So in an attempt to get myself back on track, here’s another post within an acceptable amount of time since the previous iteration!
I returned to Leeds after my brief illness recovery stint back at home, and stepped off the train here to be greeted by Luisa (who’s just setup a blog which you should definitely check out!) as we’d arranged to visit Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair, which just so happened to be taking place in the Corn Exchange, a magnificent building in Leeds which I have been meaning to visit for some time now.
I made sure to take plenty of photos, as the grand geometric and repetitiveness of the architecture was a pretty clash to the chaos of the vintage stalls and bunting, making for some beautiful snaps.
I think it’ll be interesting to visit the Corn Exchange when there’s no events on, as I can’t envision it without the hustle and bustle of dozens of clothes racks and stables strewn with odds-and-ends!
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:
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!
So after all the Christmas festivities had finished, I returned to my usual business of finding places to go and things to do, and habit led me once more back to the charming little town of Hebden Bridge, where I felt inclined to take a few photos.
I was super disappointed, though, when I discovered that my favourite sweet shop wasn’t open, but a tiny shoe perched on it’s window ledge caught my attention. I don’t know what to make of it.
But of course, no trip to Hebden Bridge would be complete without a stop at the Yorkshire Soap Company‘s store. Everything smells good enough to eat and is arranged in such a simple and methodical yet visually beguiling manner that I wanted to buy the whole shop.
And then yesterday, to bring you up to speed, me and three friends from graphics (or “Leeds Graphics Massive”) decided travelled down to London for the day! There our main intention was to visit the Tom Eckersley exhibition at the London College of Communication:
But we also ended up paying Tate Modern a visit, something which I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and I finally got the opportunity to see some Dan Flavin artwork!
But another piece, by a previously unbeknown to me artist Glenn Ligon, also caught my eye, both for it’s aesthetic quality and clever concept. Check out this link to the Tate’s website for a rundown of the concept.
We also spent much of the day exploring areas of London that I’d never been to before, including Camden – but strangely I took no photos there! I was probably too busy gazing at the endless visual distractions to even consider stopping to take some snaps. Here’s some I did managed to get in throughout the day:
But all good things must come to an end, so we headed back to Kings Cross to catch our train back to Leeds – and I was stunned to realise that it’s changed beyond recognition since I last recall seeing it (even if my perception of it has been distorted somewhat by Harry Potter…)
As shockingly purple and modern as it is, I do quite like this new vaulted roof. It almost reminded me of Burnley Bus Station… almost. We (just about) managed to get back to Leeds in one piece, my advice to Izzy and Frazer being to “think caffeiney thoughts”, as we were all incredulously tired after our 19 hour day…
I’ve been so busy (and lazy) recently that my blog seems to have been abandoned – but fear not, for I have returned to enlighten you as to what I’ve been up to over the past month. Standby for a super long post…
Firstly, I’m back home! It’s so lovely to be back in little old Worsthorne with my family once again, but it is strange not to wake up and see all my flatmates. It’s weird not to be having porridge with Helen, chatting with Em, listening to Kat’s cheesy festive jokes and lending Scott my wok.
I have, of course, settled straight back into my obnoxiously green room, and was immediately set to work with my annual task of directing the entire Christmas decoration operation, including the six (!) Christmas trees that my mother has amassed over the years…
My main challenge was the living room Christmas tree (bottom centre), which is a real tree and which my mum is super protective of. We had a savings tin out all year in which we had to contribute to in order to save up for the purchasing of this tree – my mum was super impressed that we’d surpassed our target by £3 this year. Anyway, it eventually got finished to mine (and my mother’s) exacting standards:
Of course, Christmas passed smoothly due to my mother’s super organisation and the liberal servings of a cauliflower soup made by one of our family friends, a dish which fast become a family favourite years ago as we are given a batch every Christmas. Of course, I very much enjoyed wearing our tacky paper hats, and got right into the Christmas spirit…
As you can see, I was looking rather festive.
In other news, I’ve also embarked on a new project at work, tasked with designing the imminent Burnley Youth Theatre to “Burnley Arts Centre” rebranding!
I shan’t be divulging any of the developed designs as yet, but it’s a design which has to fit in with the existing BYT branding. The new design will be imbued in a new website, brochure and signage, which I’ll be designing over the next few months and will be sure to share once they’re officially launched. Here’s a photo of the results of a few hours of drafting and a lot of printing…
I also spent a morning catching up with my bestie Danni around Burnley town centre – where I purchased this large bauble (as my sole festive adornment for my minimal bedroom, naturally), but which also provided an excellent selfie opportunity…
Lastly, I also went on a quick trip to Halifax (back to Yorkshire!) with my parents a few days back. After reading a marvellous article on The Verge about iPhone photography, and realising that I do in fact own an iPhone 5S which I should probably make good and proper use of, I set out to take a few nice photos on my travels through the old town. Here’s a few snaps from my visit:
All the Halifax photos were taken on an iPhone 5S using either the standard camera app (with AF lock and HDR enabled) or using Pro HDR and all post-processing was done just in VSCO Cam. I uploaded most of these to my Instagram (be sure to follow me) but I opted not to add any of Instagram’s filters as I’d already edited them all.
So that’s my Christmas break so far – but I’m not over yet. I’m currently designing and prepping Issue #4 of Culture On A Shoestring ready for print, and also putting the finishing touches to my website design. After loads of sketching, coding and lots and lots of discarding ideas, I’m finally piecing together a viable design.
For now, however, I must leave you (hopefully not for a whole month again), as this laptop is going to give me square eyes (according to my grandma anyway) – and I really, reallyneed want to use my Lush bath bomb.
Boy, am I going to miss this bath later in January!
Hello there stranger, and I apologise for being so lax on the blog post front, but I’ve been super busy caught up in an Art History essay, which I entitled “From Romanticism to Postmodernism: The Identification and Classification of Artefacts from the 19th Century Onwards.” Sounds delightful, doesn’t it?
Over the past week or so I’ve been working on a new brief for my Graphic Design course, which was to set a given quote as a poster without the use of pre-existing typefaces. I chose a quote by Sylvia Plath, naturally:
The worst enemy of creativity is self doubt.
Sylvia Plath
Anyway, as far as more recent news goes, today I went out with my flatmates Kat and Helen to the Leeds Christmas Carol Concert in the great hall!
It was a lovely evening of festive music in a strikingly beautiful building, which was adorned with suitably festive decorations:
And then, to finish our evening, there was a room full free mince pies and mulled wine which we stayed in for a while to eat, drink and be merry!
