Blackpool & IKEA

04.03.15 — Blackpool

Another quick and strange hybrid blog post now, which will outline two events in the space of a weekend on the opposite sides of the country but which happened in two consecutive days. I’ve been on a lot of trains recently…

But do disregard my moaning, because I’ve actually had a great weekend.

Firstly, me and the usual design gang grouped up and, after a last minute rush to get everyone fed and out the door, rolled up at IKEA in Leeds. Nothing says ‘design student’ like an organised day trip to IKEA which was not initiated in any way by anyone actually needing to buy anything; however it was a shame that Izzy opted not to purchase this delightful seasonal bonnet…

After a long day on our feet, we returned home and everyone scattered and wandered back to their respective houses. However, there’s no rest for the wicked! I quickly made myself a smoked salmon salad and then headed back off out again, Burnley bound and ready for an early start.

Why, You may ask? Because it’s that time of year again: the time when me and Danni spend the day eating hot dogs, riding coasters and generally making a nuisance of ourselves at Blackpool Pleasure Beach! (See last year’s trip here.)

The weather wasn’t in our favour unfortunately, with near-zero temperatures and some nasty rain plaguing the day and causing the Big One to shut down (aww) – but a bit of water never stopped Ollie and Danni. We trekked around the park, which after six years worth of annual trips we know like the back of our hand, and rode everything we could.

The weather and our busy schedule meant I only managed to snap one single photo from the day, so here it is, in all its vain selfie glory!

So what am I up to now? Well I’ve just this afternoon been in the School of Design, assisting with an open day and taking prospective students and their families on a guided tour of the campus. It’s great to speak to all the attendees and spread the word about how great Leeds is, not only as a university but as a place to spend three or more years of your life!

After this I met up with Kishore, my scholarship tutor, and we discussed how I am to develop and share my research so far with the public. This will be realised via the Leeds Design Lab website, which I’m currently working on updating, and will be published pretty soon. I’ll be back with updates and a link to my own little corner of the University of Leeds website – exciting!

That’s it for now I believe. I leave you with this song. I’m not sure why. Just enjoy.

Eating Food & Catching Trains

27.02.15 — Leeds

So let’s begin the most important thing: food. The other day, as many of you will know, was Pancake Day, and so I decided to eat nothing but pancakes after midday. After about six pancakes, however, I decided to wave a white flag and invite my housemates to join in and help.

Luisa, meanwhile, was delivered some obviously hilarious news, and ended up on the floor alongside the kettle she was using. I only mention this as I found the resulting picture to be a work of art. Check it out:

What was so hilarious that this happened?

This week in uni I have been finishing off and submitting my Principles Of Typography essay plan as well as creating a series of stripe designs for my Design Theory module. As obscure as some found this task, I understood it’s importance in the exploration of design theory, which I am sure to bear in mind whilst I create designs.

Anyway, after a lecture in the infamous Roger Stevens building, I wandered out the wrong door and found myself on a balcony I’d never encountered before, but which offered a lovely view back towards the city.

In less academically demanding news, me and Danni met up for a Laynes Espresso and a lunch date at Trinity Kitchen, and I opted for something a little different – vegetarian steamed buns. These had shiitake mushrooms, cheese and spinach in them, and were served with noodles and tonnes of delicious vegetables. They were delicious. Just take a look how colourful it was!

In a feeble attempt to replicate the deliciousness of this exotic food, I decided to use up some of my taco shells and lettuce, and cooked up a batch of vegetarian chilli using Quorn. Stuffed with this chilli, I added cheese, onion, lettuce and sour cream to create a couple of crunchy tacos.

Okay – so as you have probably gathered I have been eating many things as of late, but I am still keeping to my pescatarian diet. But that’s not all I’ve been up to – I also headed back to Burnley for another research trip (see my first here) to take some more photos to be used in my final outcomes. I’ll leave you with a triad of photos of my town…

Galentines & Other Adventures

22.02.15 — Leeds

In between all this uni work and typography research, I believe it’s time to kick back, grab a mug of Horlicks and reflect on the more relaxed events of the past week or so.

First thing’s first – Galentines Day. Inspired by Parks & Recreation, Galentines Day is celebrated the day before Valentines Day, and is a chance for all us singletons to come together and celebrate being single. Some keen YouTuber has put together this beautifully concise video in which Amy Poehler explains the concept more eloquently than I ever could. I have a huge crush on Amy Poehler.

Getting away from the point, we headed down to Nation Of Shopkeepers and ordered a plethora of burgers. Beth had been so kind to bring along a Galentines Day gift for us all, which turned out to be tubes of Swizzles Matlow Love Hearts. We exchanged them, sending sarcastic messages to each other in the process…

To my despair I awoke the next day to the prospect of a Valentines Day stuck in my room all day, but for the first time ever me and my housemates arranged to sit together in the living room (which we often forget that we actually have) and watch a film. The Notebook was suggested, and I agreed, presuming it would be a tacky rom com to lift our spirits.

It’s not.

The day after I decided to finally address an issue which I had sat on since I returned to Leeds after Christmas, which is that the coldness of our uninhabited house had caused most of my posters/flyers/ephemera to fall off my wall. I took the opportunity to take them all down and give the walls a good scrub. I don’t know why I felt like I needed to clean my walls. I just did. I can’t explain. Leave me be.

