So just before leaving Leeds we were all rearing up and ready to launch our Degree Show, a public exhibition of some of our best work from the past four years of university. The show was titled “Alchemy”, and was led up by two of my housemates, with Isabel acting as Creative Director and Luisa as Project Manager. I must extend many thanks to the two of them, and many others, for their amazing work in pulling the show together.

Having submitted some images for my page in the catalogue, and a design for my large poster on the wall, I nipped in during the last few days of preparations to lend a hand to the committee who were working hard to get everything in place for launch night. My first assignment was to help with the trimming some of the final boards to go on their frames, with Rhea working the knife like a pro.

I was then tasked with figuring out how to create and mount the wayfinding signage after Izzy had completed the design of the system. Me and Luisa ended up bringing maths into the mix – cue memories of sitting in high school maths classes wondering when anything would come in useful…

Once everything was in place it was time to put on a snazzy shirt and head back into university for the launch party, which took place on Thursday 15th June. With Luisa’s family flying in from Germany and my whole house exhibiting work, it was a lovely evening, with the networking conversations flowing almost as much as the free wine.

Just in the foreground of that photo, on the corner of the table, you can see the distinctive green glow of the business cards I have been busily making recently. This was the little spot where I showed off some of the physical work I have produced over the past year, both in university and during my spare time.

Above you can see the multicoloured booklet set I created for my Pearson project, the neon green business cards I made by hand, the signature red and black pages of the Briggs Report project, and a little photo book which is part of a project which I have yet to announce publicly… Something to look forward to!

Soon after the launch the Briggses were reunited as a family as my parents and sister came to visit the show, where we tried and failed to be on our best behaviour…

Afterwards me and my sister treated my dad to a surprise Father’s Day lunch at one of my favourite brunch spots, Ox Club, before we all headed home for an evening together.

Since then I have had to return to Burnley, where there’s the extraordinary task of condensing four years’ worth of worldly possessions into one room waiting for me every evening – bring it on!

As I graduate soon I thought it’d be probably wise to get myself some business cards made, but with me being pernickety I decided that I was going to make my own so I could get them exactly as I wanted. I decided it should include the two most prominent features of my personal branding: the lightbulb logo and a vibrant shade of green.

This time however, I decided to max the green up as far as it would go – neon green.

To achieve the effect of my bulb lighting up in the neon green, and to add a tactile element to the design, I decided to laser cut the logo out of black card to layer over the neon paper I bought. The first step was to laser cut the sheets of black card, including small circles in each corner for alignment later on, and then glue these to the neon card.

Once this had been done, I aligned the printed thick white card to the rear of these sheets, and then cut out the individual cards using guidelines printed onto the white card.

To add a little bit more pizzazz and intrigue, I then piled these cut cards up and carefully sprayed each side with bright neon green spray paint. The result I found to be quite effective, and even more striking when business cards are stacked up to be taken by the public.

I am very pleased with the final result, which although quite basic in complexity, manages to be very eye-catching with it’s stark neon green and black colour scheme. Needless to say I put a huge pile of them out at the launch of my degree show (blog post on this to follow soon) and the next day all but one had been taken – not bad!

As mentioned, there’ll be more news of my degree show and upcoming graduation very soon – as well as more photos which I have just today picked up from being developed. Prepare for some lovely photos of lots of random events from the past few months!

Just last week I thought I’d head back to Burnley for a couple of days (once again) to take some photos for my portfolio and update some of the outdated ones on my website and social media. I’ve had one of me sitting in my room for ages, and now two years later I can reveal that I have managed to stand up – as you can see in the new photo below. That’s progress for you.

I also tried out a new style where the only light comes from an array of green LEDs – I’m actually quite happy with the result but it does seem to come across as a little bit too mysterious…

Whilst at home I ended up being whisked off for a day out with my mum and dad where we managed to visit IKEA and make a stop off in the lovely town of Hebden Bridge for a cheeky glass of wine in the evening sun.

Once back in Leeds it’s been hectic preparations for our Degree Show – if you’d like to come along then you can find all the details here! This Thursday I’ll be attending the launch and I’ll report back with a few pictures no doubt.

To procrastinate during all this preparations I decided to do some baking again for the first time in a while, and after shoving every sweet and sickly flavour and ingredient into the mix I present to you all – the double chocolate cake with choco buttercream, dulce de leche, and salted caramel icing.

Anyway, it’s back to the daily grind for now, but I’ll be sure to update when I have a few more tidbits to share this weekend! Until then, I leave you with this video of Mireille Mathieu singing Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien – I am somewhat obsessed with it for some reason…

Over the past few weeks England has been mysteriously graced with some lovely sunny and warm spells, and throughout this time I’ve been having to nip back home to Burnley every now and then for one reason or another. At one point Kevin came to visit, and besides taking him to see the huge Tesco Extra and Home Bargains, we went for a lovely wander over the rolling hills of Hurstwood.

Is this the mythical entrance to Wonderland?

During our walk we encountered the World War II era bunker which has sat alongside Gorple Road and fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Once we’d confirmed that there weren’t any sheep taking residence inside, we had a snoop around inside.

I left quite intrigued as I’d never done any research about the purpose of this bunker, so that evening I did a bit of online reading and it turns out that it was built as part of the Starfish site programme during World War II. These were large-scale decoys which used fires to simulate cities, with the hope that German planes would drop bombs on these rural sites rather than on the cities themselves. The bunkers were built as observation/control centres for the operation. Pretty cool to discover that a bite of history like this has been sitting on my doorstep for all these years!

Outside of this I had a lovely stroll with my friend Amber, and was drafted in to make some tapas-style food for the rest of my family as my sister was visiting from university to do a bit of revision in the sun. I eventually made some chorizo in red wine, stuffed courgettes, patatas bravas and a chorizo selection – all of which went down a treat with some homemade lemonade!

Now I’m back in Burnley again, but this time for less interesting activities – I have to take some headshots for my portfolio and clear out my room ready to combine the contents of 4 years of living in two different places. Quite the challenge!