Business Card Extravaganza

22.06.17 — Leeds

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.

The component layers of my business cards

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.

Spraying the cards and ruining our kitchen gloves

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!

Liverpool on Film

17.06.17 — Liverpool

Some of you may recall that a few weeks ago me and Kevin jumped in the car which my parents had left me for the week and had a spontaneous day out exploring the lovely city that is Liverpool – all detailed in this blog post. As usual, I took both of my cameras and I’ve just got round to scanning in a few photos which I took on my old film camera whilst there…

We mainly used the camera down at the docks, arguably the most photogenic area of the city. Kevin did a good job of taking some of me but the faces I’m pulling in them are rather unfortunate so I have gracefully decided not to burden you with them. For now then you can all have some more of the waterside…

There’s also one last sneaky shot, which was an attempt at macro photography of the lovely falafel meal we had before heading home – it didn’t come out great but I like the colouring.

If you liked these photos, there’s some I took in Portugal (including a spot of urbexing in an abandoned hotel), some I took around Leeds as summer rears its unfamiliar head, and some from Berlin and Nürnberg which I took a while back.

Photoshoots and Procrastination

13.06.17 — Leeds

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.

Got myself an IKEA hat and now I am cooler than you

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.

Luisa simply could not wait to eat this cake.

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…

Summer Hits Hyde Park

02.06.17 — Leeds

As I mentioned in my blog post centred around my time in Burnley, we have also been enjoying the sun back over in Leeds too, and so one day I got a bit stir crazy and decided to head out with my cameras through the student area of Hyde Park. I took with me my digital Canon and old manual Praktica film camera, and I had the film developed quite quickly thereafter, and so for once I can bring you both the digital and the film scans at the same time.

The film camera once again yielded some lovely shots, including the one above where the sun has created a lovely halo on the film. For more photos from the camera you’ll see them throughout this post but also some shots from Portugal and Germany which I have uploaded in the past.

Pretty much the entirety of the student population had crawled out of their Hyde Park houses and flooded onto the moor to enjoy the sun, and I wandered through pretty aimlessly to soak up some of the heat.

I then re-entered the gloriously messy student housing area and took a couple of photos on the old camera which compliment the redbrick aesthetic of Hyde Park, including the only gaslit cinema still in existence in the UK – Hyde Park Picture House.

I hope you enjoyed having a snoop through the student area as much as I have living there and taking the opportunity to stave off my cabin fever – it was lovely to actually leave the house after some busy deadlines!

Bouncing Back to Burnley

01.06.17 — Burnley

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!