Stonehenge

Summer Solstice. Stonehenge. New year. New start.

Swnfest Tequila Radio

Tequila Radio

Broadcasting tonight between 7 and 9, the blonder and younger Capper with a Swnfest Special. Expect updates and news from Swn over the next week or so on this blog aswell.

Cardiff Design Festival

I went and visited a few exhibitions around Cardiff as part of the Cardiff Design Festival. First up was the UWIC gallery in Capitol shopping centre. It's a fairly small gallery, and when I visited was showing the work of Austrian designers and students. For a small space, there was a lot of work shown, and it was nice to see international work as well as Welsh work being shown in the design festival.

The next stop on my quick tour was Bay Art where there was an exhibition of work by Tim Freeman, Liam O'Connor and Christopher Holloway. I didn't enjoy Chris Holloway's paintings as much as the other work in this show. I could see what the artist was aiming for with his paintings of distorted suburbia, but I felt that the computer manipulation they had undergone before being painted was too obvious and the use of fluorescent pink was overdone. The choice of images was interesting though and they all had a feeling of eerieness and waiting for the next scene about them. Tim Freeman's work was much more calm and muted, and left me puzzling over how he created it. Liam O'Connor's contribution to the show was his paintings of friends and family and of these I particularly liked the ones of people singing as there was a lot of motion to them and I liked the style of painting.

Chris Holloway

Tim Freeman

Liam O'Connor

After that I got down to the Wales Millenium Centre for the show of work by design agencies in and around Cardiff. I was very impressed by a lot of the work and overall there seemed to be a lot of green and eco designs. It was interesting for me to see the work of designers in Cardiff, to gain inspiration and also to get an idea of places that my work would suit and that I could apply for placements in.

Related Links:

http://www.cardiffdesignfestival.org
http://www.bayart.org.uk
http://www.wmc.org.uk
http://www.liammarcoconnor.com
http://www.uwic.ac.uk

Afterwards

I have now finished university. The last few weeks of putting together the final show and handing in all my work all went very quickly.

Anyways, I have been packing up my room and my things, ready for heading back to Cardiff. So expect a more Welsh flavour to my blogging from now on. Whilst sorting through my mountains of stuff gathered over the last year, I found so many things to post about on here. These alphabets are from a book called Decorative Alphabets through the Ages by Pat Russell. I really like them, and I would really like to do something inspired by them over the summer to keep my creative ways going. I've already made a "G" badge for myself out of one of them!

^ Fourteenth century letters taken from an embroidered altar cloth in the Church of St Mary at Soest in Westphalia.

^ Probably designed in Venice in the late sixteenth century.

^ This alphabet is called Lapidaire Monstre and is by the French type designer J.Midolle. The bottom third contains the surnames of famous men which correspond to each letter.

^ This work by John Smith is entitled Alphascape.

Light Typography

Again, a video using environmental type. I'm not a particular fan of the typeface, but it's worth watching for the moment at the end when the candles get lighted. It looks amazing. There are a few videos like this on youtube from students at Estudamos Design Gráfico no IPCA, Barcelos, Portugal. I think it is is response to a brief set there. I liked some of the other films, but wonder if they were restricted in their choice of fonts, because some seem to fit the words and some don't. For example, in the film on the theme of "Work", the word is spelled out on a concrete floor, with nails, but in the same font as "Luz". I would have chosen that one as my favourite if maybe they had used a really heavy slab serif, or a heavy weight of something like Univers, but the font just doesn't fit the thought of "Work". Still, they are all pretty inspirational videos.

Summertime Typography

Inspirational video right here.

At the moment I am working on my last project of the year (aw!) which is a film using environmental typography. I am still storyboarding it at the moment but have started experimenting a little with recording things aswell. Anyways, if mine is ever a fraction as good as this then I will be very happy indeed. There is more information on this project here

What I need

Today in uni,  someone had very kindly made a poster giving away "more time". Here is my little bit of more time to share with you all. I'm not sure how much more time it offers, or when the extra time takes place, but right now I feel like I need it.