Inspiration Monday - London

1. Map of London - Alice Tait Shop
2. London Transport Bookends - Susan Bradley Design
3. London City in a Bag - Posh Totty Designs Interiors
4. London Guard Print - Made by Morris
5. Personalised London Print - Sweet Home London
6. London Cup and Saucer - Martha Mitchell Design

Sorry this is late guys! But yesterday, as you may have guessed I was in London! Everywhere you turn there is some variety of London branded tourist tat. So I decided to go in search of some well designed London merchandise and this is what I discovered!

Why I just so happened to be in London however is a completely different matter! Its actually super exciting and but was super stressful to get it all together. I will be revealing what all the excitement is about later this week :)

Olympic Opening Ceremony

So... Who watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony last night? I had no intention of watching it all but for some reason I did and now I'm falling asleep. I have to admit though, it was one of the strangest things I have ever seen and was not at all what I was expecting. It was a great idea to show Britain through the years but I spent a large amount of time staring at the T.V wondering what the hell was going on! I honestly think the people at home watching it on their telly's had the best view. Don't get me wrong, I'd have loved to have been there for the atmosphere but I don't think that you would have been able to see as much or quite grasped what was going on so well.

I think the highlight for me was definitely the appearance from Mr Bean! It was unexpected and really quite funny! However, I do think it went on past the Queens bed time... Why do I say this? Because she looked bored. I don't know if you noticed this but when team GB came out and the camera panned to her she was just sat there picking at her nails.

It was quite an impressive set up they had going on and I can see where that massive budget went but I can't honestly say it was the greatest show on earth... It was a damn good show but it wasn't the greatest. I know people will argue with me here because my social network feeds were full of people loving it. But I guess it just depends what you're into and your attention span at that time of night! I was pretty shattered. Maybe if I watch it again I might appreciate it just that little bit more :)

All images © Maykal

That Big Event in London

Well as you know today (if you don't where the hell have you been hiding? Can I come?) marks the opening of the Olympics. So how about some unofficial, reality check souvenirs for those who really aren't that bothered. These are the clever work of Tobatron a.k.a. Toby Leigh and are available via That Big Event in London. I think the 'it only took me 3 hours to get to work this morning' one would suit me because I always have something to moan and rant about haha! And no doubt I will be moaning about the London traffic on monday!

That Big Event in London:

While 'that big event in London' is taking place, inject some reality into the proceedings with these limited edition souvenir bags. They are designed by Tobatron in Hackney - a mere javelins throw away from the 'big event' itself.

London Officials to Erase Banksy's new work

Have you seen Banksy's latest pieces inspired by the Olympics? No? Well here they are. You may not be able to actually see them in the flesh for much longer. Why? Because Officials in London may want to them covered up. Bit of a daft idea if they do really. Banksy's work brings people in from far and wide and a lot of them end up as a kind of tourist attraction which can work out great for the economy.
But then we hit that whole argument of is it art, why should we keep his and erase others etc etc which I am not going to get into. Do you think that we should erase great works by Banksy? Personally I don't, but everyone seems to have an opinion on this.

The Guardian writes:

“The Olympic suppression of graffiti and street art is a chilling sign that instead of magnifying or rekindling the reputation London now has for outrageous art and irrepressible creativity , this corporate behemoth is cancelling out the capital’s attractions and drawing attention to its weaknesses.”

