No rest for the wicked

Hi, so im back! So its the middle of the summer, one of the hottest months of the year and i have projects to do for uni! Ive been very lazy just enjoying the beach as im in cyprus at the moment, been home for a month but i go back to london on thursday which sucks cos i hadnt realised how much id missed home.
Ive been lazy but at the same time i have also made a cushion cover, learned a song on the guitar and i am now going to make curtains for my room in my new house in stratford! I would upload a photo of my cushion but im lazy right now! All you need to know is that its a patchwork design which means that i have cut up different materials with different designs and sewn them together and it looks super funky :)
For uni ive had to do a interior/furnishing project and i have been taking insporation from Spring/Summer 2014 which kind of have like a picturesque, sunset, digital photo feel. As im back in cyprus i thought its perfect! We have lovely beaches and what others would call exotic plants everywhere like palm trees and stuff. So thats what ive been doing and i have edited one of them and put it below, i dont know if anyone is going to read this but if you do a quick comment would be much appreciated as i am a student and openly  welcome constructive criticism to make me a better designer!
The first pic is from my moodboard about how its all scenic/tropic imagery. The second one is my design and interpretation of this design. I have 2 more to do after this.

Welcoming summer with a drink in each hand

This week finally came to an end! YAY i am so happy :) Successfully handed in all my work on time and celebrated on Friday with a couple of pints of cider (classy) But yes its officially summer! In comparison to other years, this hand- in wasn't as half as stressful as the rest of them because i was FUCKING ORGANISED :) So proud of myself, so yeah we hung up our work on Friday at around 10, went to the SU bar had a few drinks, went back at half 2 to pick up our work and then went back to the SU to have more drinks! :) And i was there the new before as well (haha) so i had consumed allot of alcohol in those 24 hours :)
Since then (as today is sunday) i have been to 2 job interviews which went very well, wandered around Angel which i love definitely recommend it if you come to London (its on the northern line). Yesterday i did NOTHING all day :) and just watched channel 4 documentaries and tv shows, it was great! Today i have been packing as were moving out soon, but like ive packed 3 boxes, 2 suitcases and it still looks the same! Its ridiculous, and i only have 2 boxes and 1 suitcase left.. i think ill need at least another suitcase.
Plans for the summer: finish my internship end of may, fingers crossed be working as a bar woman at night and working in a Mexican grill in the day. Go to Liverpool end of June and other places, go home for a while, get a house!
Don't know if ill keep this up now, as im done with uni work til October lol so yeah xx

mayday!

Happy Bank holiday to all the hardworking people out there! To me it just feels like a lazy Sunday which is good i guess but im motivated to do work today which is good. I cam to my friends in Euston today so we can all do our work together and to be honest i was sick and tired of staying in my house, its so depressing. So on this sunny and warm day i am going to upload my final designs for my business card and post card and some other bits and bobs. I have now pretty much done everything, im doing it all really slowly, simply because i can! What im really dreading is the corsage i have to make for the gift wrap module and the press release for the professional practice module. So here they are with one of my designs in a different colourway from my gift wrap module. For some reason the business card looks a dodgy shape but i dont know why because its a jpeg, oh well.

May the fourth be with you.

Saturday morning and i am sat in bed collecting all my thoughts about all the things i need to do, cos who doesnt what that on a saturday?! Well this time next week i can do whatever i want so its all good! Unfortunately today the sun is not shining but hey this is England, we were pushing our luck as it was.
So, today i plan on getting everything or most of professional practice sorted and then go library and print it all out. That will be one of many things on my list to do today or until wednesday. The good thing about my course is that i can always have music on because im not 'studying' im photoshopping and other things, like right now im listening to an album i just downloaded by Wild Belle called Isles, its really good if you like chilled/indie music :)
Right below i am going to post my wallpaper designs, just the digital version though, because even though they look different in real life cos of the texture of the wallpaper i havent taken photos yet and you'll get the jist of it. Okayy so theres only 2 designs here and there are meant to be 4.. One of them is 2,5m so is a massive which it wouldnt let me upload and the other one i cant find as a jpeg which is odd.

