Monthly Archives: May 2015

31.05.15 — Journal

Feasting & Fooling Around

With a temporary lapse in workload after my first exam comes time to kick back, and kick back I have been doing, starting with dragging my housemate Kat around Leeds city centre for a day of shopping and feasting. Out culinary tour began in Belgrave Music Hall, where I introduced Kat to the delicious half-price-slice pizza by the Dough Boys, before we headed on down to Kirkgate Markets to sample what we could find…

Baklava at Leeds Kirkgate Market

We came accross the Moorish stand in the markets, and a platter full of Baklava beckoned, which we quickly snapped up, before heading further into the markets where I bought a portion of Mushroom Pakora to share as a little snack. We then went on a search for the relocated Turkish Delight stand, a search which proved in vein and we were sadly left empty handed.

I was very shocked to learn that Kat had never visited Trinity Kitchen, one of my favoruite food spots in Leeds, and so after I spent what wass probably a little too much money on some new clothes for Germany, we headed straight for Trinity. There I indulged in some Chicago Rib Shack ribs and convinced Kat to splash out on a delicious Rola Wala indian wrap – after which we were both suitably stuffed. We soon spotted a Waffle truck, however, and didn’t feel so full any more.

I opted for a brownie waffle and Kat a shortbread style concoction, accompanied with what was possible the best homemade raspberry lemonade I have ever tasted.

Waffles and lemonade

The next day I still wasn’t feeling up to doing all that much revision, and so I joined my other housemate Em and her partner Lincoln for a super exciting trip out – to Aldi. On our journey back home, during which I developed a decent pair of biceps courtesty of four cartons of orange juice, we wandered back through Burley Park and decided that we wanted to go on the swings (like the big children that we are). We arrived home, dumped our shopping, grabbed some Aldi Rocket Ice Lollies and headed back out into the surprisingly potent sun, me with my camera in tow.

Soon we were having a jolly whale of a time on the playground, reliving our youth, and my camera was there to capture it all. Here are some highlights from our frolicking in the Yorkshire sun…

Kat looking flawless whilst I fail miserably
Kat and Em prepare to be destroyed on the roundabout
The scene just after Em pushed me over

After this we headed home and gathered to print off and stick up some Polaroid style photos documenting our memories through our two years of being flatmates and housemates, and got a bit nostalgic and sad that we’d all be headed off in our seperate ways at the end of the month. To cheer ourselves up we put on the old classic Bridesmaids and ate a tonne of white chocolate and cranberry shrapnel cake I had thrown together to use up some stale Rice Krispies and dried cranberries I had lying around…

White chocolate and cranberry bites

I am writing this as I am currently sat on a Burnley-bound train on my way to meet up with Danni for a coffee and a catch up – feels like we haven’t seen each other in ages! I shall return to Leeds tonight, however, as we have a BBQ lined up to make the most of our little garden and the what promises to be fleeting springtime sun.

I shall be back here after my next exam and a plate full of barbicued meat…

26.05.15 — Design

My First Typeface

Now that the brief submission deadlines at uni are over it’s the most dreaded period of the year — deadline season. In between the stress of preparing for exams, however, I somehow found the time to put finish off a project I’ve been working on for a few weeks, constructing a hand-drawn typeface from memory.

A type sample from the my typeface

As mentioned, I drew this wholly from memory, and without any reference typefaces or templates, and so decided to name it simply Memory. The process began as I sketched each glyph in white pen on black card, before adding the inline highlights, and then beginning the lengthy process of digitising and kerning (spacing) the fonts.

The original sketch

I have released the typeface as a pair of two fonts, one with the highlights (inline) and one without (solid). You can find the Memory typeface for download on my Behance portfolio here, or via this direct link. Please be sure to hit ‘appreciate’!

An example of how it could be used

In other news, I have also been busy updating my website’s portfolio section, with my latest university brief set by D&AD & Pantone to ‘rebrand my hometown’ now live for your viewing pleasure. I will be updating my Behance and portfolio with more very soon! Until then…

15.05.15 — Writing

Apple Watch Impressions

Just last week I finally got my hands on the Apple Watch I ordered back in April, and have been wearing it out and about ever since. I haven’t been up to all that much as revision has begun ramping up in preparation for exam season, but here we go…

IMG_3357

Setup

I shan’t bother to go over the setup of this things, it’s been done many times before (and much better than I could ever discuss), but I found it relatively quick and simple, with the initial synchronisation taking just long enough to stop for a cup of tea.

Wedding Party

The first test was a drive down to a cricket club for a wedding party, where the tapping on my wrist as notifications came through from Facebook was subtle enough not too cause any accidents – that’s more likely to be my bad driving. I eagerly await Facebook’s release of a Watch compatible app, as having a tonne of messages come through and being able to read them without the ability to reply became frustrating very quickly.

At the party, however, it came in quite useful. Waiting in line for a hog roast gave me the chance to glance over my Instagram feed, and the queue for an ice cream provided the opportunity for some quick tweeting. A song came on during one of the dances which I liked the sound of, and it was only a couple of taps to get Shazam on the job identifying what the DJ was playing.

Afterwards, however, an issue was pointed out to me by my mother that has been well documented elsewhere – that it does indeed look incredibly rude to show up to a party and spend a lot of the night glancing at your watch. With all the excitement of trying out this new toy, I assume I was using it more than I will be doing in a few weeks time once the excitement has dissipated, but the issue still remains.

Travelling

The next adventure came the next day, when I journeyed back from Burnley to Leeds. Aware that I couldn’t accomplish all too much with the erratic mobile signal as I flew through the Yorkshire countryside, I took to using my laptop to keep me occupied instead. I did, however, make good use of it purely as a watch – that train journey can be very monotonous after nearly two years.

