Not late on the bandwagon, just late on the post.
If you’re not already, get on Pinterest. Its a fantastic website, a virtual pinboard where you can “pin” images to categorised boards you create for inspiration, reference or maybe just bookmarking.
Fact: comScore reports it is now the fastest growing website in history to reach the 10M unique users mark.
I use it every day at work and it’s replaced my remote reference folder I used to keep for inspiration. I heart it. Even though it’e been dubbed “the Tumblr for Moms” Ignore that, get on there.
Infact, pro-tip: follow everything and everyone that even slightly interests you and then thin out the crap stuff. It’s better to have too much than too little in this case, you can follow through links to find related images you might like, but you’re not going to find them if you rely on what’s in the main unfiltered/unfollowed feed without “searching”.
Oh and take a snoop through my boards while you’re at it. pinterest.com/lygd
Go!
The eternal battle of client vs designer
For those of you not aware, I work at a company that provides a full service to people who want cosmetics, skincare, brushes & accessories, fragrance, toiletries… blah blah… be it one-off hero items, products that fit into ranges that pre-exist, or people who want us to start off full ranges from scratch. We do it.
We have entire teams dedicated to getting everything exactly right from formulations experts and chemists who work to create the silkiest moisturisers to the richest coloured lipsticks and glosses. Have an idea for an amazing eyeshadow in a pigment that doesn’t yet exist? They can make that.
We have technicians checking the tiniest details of things like opening/closing mechanisms, functionality of compacts, cartons… how easy is it for shoplifters to rip into packs? We have a guy who can demonstrate. This honestly is the tip of the iceberg. There is so much that goes into creating luxury cosmetics.
And then there is the design department. We create the brand, everything you see when you walk into beauty departments. From the sleek luxurious casing on a lipstick to the shape of the bullet, to the name that brands it. It’s all done here.
In this day and age when there are so many different cosmetic brands out there, it is no good to just make another one. The brand needs to have a basis, an angle, a selling point. A reason for the consumer to part with their money. This in my opinion, needs to meet neatly with what it looks like.
So what’s my problem now? Oh. The fact that you have to communicate these fantastic designs to the clients who 90% of the time will not be your target market but will assure you they know better than a company that specialises in providing this service. There’s no accounting for taste.
I have hard drives full of designs that were magical once (if i do say so myself) and usually each element of what made it a great design gets picked apart by the client until the brand name + design no longer makes sense. I’ve already blog-complained that part of the reason I work extra hours is because I would rather try and problem solve, make a design work, than take the easy route and take a trip to generic-ugly-cosmeticville.
I know that whining about client/designer squabbles is about as original as whining about Comic Sans but I know my Christmas wish this year will be getting a client that takes what we give them exactly how we supplied it and trusts that we are the experts and so that is how it should stay.
There should be a graph to display the correlation between how much a client will meddle in the development process depending on how much they know about the subject.
For example, male clients will still meddle with lipstick proposals, because regardless of whether or not they wear lipstick, everyone thinks they know something about colour.
You wouldn’t find me hovering when the gasman comes to fix my boiler because I know *fuck all* about it but I like my house warm… “hmm what you’re doing with those pipes looks good but I think you should do it this way?” If he tells me it’s working, it’s working.
But that’s not how it works here. That lipstick colour that now gets shoved from the product line up may have had research and a theme to back it up that the old man didn’t “get” but that people worked months on. It might have been part of a trend, the shade that tied in other products in the set. And that’s out now.
So to clients the world over, I say: leave it to the experts.
I am almost embarrassed to mention how long it’s been since I’ve blogged. So let’s not go ‘there’. Needless to say, if you are in my life currently you will know how much my life has changed and why I have dropped off the radar… three words: *15 hour days* (that’s before I’ve started on the freelance)
I can enjoy the irony in this situation a certain amount right up until it becomes more of a joke-on-me. Let me explain…
I picked this web domain (as regrettable as it is when I am reading my email address down the phone in a whiff about bills) because it highlighted a fundamental belief of mine that you should design like you give a damn. Not just for the money, but because you enjoy it. You want to make something that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional… and perhaps also because you care about the process.
