Well, this has been a long time coming! I have made a slight change in direction since my last posts, I am now studying for an MA in Inclusive Arts Practice at Brighton University, which is based around the idea of working in arts with people who may find themselves marginalised for a variety of reasons. I'm finding it challenging and fascinating and hope to be posting more around that very soon!

Do Good Design, David B. Berman

I’ve just finished reading this and have to say I found it very interesting. As it is written by a graphic designer, his and my ideas of what design is are somewhat different; his interpretation of a designer is as a communicator of ideas, which in day to day situations are probably not your own. Consequently, a lot of what he focuses on is advertising. The thought which this book has left drifting around in my mind is about images which lie. There are strict rules governing what advertising can and cannot claim about a product, if it is claimed explicitly. Most advertising, however, appeals to the subconscious and of course doesn’t need to claim anything explicitly in order to make you believe that your life can be made better with that product. Why is it legal to lie with images but not with words?

Lucienne Day

Listening to Women's Hour on Radio 4 a wee while ago (yes, I know that must age me significantly, but it's so informative! And has kept me company while I have worked along) they featured an exhibition of Lucienne and Robin Day on at the Pallant House Gallery. I really like Lucienne Day's prints, even so many decades later they look fresh and smart. At my internship I had been doing a little bit of research into futuristic imagery, in a somewhat naive style, with structural lines and imagery like this:

Miette

Crystalline structure

I think that there is a clear linke between 'futuristic' imagery like this, and the sharp lines and block colours that Lucienne Day uses.

Dandelion Clocks, Lucienne Day

Rigs, Lucienne Day

I've been writing this post for a little while now, and the more I think about the style that Lucienne Day started and was part of, and I'm beginning to see her colours and lines everywhere, and to love it! You can even buy Converse trainers in Lucienne Day prints! Here

While looking for imagery I found some lovely blogs, particularly Printspace, an Australian design studio who use the burnt oranges and mustard yellows found in Lucienne Day's designs, with a sweet and cheerful style. Enjoy!

Musee des Beaux-Arts

Thrilled to be allowed to take photos in a museum, I found myself focusing on textures and details.. as usual.

Peter Bruegel

Walter LeBlanc

Jan Fabre

Moules, Frites and Biere!

Last weekend I took me, myself and I on a wee stay to Brussels, what a lovely place! Museums, galleries, chocolate shops, antique markets, more chocolate shops...


This is a cool little gallery opposite my hotel (where coincidentally a friend of a friend works - small world eh?) housed in a beautiful old creamery which has a really interesting exhibition on about the conflict in the West Bank, and how that has spilled over into Lebanon. (www.halles.be)

This is a lovely little tea shop; each tea is under one of these little glass cloches, so you can lift it up and have a sniff!

The window of a shoe repair shop; I loved that this was next to a very high end designer shop

Last week I met someone who works at Transplant, a design centre in Dale, Norway which in itself was quite interesting because Dale is a very small place (around 1,500) and I had also been there, albeit a very long time ago as a teenager, it left quite a mark on me. But this led me to look them up at see what they do, and it seems like an awesome place.

I was particularly interested in this thread which talks about design which deals with time, something i've been thinking about a lot recently. I like the work of Kristine Bjaadal (above), which starts off fully tufted and gradually wears away to reveal the pattern. I wrote my dissertation on planned obsolescence; how products are generally designed to begin to lose their appeal soon after we buy them, so that we will soon buy new things. I am interested in ways that designers can respond to this trend; partly by designing things which are meant to be safely and sustainably thrown away (in the vein of cradle to cradle) and partly through design which encourages people to build up a longer, more personal relationship with their things, as Kristine Bjaadal has done here so beautifully.

Well this has been a long time coming, after a pretty busy Christmas and New Year I went straight to the Netherlands, where I am doing an internship with Sylvie Meuffels, a young designer based in Eindhoven; her website is under construction right now but she also works with Knol (http://www.knol-ontwerp.nl/index.php). So far it's been very interesting and I've learnt a lot; mostly I'm making prototypes which is new to me and it's really helpful to see lots of different ways of presenting ideas and concepts. The language is a challenge though! I am taking lessons but I've still got a long way to go. I will be trying to keep up with my own work as well; more soon!