So! Long time no post.... Whoops. So yea.... Biggest news first I suppose and then I will probably ramble as I do usually... So for people who follow me on Instagram, you will more than likely already know. So Pete and I are officially new home owners! We are moved in and everything! For those of you that don't have me on Instagram, here are a few images that I have posted in the last month about our adventures and moving in. Clearly I have been so busy I haven't really had time to put up many. So first image is Pete literally picking up the keys to our new gaff. I was proper raging, as he got out of work early and I still had to stay in until 5. He at least waited for me before going to the house. 2nd image is the first neighbor we met, very nosy! we later found out that this fluffy high member of the neighbor hood watch is called buster. 3rd is just us "Getting our ducks in a row" figuring out whats what. I have to admit the first few weeks since moving in, I still feel as though I am house sitting. I have just decided to move all my crap here and try to invoke squatting rights. I am told this is normal though. It's all still very new and strange, I am sure a few people reading this are thinking I am mental.... cheers! I have even been getting into gardening as we have an amazing little garden here, previous owner kindly left us all her amazing plants, we have apple and pear trees. Blueberry, blackberry, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and any other berry plant. Tomatoes and loads of herbs, still haven't gotten round to weeding everything..... It's still on the very large to do list. Here's a couple of photos of our pear and apple trees. We have also had a few visitors of the four legged fluffy kind to our little garden........ And because I have nothing else to do with my time and we haven't yet been told what their names are. We have named them! so on the bottom right we have Toothless, the middle image is of Gandalf (because he's grey) and Charlie.... cause of the mustache.... yea...... and well you guys already know Valentino. He crawled in the back of our nephews pram and decided it was his new home.... Couldn't resist not putting him up. So enough about my wee hoouse. Work wise, things kind of took a turn for the worst. Literally the week we were going to sign for the house, I was moved from being in house designer to dispatch... Basically the company I work for is incredibly small only 6 of us working there and basically they wanted more support for the actual printing team and basically shuffled everyone's jobs about. From the company point of view I honestly think it was the right thing to do. It makes total sense. From my point of view, I was completely devastated. A lot of people thought I was being a bit over dramatic about the change. I honestly cried for days after it happened, I just felt like I could finally be one of those..... .....Who say they love their job and everyone pretty much hates.... I was finally doing a job I enjoyed, I had free rein and I actually enjoyed going to work. I even felt like a woman scorned and seriously contemplated walking out. But being an adult and suddenly having a mortgage, mind over heart won. Not the everything is as doom and gloom as I make it sound. I have to admit though (not that I have been doing my new role long) It really isn't all that bad. I still really miss doing design, its on my mind all the time. I am still from time to time asked to do a few things for customers design wise. We even got a big new sexy machine in work. We are now able to do spot UV and foiling. I have even been asked to design a marketing card for the company to use, to send out and show off what we are now able to do on top of everything else. However, after today I feel like the excitement for that was short lived. Due to with my new role I don't really have to much time to do anything mind blowing. I am pretty sure my boss got too excited and ended up just stealing images off google..... BUT! now that we have our own place I feel that I was just practicing and getting back into the way of things with using Photoshop and Illustrator. I plan to keep it going whether I am designing on commission or just doing arty farty things for myself. I may continue down the path of wedding stationery, I am not too sure. Either way I don't plan to give it up and I feel that after leaving university and having a bit of a fall out with all things arty is finally over. I want to do it all the time, I want to get better at it and I want to keep exploring and practicing. Just doing loads of different things. So I am still getting my office sorted in me hoouse, but I am hoping by the end of this month I will have everything semi set up. Plus now that my company has this new toy, I am hoping to maybe get new business cards done. As I very cleverly, locked myself out of my arty email address.... NIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCEEE! so yea, I finally got a few of my designs that I did design for work. Here are a few of them. Hope you like them. The only other piece of design I have really done lately that isn't work related was making a cheesy poster for my partner. Yesterday was our 6 year anniversary.... Scarily all grown up now and proper with having a house together. I decided to make something for the house and for him. It was a song that we were pretty into when we first met and were getting to know each other. So yea... I guess you could call it "our song". (Slightly want to throw up with all the cheesiness). Anyways here is the poster I made So yea... that's all from me this month, here's hoping next month is as fun packed!
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So this month I actually did stuff, not as much as I would have liked but I have definitely done more. So I have been trying to really get back into my design, have actually been revisiting old work. I have also been experimenting a little bit So not too sure if you will recognize any of the above. These are from my British classic design project from university a variation of originals shown below and you can also find them in my store: Annnnnnnnd..... speaking of store, I added 4 of my multi coloured images to my shop, mainly cause I'm still not too happy with 2 of them here is a little snap of what I have added: I also looked back a little to my think happy thoughts t-shirt. I tweaked it a little bit, I changed some of the colours round, I'm still not happy with it. I may even just re-draw the whole thing. Before and After, I wanted to make it a little more warmer and I don't know why, but the moutashe colour was annoying me. I felt it had to be a closer colour to the unicorns natural hair colour. Yup. As I said though I am still not too happy with it, I want to go back and play more with highlights and shadows, or as I said previously just start the drawing again from scratch. I also went on holiday this month to Portugal. Literally the first time I have been out of the UK and Ireland in 9 years. It was stunning. I had a fantastic time, cool beer, hot weather and blue skies. I couldn't ask for anything more. I only wish I had gotten more photos.