**Disclaimer: With hindsight you should really do everything like you give a damn. Pick a sandwich filling, clean your teeth, choose a holiday destination like you give a damn …but arguably top 5 in the list is more importantly, your career. **
At the time I picked my domain name I was at university. It was 2006, and in all honesty I was surrounded by people who could not give a fuck about getting a career out of their degree… they just wanted *a* degree. Perhaps as a bit of a dig, I wanted to show it wasn’t just something you did as a degree, not just because your parents wanted you to go to uni and you thought it would be a laugh “cus you’re good at computers an’that”… design, if you want it, was something you did in your spare time too.
Oh. And don’t I know it. I do. The design in my life has become a monstrosity that now feeds on my entire waking day. It. Is. My. Essence. Go to work, be the last one to leave, come home, freelance until your eyes are sore. Then it’s microwaved beans hunched over a sink. In Charlie’s world you don’t “do” design, design does you.
A cautionary tale. Design like you give a damn… but not too much. M’kay, kids?
Having said that. I LOVE to design so much I do it when I don’t mean to… and as noted in the last 4 weeks – even when I don’t particularly want to.
But I love my job, my career, and I put effort in BECAUSE I want to look back in a few months or go into a store and see products and packaging I’ve worked on and be proud and not regret that I didn’t um and err over the details enough, or that I didn’t push back about keeping a brief a certain way so instead watch it morph into something ugly or something dysfunctional.
Sigh.
It is this attitude towards my work that might have landed me working long days and longer night but it’s also that which got me this fantastic job. Every single stressful day, low budget brief, and late night has been worth it because, along with the projects I get to design for, working in-house has one main perk… these ones here. And I am lucky because they give a damn too.
For the Visual Research book launch the designers featured will be offered the opportunity to exhibit their work for two weeks following the release date.
Russell Bestley, one of the writers and one of my fantastic tutors during my MA, suggested that the work exhibited should lead on progressively from the work featured in the book so that the audience can see where it developed.
For me, this means exhibiting that insane perspective installation. Great! I mean it went down a storm before so it makes sense I showcase it again… right?
Wrong.
What with scooting home for Christmas before I started my job in January I totally forgot to dismantle the horror which was my final project. It is definitely in the bin now, it’s August. So that means recreating it from scratch.
That thing took me 5 whole days to make when I worked freelance… now I work in house. to say that this is going to be an ordeal would be an understatement. I have actually had nightmares about this.
You are probably thinking to yourself, why not just show a video of it?? Well, I will presume you are not familiar with the concept behind the project, so I will explain. Essentially the project was based around the fact that when you capture a scene with photography, you lose the depth. You also lose the context in which the photograph was taken and in-turn you are only seeing the scene in the way the photographer meant for you to see it.
I made the installation so that, uninstructed, the viewer could stand infront of it, look at it and find the two different positions in which they need to stand so they can see the quote. Its composition was self instructive.
However, to cut a long story short, I fucked up. The room I built the installation in was not going to be part of the exhibition like I had previously thought, I couldn’t move the installation (as it was fixed to the ceiling) so I had to film it, on a craptastic 8 year old camera in the most shocking low resolution.
But it would have to do. And the people downstairs at the exhibition never got to see that nightmare of a project first-hand like it was meant to be… but this time they will!!
I remember the first time I mentioned this exhibition and it was miles in the future, but now I have a month-ish to construct this again from scratch. Getting the laser cut foam, stringing it up in place, projecting and painting onto it. While at the same time putting it on something that can be relocated. /headache.
If you’re still reading you deserve a medal, because I’ve even confused myself.
I am naughty because I haven’t blogged in months.
But I have many excuses prepared! Since I last blogged I have moved house, from the super central Tower Bridge Road to a cute [read: "small"] house in Clapham Common near my work.
I’m counteracting aaaaall the complications in my current personal life by throwing myself into work, both at my full time job and some fantastic freelance projects.
Silly? Possibly. Disfunctional? Perhaps. But right now it feels like a comforting blanket of graphics and nerdery, where the only problems that exist involve fitting 40 words of 3pt type into a 10 x 10mm print area. As difficult as this is (go on, try it) the alternative is a lot worse.
8 months into my job and I am having the best time, the only downside is that I can’t share the work with you as often as I’d like to. Because what’s the point of creating pretty things when it has to stay a secret?
