Mum

I've had a very intensive few days working on this music project! It's so nice to get really into a project so you become obsessed with it (not good news for my dissertation though!). Anyway, I was struggling to come up with a logo/identity that would compliment Alice's drawings, be in keeping with the mood of the record cover and still be something that I liked. This is what I came up with. We did a lot of screen printing today and I can't wait to get it all done! I will post more when it's all done. 

In other academic news...

Me, Millie, Claire and Chloe gave a talk today at uni about our Transatlantic Design project, which went down very well! I'm feeling very enthusiastic about the project now, sometimes it's good to hear back from other people about how the project is going because it makes you a bit motivated. To be honest, I don't always pay it much attention because it's always on the back burner but days like today make me realise how lucky I am and how much potential I have : )

Alice and I are looking at a lot of themes for the cd/record cover. A lot of the tracks relate to water and sleeping, and the first track is called sleep/swim so I guess I started there to get some ideas. We were both keep to use something like cross stitch for the title/band name but didn't want it to look too 'folky'. These are just a few solutions I came up with yesterday. 

Music Project

These are just a couple of ideas that I've been trying to work out for the music project. 

Asronomy

It's so nice to get really excited about a project, which I am at the moment, which means obsessive research and late night working. It is so much fun, as opposed to the occasional project that seems like a chore. Anyway, I've been looking through all my old books and archives for stuff for this new project. The band we're doing the cover for are from Iceland so I was researching their seasons, because it's in the arctic circle they get total darkness for a few weeks in winter, 24 hour sun in summer as well as beautiful clear night skies and of course the northern lights. I came across this old children's atlas which has a section on astronomy, which is really interesting and has some lovely diagrams. It's so refreshing to read about things like this which aren't necessarily part of your every day conscious.  

Plane Crash

I just found this image while researching something totally unrelated (isn't it funny how internet searches often take you to strange places) and I thought I would blog about it. Apart from the fact that it's a strange and gorgeous photos, it's also a fantastic story. Someone told me (while on a plane) that that was the only time a pilot has ever managed to land an air craft in water without it breaking on impact (so the safety information about landing in water has never been put into practice before - eek!). My oldest brother, who is a pilot, sent me a link once to a site where you could listen to the radio transmissions between pilot and air control in the minutes between realising there was a problem and him ditching in the river. It's pretty amazing stuff, if I find it again I will post it on here. 

*** link to the video here ***

(the text on the screen is the dialogue between the captain and co pilot, what you can hear is the dialogue between the captain and air traffic control. Also, look at the bottom of the screen you can see how high they are and how fast they're travelling).

Another interesting site here.

music project

We've been given an exciting new project to art direct an identity/album for an album from a list. I'm working with the oh-so-talented Alice and we're going to do an identity for the Icelandic band Mum. I just spent the afternoon looking through all my archives and books for images to get us started. I ended up spending most of the afternoon just messing around with potential logos (getting a bit ahead of myself) but I did this, which I quite like anyway. It was so nice just to sit and draw and get really into it, something that I wish I got to do more. I think on our course we're kind of encouraged to be ultra productive and neat and well presented, which doesn't leave much time just for messing around. 

Cinematic Orchestra

I went to see Cinematic Orchestra last night and they were nothing short of amazing! I'm no good at reviews so I wont attempt one. But needless to say I had goosebumps for most of the night (from the music, not the cold). If you don't know them I seriously suggest finding them on spotify. They were showing 'A Man with a Movie Camera', the 1929 silent experimental documentary film by Russian Director Dziga Vertov, to which Cinematic Orchestra have made the soundtrack and re released. 

See some of their videos here and here and here .

The Sartorialist

I was procrastinating majorly yesterday and managed to do not much work at all. But sometimes I think it's quite good to have a few hours of looking at things on the internet just to take your mind off of your work and perhaps get some inspiration in unexpected places. I have a lot of guilty pleasures online which keep me very distracted! One of my favourites is the Sartorialist. People watching is one of my most addictive pass times, and this blog brings the best dressed characters from around the globe straight to me in my room so I don't have to brave the bad weather! It's well worth looking at. I particularly like the dapper older men on the blog!