Car adverts are my favourite.

I always think they're the best adverts.
x

You could only wish...

...That you could do crafting like this.
I genuinely gasped when I found this guy in the Illustration Play book.

Peter Callesen.





I don't think it needs any descriptions?
Crazy.
x

Say Whaaat is a line?!

Well. When we got the project the first things I thought of were Type and Architecture.
I have got a book on skyscrapers because I think they're...amazing.
However! This post is on what I have done which I like as a starting point and would like to pursue...
I really like the idea of a continuous line.
When I started doing the work below I actually was tired but I was watching something? So I was concentrating on that...but wrote I Am So Tired by:-
1) Not taking the pen off the paper
2) Not looking at the paper.

When I did look at the paper...I loved it :) So I did the same with the whole alphabet, well except for N because obviously that doesn't exist is my world? Lol.

ANYWAY! Below are the sketchy things I ended up doing and then taking them into illustrator and what I created....





I looked at the paper doing the one above and the ones below and...I don't know if I like them as much?





There you have it!
However funny it may seem...below is my first adventure into architecture lol.
Obviously this isn't all I'm going to do.
It was a case of incorporating a house with the type and I really like the idea of it.
I would like to develop these further.
x

Whats goin onnnn?

I haven't posted anything for a week because I don't really have anything visual for the book brief...its been a lot of research etc.
However, Right now -
I have over 100 uses for a carrier bag.
Ideas for visuals i.e. some references for illustration and photography.
I am currently looking at newspapers as I thought of how carrier bags are looked at negatively in the press and newspaper reports like "...bans carrier bags" etc. are seen regularly.
I just need to get on with it!!

Oh. I want these books all to myself.
They're great :)


x

Hmm, Carrier bags...

Well, after the crit I got some really good ideas on what direction I could take my project in...

Because I found the idea of doing 100 of something to do with carrier bags quite daunting, seen as I was supposed to make it interesting...I was kind of lost. 

Then I was given the idea of splitting it in to chapters (i.e. 20 things in each chapter) to make it less scary and then I could do different things in each chapter.

Some ideas were;

A day in the life of a carrier bag.

What not to do with a carrier.

What you could do with a carrier bag.

Peoples opinions on carrier bags.

Unusual places you find carrier bags. (and so on)

SO! I decided to do some secondary research...(seen as I had no idea what I could research before)

And I found some Interesting things! 

^^^^

Dacca Boots - Designer; Camilla Labra's.

Boots made of plastic bags? I'm guessing not the heel and soul of it but the rest is.

I found an article on them in the daily mail. Strange!

_____________________________________________________________________

(Below)

Sandals made of carrier bags...not the most attractive of things! But a very eco-friendly way of getting a new pair of shoes.

I found this on a 'craftzine' blog, it is simply a selection of carrier bags fused together to make a stretch of material and sewn together to make a dress.

This is a piece of work by Virginia Fleck who recycles things by using them in her artwork...and she does use carrier bags!

This is...crazy. But So good.

Joshua Allen Harris.

He uses carrier/plastic bags to make street sculptures in new york. By putting them over a grate above a subway, when a train/tram? goes through the wind inflates them.

Click here (a link to his youtube videos)

Below is something I found on flickr...its on a page called 'Ruby's Re-Usable's Ephemeral Folks'

Some of the pictures are really funny because of the actual humans that are around the 'Folk'.

Carrier bag beads...credit crunch?

Plastic bag photography exhibition in London.

These are the sorts of images I was thinking about for 'unusual places you find paper bags'.

On the first day when we presented our work in small groups, the people I was with thought a book on environmental issues with carrier bags would be a good idea to take but I thought it would be...boring, because (even though I should) I don't really actively think about the environment and ways to help it.

HOWEVER, after doing some research I like the route of ways to re-use carrier bags which in fairness would be quite appropriate with current view on plastic bags and our environment.

