombe. 5* luxury hotel, infinity pool, jacuzzi in the room… and I feel I have bragging rights because this will be my first holiday since 2006.

Yup, it’s fair to say I have earned this holiday, it’s been the work year from hell and everyone needs some downtime. Especially as the MA stuff is about to be kicked into overdrive, with lessons starting the week I get back.

Final project work is ahead of schedule, I’m up to date with freelance work for some magical clients, planning is in motion for my self-promotion stuff for when I graduate. But I have just one week before my timetable starts to go a bit crazy again, so this holiday couldn’t have happened at a better time!

See you on the other side of this week chaps ^_-

Just because the nights are getting colder, a bit darker and Summer is almost over doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy this promo video for the Spring/Summer collection by Kate Moss for Topshop!

The song ‘Be Brave‘ by The Strange Boys sets the mood exactly for the collection… or is it that the collection is exactly right for the song? Hmm. Think about that!

Either way, beautifully shot, a bit tantalising flashdance-esque. Glimpses of clothes, smudges of colour… and as far as promotional videos go, a win, I would say.

I know what you’re thinking, I have blogged this video before, it’s a video of the Kurishio Sea – the world’s second largest aquarium tank in the world.

I was rewatching this video recently, and almost at the same time, on tv was the advert for the documentary ‘The End of the Line‘, about how the overfishing we are experiencing in the world could lead to the total extinction of the wild fish we eat, within 50 years.

It is a sad, sad thought when you think about how magical the ocean is. Even the ocean as a kind of synthetic ‘snap shot’ of what’s out there in the wild, as can be observed in this aquarium, is such a fantastic sight.
It’s really an upsettnig thought that there could be no wild fish left in the ocean by the time I have GrandChildren.

To watch the trailer for the feature length documentary click through to the site here

I made a visit to the Ephemeral show in London for some incredibly talented Bath Spa 2010 grads. I hadn’t made it to Bath to see the whole show so this was a great opportunity to see what kind of talent was out there but a little closer to home!

“With reference to the impermanent and shifting nature of design, a group of illustrators, graphic designers, and moving image makers have come together to communicate their own short-lived experience.”

I’ve picked out my most favourite bits, as there was an awful lot there for such a small venue, be sure to check out the exhibition website to get a look at the whole bunch.

First up, Calico Melton. Such cute illustrations, spent quite alot of time looking through her book “The Lonely Gardener” which is an adaptation on a Persian fable. Whimsical but sad, see the pages here on her Flickr

Second in line is Jack Archer, who just graduated in Graphic Communication from Bath, really beautiful stuff.

“This project was initiated by noticing fallen leaves on the pavement. These leaves (Ginkgo biloba) seemed to display an unbelievable resemblance to butterfly wings. This remarkable resemblance led me to collect a number of these beautiful leaves and pin them beneath a deep-set glass frame; alluding to butterflies in a specimen cabinet.”

And lastly, my favourite, Jenny Wiscombe. Really intricate details in these sushi illustrations. Gold leaf handles, twee elements and gorgeous colours, these sushi etiquette paintings make me hungry!

“I’m an illustrator who loves doing commercial artwork by hand. I mainly work with watercolours, fine-liners and collage, or whatever is right for the task. My favourite things to create and draw include handmade typography, patterns, foods and animal characters.”

Thank gawd it’s nearly over.

So those of you who follow my twitter/facebook will know it has been a mayhem month. There was no surprise that I had a mountain of uni work due – first the electives and then the final project proposal yesterday – no tutorials now until September, even though we have to keep working through the Summer… no breaks for us MA students!! Then last weekend a sub generator in the basement of our flat exploded and then caught fire. (See my pics and more) and then this weekend my Grandmother passed away.

Heading back to my hometown this Tuesday (for the first time since Christmas) in time for the funeral. It’s a shame it couldn’t have been a happier occasion, but looking forward to seeing everyone.

So yes, ups and downs. I’ve been absolutely swamped with freelance but have some awesome new clients recently, Liberty, Cath Kidson and renegotiated Wallace & Gromit *and* Shaun the Sheep for another 3 years.

There’s some exciting stuff in the pipeline, now the uni deadlines have nearly entirely vanished I’m incredibly excited about the final major project and getting stuck in. The tutors told us that for every credit a project is worth we need to spend 10 hours working on it. This one is worth 60 credits. Watch this space!

The whole “live to work vs work to live” mentality is essentially only comparative to how much you like your job. Mediocre to poor job = work to live… however, dream job = live to work.

This seems an appropriate post when on this sunny day I’ve seen lots of people in my Twitter stream are stuck inside working and not out, kicking back, enjoying the fruits of your labour.

Stop reading this post and get outside, catch some beams and get some flame grilled meats on the go… quick before it rains! <3

Ah, Eyjafjallajokull. The volcano who’s name no one can pronounce. You’ve caused so much trouble in such a short amount of time… but my, aren’t you pretty! ^_-

Sean Stiegemeier created this brilliant timelapse video, showing a slightly different side to the way Iceland has been affected by the eruption. A bit different, when you compare them to these powerful energetic images below. (Found at The Big Picture)

Sean says
So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). 4 days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another 4. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get.

Wish I had more time. I missed all the cool Lightning and the Lava of the first eruption. But I figure this will just be a trial run for another day.

Don’t know if I would call these photos “mediocre” but his video really is brilliant, and I’m sure he feels that is was worth the wait getting there?

Adobe CS5 was released on 12th April and the online download was just available yesterday – this girl got herself a copy of it immediately afterwards. ^_- I was ignoring the hype of it until I saw the video of the content aware fill. If you haven’t seen it, you really need to! I would say I spend 40% of my time using the spot heal/clone stamp… this will save me sooo much time. Genius.

It is also SUPER fast. As pointed out to me, this is probably because for the first time ever Adobe wrote a seperate version for Mac rather than adapting one from the Windows version. Firstly… given that Macs are the standard for design studios I fail to see why this wasn’t done sooner, Macs are the main platform therefore they should surely be the priority release? This should have been done yeeeaars ago in my opinion.

I should hold my breath before until I have given it a thorough test run before I yap on about how magical it is. CS4 was a similar case… for example tabbed browsing seemed like a good idea at the time, but was actually irritating as hell. Though having said that, I only disabled opening files in tabs a couple of weeks ago.

Above is the promo video made by the magical Bonfire click through to Vimeo to marvel at it in HD

This was the Harvest by Haroshi exhibition that was on in February, making sculptures out of old decks… awesome! Take a look at these pics of the exhibit via Slamxhype

“Skate decks eventually see its life shortened by snapping, cracking and/or wearing out. Purchasing new decks is a never ending cycle and this was evident by the tower of old decks that were reaching to the ceiling of my room. We can’t throw away these decks because they hold sentimental meanings to us. I looked at these unusable decks every day and thought there must be something I can make with these.

We see the care and effort that a skater can have for his/her deck and we also acknowledge the origins of a skateboard. We believe that if the small things we do can connect to sustainability then we’re doing something right. We’d be satisfied in our effort when people look at products and start thinking of ways to recycle.”

More info on the exhibit here take a look at how they made the sculptures, huuuge chunks of broken decks welded together. Very cool.

Pics by Brandon Shigeta