Bitches be hatin

The weather is beautiful, ive printed out all my finals and i am a very happy bunny :).
So i booked in to go print all my stuff yesterday at 7 which was the only option. So i was at uni, left at 12 went to stratford to pay rent, then went Leyton to B&Q to get some wallpaper to print on, then went to Shoreditch thinking that i could get paper from there to print my giftwrap on.. i was wrong so then i googled it and found a place in Bank by like the British Museum, i got SO lost, it was awful. By the end of it i called my friend and asked her to Google the street i was on so i could get to the nearest station which was now Holborn. But anyway i managed to get home at around 5 cut out all my papers to the right size and then went to uni at 7 for my appointment and didn't leave til about half ten. Can safely say i was absolutely shattered! But now i have printed all my finals so im over the moon! Still have things to do like my business cards and shit like that but its all good. Im getting there and im feeling positive about it. Stress is so unnecessary as it just makes you nervous and you dont do your work as well as you would normally. 

Ive shown my tutors my final designs and they like them (yay) which is awesome because i like them too. As i have finished them a week before i havent done any half jobs so they actually look good and i am happy with them. I usually leave things to the last minute and they end up looking like shit and i hope i just get a pass. But like im organised!! WHO AM I? fingers crossed i keep this up next year and do better :)

Oh yeah the reason behind my title is that i came into uni and everyone is stressing out because theyre still doing layouts and colours and im just like i printed everything out aha :) it feels good, it feels good..

I swear i had something interesting to write on here but i seem to have forgotten, oh well, ill be posting some of my wallpaper finals soon and other bits and bobs.

ttfn

Wheres Wally

HI. Its pretty much the final countdown now until my deadlines, fun stuff! I really dislike the last couple of weeks/days because however much you've planned out your time and think you're done shit just happens and messes everything up. Right now ive pretty much done my designs and waiting to get paper and print them out which is great so fingers crossed it all goes to plan. I also dont like the final weeks because its 'stressful' i personally either get super stressed and want to lie on the floor because i feel so overwhelmed i dont know what to do first or im subconsciously stressed which means ill either under/overeat and be like IM FINE!! lol i much prefer the second option because stressing is a waste of time and energy and will get you nowhere in life.
For example the other morning i got so worried that i was super behind on work that i dreamt about it and woke up at 7:30 in the morning like a crazy woman, then sat on photoshop until midnight. I did get allot done to be fair which is good and i actually liked the end result (yay) :)
Right now it is 3:14 in the morning in London, why am i awake you ask? aha well, see im not a regular coffee drinker so ill only drink some if i really need it. In result of that i am SUPER sensitive to caffeine, like i get super hyper and everything. All i had today was a cup of tea at around 8 to get me through my work and i am still up waiting for New Girl to finish downloading so i can hopefully doze off to it. Even if i dont i can watch a disney movie which are my favourite type of films and im turning 21 this year ahh oh well im young at heart i guess.
Anyway ill stop babbling about random shit now, im writing a post today to upload some of my work from my wallpaper module which is actually part of a competition as well and my group is taking inspiration from the Sanderson Archive, which we visited a few months back. It was a great experience (even though i was 40 mins late, got lost in the middle of Uxbridge..) with a massive depository of designs and books from the 1800s. So for this module we need 4 designs 52x52cms but one has to be 52x250cm. I have finished 3 and the fourth is halfway there.

Hi again

SO i just finished designing my last layout for my gift wrap module (yaaay) im not completely sure about the background colour but this seems to be my best option right now. Ill sleep on it and see it with a new eye tomorrow < does that make sense or have i just translated that from greek? oh well, you get the gist of it.
So now all i have left for this module is to do the colour ways, the gift bag and hand tag for the bag OH and the little bow thing, cant remember what its called. So ye :) im happy with that. Now i need to get on with my business card which is half way there and everything else!!

On the right track

Hiya, so i finally have some finals to put on here! about time really seeing as its end of april and its getting really close to deadlines now. But i am very happy with the way they are turning out which is GREAT because i usually tend to rush things towards the end and they end up looking shit. So in this post i am attaching 4 of my final layouts :) (damn that feels good) and i am working on my fifth one as i type this, well not literally but you get the picture. Quick reminder my theme is haberdashery.

silver lining part two

This is a continuation of the previous post because it decided to go all weird half way and i just thought fuck it start a new one, its not like anyone reads this anyway.
So yeah, as you can see from my earlier post the 2 images i attached i like the first one because when printed out it just looked better. So this is is the one i was talking about how i changed the background colour and it just started looking better instantly. I might make some changes still though, ill print it out tomorrow to see what it really looks like and take it from there.
So thats kinda 2 down, 2 more to go but i have my third one in my head like its very vague but its there! As for my fourth i have all the imagery im just struggling to lay it out unfortunately.

