Link Storm

Sites which have been making me laugh recently are Dimly lit meals for one and How not to act old. And from Youtube 'my new eyebrows' and 'Narrating People's Lives'. Goosebumps plots illustrated from memory  also made me smile.


Other sites I've been enjoying have been these 'What the Hell Happened?' blog posts following the careers of actors who were once huge and have seemingly disappeared. Pretty interesting. I genuinely have wondered with most of those actors why we never see them in movies anymore. It follows Josh Hartnett and Colin Farrell as two examples. These guys used to be huge. 

Another nice site is The Listmaker Collective - a sweet group of lists - everybody likes a good list.

Chinese New Year

It was Chinese new year last week. I made myself a bracelet of beads of the animals of the Chinese zodiac and painted my nails an imperial red to celebrate. Here are some photos of my recent trip to the Chinese supermarket in Bristol - it is possibly one of my favourite places - everything is odd and it makes my brain feel like it is expanding looking at all the weirdly shaped vegetables and strangely flavoured things you can eat - grass jelly anyone? There is a restaurant upstairs I have still to go to also.

Flowers

Reading List

Here is a review of some of the books I have been reading lately - 

David Mitchell - Black Swan Green
David Mitchell is most famous for the book 'Cloud Atlas' which is made up of intertwining stories from across several centuries and narrators, and which has a post apocalyptic sci-fi element to it. It was made into a film by the people who did The Matrix. I was given Black Swan Green as a christmas present by someone who had read and loves the Cloud Atlas but has never read this particular book, and I myself hadn't read anything by Mitchell. It is nothing like Cloud Atlas at all. Weirdly enough is is like a darker Adrian Mole - following the life of a school boy in 1980s Britain dealing with bullying and his parent's marriage falling apart. I couldn't stop reading it for some reason and really enjoyed it. This is definitely not for kids though.

Gretchen Rubin- Happier at Home
I loved this book. Practical thoughts on how to be happier and enjoy your home more.

The Laws of Simplicity - John Maeda, M.I.T
I have only just started this book which was written by a professor in M.I.T's media lab who is also a graphic designer. Seems ok, has a few interesting points to make. I hold my judgement, but I feel I could learn some things to benefit my design work.

Vogue on Alexander Mcqueen
Kind of disappointing and sticks to the bare facts, but covers Mcqueen's life quite comprehensively. I would like to read more books about Mcqueen as he was such a visionary and an extraordinary designer.

Robin Mckinley - Shadows
Its no 'Sunshine' (also by Mckinley) which is in my top 10, maybe 5 favourite books of all time, but it has lots of similarities to it. This novel is set in our world, but with major differences. The use of magic is real and also banned, and causes rifts in reality. The main character is a young girl who's mother marries a man from eastern Europe who's shadows move of their own accord and form unnerving shapes that look like creatures. An engaging escapist fantasy.

Audio books

Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures 

I really enjoy the Discworld books - they are consistently hillarious, comforting and engaging with entertaining story lines and great characters. I love  how prolific Pratchett has been at creating a whole world of stories - 40 so far, with a new one due out this Autumn. Nigel Plainer voices this audio book and he is my favourite out of the actors that do them, doing great character voices and a real range of accents and funny voices.

Books I didn't like  

Both The Book Thief and 'Never Let Me Go' which were both made into movies quite recently. I found The Book Thief a bit pretentious and weird - it tries too hard to be constantly poetic and I couldn't get into it so never finished it. It is about war time Germany and as you would expect it is very depressing. Never Let Me Go was also grim and sad, I read the whole thing but more because I wanted it to get better and it never did, and also because the author kept baiting me with this big secret he revealed in dribs and drabs, which was that the main characters were all clones made to be harvested for their organs. Lovely. 

Typography

Transitioning from Illustration to doing more Graphic Design is something which has been both kind of instinctive and natural in some ways, and really hard and not what I am used to in others. For example - colour, layout, a general sense of design and what looks good, cross over on both platforms. HTML and learning good typography on the other hand - take work.

When I first seriously thought about making the jump I spoke to my husband - who is a designer - and he recommended that one of the things I should be learning about was type. He then gave me a stack of his books which I dutifully ploughed through.

I feel there are two stances on typography which are exemplified by the two main books I read:
The 'anally retentive, never goes to parties and has a constant tension headache' group, represented by Robert Bringhurst's 'The Elements of Typographic Style', and the 'fit for purpose, lets not get to serious'  approach represented by 'Stop stealing sheep and learn how type works' by Erik Spiekermann and E.M.Ginger. 

Actually, I tell a lie, there is also the typography pornography group, who just love looking at crazy type.

The thing is, as with most things, you have to know the rules before you can ignore or discard them, and it is good to have a strong foundation in theory, to understand how things do and don't work. 

Some useful sites and articles I have found whilst educating myself about type:

The Typographic circle have a very good learning section

A beginners guide to pairing fonts

upscaletypography.com

typographyserved.com

typography.com

Good online typography shops:

myfonts.com

Veer's online font shop

Both these sites are generally pretty cheap and showcase what the current fashionable fonts are - good for keeping your finger on the pulse.

Type Porn:

welovetypography.com an image board of beautiful typography examples submitted from readers.

Be Type - personally my favourite site from this list - fun, loose, fashionable, and doesn't take itself to seriously, just posts amazing type.