Via: Design Taxi

Society6 - Free Shipping

Thats right! Society6 once again has free shipping until sunday so pop on over to my shop and grab yourself a little piece of my world :)

In my shop you can find:

• Art Prints
• Framed Art Prints
• Stationary Cards
• iPhone Cases
• iPhone & iPod Skins
• Laptop & iPad Skins
• Hoodies
• T-Shirts

Inspiration Monday - Boats

1. Screen Printed Notebooks - Bubble and Tweet
2. Boat Necklace - Poplaucard
3. Boat Fabric - Aunt June
4. Sailing Boat Print - Showler and Showler
5. Personalised Map Boat Picture - Sweet Dimple
6. Love Sailing Print - Little Mommy Designs

This weekend was the annual Bristol Harbour Festival in... you guessed it. Bristol. The sun decided to make an appearance which made it a really lovely day out. There were loads and loads of boats there, from tall ships, to personal yachts to be a massive military ship thing. I have no idea what it was. Well to be honest I have no clue about boats but you know! The festival wasn't just about sailing though. There were food stalls (and lots of it!), craft stalls, clothing and crafts as well as entertainment such as folk music, interpretive dance and even a little circus village. They even had some New Foundland Dogs do a rescue display in the harbour which was actually really good!  So really this weeks Inspiration Monday had to be about boats! I was quite surprised at how quickly I managed to find these lovely objects! There seems to be a lot of lovely boats things about :) I hope you like them!

New Logo!

Thats right! I have a shiny new logo! Hopefully I'll keep this one for more than a year. I think this one says a lot more about me than any of my previous logos. I chose to have this one quite illustrated because it shows that I like to draw and be creative. The ribbon represents the textiles that I like to experiment with. And lastly the flowers and the ladybird represent my main inspiration. Nature and wildlife. Now its time to apply it to everything I need to! I hope you like it :)

Bobo

I know this isn't design related and what not but I don't care! I want to share with you the new addition to our family! Meet Bobo the super cute poser budgie :) Expect to see Bobo featured in some of my work over the coming months, no doubt he will get featured at some point! :)

Rose Hardy - The Superhero in me is tired.

I recently discovered the amazing photography of Rose Hardy. You may have already seen one of her images without even realising it. She is the person behind the photograph on the Maroon 5 album cover of Hands All Over. This image however is titled 'The Superhero in me is tired'. And this is what she has to say about it :)

Sophie (modelling) was an absolute star, and not only walked from my place to the location (Wood St, Deansgate) in full superhero outfit, but she stayed in multiple uncomfortable positions while we all got pictures we needed! She got 7 beeps and even the police stopped by to say hello.

What with all the horrible rioting going round the UK, and Manchester itself (a Sainsburys next to this spot was smashed in), I think a lot of people recently have been wanting a superhero to show. I was scared silly watching thugs walk past my apartment on Tuesday when it all kicked off, and even though you know the police are taking care of it as much as they can, I'm sure that everyone who was sat at home watching the news, seeing their city set on fire and destroyed, everyone's inner super hero was stirred. It was amazing to see the hundreds of people show to help clean up the next day, and in London also the images of the broom brigades were so awesome! So here's to all our inner superheros, who show up even when the real thing doesn't.

Want to see even more great images? Then check out her Flickr stream!

Nick Stern

'You are not Banky' is a serious of photographs by British born photographer Nick Stern. He has turned the famous Banksy pieces into real life situations using models and photographed them. You can even purchase them as prints via his shop. 

I love these because it puts a whole new twist on the very popular and often over used Banksy images. Its nice to see a new take on something old and I think that Nick has not only been successful in this but also done the original Banksy pieces justice.

Via Design Taxi

Shell's current marketing disaster!

I know today is supposed to be Inspiration Monday but this was just too good to pass up on! Shell have created a new 'competition' to design their next billboard. Basically all you do is go to their site, choose an image, add text and you're done! Well... this has been an ABSOLUTE fail on Shell's behalf. Why? Because no one has taken it as seriously as they may had hoped. You'd think a company like this would realise that a lot of people do not agree with how they operate and there would be many with an opinion to voice. I think its fair to say that Shell has been trolled BIG TIME here. These are only a few of the entries but there are hundreds over on their page. Maybe even get yours in before they realise they are being taken for a ride and pull the campaign.

Update!!
This page is in fact not by Shell itself by an environmental group! A have a read here. This is BRILLIANT!