My partner and I are even starting to plan our next holiday to Vegas baby! which should be good. This month I plan on just continuing to design more things, I have realised my portfolio is seriously lacking in so many elements. So I am planning to fix that. I also have more work lined up in the form of labels for some local products. All negotiations are still on going so I can't really talk much about it at the moment, but I am very excited. That's all from me for this month. So I got a hell of a lot done today, I am almost there to having everything finished up, it's just a case of getting things printed and mounted for the degree show. Today I spent mainly drawing up my jokers for the Monster deck and the cup cake deck. I also went back and fixed my traditional deck of cards. I have now gone online and have managed to find a quote to get them printed. I am just not too sure at the moment whether or not to get multiples printed off to sell, as I am a poor student. At the moment I have worked out that I am able to at least get 3 of the cupcakes and 3 of the monster decks printed. I have looked at my traditional deck of cards and although I do like it. I have realized that they more than likely will not be very interesting to others. I would prefer to get all of the one deck of cards, So I am going to ask around and see what others suggest. I have basically until Sunday to decide. As I had hoped to get them printed out for my hand in. But looks like it's going to take roughly 3 weeks to get them sent here, so yea. Anyways here are my jokers I designed: I have also decided on which backs I want to have on my cards: I am not too sure about the cupcake backing, I am hoping to use the jumble of cupcakes, although I am unsure. I have however decided to go with these blue and red backs for the Monsters and Traditional decks of cards. The red for the Traditional and the Blue for the Monsters. I am hoping to do more research into the photography portraits I previously done and get them all prepared as well as my cards above for print for the degree show, I am currently thinking of having the below as my exhibition: obviously With the Cup Cakes I am planning on just choosing one of the suits and I will do the same with the other two suits, then on the fourth line of the cards I am planning to show the jokers choose one of the backings. to display. I was also thinking about even having some vinyl gold coins around the portraits. I also want to experiment again with words at the bottom or along the top of the portraits with facts. Although I already have a feeling that these may be stronger on their own. However I am still planning on experimenting further.
Even as I look at these now, I have realized I haven't yet bought the piggy banks, I am hoping to also go to hobby craft. Maybe find some cheaper Piggy Banks.... Anyways, to get to the point, I may even experiment and see if I might be able to write facts about how companies exploit people out of money or even just the facts of how money in big businesses are corrupted. I knew my dissertation research would come in handy now! That's it for me today, hopefully more to show tomorrow. So, I missed a day yesterday. I took the day off from doing my work, I needed to shower my head and just chill out. Pressure is properly building and I'm not going to lie, I am getting so stressed out with work and I'm started to firmly believe that I may not even get my degree... I have been working on my blurb for my end of year show, I have to admit I am actually not even too sure on what work I will be showing. So I have found the whole process of writing about my work incredibly difficult. I have also been doing a bit of photoshopping today, and re-took my Coca-Cola portrait images. So the above are my original images from today, I then took them into photoshop and began to experiment with them. I firstly started to clone tool out all the un-needed shadows, I then went on to actually take off all the calorie counts and bar-codes off it. Mainly so the viewer doesn't get distanced by all things Coca-Cola put on their labels. I wasn't really satisfied with just that, so I decided to actually colour my skin, red. Just like Coca-Cola. However. I don't have any face paint, so I have been experimenting through photoshop. Although I may invest in some face paints and experiment further. Here is what I have come up with so far: I'm still not too overly sure about it, although I plan to continue to experiment. While I was experimenting I ended up doing this, I am starting to think that this might look even better if I drew it. Although I have to admit I have a lot of things I need to start getting on with within Illustrator. Like my monster deck of cards. Speaking of cards, I got my business cards ordered!! whoop!, I ended up going with my original idea of having just the logo on the front and the text on the back. and going with the old school rectanglenessnessness look.
So, I was unable to blog yesterday due to travelling home for the weekend. I also went out and celebrated a little with friends, as my dissertation is done :D So I was unable to blog yesterday. I haven't really done much uni work since I have been home, just doing the rounds of seeing friends and family. I am hoping to start doing more logo work tomorrow, I have also been thinking a little bit more on, what to do for my main project. I will explain a little bit more tomorrow, however in short I am thinking of just making a book or even just a poster on how to help students save money and possibly looking into well-being of students. Not too sure, will look more into it tomorrow. Thats all from me for today.