My room looked weird and sad without walls full of examples of graphic design…

Before long, however, I had gotten all my stuff back up and now my room is back to it’s bright, colourful self. Check out this picture from a previous post.

I also managed a trip back home to visit my doctors, but the most important part of the trip was naturally sitting for a hot chocolate with my mother and stroking the resident cat at Todmorden train station. He/she featured in a post from a while back, check it out here. Anyway, I leave you with photos of these two very important events.

The beautiful cat at Todmorden train station

Crafting A Typography Essay

18.02.15 — Leeds

As I may have mentioned, I am currently working on an essay for my Principles of Typography essay. Today I engaged with some more reading for the module, and pulled out some interesting theories and quotes. For those uninterested in graphic design, now may be the time to skip this post for the next one.

Firstly I looked at Herbert Bayer with his essay On Type, where I found many teachings on the control of type. He notes how typography is a service art rather than a fine art, and how a reader’s eye will flitter haphazardly across a typographic piece unless the designer has taken due care to carefully guide the viewer’s eye. As he concluded, I picked up on his comment that controlling the contrast of the typeface and the background on which it sits can be used to good effect.

I secondly moved onto some wisdom from Rob Giampietro (of Lined & Unlined) on Default Systems in Graphic Design (read online here). This explores the idea that default settings (such as the Calibri typeface at 11pt in Word and Myriad in Adobe Illustrator) have a knock-on effect on graphic design, as the “system makes assumptions that, unchallenged, become truths.” It was an agreeable argument – oh, the amount of times I have received badly designed submissions set in Calibri!

Next up I read through The Philosophy of Modernism in Typography by Douglas McMurtie. In this evaluation of the modernist attitude in the field of typography, McMurtie notes how type’s primary function is clarity and how it must tell it’s story as directly as possible – succinctly encapsulating the modernist ethos.

Finally I moved on to read Beatrice Warde in her essay The Crystal Goblet, an argument that “printing should be invisible”. In this Warde makes the case for the adoption of modernist attitudes in typography, arguing that it is not how typography looks which is important; rather that the purpose of a piece should take precedence when typesetting. The essay is a pleasure to read, using beautiful metaphors to convey meaning, and I urge anyone reading interested in typography to source a copy. However, the following quote was my favourite, and I just couldn’t resist sharing it here:

It is mischievous to call any printed piece a work of art, especially fine art: because that would imply that its first purpose was to exist as an expression of beauty for its own sake and for the delectation of the senses.
Beatrice Warde

So from all this research (check out my full collection here) I have been debating and scribbling down ideas for the title of my upcoming essay. Here are a few of my main ideas so far…

Can we apply Jan Tschichold’s Die Neue Typographie principles/teachings to new media? (i.e. websites, smartphones, UI/UX systems, etc.)
Have the stages of typographic thinking, especially modernism, replayed themselves through the relatively short history of online typography?
Can principles and/or theories used when composing printed type be transferred directly to type handling online?

I will be back soon with more updates on Leeds life in general, but for now I am drinking my new favourite drink (rose milk) and settling down to watch some Parks & Recreation. Stay tuned for news of my room redecoration, Galentines Day (you read that right) and my plans for Easter (including going pescetarian for Lent!)

Update: You can now view an ongoing copy of my report here. At the time of writing I have only finished my title and the abstract.

UsTwo Etcetera

12.02.15 — Leeds

And now for a quick overview of recent events. Just last weekend me, Luisa, Izzy and Beth headed down to Trinity Kitchen where the Real Junk Food Project’s Pay As You Feel Café were finishing off their residency in style – they’d convinced all the other temporary vendors in the kitchen to go “pay as you feel” for the day too.

This meant that we could pay whatever we felt for all the food, so me and Luisa treated ourself to a delicious jerk chicken wrap. Of course we were sure to pick up some food from the PAYF ‘Ambulance’ (they were serving their food from a repurposed ambulance) and made a donation to the amazing charity, which has already been featured on nationwide news.

On the way home me and Luisa noticed that the sky was particularly pretty, and so we hopped down a side street and took a moment to stand on a wall and look out over Leeds and the sunset.

But in design related news, we had two visiting speakers at uni today, both from the amazing digital studio UsTwo. They shared examples of their work, their studio culture, and then some tips for us all before we head off and apply to studios for our year in industry. I found much of their work fascinating and right up my street, such as their handbook on UI practice and projects such as UsTwo Auto and learn.ustwo.com. I have put them firmly on my list of agencies to check out!

Some of their advice was as follows:

The product doesn’t have to be perfect, focus on the idea and the story of how you got there.
Be keen to learn, and be versatile, be interesting.
Show you can fit in with studio culture.
Be up-to-date and show curiosity.
Personal projects are a great way to learn and show interest.

I didn’t take any photos, but they did, so maybe I can track that down later and link you guys to it! I didn’t want to leave this post too sparse though so here (in order) are some photos of a cat I found in a train station, my room in all it’s multicolour glory, and an image which I feel encapsulates student life.

For now here’s a teaser of some random experimental type work I’m currently completing for my D&AD Pantone Burnley Brief. You can check out my trip around Burnley for a spot of research here, but for now it’s some reading for my module and an early night for me. ¡Adios!