21.03.14 — Travel
Leeds, London, Burnley, Repeat
Since my last post I’ve been bouncing around all over the country, first back to Leeds, then down to London (again) and back home to good ol’ Burnley. We’ve been really busy with group work this semester so I’ve not had as much spare time to sit down with my laptop, and the hours of non-uni work I’ve been spending designing Burnley Arts Centre’s new brochure!
Leeds
Anyway, one day in Leeds a few weeks back I decided to head off out with my phone and take some snapshots of the city, before spending a few minutes on VSCO Cam (my favourite photography editing app) touching them up somewhat. I was quite pleased with the few shots that I brought back, especially seeing as the main purpose of said trip was to go pick up some honey from Morrison’s!
So that’s an update of what I’ve been doing in Leeds (between presentations, group meetings and firing off emails) – now down to London for the 4 Designers Design Conference!
London
So I, alongside some other Graphic & Communication Design peers, headed down to London with the design department for the 4 Designers Conference at the Odeon in Leicester Square. We headed down on the train, where me and Rhea hosted our own little Blues Brothers party…
We arrived in London and pitched up at the Royal National Hotel – which was basic but perfect for a group of rowdy students like us! It was painful to look at how beautiful some of the buildings down the road were, though…
I spent most of the evenings in Rhea, Emily & Devanshi’s room, where we taught Rhea how to make tea the proper English way, I danced to Let It Go and we played heads down, thumbs up (ah, the nostalgia.)
We had some free time over the three days to go off and explore London by ourselves, and so I took the opportunity to try Korean noodles (which were fabulous) as well as visit a few museums, namely the British Museum (as profusely recommended by my professor), the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum.
But for two mornings, our focus was not just to doss around London town, but rather to attend the speeches as part of the 4 Designers Conference. Over the two days we listened to four main speakers, all introduced by the event’s founder, Patrick Baglee:
- Tom Adams, Futurebrand
- Morag Myserscough, Studio Myserscough
- James Cannell, Pret A Manger
- Greg Quinton, The Partners
The speeches were both inspirational and very informative, I made lots of notes and took away lots of key quotes from all four. Taking a look at some of the creative companies’ previous work also inspired me to begin to pull together my own portfolio, which I hope to have online soon!
It was a very long few days in London, I returned back to my flat in Leeds on Tuesday 25th February and crawled straight into bed… but at least I lasted longer than Rhea and Devanshi!
Burnley
Since London, however, I’ve been continuously busy, especially with the Burnley Arts Centre (home of Burnley Youth Theatre) launch coming up soon! I’ve been working relentlessly on pulling together the new logo and implementing it ready for launch.
It’s been a difficult project, as I’ve had to maintain the current Burnley Youth Theatre brand image whilst incorporating the new logo and style, but I think we’ve arrived at a happy medium which is simple enough to contain the reams and reams of information which has to go into the brochure!
And Back To Leeds
Every now and then, though, I’ve had a spare hour or two to go and relax in the lovely Leeds weather we’ve been having over the past week or so. Me and Luisa have been going on all sorts of adventures, from rolling around in her new blanket made by her mum to sitting on the lawn outside the union and soaking up the sun!
I also visited Emily’s flat and we dressed up as Anna and Elsa from Frozen (my new favourite movie, by the way) for Leeds University Union’s Disney Fruity night!
And so once again I came here today to write a quick blog post and ended up writing a photo essay, but I hope you enjoyed my splurge go an update on the designer goings-on in and around Leeds. I leave you with a picture of my first ever bowl of ramen from Wagamama, which was delicious! Thanks to Izzy for inviting me out to celebrate her birthday!