Design against fur

Behind the scenes photos from the shoot. The rabbit was surprisingly heavy and cold, and you can see the lights were burning my skin a bit. Oh it's so hard : (

But on a serious note, having to actually touch a dead animal, and wear it for hours really made me think, I couldn't even imagine actually killing an animal let alone skinning one alive. 

Design against fur

The deadline is coming up for the design against fur competition is coming up, and these are some of the ideas I'm thinking of entering. I did the shoot a while ago with Claire. I'm not sure how people will react to the dead rabbit (bought from a butchers; we didn't kill it ourselves but we did skin it which was HARD). Generally people have been really positive about it so hopefully it wont offend anyone. We based the idea on the fact that anti fur campaigns are not reaching their target audience: the hardcore rich fur wearers. We wanted to make an image that could almost pass as high fashion, and would possibly appear in a fashion magazine (unlikely though seeing as they're mostly pro fur). The idea is that when flicking through a magazine, you wouldn't initially realise what was actually being worn in the photo, and then hopefully when you did the reaction would be repulsion. 

The shoot was one of the most stressful days of my life! After weeks of trying to get hold of an unskinned rabbit, we finally got one but we had to go pick it up the next morning at 6 and only had a few hours to skin it and get the shoot done. Plus I did not enjoy wearing the thing for hours under hot lights! But it was worth it for the results. 

Fashion show

On friday night I went to the second year Fashion and textiles show. The tickets, posters and catalogues were all designed by Claire, Millie and me and took AGES! It was good to have a live brief that was outside of our uni work, and a steep learning curve in terms of having a paying client and printing litho. The idea behind it was mix and match, and we took inspiration from books you get as a child full of characters and cut into 4 sections so you can flip a section over and make a policeman have a ballerina's legs, for example. The poster doubles up as the catalogue (money saving ideas!) We took the photos ourselves, in the most hectic and last minute photo shoot ever, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. We plan to screen print some posters and make some books to go with it. Photos aren't amazing but I'll get proper ones up when I get the chance.

I gave blood on tuesday. I've never had a problem with it, but i fainted this time and felt like a bit of a baby because I had to lie there for ages with nurses feeding me juice with a whole load of students watching! The nurse had problems getting the needle into the vain properly, and the resulting bruise is quite impressive. It's not put me off and I'll be back in 16 weeks. I'm trying to get friends to go next week, anyone that's ever had an operation or had someone they love being ill will understand how important it is. And if you haven't been in that situation, you're lucky, but it shouldn't take something sad like that to make you go. I know a lot of people who've been meaning to go for ages but are always busy etc. It's not a good enough excuse! all they need is a little nudge ; ) I got over my squeamishness with needles, so can you!

Big respect to my friend Joe who donated bone marrow week before last, that is brave! I'm considering joining the donor register... maybe i need a nudge too!

Of for the Love of Letterpress!

Went up to LCC last week to the Changing face of letterpress exhibition. I don't say this often but I thought it was one of the most impressive things I've seen in a long time. The sheer amount of time that would have gone into each piece is insane, and the work was truly gorgeous! These are just pictures from my phone, I'll get more up when I can. Big pat on the back is in order for Rose and Alex who put the whole thing together and took time out to show us round.  Not many of the people in the show have websites but those that do are Rose and shaz madani,  Other people who's work was amazing: Varvara Zaytsera (mad Olympics animation. yes, a letterpress animation), Jacqueline Ford (who did the work above), Becky Lyddon (another music and pattern animation), all of whom I'm going to keep an eye out for. I left feeling very very impressed, a little bit envious and desperate to get back into the letterpress studio, so I'm bugging Rose to let me in in Easter. I'll post some letterpress I've done this year up soon.

Just a couple of pictures of signs etc from San Francisco. The top 2 are from China Town, I just thought they're so gorgeous and amazing that they're still there in that condition. The next one was from Chronicle Books and the last is from Dwell Magazine, and it summs up all the work I saw there!

Rather Upset none of the polaroids came out. They would have been good! It was just too dark, but worth a shot I guess. So glad they've started making them again because I was on my last pack.

San Fran disposables

These were a couple of San Fran photos I took with a cheap disposable camera, which came out better than all my digital photos, and much better than the polaroids.

San Francisco

I went to San Francisco with Uni at the end of February. I was looking for prospective places to live when I graduate, and this is up near the top of the list! Loved it. The work people are making out there is amazing, especially in terms of printmaking, which is what I' keen to do.

Met loads of amazing people, including Michael Gilette, Michael Bartalos and Jason Munn (Small Stakes). Also got to look round some amazing studios, including Dwell Magazine, Chronicle Books, Hatch Design and Apple (but I'm sworn to secrecy as to what I saw!)