100 Ways to re-use a carrier bag?

(Links for some of the work I have mentioned above:

www.myrecycledbags.com

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2007/08/plastic_bag_crafts.html

www.virginafleck.com

http://craftdaisies.com/2007/07/18/recycling-plastic-bags/   )

x

ABC bags...

One week brief...produce an A5, 32 page booklet based on your subject of 100.

Therefore - an A5, 32 page booklet based on 100 carrier bags.

At first I thought, ok this is fine...but then when it came to actually doing it I thought - how?

Regardless of how much I like carrier bags, when it came to producing Something with them, I was confused to say the least.

However, I thought about how much I like typography and the idea of branding and typography on the bags. 

Hense, I produced a booklet on the shapes of 100 carrier bags and the brands that appear on them.

After I produced it my reaction was somewhat underwhelmed.

BUT, it was a learning curve of - Not to do it again.

I was necessarily negative about the idea but a book of 100 of this same thing would be quite boring.

I produced it all by hand and the stock I used really let this down (you could see the ink through the pages)...I should have realised this before. Another learning curve.

The feedback that I got on the book was that the idea was quite good but I could take it further...develop it on illustrator and maybe add swatches of the bag and some more information.

I went on to do this...and unfortunately did every single on of them on illustrator and transferred them onto InDesign etc.

Outcome? Not much better.

So...I went to the Crit on thursday completely lost as to where to take this...But I can now truthfully say, thanks to crit I am Excited again.

But thats a whole other story (well...another post).

x

Update Christmas...

Sooooo, I have been keeping kind of up to date with my blog but I just kind of forgot about these? Which is ridiculous! Lol.

First of all, here's my Typogateux...I like this little collage of some of my pictures :D
I didn't know what word to write, without being predictable with 'Merry Christmas' or something. So, I kind of took inspiration from the ever popular Helvetica cake and did cookies in Futura typeface and they spelled out...Futura. Crazy.

That was actually impressive to see what some people could achieve by just making type out of cake...and, of course it all/most of it, tasted pretty good too!

And this is my Christmas card for Anthony. I love the pearl grey from the library, pretty much my favourite paper at the moment! And Red is christmassy and my favourite colour so I personally liked the card however...I'm not even sure if Anthony saw it? Lol. Nevermind!

Anyway! The celebrations are over but I wanted it evidenced somewhere!
xx

100...

Ok, So! I collected 100 Carrier bags :)
The main reason I did this is because I have a weird obsession for carrier bags and I have kind of collectd for a few years i.e. I have a bag from 2001 in there AND one from the 80's I think, one of my Grandads.
Anyway, Below is a collage of my 99 of my bags in alphabetical order. When I got right to the last picture...i realised I had no more left, so I obviously left one out along the way but this was mainly to illustrate my collection of bags which I think it does nicely.
(Hmm! The image uploader isn't working properly and when I upload a Jpeg it inverts the colours? Weird. So I had to take snapshots and its all split up now. Annoying! Anyway...moving on)
After I took photographs of all my bags, I drew them all which turned out to be quite a nice little book.
Then...I came to somewhat of a stand-still...what do I research now?
Hense, on the presentation day I didn't have a great deal of secondary research.




Well! There ya go. I have a couple of other things i.e. books to put up on my blog but I got a new memory card for christmas (SDHC) and my memory card reader doesn't read it :| so I need to buy another. But It won't be long!

So long!x

Book of 100...

State the title & focus of your work in response to the brief.
Carrier Bags. The focus of my work from this point is to make an interesting book of 100...about carrier bags. I am not completely set on what direction I will take it in as I need to do a lot more research.