Diem Chau

Check these out!! Crayola wax crayon sculptures by Diem Chau. She must have an incredibly steady hand and a ton of patience! They are so small and simple, yet I love them!

About Chau:
AVietnam native, Diem Chau and her family came to America as refugees in 1986. Chau is a BFA graduate from Cornish College of the Arts and has received an Artist Trust GAP Grant and a PONCHO Artist-in-Residence Award. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Miami, Seattle and Los Angeles.

Chau combines common mediums and common means to create delicate vignettes of fleeting memory, gesture and form, resulting in works that combine egalitarian sensibility and minimalist restraint. Her work touches on the value of Storytelling, Myths and its ability to connect us to each other through cultural and humanistic similarities. Chau's current work drifts into new territory by exploring the periphery of the narrative, moments forgotten and faded, or too brief to retain.

The First Photo Ever Uploaded to the Internet

On the 18th of July, 1992 the top image was the first ever image uploaded to the Internet. It was taken by Silvano de Gennaro who was an IT developer at CERN. He then edited it in Photoshop 1.0 (I would have loved to have a go on that!) It was intended for use as a CD cover for the above band Les Horribles Cernettes. I absolutely love the fact that the first ever image uploaded was some what of a photoshop disaster. An image of significant historical importance turns out to be a disaster. It makes me happy haha!

Discovered Via Design Taxi

I wish someone told me...

I saw this over on Facebook earlier and is a quote from Ira Glass. This is so true. I think I'm one of those people who are stuck in the gap. I look at other peoples work and it honestly makes me feel like poop and really gets me down because I know I can't achieve anything like that. I'm not going to quit. But its going to take a long time to get where I want to get because I can't do a lot of work all the time. When I finish my day job I am knackered. Being stood in the roof of a commercial greenhouse in the blaring heat of the sun all day long really takes it out of you (even if the sun isn't shining its still damn hot) and all you want to do is sit down and relax. I am going to get past that though don't get me wrong. I WILL DO IT. I will be successful. Its just going to take a great deal of time and effort :)

Dance in the Rain

'Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain'. I saw this quote a while ago whilst researching my inspiration monday on rain and it kinda stuck in my head. So whilst I was stuck at home this weekend because the rain was so horrific there was no way I was going to drive in it and the roads around my area soon turned into rivers I decided to doodle up this quote into a little illustration. I actually think its quite a nice quote and is quite inspiring. I know I made a massive rant about Society6 not water marking their images and they clearly have no intention to after an email exchange with them I decided that I shouldn't let these criminals taking the images win. I know its bloody awful but I love this site and I'm not going to let them stop me from doing the things I love. So, as usual this has been uploaded to my Society6 shop as a small print and iPhone case/skin. Go check it out and give it a cheeky promote if you like <3

http://society6.com/joannehawker/Dance-in-the-Rain-6qM_Print

Font Snob

Whilst I was browsing Pinterest this evening I discovered this image and I thought YES! I always struggle to find fun fonts and BAM! It was pinned. I then followed the link (like I love to do) to see where the original pin came from and in doing so I discovered a wonderful little blog called The Hand Made Home. Now, I never have a good thing to say about Comic Sans but the hand made home have a little section called Font Snob and it made me giggle some what! So if you're looking for some inspiring fun fonts or just fancy being a bit snobby towards Comic Sans make sure you visit the Font Snob pages of The Hand Made Home :)

Inspiration Monday - Festival Tents

I started this Inspiration Monday looking for a variety of festival things after seeing T in the Park on tv this weekend but I ended up finding the most incredible tents I have ever seen! Therefore this entire post has been dedicated to these crazy yet horribly expensive tents. As much as I'd love one of these I'd never take this to a festival. Not in the UK at least. It would end up getting washed away. I don't really know what else to say to be honest other than they are AMAZING. Pop over to FieldCandy to check out the rest of the great designs!

