Liverpool With Kevin

24.05.17 — Liverpool

As my parents had left me the car as they left for a week in the sunny Spanish community of Murcia, me and my friend Kevin resolved to make good and proper use of it and decided to head to Liverpool for a day. After a drive over in which I miraculously didn’t crash, we spent a good while circling through the city centre in a tizzy looking for a car park.

Once we’d actually managed to park up and scraped the bottom of our wallets to get some spare change to pay for our parking, we strolled into the centre of the city and began our explorations. I just had to pay a visit to some of the shops along Bold Street, including a tiny detour to visit the city’s oldest building, the Bluecoat Centre.

The courtyard of the BluecoatThe courtyard of the Bluecoat

We initially headed straight through the building to the rear courtyard in order to soak up some of the rare rays of sun, before stopping for a cup of tea and some lovely cake in the centre’s café.

Once we’d headed back inside I was enchanted by an installation of a tonne of posters which had been plastered on the high wall in the exhibition space, and spent some time trying out the manual setting on my camera and searching for good lighting – I found some eventually and enlisted Kevin as a model.

With the return of the sun we decided to head back outdoors and down towards the docks and shopping centres of the waterfront. After we’d put the world to rights in one of our very lengthy discussions, we took the opportunity to try out some more photography, and I gave Kevin a lightning lesson on how my old film camera works. We took plenty of pictures on that too, and I’m hoping to have them developed soon!

Once I’d tried to explain the intricate workings of my old manual Praktica camera, Kev tried taking a few photos of me on it. After this we headed back up towards Bold Street to get some lovely food on the way back to the car, the journey back in which was not without its strange creaking noises and flying pieces of metal in the road…

In spite of our neath death experiences on the M62 we arrived back in Leeds in one piece and then I had to head off to Leeds Bradford Airport to pick up my auntie and uncle who had landed back from Murcia just that evening.

In other news, today I literally half an hour ago just finished my final presentation for university – and now my last piece of assessed work is done! With a few more things coming up, such as the degree show, I’ll be in Leeds for a little while longer, but I’ll be sure to do a little bit of exploring here and there where I can – and naturally I’ll bring you all the updates here…

Saltaire

23.05.17 — Saltaire

Now that I’ve finally finished sorting some stuff out for the School of Design’s 2017 Degree Show, I took a few days off to relax, during which I made a trip to Saltaire to take a few photos and get out of the hectic air of the city. Saltaire is only fifteen minutes outside Leeds and is currently protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to it’s history and pretty, quaint appearance.

I arrived in the car, which my parents had left me whilst they went on holiday, and began to meander through the pretty repetitive rows of houses towards the centre of the village.

From the centre I headed down towards the mill, but as the time remaining without rain was limited I thought I better explore the outdoor areas before heading inside. Down the road and after crossing the river there’s a lovely park area where you can sit by the river with an ice cream, but the British weather wasn’t in the mood for cooperating on that particular day…

Wandering a little more, I soon made a friend in a Canadian goose which was wandering through, but as the clouds continued to roll in I soon headed back up the hill towards the church and the mill. For those who aren’t familiar with the history of Saltaire, pretty much the whole village was built in 1851 by Titus Salt, who used his surname alongside the name of the River Aire.

Built around the old textile mill, Salt created the neat rows of pretty housing for the millworkers, and included buildings such as a town hall, community rooms, and a beautiful church – which I wound up visiting after tiptoeing around a family of geese which had invaded the churchyard…

After this I hopped over the road and paid the huge mill a visit, which is now split into four floors of cafés, shops and exhibition spaces. Whilst there I stumbled on the current exhibition of work by David Hockney, the famous artist who hails from Saltaire’s neighbour, Bradford.

After a lovely stroll around, and a huge salad from the café where Hockney had designed the print on the menus, I eventually called it a day and headed back to Leeds. Feeling somewhat refreshed, I am now in the throes of preparing my portfolio and rehearsing my presentation for my final piece of marked university work ever tomorrow… Wish me luck!

Back North to Madrid

15.05.17 — Madrid

So after my trip down to the south of Spain, and ending in Granada where I ended my last blog post on a bus, I did indeed head back northwards to visit my capital and second home. Once I’d landed in the bus station I hopped straight onto the Metro and headed into the heart of the city to bed down in my hostel for the night.

The next day I set about doing some of the things I really miss about living in Madrid, starting the day off in a bar with a coffee and some tomato coated bread. After this I headed up to Chueca to buy a few bits and bobs and explore some of my favourite shops, including a chocolate boutique, a disco lighting specialist, and a tacky shirt shop. Soon though, and with a lightbulb holder, chocolate selection and new shirt in tow, I headed down to the south of the city to visit the design centre in the Matadero – one of my old haunts.

Once I’d had my fill of tinto de verano (a drink similar to sangria) and a snoop around the exhibitions, I headed back for the sunny centre to grab some awesome pizza on the roof of one of the buildings, where I also splashed out on a drink and admired the views of the city below.

After a relaxing evening of tacos with old friends, the next day I head eastward on my way to visit the team at Erretres for a catch up and to head out for some lunch as we always did last year. I ended up taking it so easy through the picturesque gardens of the royal palace in the sun that I rocked up pretty late – I guess I switched to Spanish time…

Arriving back at the office was lovely, with plenty to catch up on in my gradually worsening Spanish. Once I’d had a snoop at a few ongoing projects and had a laugh about a translation quip, we all eventually headed out to the nearby cafe where I spent many a Thursday when working with the team on my year in industry.