Identify specific areas of research that you intend to investigate and methods that you will use.
Research will be a big thing from now on as I didn't gather much 'information' to do with carrier. I currently have 200 pictures of 100 different carrier bags (front and back), 100 drawings of 100 different carrier bags and a list of the bags and colours. I feel that, from looking at other peoples work, I need to do a lot of secondary research on the subject of carrier bags but I don't really know What research will be appropriate or, more importantly, useful.
I would like to find out: artists/designers whose work has appeared on carrier bags; information on the materials used; information about enviromental issues around carrier bags and so on. I would also like to gather appropriate statistics about them.
My main interest when looking at the bags was the type and image used so this could be something that I explore.

Identify specific practical methods and technical processes that you intend to use in order to visually develop your ideas.
I hope to keep photography present in my work, however it may develop further than this. I will use photoshop for the photographs and possibly take them into illustrator to look at the imagery and typogaphy. As I already have 100 drawings, I may scan them and play around with them too in photoshop.
Typography will be a method/technical process present throughout my development.

What methods will you use to evaluate the progress and success of your work?
I will continuously evaluate my work through my sketchbook however, I have found recently that crits and group input tends to be the most effective form of evaluation of my work as I get to see other peoples opinions on it, not just my own. For my final evaluation, I may evaluate it against other books on...not particularly interesting subjects.

Wow, that was harder than I expected.
x

Everyone has a story to tell and that is why everyone is a potential book maker...

What is a book?

'A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
In library and information science, a book is called a monograph, to distinguish it from serial periodicals such as magazines, journals or newspapers.'
Wikipedia.com

First the worst, second the best.
^
I say this because, I find the second half of this blog entry 1000 times more interesting than the first, however...I still thought the first half was important, but the second is inspiring (to me)

The Librarian - Giuseppe Archimboldo

'A lover of books is usually referred to as a bibliophile, a bibliophilist, or a philobiblist, or, more informally, a bookworm.'
Wikipedia.com

# Subject: What is a book?
# From: "Judith B. Kerman"
# Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 12:49:25 -0400 (EDT)

"...the intimacy of the book - that you hold it in your hands, you touch the medium...
...the interaction between you and the page is so private..."

"...a book structures the reader's attention in time, in a way that's
like performance...it's like theatre, dance, music..."

A Book

by Adelaide Love

A book, I think, is very like
A little golden door
That takes me into places
Where I've never been before.

It leads me into fairyland
Or countries strange and far
And, best of all, the golden door
Always stands ajar.

Epitaph for Benjamin Franklin

"The body of Benjamin Franklin
Printer,
Like the covering
Of an old book
Its contents torn out
And stript of its lettering
And gilding
Lies here, food for worms;
But the work
Shall not be lost,
It will (as he believed)
Appear once more,
In a new
And more beautiful edition,
Corrected and amended
By the author."

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

"Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen.
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content,
And what obscured in this fair volume lies
Find written in the margin of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover.
The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory
That in golden clasps locks in the story.
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him making yourself no less."
^^^
Lady Capulet talking to Juliet, compares the young lover's face
to a most captivating book and invites her to read in it with delight.

Edward Hutchins -
"Heaven knows I've tried to make conventional books, but every time I start, illustrations pop off the page, pages unfold like origami, and letters take three-dimensional shape."

"...We need: shape books, counting books, puppet books, unfolding star books, journals, diaries, action books, books with pockets, tunnel books, collage books, single-sheet structures, non-adhesive bindings, slab books, stab books, rotating wheel books, Egyptian name scrolls, Pre-Columbian time lines, cloth books, dos-a-dos bindings, and the ever ubiquitous: codex."

I found a Lot of quotes about books...but I found only a few that interested me...
________________________________________________

"I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book." Groucho Marx

"There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts."
Charles Dickens

"It is with the reading of books, the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful."
Vincent van Gogh

"Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty."
George Bernard Shaw
_______________________________________________

So...A book is...?

...A Collection of sheets
...A Librarian
...Intimate
...A Performance
...A Golden Door
...Benjamin Franklin
...Romeo and Juliet
...Art
...Educational
...Backs and Covers
...Beautiful
...Perfect Truth
...Love

But...?
"...Every book is a failure..."
George Orwell