NDA’s are far more difficult to keep track of when you work in a product design studio. There are more ongoing projects and brands… time lines are longer, it’s easier to not mentioning anything than blab about something that’s not released yet. Just you wait. Shiny things are coming.
Last but not least, I graduated from my Masters in Graphic Design a couple of weeks ago, even though I finished the MA way back in December. There I am, in the main image of this blog post, queuing to pick up my graduation gown. I went with my dear old Dad and in return I introduced him to Pieminister… which later lead to me introducing the entire design department to Pieminister. <3
Many, many fun things approaching in the coming months, mega portfolio update. Some gorgeous stuff from the studio... if I do say so myself! But until then, keep your eye on my Dribbble account for updates while-I-work. I am a busy lady after all. ^_-
I found this fantastic dress designed by Setareh Mohtarez over on Luxirare, I don’t know how this has happened but I’ve noticed that a fair amount of my posts are focused around space at the moment. What does this mean!? It is purely accidental I assure you, what can I say, it appears that currently I am inspired by the starry sky. If you are in possession of a jet pack and a space suit we might just become the greatest friends.
Anyway… incase it wasn’t clear this is the dress of my dreams. It looks like it was made especially for dancing by twilight, I would get married in this dress (one day) or failing that I would settle for doing my weekly shop in this dress, regardless of how the checkout attendant would look at me.
While telling the designers in my studio exactly this – and emailing it round – it was pointed out that Christopher Kane has done something… very similar, to say the least… his Galaxy range use exactly the same method, to create the same look. Just incredibly expensive. I know the Setareh Mohtarez is likely to be just as expensive but as it is not actually defined I will be pretending it is free. Ignorance is bliss.
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known” – Carl Sagan
I got this fantastic timelapse video from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, and I defy you not to find this ALL absolutely fucking amazing, as it’s completely real footage taken from the Cassini orbiter. I wish I were an astronaut… or a martian.
NASA said this… “What has the Cassini orbiter seen since arriving at Saturn? The above music video shows some of the highlights. In the first time-lapse sequence (00:07), a vertical line appears that is really Saturn’s thin rings seen nearly edge-on. Soon some of Saturn’s moon shoot past.
The next sequence (00:11) features Saturn’s unusually wavy F-ring that is constrained by the two shepherd moons that are also continually perturbing it. Soon much of Saturn’s extensive ring system flashes by, sometimes juxtaposed to the grandeur of the immense planet itself.
Cloud patterns on Titan (00:39) and Saturn (00:41) are highlighted. Clips from flyby’s of several of Saturn’s moon are then shown, including Phoebe, Mimas, Epimetheus, and Iapetus. In other sequences, moons of Saturn appear to pass each other as they orbit Saturn. Background star fields seen by Cassini are sometimes intruded upon by bright passing moons. The robotic Cassini spacecraft has been revolutionizing humanity’s knowledge of Saturn and its moons since 2004.”
#howtobeanexploreroftheuniverse
Amazing structural chair the Alvi SilkChair beautiful looking mesh of silk and I love the colour.
“Environmental friendly seating furniture with silk thread tightened around a bearing oak frame. The transparent expression is in focus, which creates new forms and brings forth a perception of weightlessness, while the light produces new shadow plays from the thread works of the alvisilkchair.”
I know silk is strong, but I feel like this might wobble about like a hammock or the strings would PING and break when I sit on it… that is, if my cats don’t get to it first. ^_- I don’t think it matters though; when something is as pretty as that who cares if you can sit on it? Form > function.
Some gorgeous typefaces at work here (if you’re pro try to name them all) to illustrate how to “live the language”, it’s the little details that suck you in, and for these 2 minutes I was in Paris and not sat at my desk working late.
So, as my long term readers here will know I am a mega fan of APOD, secretly I would love to be an astronaut, so you can see how this video ended up getting posted. Beautiful time lapse video of the star-lit sky as filmed from the top of a mountain. What more could a girl ask for?
“The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide. I have to say this was one of the most exhausting trips I have done. There was a lot of hiking at high altitudes and probably less than 10 hours of sleep in total for the whole week. Having been here 10-11 times before I had a long list of must-see locations I wanted to capture for this movie, but I am still not 100% used to carrying around so much gear required for time-lapse movies.”
The rest of the technical info is also posted over on the Vimeo page, and I strongly suggest you watch this in HD. Magic.