FieldCandy:
FieldCandy is an exciting design-led brand of tents. We are here to inject colour, creativity and fun into the camping space by offering a range of totally unexpected designs. We aim to delight our customers and excite anyone who sees our products.

FieldCandy tents are fun. But they’re serious too. They keep you as dry in the rain and as snug in a gale as any conventional high performance tent. And because we use a good old-fashioned cotton inner tent, you don’t get the condensation that comes as standard with most modern tents.

WORK IS BEING STOLEN!

Thanks to ever watchful Bianca Green designers and illustrators are being told about the latest mass rip off of work. Maverick have taken hundreds of designs from Society6, printed them onto cases and are selling them as their own. This sort of thing makes me really sick. So, what do you need to do? Well you need to pop over to their facebook page and have a look through their albums to see if any of your work has been ripped off. Secondly, if you spot anyone elses work you should let them know. And lastly you should let everyone know about this so more people are aware and hopefully if enough people get involved they will get closed down. Although it won't stop them trading under a new name :(

Right this is the important bit! The links!
Original post by Bianca Green FULL OF LINKS! and you can download an album of screenshots that she took which is useful because some of those are not on the facebook page but are being sold elsewhere - http://society6.com/beegreen/New-market-places-for-illegal-iPhone-cases

Mavericks Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Maverick-store/355226624528322

I think this is another example of why Society6 needs to watermark their large previews of prints because it is so easy to simply lift the previews and do things like this. So if you're on twitter make Society6 aware of this and ask for watermarks! The more people who get involved the better.
Thanks! x

'A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self'

This little beaut landed in my inbox earlier today courtesy of Design Taxi. The child on the right is actually the man on the left! When he was 12 he made a tape which wasn't to be watched again until the future. So 20 years later artist and film maker Jeremiah McDonald watched the tape and had a conversation with his 12 year old self. Its quite a clever thing to consider doing when you are 12! I certainly wouldn't have thought about doing such a thing and even if I did what would I want to know about the future? What would you want to say to your 12 year old self? I have no idea but make sure you give it a little watch!

Higgs Boson - Comic Sans

Image source: The Verge

Today marks one of the biggest scientific discoveries of this century. The Higgs Boson particle or also known as the 'God particle'. Although this is a huge discovery more people are talking about the way it was presented rather than the discovery itself. But then again its not surpirising really when they presented it in Comic Sans. Yeah thats right. COMIC SANS. The typeface which is commonly used for comic strips and teachers hand outs. Yes its easy to read and yes ok I realise that its easier for people with dyslexia to read etc etc but surely they could have found something a little more appropriate. The use of Comic Sans in anything other than comic strips or anything for children allows itself to be mocked. Its a shame that this amazing discovery has been marred by the stupid choice of typeface.

I saw this below over on the Huffington post which was quite funny. Even the font's creator was really disappointed in the choice of font!

Maybe I should point them in the direction of Comic Sans Criminal. An Internet sensation created by Matt Dempsy. They may learn a thing or two. (See previous post here).
As usual the twittersphere had great fun with this and Comic Sans ended up trending higher than the God particle itself and people are still talking and laughing at it. Some are even calling the people at CERN the masters of trolling! Haha. Anyway, why not pop over to twitter and join in the comic sans fun! :)

Ariel

My boyfriend posted this on my facebook on monday and I found it really funny. Unless your a designer or know your fonts then you probably won't get this. My mum liked it but she had no idea what it was about until I explained it to her... Anyway it made me chuckle and was originally posted by Brands of the World.

Creative Insight - Rosie Wheeldon

This weekend I discovered a wonderful illustrator named Rosie on Facebook after she liked my page and was so impressed with the work that she creates herself I just had to ask her if she would be interested in doing a Creative Insight and luckily she said yes! So here it is! Thanks Rosie!

Hello!

