My Work In the Big Wide World!

That bottom one was by me =)...I don't actually like the logo but the client did so - whatever!

La Haine - Hatred

It's the story of a society in free fall. To reassure itself, it repeats endlessly. "So far so good, so far so good, so far so good..." The important thing isn't the fall, it's the landing.

This film is the story not only of three teenage "banlieusards" (people of the suburbs) but also the story of life in the less affluent areas of Paris, stuck in a life of hatred, violence and drugs that they can't get out of.

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, the film is set in black and white, there is no beauty or happiness in the film. It represents a time when there is nothing good, the suburbs have nothing to offer and the world is black.

One of the youths, Vinz, finds a gun and feels that this earns him respect. When one of his friends dies after being involved in a riot, Vinz feels he has to "restore balance" by killing a police officer. His older and wiser friend Hubert realises that this is not the appropriate thing to do and does not believe that Vinz will be able to do it. The third teenager, Said, sides with the police officers trying to make Vinz see sence.

Hatred breeds hatred. Gun crime leads to gun crime.

After disaster strikes the trio, we are left with a cliffhanger as to who pulled the trigger in the final few seconds of the film. The ending few words are the, several times repeated throughout the film, words I started this post with.

Freaky Art

Old Boy

I couldn't help but be reminded of our Design Theory exam when I saw the various wallpaper designs that reminded my of (unsuccessfully) trying to learn wallpaper pattern classifications. If you can work this one out then congratulate yourself, I have no idea!

Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works

I read this in first year....honest! Ok so I've only just picked it up and read it this week but it was still really handy. This book about typography by Eric Spiekermann (FF Meta, ITC Officina, FF Info, LoType and Berliner Grotesk) and E.M. Ginger covers typography from the Middle Ages to forms and tables.

It really does cover everything: mobile phone screens, websites, letterpress, advertising, novels, brands, engraving, calligraphy, newspapers...the list goes on. If ever you start a new project in a field you are unsure of, I would highly recommend picking up this book and reading the section about it. It made me realise that even boring blank box forms deserve some care and attention.

Freud Museum

The Freud Museum, London is actually in the house that famous pyschologist Sigmund Freud spend his last years in. He was a great collector of antiques from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Orient.

I was surprised to see a portrait of Freud by Salvador Dali who had likened Freud's cranium to the shell of a snail!

The museum was small but interesting, there was footage of him and his family and a lot of information about his sister, Anna Freud who was also a psychoanalyst, particularly interested in child psychology.

A lamp from his dining room that I rather liked.

One of the houses just down the road from the museum had a fantastic little diamond shaped window that had to be photographed.

Westfield Shopping Centre Roof

So I dragged my poor boyfriend round Westfield Shopping Centre in London for four, yes four, hours looking for shoes, but I couldn't help but notice the amazing ceiling.

How To Use *Any* Font on a Website

I came across this article recommended to me by a friend. It's a method using JavaScript that allows you to render text in any font, not just the web safe ones. I'm assuming that it also means that unlike using images or Flash, search engines can still "read" your site which of course is best for Search Engine Optimisation (always good).

So I guess I could add in a word of warning for you graphic designers making fully Flash sites.
1. Search Engines can't read your site so you probably won't show on Google etc.
2. Not everyone has flash player.

To be fair though my first site was all flash!

A Very Interesting Chat: Outsider Art

So yesterday evening I went over to my friend's house for natchos - good choice - and ended up looking at her dissertation on Outsider Art (Art Brut).

Outsider art is not created with the intention of ending up with a work of art, it tends to be done by people with mental problems who just draw or create work which could then be seen as art. One "artist" who is particularly famous is Adolf Wölfli (1864 - 1930). Wölfli suffered from psychosis which gave him intense hallucinations.

"Every Monday morning Wölfli is given a new pencil and two large sheets of unprinted newsprint. The pencil is used up in two days; then he has to make do with the stubs he has saved or with whatever he can beg off someone else. He often writes with pieces only five to seven millimetres long and even with the broken-off points of lead, which he handles deftly, holding them between his fingernails. He carefully collects packing paper and any other paper he can get from the guards and patients in his area; otherwise he would run out of paper before the next Sunday night. A Christmas the house gives him a box of coloured pencils, which lasts him two or three weeks at the most."

Other artists she had studied included one who made his own camera and was obsessed with taking and developing photos of women and another who sought to find truth but when using paper for example would often bore holes right the way through because the paper was a barrier to discovering truth (at least that's how I interpreted it!).

It is a really interesting topic and can lead to some interesting philosophical discussions!

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Kirkstall Abbey

Tonight I went down to Kirkstall Abbey to see the British Shakespeare company's open-air version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I have to say it was absolutely brilliant - I highly recommend you go and watch it over the next 3 weeks if you can.

I decided that before I went I would find out the story and a bit about the characters and the language, I found a really handy site and although I had to draw a little diagram to get my head around who was falling in love with who(!), I found that I was able to pick up on some of the more subtle points of the play having read this website through.


It was actually very funny and I was surprised how well I could follow it - I was a bit nervous about having to understand the Shakespearean language. The cast could not have been better suited for their parts, the actor (Steven Blakeley of Heartbeat) playing Puck (the fairy King's assistant) was particularly funny.

The setting was perfect, in the cIoister of the abbey. I had a beaming smile as I clapped the actors off at the end =)