After a lovely meal I had to leave everyone to get on with their work, and so I headed down one stop of the Metro to have an ice cream by the lake and just watch the world go by for a while.

The day which proceeded was very lazy, but after all my travels around the south I felt like I’d earned a break. Many cañas and tapas later I found myself having a beer in the park which overlooks the east of the city, watching the sun go down before heading back into the centre for some food.

All too soon it was my last day in Madrid once more, and so I grabbed my camera and went exploring after settling for some beers for the evening. In the evening I wound up down in the south of the city, where I had some lovely tacos and found some street art along the way – as well as discovering an old ruin of a building which I’d never stumbled across before!

The first thing the next morning I had to grab a Cercanías train to the airport and soon found myself flying over France with a glass of overpriced red wine in hand. Since then I’ve been busily away with my final university project, but there’ll be a few more updates over the coming weeks as things like my final year degree show inch slowly closer…

A Goddess is Born

20.04.17 — Leeds

Okay so this post has a weird title, but I shall proceed to explain. About a week or so ago, whilst on my placement with Elmwood, I began to sketch some initial ideas for a new typeface which I’ve had as an idea at the back of my mind for a while now. The typeface’s working title is Goddess (hence the title of the blog post), and the current plan is that it will become the new typeface which I use for all my personal projects – including my website!

As you can see from the photo, I have been building the letters (which are all non-final at present) using simple shapes with a compass and pencil. This process was inspired by one of the greats of typography design, Eric Gill. The sketches below were used to build the typeface which bears his name, Gill Sans, and to me they are objects of exceptional beauty (which may be a little bit sad, but I can deal with that).

For those unfamiliar with the design of typefaces I should explain from where comes the trouble I have been having with the rounded letters, which I can simplify down to two reasons. Firstly, they have to extend slightly above and below the line due to the way the human eye perceives the height of rounded shapes compared to straight-edges ones, and that’s been a nightmare to account for. Secondly, round letters like o should not ever be perfectly circular as they otherwise appear too wide – however if you just simply try to squash a circle a little it begins to look deformed, so I have spent quite some time working on how to make letters like c, d, o, and e look just right.

As you can see with my red pen I am making minor changes as I go, as typeface design takes a good while – just imagine you have 26 letters, double that for capitals, then add numbers, punctuation, an array of special characters (such as the Ñ for Spanish above) for other languages, and much more – all of which has to be designed carefully to flow properly. A right royal nightmare.

I’ll keep you up to date as I begin to make more progress on the typeface as the weeks go by, especially once I begin to start digitising copies – thus far all the work has been done on pen and paper. I love working like this as it makes me much less precious about finer details, and I can adjust and connect curves in a way which just isn’t possible on a screen.

Long live the paper, pencil and compass – even if I have stabbed myself inadvertently a few times with it. Blood, sweat, and tears will have indeed gone into creating this damn font.

Granada

17.04.17 — Granada

After hopping on a bus from Seville to Granada, I wound up landing in my third city mid-afternoon, whereupon I immediately set about finding my hostel. Once there my fifteen minute nap turned into three hours of shut-eye, and so I had to drag myself out of bed after dark and try and find someplace to eat in this new city!

My first proper look at the city by night

After wandering in a loop for a while (not that I was complaining, the city is beautiful), I found a little Venezuelan restaurant near my hostel and grabbed myself an arepa before heading back to bed to prepare for the next day, where my plan was to visit the unmissable (oh the irony) Alhambra.

Wandering the streets early in a morning

With a bus back up to Madrid booked for 7pm that same day I knew I didn’t have time to faff around, and so made a beeline for the hill atop which sits the Alhambra palace complex. Anyone unfamiliar with it can begin to appreciate the beauty of the palace/fortress with a quick Google search.

Anyway, so I managed to find one of the few roads which lead up the ridiculously steep incline to the entrance, and began my trek hauling the entirety of my possessions for the trip in my backpack once again.

The walk up to the entrance was much longer than expected and a lot more gruelling than I had predicted, but the views were lovely and the sun was out so I wasn’t for complaining. Once I arrived at the entrance though I had the shock of my life – there were no tickets left! Let this be a warning to anyone wanting to visit the Alhambra – book tickets online months in advance or risk being left out in the cold (well, extreme heat, but you know what I mean).

Slightly deflated I sat down and ate some crisps for a bit, before deciding that for the rest of the day I fancied a spot of bar hopping, in order to see more of the city centre and enjoy some refreshing beers and snacks as I went. I began at a bar at the foot of the hill, and soon found myself in the city centre, full of cheese and chorizo and a few cañas for good measure.

Around mid afternoon I sat down for a spot of lunch, ordering once again a menú del día, after which I just spent a few hours wandering the streets and visiting a few shops as I went. The city of Granada really is gorgeous, sitting in a valley and consisting of winding streets full of bars, restaurants, and shops, and I felt very relaxed just traversing the centre.

Sooner or later though it was time to head back to the bus interchange in order to catch my evening coach back up to Madrid, and in doing so leaving Andalusia and completing my tour of the south of Spain, which included Córdoba, Seville and Granada.

As I said, I was disappointed not to be able to visit the Alhambra whilst down in Granada, but that didn’t detract from my time spent in the city. From its gorgeous surroundings to the bustle of its narrow streets and glorious architecture, I thoroughly enjoyed lazing around for the 24 hours I spent roaming around.

I will definitely have to revisit Granada in order to have a snoop around the Alhambra one day soon, and I think next time I’ll visit for a longer time – and not allow myself the luxury of a “quick nap”…