I’m Rosie and I am a freelance Illustrator living in the North of England. I started freelancing in the second year of my illustration degree, when I was commissioned to design the character mascot for an exhibition at my local museum. My dream is to become a children’s (and grown-up’s!) book illustrator, nothing is more magical than a book, and I have been in love with narrative illustration from a very early age.

I was very happy when I was asked to provide a creative insight, so lets start at the beginning with my desk..

I like working with lots of pictures around me, and my books close at hand when I need inspiration.

Here are some of my favourite books from creative influences. As well as children’s books, I enjoy the art of films and video games too.

Now to show you how I produce my digital paintings for the ‘Cassius and Gustav’ web comic..

I produce a sketch on paper and scan it in; I usually draw the main features in my compositions separately, and then piece them together on my Mac.

I use Corel Painter X to create my digital paintings, and I use a charcoal pencil and a blender. I build the background first with lots of colours (all on the same layer) then I blend them and add to it until I am happy I have caught the ‘atmosphere’ of my picture. I added the floating creatures on the background layer in this piece too, because I wanted them to enhance the background colour. I like my characters to be in magical settings, and this is what ‘Cassius and Gustav’ is all about.

Here I start to add the essentials, like skin tone, hair colour and the clothes. This is the stage I find most daunting because you can paint the most wonderful, colourful setting for a character, but if the small details are wrong then the whole picture suffers. So I take a lot of time and care over this part.

When the base colours are done, I have a wonderful time adding shade and highlight to the characters, to really bring them into the world I have created for them. I loved doing the highlight in this painting, as it was a beautiful eerie blue colour- magical! 

   

I make use of the ‘zoom’ feature (one of the best perks of working digitally), to illustrate fine details like the pattern on the floating creatures.

I finish by adding the final touches of light and a little bit of sparkle :)

Before I add the text and publish the final illustration, I save a riff file, which I keep to make adjustments before I turn the pictures into prints. I also save a jpeg that I upload to my blog and my Flickr page.

So there it is, a quick insight into my digital paintings. You can follow the Cassius and Gustav webcomic here: cassiusandgustav.com

Keep up to date with my portfolio building and be the first to see my portfolio website as soon as it is finished, by following my little blog here: tothedepthsillustration.blogspot.co.uk

I put all my work up on my Flickr photostream: flickr.com/photos/heartbiscuits/

And you can follow me on Twitter: @scrimmle

If you would like to commission me, collaborate with me or ask me any more questions, get in touch via email: rose@tothedepths.com

Thank you for reading my feature, I do hope you stay in touch!

See you soon
Rose x

Inspiration Monday - Prom

1. Blue Ribbon Dress - Make Me a Dress
2. Corsage - Y S Originals
3. Heart Necklace - Eleven 3 Jewellery
4. Shoe Clips - Eva June
5. Clutch Bag - Mermaids Dream
6. Hair Piece - Fairytale Jubilee
7. Tutu Prom Dress - Mirela Olarlu

Last thursday was my little sisters year 11 prom and in one way I'm glad its over because its all I've heard about since last september but on the other hand I quite enjoyed the evening getting her ready and seeing her make her big entrance. There were so many beautiful dresses and unusual entrances being made that it made me want to go back and do my prom all over again. I think I need to get some of my friends married so that I can pull out a pretty dress and have a good excuse to wear something pretty. Judging by what I've pulled together above I'd probably go for something short simple and puffy in a light colour with a hint of blue!

My sister wore a stunning floor length magenta dress with little diamontes all over the bodice and ridiculously high shoes. I actually have no idea how she managed to stay in them the whole night as they were not only high but very tight. Her and her friend made their big entrance in an ice cream van! Yep an ice cream driven by our friend which meant we got some free ice creams. As he pulled in he put on the ice cream tune and people came rushing forward to take their photo's. In a strange way I felt proud of her, no idea why I just did. Anyway she had a fantastic evening but is gutted its all over. Below is a little picture I put on instagram of her and friend in the ice cream van :)