LUX logo design

Last week I completed a logotype for the very cool band called Lux. They are a soulful pop/indy/folky 4 piece and they wanted a memorable logomark that would work at various sizes, for posters,  press shots and flyers to badges. As their music is diverse in style, I wanted to create a classic mark that didnt pigeon hole them in terms of style, and went for bold, clean lines with a clear flow to the overall shape of the mark, and a little distressed edginess to it. As always, I started with lots of sketching and playful mark making, eventually working up a few chosen concepts on the computer before presenting to the band for review and cleaning up the final design.

LUX are opening the BURYFields festival in June and are releasing an EP later this year, you check out their facebook page here.

(Photo courtesy of Catherine Davis)

Workaid - Inside the workshop

Something new and a bit different for the blog today. This will be the first in a new segment on the blog called 'places and spaces' looking at interesting workshops, studios & creative spaces.

Recently I was lucky enough to get a look behind the scenes at the Workaid workshops, in Chesham and to see the fantastic work which they do there. The Workaid building was historically an old boot factory, and I think it's fitting that it continues to be filled with people doing traditional and skilled handiwork, making and mending.

For anyone thats not aware of Workaid and what they do - Workaid are a charity that provide tools and teach trade skills to the disadvantaged and the vulnerable in Africa, in order that they can earn from it and provide for themselves and their families. They also support many projects here in the UK, all based around traditional skills and craftmanship. The warehouse receives donations of all kinds of tools and machinery, in various states of disrepair. It could be a lawnmower, sewing machine, typewriter, hammer, fabric, bike or pretty much any kind of tool or piece of equipment you can think of. They really do have it all! The donations are lovingly sorted and cleaned, skillfully restored or repaired and then carefully packaged up into containers. They send on average 8 containers a year, using donated clothing and fabrics as wrapping material which can be used at the destination - a genius idea!
 

Its hard to do justice to the scale of the operations at Workaid and the vast amount of interesting objects; these pictures are merely a snapshot. With only 4 paid staff, 3 of which are part-time, in the charity, the whole operation is supported by a team of dedicated volunteers, some of whom are retired engineers and crafts people. One day they may be sandblasting rust from a pile of donated chisels, the next taking apart a mysterious vintage tool to see how it works and repair it, giving new life to many interesting and forgotten objects. It's brilliant! Anything that is beyond repair is carefully taken apart for recycling or selling as scrap metal. Items unsuitable for shipping are sold in the Workaid shop or at one of their legendary forecourt sales. Vintage and fleamarket enthusiasts take note!

The workshop is a 2 floored hive filled with bountiful shelves, drawers, boxes, piles and crates. Rows of vintage typewriters, a host of old sewing and knitting machines, a 50's electric drill here, a 20's sock making machine there...crates overflowing with hammers and mallets of all sizes, a wall of neatly organised saws, a huddle of rakes, spades and hoes, a room of bikes & lawnmowers. Every nook and cranny is peppered with an eclectic mix of other interesting objects and ephemera from past and present. There is so much to discover, I could have stayed there all day. The density of the collection is broken only by pockets of workspaces, benches with glues, tapes and tin cans, radios and mugs of tea. The whole rich aesthetic is one that I love, and the smell of sawdust, oil and metal is strangley nostalgic and comforting to me. I'm reminded of my time spent at the puppet workshop, of fiddling about in my gran's button box as a child and of watching my Dad at the end of the garden in his homemade workshop; he was always making or mending something or rolling about under a rusty car.

Swamped in an abundance of bits and bobs I was amazed how organised the whole place was (though they were too humble to agree with this!) Everything, no matter how small, has a place or a drawer with its name on it. So much so, that when the packers are tasked with putting together the goods for a project, they have a shopping list of items and can go around collecting everything they need, ticking them off as they go.

In addition to the workshop, the forecourt sales and the Workaid shop, they also hold 'craft and coffee' mornings and hold sessions for teaching the learning disabled useful skills within the building. They are a very enthusiastic and inclusive charity that succesfully engage with both the local community and those many miles away. They certainly inspire me to keep making and mending, recycling and reusing, and to keep learning new crafts and skills. The hard work and generosity of the charity and the volunteers really is awe inspiring - you should definitely head down to one of the forecourt sales, follow them on facebook or twitter, and check out their website for more information on the amazing work which they do.

Workaid are at The Old Boot Factory, 71 Townsend Road, Chesham, HP5 2AA

The Workaid Office, Workshop and Goods-in for tool donations is open Monday - Friday, from 09.30 to 12:30 and 1:30 to 4:30
The Workaid Shop is open Thursday - Saturday 10 to 4.

http://www.workaid.org/default.html

The next forecourt sale is Saturday March 21st - get down there and find some treasures!

Thanks for reading!

Make your own corkboards

This week I made some really simple and quick painted corkboards to pin your notes, reminders or kids' drawings onto. I found a pack of cork tiles for £2 in the local charity shop and bought some super cheap frames from Ikea, and I used some old tester paint pots I had. The tester pots already come with a brush inside the lid, which is easy, cheap and means no clearing up - hooray! Try it yourself, and get creative! I may even get going on some coasters...

Rocket cushions with crinkly flames!

