A Visual Journey

WOMEN POWER PROTEST

TYPOgraph journal

This beautiful small book was gifted to me by the Birmingham Design Festival and I carry it around with me all the time in my bag. 

Its great just to open it up and delve into the beauty of each page. The pages I love are about traditional calligraphy and letterforms to Letterpress in the modern era (this is one of my favourite spread). This book covers different typographic analogue mediums and how they can be used as a basis of digital work. These traditional processes create such a lovely unique texture to work. 

This book written by Rod Judkins is a great book to open when you need some form of creative inspiration. His personal creative journey and reflections, sparks ideas in the readers head and allows you to question how we work creatively. New ideas and approaches form when reading this book and every page has an inspiring message to spark the imagination. I love how you can delve into any page and find something new. It isn't written to be read in order at the end of each section Rod suggests a section of the book to move to depend on how you have responded to the past passage. 

ROB RYAN - RYAN TOWN - STUDIO WORK EXPERIENCE

Rob Ryans work has been an inspiration to me for a long time now. His way of capturing narrative in his work is just truly wonderful. His skill and technique on constructing his illustrations into paper cutting is truly magical and seeing the complexity of these paper cuts first hand made appreciate his work even more. 

His studio is based in Bethnal Green, London and is his main creativity hub where he has a small team of people helping him produce his paper cuts, turn them into prints and then some turn into ceramics and even baby grows. His designs are so transferable which makes them really unique, allowing him to spread his brand. 

When I visited the studio for a trial work experience day, I was asked to add some decal to glasses ready for the kiln. This was a new skill I learned which is a really useful thing to learn if I ever want to transfer my own designs onto ceramics. Finally, I was set on some papercutting for Rob's exhibition which is currently up in the William Morris Gallery in London. This was a lot of pressure paper cutting in front of the man himself, but he gave me some advice by saying I should hold my craft knife closer to the blade to get better control and to change up your blade regularly so it does not go blunt and risk ripping the paper.  

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls!

Love Letters Workshop

https://www.blueskiescareers.co.uk/

Blue skies recruitment  20 years of placing top talent across marketing, creative and digital. 

What an inspiring talk by blue skies recruitment that has an office right in Stratford Upon Avon near my home! 

“ Our passion for our work is still burning bright and we’re constantly evolving, adapting, and innovating. We do everything possible to create the sharpest recruitment service possible, something that will be just as true in 20 years’ time.”

Egmont Publishing is the biggest children’s specialist publisher in the UK, reaching an average of one million children a month.

Egmont aspires to make children proud readers! This is extremely important as picture books and children's literature helps to inspire the imagination and help encourage visual communication skills for the future. 

The Book Chain Project gives publishers the information they need to tell the full story of how their books were made. It handles three topics:

Responsible forest sourcing: Understanding the origins and forest management practices for the wood fibre used in papers and boards.

Chemical safety: Screening the components used in books - from inks and varnishes to glues and binders – to highlight restrictions and safety measures in international law.

Labour and environmental standards: Using a shared approach through a Code of Conduct to articulate the standards publishers expect from their suppliers.

The three tools that make up the Book Chain Project give production, safety, technical and ethical teams at publishers the information they need to better understand the responsibility of their book supply chains and, ultimately, make better informed buying decisions.

Laurence King Publishing is one of the worlds most leading publishers, creating books and gifts from different categories. They have a creative focus wanting the spur the imagination through book publishing, creating brand new worlds and stories through effective visual communication. Their ethos is what I fully believe to be the most important part of design. In my own design career, I wish to be able to tell a story through my work and spark people imagination. Books are a key into a new world, and it's amazing how design can influence this narrative and bring it to life.

Also, Laurence King has an amazing Sustainability policy where they source all their paper from a database for responsible environmental paper sourcing. This is extremely important for publishers to use ethical sources for the paper so they can work with the printers to ensure all recognised standards for both labour and environmental practices are met, helping the planet one step at a time.  

Treacy Emin - Neon Art

Tate Liverpool Visit:

An amazing array of exhibitions from topics such as Synesthesia, colour and optical illusions to Gender, equality, the self, and stereotypes. The sections on  Synesthesia made me think back to a past project I did at A Level looking at the relationships between music and colour. This was an extremely vibrant exhibition with a multicoloured floor throughout and the design of the different optical illusions was so interesting to observe, watching shapes change and merge together.