The First City Break

So I've been to a lot of cities and I guess to say this was the first would be a bit of a lie. But it was the first time I've been away with a female friend to a city just to see what was there, just because I could.
So we decided we'd go to Berlin, because I had a couple of days off work. the next day we booked it and 5 days later we were on the plane! which was pretty cool in itself. and the trip followed in the same vain, fast paced and exciting. I'm only going to write about the highlights mind, otherwise ill be here for days.

The city is quite strange in that there seem to be a lot of space. It's not all crammed together with a tower block wherever they can fit one. I first noticed this when we got to the holocaust memorial. it's absolutely stunning. unimaginable. overcasting. enlightening. powerful. probably better than any landmark or sculpture or statue I have ever seen and its so interactive. AND MASSIVE! I'll leave you with the pics:

(the pretty lady is my best mate Lu)

Die Neue National Gallerie was designed by Miles van der Rohe, and kind of looks like a swimming pool thats turned inside out. its a big glass box with a flat black roof you go in and the downstairs to get the the main exhibitions but your not underground there is still natural light. its quite exciting. we saw some lovely surrealist work there but I think I liked the architecture best.

Helmut Newton: is basically the shit! We went to the Sumo exhibition at the Helmut Newton Foundation. Bloody brilliant made me want to take my clothes off even more than normal! Couldnt decide which pic to put up so I thought I'd give you a taste of the most obvious.

One evening we went to the cutest bar, kind of reminded me of the Birdcage in Norwich. It was called Schokoladen. The beer was cheap and the ladies were pretty. The guys were pretty hot too actually. there were 3 acts: Stefana Fratila from Canada she was good but the whole cute girl singing high pitched and playing the ukulele thing is getting a bit common. Next up was a girl who goes buy the name of Umiumi. She does this kind of electro pop act and dances, with no shoes and no bra, like a swift or some other beautiful bird. Basically I fell in love and I think half the crowd did as well. The last act was Little Pictures. they were good and put in their all and were a really cute pair of best friends. The kind you wish were a couple. I have a feeling we will be seing more of them in the future.

(Umiumi: click pic for her myspace)

So my few days were jam packed full of exciting and cultural stuff. I could go on but I think ive told you the most important parts.

Lovely city. I highly recomend it.

New Blood

I was the only first year on my course that went, which did make me a little sad but hey, I had fun. the day was amazing you arrive and walk onto a bright yellow carpet that glows like the sun! there were so many colleges there, it was great to see what everyone was doing from around the country. It was interesting to see that work of graduates from colleges I didn't end up at. It was good to see how to display work and what works and what really doesn't. Farnham were a good bad example of this they printed the work on big sheets of rubber and clipped them at each corner to their space. it did not show off the work well at all. Alternatively Bristol had a good layout at their space and I was impressed by the quality of work. some of it was lovely. I think I was most impressed with ECA and Falmouth, you can really tell that they are independent art schools, the work is of such high standards and so refreshing.
I went to a couple of talks whilst I was there. I saw one called 'Digital on The Move' presented by Alasdair Scott from The Bright Place who only produce work for mobile e.g. any screen you can take on the move: phone, Nintendo DS, PSP, etc. They take the concept of 3 screens (tv, computer, and phone) and reverse them saying your always have your mobile on you and it rarely turned off, which is so true. This makes it the most accessible point of communicating with audiences. Interesting point and very relevant to Graphic Communications.
then I saw a panel talk on own brands and supermarket structure in this economic decline. The talk was chaired by Linda the editor of design week and the speakers were:
Richard Murray from William Murry Hamm (Hamm being the current president of D&AD)
Doug James from Honey
Jonathan Ford from Pearlfisher (one of my favourite agencies)
and Kate Blanford who was the design manager for Sainsbury's own brand range for 8 years!
also Bruce Duckwork walked in and sat at the back halfway through and to be honest I was too star struck to learn a lot from it but there were some nice quotes that I will put on the 'Quote wall'
New Blood Site

The Show-NUCA 09

There was a lot of movement and drama and stress in school the last few weeks before the end of term, but all with good reason as I found out when I went to see the end of year show. I was really impressed with the standard of work, it was so high and the show looked lovely. Really professional. There was so much work that I loved and barely any that I hated. but there was one that stuck out.. in a good way: from illustration Natsuki Otani. I have never met this student, I dont know if its a boy or a girl, I'm going to guess girl (sorry if your not) but her work is gorgeous. The kind of this I'd like a tattoo of because you could never get bored of seeing it. The work she showed was a piece of each of the four seasons. I made myself choose a favorite. It was a very trick decision I liked parts of each but over all autumn won which is cool because it's probably my favorite season.

Check out Otanis work at Flickr

Richard Billingham

It was the day of Hand In FGC4! I hadn't slept, well maybe for an hour or so, and Andy told us post hand in that we should go to a lecture that was this afternoon. I groaned in that 'I know I'm going to go but when will I get time to shut my eyes kind of way'. I went to see him talk: Richard Billingham. I had always thought he was a good photographer with interesting subject matter. Turns out he's a painter at heart and just takes snaps of his folks! It's composition and almost a lack of care for his work that makes it o good. most of his best, earlier work he has lost the negatives for and just has paint splattered prints to show, this would be a real shame in most cases but it adds so much to his work it tells a real story of a boy trying to follow a path that turned out to not be right for him. Billingham's paintings were never appreciated by his tutors or peers and he became accidentally pushed into photography which he eventually accepted. Something that he said really hit home to me, and made me feel warm inside. Billingham was rejected from 16 universities, most importantly Falmouth and Norwich as I was also rejected from both of these. Rejection is hard but it seems like we've both dealt with it well.
Favourite Quote: 'the more mistakes the better really.'