Short blog for you's today. Well, this will be my last even post about my dissertation! Happy days, handed it in today, so happy :D it's all officially over, now to get on with studio work. So yesterday I had a few friends from back home come to visit me, hence why there was no post made yesterday. We showed them the sites and I even went to a new bar in Aberdeen called "The Boozy Cow", I have to admit I do not recommend this place, as I had envisioned boozy milkshakes. But there wasn't any, that and if your a huge fan of saw and want to be in the next one, then this is the place for you! Meat hooks hung from the ceiling, the bar smelt like a butchers and there was very dark red light. We had to put the torch mode on our phones, just to read the menu's. A rather blurry picture of the meat hooks and cage that were attached to the ceiling. Surprisingly the image on the left was the tastiest of the drinks we had. It also had 0 alcohol content in it. I got a "Nutty Cow", It was a total struggle to continue drinking and to be honest was just awful. But the company was good and the bar staff friendly.
Again, I may not be able to blog tomorrow as I am going home for a week and travelling home tomorrow. But we shall see, it could maybe be a late one :) So today I decided to go back to my logo project. I have been going through so many images of octopuses. Looking at species, and just general shapes of them. I defiantly preferred the images of them just swimming. So I decided I have done sooooo much research, I'm going to jump into the deep end, so the above are the same image with slight differences. This is just my first trail sort of run for my logo. The back ground is also not permanent. I just needed to see clearer on what I was doing. I do like this logo so far, but I'm still not too sure. Also on a side note here is my final dissertation out put: First image is the front of the dissertation, Second image is the inside, along with the dissertation, and the third is the bum. I plan to hand this in on Friday which it is due to be in for anyways. I had planned to hand it in today or tomorrow, but due to laziness and being preoccupied with logo designs, and fixing up my other sketchbooks. I didn't get to hand it in today. I also have people coming from home tomorrow to Aberdeen, for a wee visit. So I don't think I will be able to hand it in tomorrow. Which also brings me to my final point, I may not be able to blog tomorrow. Due to this visit and the fact my crappy little phone won't allow me to blog, which sucks. So there will be either no blog tomorrow or a the very least a late one. Back to business, Here are a few of the octopus images I was looking at today I love the bottom middle image, the amount of detail within the image is truly stunning. My logo is still not as perfect as I would like it, however this is just the very early stages. Hopefully on Friday I will have more to show on the Logo and Deck of card front.
So my dissertation is finally over, I have printed it all out and it's looking pretty tasty. I will be getting it binded tomorrow, then I can finish getting the cover and all done for it. I went back and re-designed my cover image for my dissertation, I also did a little more design with preparing my shopping bag look for the actual cover of the dissertation. So just a little recap, this is the bag for my cover, I then made a little label you can see below Sorry for the bright colors, this image is in CMYK format . I then added this to my bag: It's not perfectly done, but you get the idea. I then went a head and started to cut the bag, so it will fold and be more of a dust cover for my dissertation: This is my dissertation currently sitting in the cover. This is also my new cover it has changed since last night. I still find it very hard to read. So I even changed the design again: This is my final, I'm done lol. So yes, getting this binded tomorrow and then trying to get it to stay in it's new cover will be interesting. Hopefully I don't completely wreck it. On another note, I got talking to a tutor today, looked over all my work and have started to determine which direction I will be going into. So I have been advised to create a student survival guide. Help students to budget money and such. I am in two minds about it at the moment to be honest. As I wanted to do more sort of photography stuff. Like I looked up this guy: Gabriel Wickbold, I would love to do my own version of this and have people covered in things that our to do with consumerism. I think it'd be pretty sweet. I haven't yet started research into this, but I have to admit I am very excited about this and I do really think it can work. So that's all from me today. Hopefully will have a finished Dissertation to show tomorrow. If all goes to plan :D
So today was a great day! I watched the England vrs Ireland match, we won! SO over the moon 19 - 9 :D It was beautiful! on the uni front of things, I finally got my dissertation completely finished and put through Turnitin (A program I completely hate) however this time it was actually nice to me: For those who don't know what turnitin is, it is a program that looks through documents and scans for plagiarism, amongst your work and other students in your class, as well as on the web. So I am incredibly happy to have gotten only 8% WHOOP! i'll not lie, I haven't plagiarized anything, so I did expect it to give me a low percentage. But compared to what other students write sometimes it can be very frustrating, especially when everyone is writing on the same subject. This is my first sort of Idea for a cover image for my dissertation, I made the Queen smile a little more, however clone tooling all of the other little details out of the image was a pain in the butt. I am not too sure about this being my final for my cover. Although I am very happy to continue with this Idea, I am just unsure of this being my final image for it.
That's all from me today, Tomorrow I have a meeting with a tutor to go over my work and clarify a little more of what my jumble of research can lead to, and where I'm going with things. So hopefully that will be good. I'm also hoping to get my dissertation printed tomorrow, possibly binded too. But if not, I will get it at least printed tomorrow :D |