Lounging Around

Once I arrived back here in Leeds I began the strenuous task of not really doing all that much. I baked a cake, laid in bed for a while, glazed a cake, did a bit of filing and admin work and then laid in bed a while longer. The Watch came in useful whilst cooking – I had my iPad for my recipe – but the watch I found best for all my timing. The raise-and-speak function for Siri came in ridiculously useful as I lounged around the house, allowing me to make reminders as I remembered things whilst walking around, and send goofy emojis to any text messages I received.

Needless to say that the Activity App was going crazy at me for lounging around – every hour I received a polite tap and text reminder to stop being so sedentary – which surprisingly I have been obeying thus far. It even made me stand up on the train on my way over here!

Night Out

Just the other evening a group of us decided to head out to a Harry Potter quiz down in Milo Bar in Leeds City Centre, and of course I was wearing my new timepiece. Facing a barrage of notifications, I popped it onto Do Not Disturb and tried to ignore it as much as possible – however everyone wanted a go with the remote camera and heart rate monitor!

I did find that having tiny notifications appear on your wrist does the opposite of force you to pay attention to your incoming notifications all the time – rather it allows you to use your phone much less often as you immediately know which ones to ignore. I think it’s much better to occasionally glance at your wrist during social events than be preoccupied with pulling your phone out of your pocket at every (and most of the time irrelevant) notification.

Picnic Time

Just yesterday my close group of friends consisting of Izzy, Em, Rhea, Luisa and I (we call ourselves “Occupy Grass Studio” due to the amount of time we spend working in our uni’s design studio) met up at our house for an indoor picnic. After a worrying amount of Iced Gems and sausage rolls and a very unhealthy plate-sized cinnamon bun that I baked, we ended up lounging around and chatting with a bit of music on in the background.

Our picnic spread, including my cinnamon roll cake

My phone was on the verge of death and so was charging in one corner, I had a bluetooth speaker setup in another, and I was lying on the sofa in another – and so the Watch really came into it’s own. I felt absolutely exhausted, and so being able to control the music without having to so much as move my arms was a blessing. I was pleased to find that, even though it doesn’t have it’s own native app (yet), Spotify could be controlled via the Now Playing screen in Glances.

Then the remote shutter function was actually used as intended, and we gathered on the sofa to snap this group photo of questionable photographic composition…

Occupy Grass Studio have a picnic

After this we headed to the movies to watch Pitch Perfect 2, where a quick tap of the Do Not Disturb button silenced both my phone and watch simultaneously. I was worried about the watch lighting up every two minutes as I shuffled around in my seat (laughing, mostly), but I do think Apple have got the sensitivity of the raise-to-unlock function bang on.

Rounding Up

So do I like this watch? Yes – most definitely. It allows me to get important messages quickly, decide when not to bother taking my phone out my pocket to respond, and whenever I want I can ignore the taps on my wrist altogether without anyone knowing they even occurred. Is it worth the money I spent on it though? With the limited number of available apps and functionality, I’ve yet to decide…

11.05.15 — Journal

Deadlines Down, Exams To Go

There comes a time in life when one looks forward to washing up, where human interaction is precious and rare, and when cooking even the most basic meal becomes a luxurious indulgence. Yes, it’s deadline time – but thankfully it’s all over now. Hey, just yesterday I ate a plate full of actual vegetables and almost wept with excitement.

But what are the fruits of my perhaps over-dramatisation of the work I’ve been powering through for 14 hours a day? Well, there’s a new piece for my portfolio which will be online pretty soon, which was my Pantone D&AD brief to reimagine my hometown – Burnley – through the language of colour. Here’s a sneak peek at one of the sheets I handed in…

A sample of my Burnley brief

I have also been busy reading, researching and writing my way to 3000 words for my typography essay. If you’ve been following my updates over on my project page here you’ll already have some idea of what it’s about, but now it’s all finished and you can head on over to read online, check out the research which lead up to its creation or download a copy. It is entitled “Modernism and the New Media: Constructing the Crystal Goblet Online.”

The essay deals with modernist typographic philosophy (clarity, simplicity and readability) and argues for the consideration of modernist principles when typesetting online. It concludes by providing some quick pointers for web designers for when dealing with typography. Here’s the cover – click here to download a PDF copy!

Other than that I haven’t much news to impart. I’m currently headed back to Burnley for a few days working at Burnley Arts Centre, but I’ll have a secondary role as house chef and baker and provider of moral support to my sister Ellie as she begins her AS exams. Good luck Bel!

07.05.15 — Journal

Deadline Drudgery

My blog has fallen into another stint of scant activity on my part, for which I apologise, but as you may have figured I have a perfectly good reason – deadlines have arrived. Well, I say have – most have actually been and gone (hence why I have the time to be sat in bed tapping this out at a reasonable time).

Naturally I don’t have much to share, no tales of any particularly interesting travels nor any anecdotes from any outings, but I did think I’d share this photo of Hyde Park looking lovely in the springtime sun.

Hyde Park in the sun

Today I also decided to take the evening off before my next deadline (a typography essay due on Monday, which I’ve been working on here), and I decided of all things to make a carrot cake for my house.

My carrot cake masterpiece

That’s all for now I’m afraid, but do be sure to keep a tab on my typography project, which I’ll be powering on to completion over the next few days. Once it’s finished you’ll be able to read and download the whole essay right here! The title of the essay shall be ‘Modernism and the New Media: Constructing the Crystal Goblet Online’.

Good luck to all with exams and deadlines and the such. I shall return from beneath a landslide of typography books next week. Peace out.