Coralie Bickford Smith -Exhibtion and Talk

After discovering Coralie Bickford Smith during PPP last year I fell in love with her classic designs for penguin. I also loved her book she recently brought out which was The Fox and the Star. I saw that she had a exhibition and would be doing a talk in the William Morris Gallery so decided to buy a ticket and travel to London to go to the event.

When I got to the exhibition there was around 30 people who were a mix of editors, publishers, designers and illustrators that I could talk to then Coralie did a talk and I took some notes.

• 'Books are the quietest and most constant of friends and the most patient of teachers' Charles William Eliot
• She is a introvert
• Currently creating her 2nd book
• she spent 4 years studying books at university
• Her first job was doing a magazine for sainsburys (Pet Club) but also publishing freelance
• Then she got a job working for penguin
• she takes the history seriously
• One of the first books she designed was Flora, and she was given a bad review
• She has always been interested in cloth and foil
• she always argues her case
• When creating her classic covers she took symbolic elements from the story and makes patterns from it so that the audience who have read the book can relate to it and so it brings in new readers
• Her influences are William Morris (patterns)and William Blake
• Her patterns have rules and guides
• How did she go from a designer to a storyteller?
• She got a bad review on amazon 
• She was supposed to be the fox
• Foxes are lost in the city, which is how she can feel when living in London
• she did lots of experimenting with different foils
• the quality of the paper and the texture is like a work of art
• you are never 100% happy with your work
• 5 colours make up the whole book and the colours help tell the story.
• When the star leaves the colours go monotone
• it shows the stages of grif
• The theme is Love and Loss
• Her second book is going to be called The Worm and the Bird
• You can never make something that everybody likes

Her talk was really inspirational because it shows where hard work can get you and Looking at her exhibition I could see the whole process from the initial sketches to the final outcome which helped me see that it is all up to you working and thinking about what you want to achieve.

At the end of the talk I Got to personally meet Coralie and she signed my book. I also asked her if I could ask her some questions through a email and she said she will try and get back to me. She also followed my Design Instagram account ! Overall I was extremely happy that I made the effort to go to London to see this talk!

The Design Museum - Beasley Designs of the year

 I went to the Design museum in Kensington to see the Beazley Designs of the Year. The Exhibition shows a mix of design such as, Architecture, Graphic design, Product Design, Fashion Design and Transport design. You are able to write your own comments of the works and vote for you favourite there were a few that stood out to me.

Almadia Book Cover Design

A Mexican publishing house uses a combination of drawing, type style, flat colour and paper type and weight to create a visual narrative that catches the reader attention. 

The book covers invite you to touch them by including cut outs and removeable dust jackets which makes you want to look inside them.

Hello Ruby

Designed by Linda Liukas with Jemina Lehmuskoski. A children's story and activity book that introduced children to learning programming skills and teaches children to be tech creators, not just consumers. The book is interesting because it has all the key terms of programming and problem solving but is interactive for children and parents to do together. Creating books like this could encourage children to learn skills at a earlier age.

We Listen

We listen is a campaign designed by MullenLowe for Network Rail and Samaritans. It is portraying that the charity are good at listening to you and is there for people who are struggling to cope with any issues. The posters are eye catching and would stand out in busy locations due to its simplicity and colours. The images show the backs of people as if they are trying to hide there emotions.

A lot of the works gave me inspiration to start creating designs that will make an impact or change.

The Photographers' Gallery

I got a day ticket to the Exhibitions in Londons Photographers' Gallery an exhibition that was on at the time was on Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s. It was interesting to see the feminist art from an earlier time. There was a mix of Photography, art and film in the exhibition from the verbund collection. One of my favourite pieces from the exhibition was isolation by German artist Renate Eisenegger. It shows her with cotton taped over her mouth stopping her from talking. This movement was very important on history and the design of today.

House of MinaLima

 The House of MinaLima in London Greek Street were putting on a free Exhibition on Harry Potter and Fantastic Beast posters. The place was transformed to look like a Harry Potter scene.

'This exhibition returns to London, featuring graphic designs from Warner Bros. Pictures' Harry Potter films by Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima, reproduced as limited edition art prints which will be for sale. Authentic film props will also be on display, kindly on loan from the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, Leavesden.'

The posters were for sale for hundreds of pounds due to the hand foiled details. I found the posters amazing due to the detail of the prints and the metallic foils made them really stand out and look luxurious, the colours are also bold and eye catching. MinaLima create other designs and packaging other than Harry Potter related.

The British Library Visit

 I decided to visit the British Library while I was in London as I knew there would be some free book related exhibitions. I first went to see the Quentin Blake Portraits which he had drawn to celebrate Roald Dahl's 100th anniversary.

The portraits were of Roald Dahl's most famous characters and they were created using pencil and watercolour. I loved the pastel colours and the style of illustartion always reminds me of my childhood and love of Roald Dahl books.

I also went to the exhibition of the Treasures of the British Library. In this exhibition there was the history of books and printing and it showed some of the earliest books and manuscripts. It looked at work from Shakespeare and Jane Austin but also how the styles of books have changed overtime and the binding methods. It was interesting to see the old books and how they included gold and came in a range of sizes.

Planning Interview Questions

Thinking about Interview Questions.

By conducting an interview I want to gain information and advice from someone successful. I want to keep in touch with them through social media. I also want to make a creative report of at least one of the interviews I undertake.

I could include introductary questions such as why, what and how? I want to include follow up questions such as, what do you mean by?  and probing questions such as, did you do this?

I want to interview one of the stationary companies I identified in a previous blog post and also Coralie Bickford Smith who I discovered last year and really admire.

National Portrait Gallery Visit

This December I took a trip to London for the day where I choose to go to the National Portrait gallery to see the Taylor Wessing Photographic portrait prize exhibition. I found it very interesting seeing the different photographs of people and the story behind them. One of the works that stood out the most was by Spanish photographer, Cristina de Middel who looked at gentleman that use prostitutes. It was nice to see the difference of photography due to culture, age and race. Also many of the award winners had studied art courses at university.

Stationary companies I love

When online I came across a Magazine called Stationary Trends, I found that Kimberly Baker is the Publisher and Sarah Schwartz the Editor in chief. I fell in love with the magazine showcasing trends within stationary. I found some certain companies with in the magazine what I wanted to know more about.

Constellation & co. Seattle

They are a letterpress stationary company and gift shop. Constellation & Co. is owned by husband and wife team Brad and Sara McNally. They believe that the best part of owning a business is the opportunities it creates to work with other creative people and they l love to collaborate with other small businesses. They use traditional print methods and machines to create there stationary. 'Using the historic craft of letterpress to bring people together'.

Papa Llama

Risa started using Linoleum for her designs because she loved the imperfections it left behind. She likes her work to look handmade. PapaLlama include stationary designed using brush, ink and hand lettering. She likes to celebrate imperfections. Risa enjoys being Wacky and unique in her designs and art. She has her designs in stores allover America and Japan.

Warren Tales

Lindsey Warriner began as a writer and working in children's publishing. She decided to start a business creating unique cards for many occasions. She wanted to provide people with a reason to write and create new conversations and cards you can give by hand or through mail. She said she has always loved all things paper and would love receiving a card.

Hen Pen Paper co.

Hen pen paper co is a studio made up of a husband and wife team Lara and Brian Henning. Lara said she finds great joy in coming up with special words and illustrations that will communicate exactly what a person wants to say. After the two had spent years working corporate design jobs and on freelance design projects constrained my artistic abilities so they decided to start there own company.

I loved looking into these companies and it is something that I would love to do in the future. To open my own stationary company. I may look into interviewing one of these companies.