Image from MaricorMaricar Studio via BeType

Inspiring Creative Agencies

I like looking at the work of design agencies for inspiration, there is some incredible work being showcased online.
Here are some of the agencies I admire:

Anti-Norwegian creative agency 

Multistorey design and art direction

Hisham Akira Bharoocha  with the artists representation agency Hugo and Marie - their artists are incredible

Sounds

Listening to this week:

Asian Radio for some bhangra

De La Soul - ItSoWeeze

Aphex Twin - minipops - obsessed.

Radio 4 - not a normal thing for me to be listening to, but it makes me think of living back home with my Mum and Dad and eating marmalade on toast for breakfast.

Bent,  Exercise 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Playful, naive, electro-collage from the mid 2000's. I remember hearing these guys on John Peel or something like that when I was a young teenager and taping them on to a mix tape. They are very sweet and charming and weird and totally remind me of that time, and the kind of things I was listening to then.

Valentines Month

I have always hated February. Its a month where the weather tends to continue to get colder and there is no Spring in sight. Christmas and the New Year are well and truly past and all you have is bleakness.

A couple of years ago I discovered a little cheap florist and bought some indoor bulbs of hyacinths, mini daffodils and lilly of the valley and put them on my windowsill. I had also seen Picnic at Hanging Rock - a 70s film set in the victorian times about an all girls school, where some of the girls go missing on Valentines day, and bought 'Miss Dahl's voluptuous delights' from a charity shop - which is embarrassingly girly but lovely to read. I decided instead of Valentines being on the 14th of February, for me it was going to be the whole of February.

Cue watching girly films, wearing pink and pretty things and having flowers on my desk all February. It does actually make me feel a whole lot better about the month, and instead of slipping into a mind numbing depression I actually quite enjoy it. I like escaping off into my imagination when the weather is cold, and especially around valentines, I enjoy books and movies with a bit of a 'fairytale' twist, like The Brothers Grimm, and The Fall.

Some things inspiring me in February -

Reading -
Titus Groan and Gormenghast, Miss Dahl's voluptuous delights, Vogue on Alexander Mqueen, Red Magazine,Vogue.

Watching -
Picnic at hanging rock, Marie Antionette, Buffalo 66, The Brothers Grimm, Disney films bought for me by my mother, The Moomins, Valentines day (obviously).

Eating and Drinking -
Earl grey in the afternoons from a pretty tea cup and saucer. Too many treats and sweets. Fruit and smoothies.

Wearing -
Pink and red nail varnish, pretty makeup and sparkly delicate jewellery, florals , pinks, reds and pastels.

Dream travel destinations -
The highlands of Scotland, Edinburgh, Bath, London, Paris (also obviously).

Doing -
Going for more runs, swimming, going for frosty walks with my husband and camera, going on lots of dates.

 

Sugared almonds, hyacinths making my office smell amazing and floral, flowers springing up in my garden, current favorite cook book.

More French Resources

Data Gueule is a youtube channel of narrated infographics explaining data in french. Good for gaining understanding of the words by being able to see images and pairing it with the french that is being spoken.

France Culture - part of a group of French radio stations available to listen online

National Film Board of Canada - Educational films in English and in French.

Pink Valentines Roses

Learning French

Since I was a child I have always thought the French language was so beautiful and romantic and the ability to speak more than one language was covetable. Growing up I had bilingual cousins from Denmark and I was so jealous of their ability to speak and understand both Danish and English. When we would spend time with them and they would speak in their own language it was like they could have secrets right in front of us. There is something quite magical about knowing other languages.

Over the past ten years or more I have still been fascinated by French. When I was a teenager we could get the French news channel 'TV5' on our TV, and I would put it on not knowing what they were saying but enjoying the sounds of the words and repeating them to myself. Similarly I used to tune my radio in over long wave and get the crackly French radio stations from over the channel - full of interference and weird screechy noises. Hot quiet dark summer nights listening to that on the radio on my own were the best.

I have never really taken proper formal French lessons and wish we could have taken it at school - in my half of the school year you took German. My hope has always been that I can kind of learn it by osmosis and that if French babies can learn it then so can I. 

I found a few French novels in a junk shop in university and started reading those - not knowing what I was reading but enjoying saying the words- and every time I am in a second hand book shop I will look in their foreign language section and buy any French books I think look interesting. I now have quite a collection.

I also try to immerse my self in hearing the language, and listen to french radio online and watch french movies and videos on youtube. 

Some good resources I have found for learning French:

One of the best things I have found has been Daily French Pod who have a website you can listen to, but you can also subscribe for their regular podcasts on itunes. Louis from Daily French Pod is excellent and this is one of the resources I feel I have learned the most from. Each podcast is about five minuets long and quick and easy to listen to - I used to listen to them on my bus to work - and explains in both French and English basic topics and news stories. 

Garance Dore is a style and fashion blogger who has her site identically in French and English. I enjoy reading this site as I like this type of blog in general anyway, and because I can read the French version, try and work out what I think it says, and then read the English one and correct myself and check words I don't know.

Et Pourquoi Pas Coline? Is another fashion and Beauty blog in French also with videos, and although she doesn't do much English, her blog is really good looking and I like the kind of things she posts.

There are a few similar youtube channels - Rose Carpet, Enjoy Phoenix and Clara Channel, which are also beauty channels and are easy watching, and good for hearing lots of spoken French.

Hands