I have just had a spring/winter clean of my laptop ready to get windows 7 and lots of nice new things, and it took me 3 hours. I find these pics from two London exhibitions that I have been looking for for ages! I realised they're rubbish pictures, don't know what I was doing with the camera, but they were both really great exhibitions so I thought I'd put them up. I'm sure there were more somewhere...

The Design Museum - Super Contemporary

London thinks, designs and makes like no other city; it creates and the world follows. A magnet for mavericks and freethinkers, London has nurtured a creative community that continues to rival all other design capitals. So, Design Museum joined forces with Beefeater 24 to celebrate the fearlessly progressive spirit of London's greatest creative minds, past and present.

I am sorry the pics were not better (not sure what an earth I was doing with the camera this day) because I spent about 4 hours looking round this one exhibition, it was one of the most interesting and informative exhibitions I have ever been too and I learnt loads.

The history of underwear at the Textile museum in London. A bit pricy to get in considering the size but it was good. I love timelines because I am such a geek and this one was really great- the history of underwear contextualised with important historical events concerning women, politics and design. There was some very old (1600's) and some very expensive (diamond encrusted chanel) under garments on display, some crazy totally impractical ones and some beautifully exquisitely designed pieces. I never realised how closely women's underwear and politics related!

P.S now I have windows 7 and CS4 and have fallen in love with my computer all over again =) Speedy Gonzalez!

Worth talking about...

The new advert aimed at teenagers about contraception (the one with all the speech bubbles) was done by the agency I did my work experience at over summer. The last week I was there I sat in on a brief presentation of ideas from LIDA (The direct marketing agency of M&C Saatchi that I was working in) and M&C Saatchi themselves and saw the very first sketches and mock ups of this idea. At this stage they were still quite illustrative and for much longer conversations, but I guess the visual style was pretty close to the finished piece already. After ideas, the TV production went of to Saatchi's and the website was designed by LIDA. It was funny to see the way the two agencies worked together - one evening the creatives in my office waited until 10' 0 clock at night to get Saatchi's decision on a typeface before they could even start working on the website mock ups for a presentation the next day. Crazy. I'm not sure about the final website, I think it could have been a lot more interesting visually than it is. I wasn't sure in the first place about the idea - whether or not it was strong enough to actually reach young people? I don't know if the choice of media is right either. I think the final things are OK...hmm, nice, but that's as much enthusiasm as I can muster up. Just don't think it has enough impact or reach to get such a difficult target audience to pay any attention to such a difficult subject. Then again, maybe I am wrong!

The Tv ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGZ33Bu1Y7s

The Website:

http://www.nhs.uk/worthtalkingabout/Pages/sex-worth-talking-about.aspx

London

I guess I'm beginning to sell out... I just love London and I can't get enough of it! And the best thing about being a northerner is that they love you =) Peter Saville was right, northerners do work harder and don't the southerners seem to know it!

Well, on Tuesday I blagged my way into a social media day at Ogilvy in London and rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous of social media. haha, not quite but almost. I met the marketing director of YouTube, Spotify, Last FM, Skype and Bebo. I talked to an American guy who worked on Obama's facebook campaign. I also met the guy who my whole essay was inspired by- David Bausola - who is the founder of this new idea called Purefold. Its this company who work with friendfeed and creative commons and Ridley Scott films and they basically create content based on Live internet feeds for brands and then hand them over to the public, who can do what they want with them. http://www.ag8.com/people:index

It's the future. =)

Here's some work that I did while I was in London for a campaign for Connections at Saint Martins, a London based homeless charity who does a lot of immediate work in the area helping to get people off the streets.

We designed these stickers to be stuck all over Westminster that would draw peoples attention to the reality of homeless lifestyles.


The work for this brief went down really well and it was entered into a competition to be presented to the client. Still waiting to see what happens, but who ever wins will get to exhibit and have there ideas made!

Last week in London

I started writing this post last week and just as I posted it the computer crashed and it didn't post and i nearly cried. It toll me about three hours to write too. So this is attempt number two (now that I've almost got over losing everything)...

So last week my time in London came to an end. Its been a long 5 weeks I must admitt but I have learned so much. The people I've met and the advice and talks i've heard i know will have a big effect on my work next year. I feel i've got some inside knowledge and experience that other people may not have got till leaving uni and hopefully I can put it all into practice to make sure this year is the best yet!

So here is what i discovered in my last week.... theres quite a lot!!