I was recently asked by the lovely Sarah at Lingotastic if I could make some custom rocket cushions for her super toddler foreign language classes. The little ones 'blast off' with these rocket cushions to a different country each term, and are exposed to foreign language learning through music, puppets, stories and crafts. I am really impressed by Sarah's venture and was delighted to be asked, and made 10 of these smart little cushions, here's how:

I began by recreating the Lingotastic rocket logo in Illustrator to reshape it suitably for a 3Dimensional use (as the shape of the flat rocket changes significantly once it is stuffed), adjust the colours to make suitable for digital fabric printing, and added some 'bleed colour' for the seams. I ordered a colour swatch from Woven Monkey and was sure to match their RGB values - you can get some nasty surprises with fabric printing if you don't prepare properly! I uploaded the digital file and waited with anticipation for the fabric to arrive in the post! The fabric cost around £25 for a 1000mm x 1500mm on cotton drill, and I was really happy with the final result. (If you want to make your own plain rocket cushions you can just cut the rocket shapes from your own fabric)

 I cut out the rockets and carefully laid a pair together, facing sides in to each other. I stitched around the rocket with a 10mm seam allowance, leaving a gap at the bottom for turning right side out.

I then trimmed the seam, firstly by shortening it all over to 3-5mm and then cutting diagonal darts every 15mm or so, in order to allow a good shape when turned inside out. This stage is VERY IMPORTANT! Your cushion shape will look puckered and rough if you skip this.

I carefully pulled the rocket inside out (the right way out!) and ironed out the creases, ironing gently into the corners to give a nice shape. I stuffed the fins first, by pushing stuffing into the fin and then stitching it up down the edge. This part is fiddly, and it may help to do a loose running stitch by hand first to hold the sides in place if you have the time.
*TIP: When stuffing, try to always use a continuous handful of stuffing, rather than tear off bits to push in. This will avoid unnecessary lumpiness!

Once the fins were both suitably stuffed and stitched, I stuffed the main section and sewed up along the bottom, leaving the flames area at the bottom.

I found this excellent crinkle paper on ebay, it was about a fiver for a half metre. This is regulation grade crinkle paper suitable for toys, and I thought it would make an excellent 'blast-off' detail! I cut 2 pieces, the shape of the flamed area, and inserted them carefully through the opening. I folded the last open piece of seam in on itself and stitched on the top to finish off and secure the crinkle paper in one go.

3, 2, 1 Blast Off! Why not have a go at some custom rocket cushions yourself?

You can find out more about Lingotastic on their blog at www.lingotastic.co.uk

Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising

Hidden away down a little alley deep in Notting Hill is the fantastic Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising. I have been several times before when studying for my Graphics MA and found it an excellent resource, but I really enjoyed visiting again for fun and having a meander through the extensive, colourful collection of wrappers, boxes, toys and products from the Victorian period right through to today. Its a treasure trove of nostalgia, and I find the sheer density of exhibited objects very enticing. Every time I go I discover something I hadn't spotted before. The exhibits are presented in a time tunnel, so you literally walk through the different eras in chronological order and its so interesting to see how the packaging and the branding, and the products themselves, reflect the social and political climate of the time.

For anyone interested in creative arts and design, or indeed history or sociology this should definitely be on your list of must-sees! Being a self confessed logo geek I particularly enjoy the displays at the end of the time tunnel, which track the progression of the design of certain brands all in one window. There's something very satisfying about seeing a whole host of examples of the same product side by side and looking at the brand development, via subtle typographic tweaks and the shifting of lines and shapes. Go and check it out! More info here

Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising
Adult ticket £7.50
(Closed Mondays)

Photos © Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising

Geometric frosty windows

Well the tree is up and its officially time to get festive - so I bought some trusty old spray snow and thought I'd decorate the window with a snowflake inspired geometric, frosty pattern using nothing more than a roll of masking tape. Quick, cheap and very cool - have a go!

Exhibition Double Bill: The Enchanted Page at London Print Studio & Sigmar Polke at Tate Modern

Last week I was lucky enough to catch 2 very different exhibitions in one day. Juggling 2 gallery visits with nappy changes, lunch and nap times was quite a mission but well worth the effort and I came home with an exhausted but contented toddler after a days visual stimulation!

The Enchanted Page - an Exhibition of Children's Illustration at London Print Studio was first on the bill. Being an avid collector of children's picture books I was really interested to see this display of imagery from 15 contemporary illustrators. The gallery space is relatively small, in front of the working print studios, but has been fashioned into a fun and welcoming, creative area. Both the walls and the ceiling are dotted with characters and bold imagery from the books, and several page spreads adorn the base of the wall at child height. There are tables with chalks, crayons and activity sheets, comfy bean bags and book tables.

 My daughter loves her books and was in her element here, its well worth a visit if you're out and about in West London. There's a lovely little gift shop selling various print and design related goods, and I picked up the latest copy of Wrap magazine too - bonus!

More information on the LPS website here
Until the end of January 2015: Free entry

In contrast to the morning's gallery visit, the second exhibition of the day was Sigmar Polke at Tate Modern. I had done a quick read up on Polke before I went, but was unsure what to expect and had been warned 'some of the imagery may be considered challenging' at the exhibition entrance.. so off I went with toddler in tow, ready to avert her eyes when necessary!

This retrospective displays the broad variety of Polke's work from painting and drawing to sculpture and video-art. Polke worked in many mediums, and used all kinds of unorthodox materials in his image making. His work is highly experimental and often controversial, and I found it very interesting to explore. Its a huge collection, and every room has a different theme as they have attempted to cohesively arrange the vast styles and subject matters in a meaningful way. Quite hard to describe Polke's work concisely - you need to go and see the exhibition with your own eyes!

I could have done with a whole day at the Tate, as there is so much to see and its an awesome building. There's plenty to see for free if you don't want to pay for the special exhibitions. Less crowded midweek its a great place to take your kids for some creative exposure, the Turbine Hall alone is a pretty impressive space for a little one to experience.

More information on the Tate website here
Until Feb 8th: £13.10 adult ticket