Cork street

Mac directed me to this little street and it was certainly worth it, loads of little galleries which exhibits work to sell and so most of the stuff is by new artists not so commercial.

Fujio Akai- this work wasn't actually on display but I found it in a catalogue of coming work and I absolutely love it. Maybe one day i'll be able to afford a piece of this work- the colours are so intense and I could look into it for hours.

Julian Opie- There was original Opie for sale in one gallery. The first time I saw his work was in Amsterdam about 5 years ago and then I was really into this kind of style then! One of the pieces for sale was a digital moving woman- not sure where you would put it up but it did capture the woman walking perfectly!
The very last gallery I went into was dedicated to Patrick caulfield. Since he died they've been collecting as much of his work as they can. There was a lot of more detailed intricate patterns than I had seen in his work before. I do love it when you finally see peoples work for real after seeing it in books and online so much- its always either so much better of a big let down and Caulfield was definately much better!


Iris Thorsteinsdottir- This photographer really caught my eye. She plays with inside and outside spaces- would have been really good artist to look at for the contextual studies last year!
Ffiona Lewis- a big collection of paintings and although they were all very similar I did like the style of painting. Feels very much like a dull rainy day feels!
David Spiller- This wasn't the work that I saw on display but I couldn't find that online. I came across some more of his work which is really interesting!

Jason Gathorne Hardy- Sketchs of birds. I like drawings that have a lot of energy in them and feel alive and these definately have that.

James Judge- his paintings are just beautiful. I'm a sucker for anything with beautiful colours!

Paul Wunderlich- Odaliske. Very peculiar image that just caught my eye, there's somethign very haunting about it.
Paul Feiler- mmm I adore symmetry
Terry Frost
Beverly Rouwen- Through the wood

The Victoria and Albert Museum

I went to the V&A to see the telling tales exhibition about design and fairy tales/fantasy and I would reccomend it if you're in london. Unfortunately you can't take photos and none of the stuff is online but the website is really cool and shows of the exhibition very well http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/telling-tales/

I found some other cool stuff on my way to the telling tales exhibition- this is someone's collection of paintings of a saint that they collected from everywhere, carboot sales, markets, shops. They filled two big rooms top to bottom and were all the same. Interestingly mass produced image yet each one is hand painted and slightly different from others.

The Jameel prize- V&A have collected Islamic work from the 1850's, believing the idea of structuring patterns and matching decoration to shape and function could improve British design. This is the biennial award for contemporary Islamic artists.

Reza Abedini: Use of calligraphy as humans represents them as bearers of thought.

Hamras Abbas- Please do not step

This poem was transfered onto the floor in really delicate patterned type. It was in the doorway so you had to ignore the instructions in the title in order to get into the room. It was inspired by the artists feelings of displacement risen from Anti- Islamic sentiment.



Hassan Hajjaj- le salon

A real living room made totally out of brands western and islamic!

The Museum of Childhood

Original Roahld Dahl and Quinten Blake =) Love them Love them Love them childhood heros
Like I said before I love drawings with energy about them and these bring the characters and stories to life perfectly. The two artists just totally compliment and make each other!

The Portrait Gallery

Whenever I go to the portrait gallery I am always blown away. I actually can't prepare myself enough for how incredible the paintings will be!! Especially the BP awards. Some of them its difficult to tell apart from photographs!
Allessandro Raho- Judi Dench
Marc Crank- Alaister Adams
Jason Brooks- Sir Paul Nurse
Matt Holyoak- Harry Potter (Photo)
Agnes by Natalie Holland
Jose Luis- Corella
Georgie by Mary Jane
Maggie by Sue Rubira

On Assi Ghat by Edward Sutcliffe
Tom by Micheal Gaskell

When your a boy- the photographers gallery

an exhibition of Simon Foxton, a stylist, and various photographers he'd worked with.



Above fashion photos by Nick Knight I found after seeing some of his work with Foxton. I really like his style
With Jason Evans- I.D spread 'hey there fancy pants- they have done a lot of work for I-D and Face- might go and dig out some old issues from the library!

Punk- The Face feb 1886

With Nick Knight- Ongoing series of projects reinventing icons of British culture from punks to skinheads to 18th century master paintings. Riot of colour, customised workwear, household objects and cheeky references to gay subculture.

Well there you have it. I tried to narrow down eveything I put on here to the things that really made an impact on me, but so much did I still have the longest blog post possibly ever!