Silver Lining

So besides the fact that its week 10 (i think) and things should already be done i am still actually designing which sucks, besides some major setbacks that did not allow me to be creative i am considerably on track. Today i managed to print one off and i dont know why but when it comes to textiles whenver i print one of my designs/layouts everything thing seems to fall into place. So now ive gone from panicking to thinking i can do this. So i printed one off then i changed the background on one of the other ones which looks much better now and im about to edit one of my other designs. YAY all i need to do now is adjust the ceramic buttons i got from the V&A last week, theyre really pretty but i only bought 4 ( they were 1,75 each to be fair) i am a student you know! So i still have that to figure out but im sure i will, always seem to.
What im worried about now is the wallpaper module as its more handpainted which obviously takes longer and plus its on a bigger scale obviously which makes it slightly harder because you need to picture it on a wall in a massive repeat and scale.
Today has secretly been quite productive, i was trying to do my business card and what i want to do is not working so i need to either choose something else to do or google the shit out of it until i find a solution. I had photoshop, illustrator and Indesign all running at the same time to try and see which would work better until later on this evening i remember corelDraw which is such an easy programme compared to all that Adobe shit, so positive thinking. So this first image is the first design i printed out which i was very chuffed about, when i print it on some nice paper i think it will look really nice :)

 This is the same as the above image except that i  shrank it and made it into a pattern but i wasnt too keen on the scale so i going with the first one.









 

Third post-happy easter

So I'm now in wiltshire at my aunt and uncles celebtatinh easter by stuffing my face with all the food I can't affordbto buy and have no time to make. In my last post I said that I was hoping my aunt would have lots of haberdashery related things and she didn't disappoint!  I've attached a photo of this tapemeasure which is absolutely adorable, she also has an owl pin cushion, needle holder and a threader.
So now that I have all the necessary elements for my project all I need to do now is take photos (which I've already done) and manipulate them on photoshop to create 4 unique layouts and colourways.
As of Wednesday I cannot use my laptop as the charger has broke (AGAIN) which is super inconvinient as I need it to use photoshop and illustrator.
Anyhow I will try my best to get everything done as I really don't wanna fall behind on my work.

Interpretation and knowledge gained from professional practice module and design industry.

So as part of our Professional Practice module we have to write 1000 words about what we have gained from it and what we thought of it. I personally thoroughly enjoyed this module, actually i loved it, i loved it so much it was my favourite day of the week. All the other girls thought i was joking but i really did enjoy it, its all about what you need to know for when you finish which in my mind is VERY valuable information and if you don't know it you will be kicking yourself later.
Anyhow i opened my word document and because of all the information in my head i started writing random sentences which made no sense so i thought that i would right it on my blog because for some reason i tend to right better on here, i think its because there is a chance that someone might actually see it and will judge me.
So on the first week we had an introduction to the module by Kate which was very interesting, she gave us lots of tips about the industry that are good to know, about various things involving starting up your own studio to the taxes. This is what got me excited and thought this is a good module and that im going to enjoy it.
Second week we had a CAD workshop by Fred which unfortunately wasn't very helpful for me as we were doing beginners stuff and ive been using CAD for a good 3 years now so im past that stage, not saying im a pro or anything but id say im good enough. On the third week we had a presentation on how to build/write a blog which i was a bit late for actually (oops) but when i did get there i logged into my Google  account as its connected to blogger which was the website we were using and 5 mins later i was done. I was slightly disappointed because i thought we were going to be taught the way to write and set up our blog for future use and if we wanted to use it for our jobs or hobbies. But it got me started nonetheless as i already have 2 blogs i haven't been finding this too bad, the only difference is this one is strictly for uni and the others are for personal use. On week 4 we had a lecturer from the journalism school talk to us on how to write a press release which was very interesting as i didnt really know what a press release was until then and he was very informative. I cant quite remember right now what he said as i dont have my notes with me but it was interesting nonetheless.
Week five was one of my favourite classes by far, we had 2 lovely ladies from the employability skills sector in our uni and they were just very upbeat and fun but were also teaching us at the same time. Allot of people felt very awkward that day as they were being put on the spot but thats what its all about stepping out of your comfort zone and just saying what you think is the correct answer even if it might not be. I found their take very refreshing and helpful.
Right now im going to skip to week eight because i don't have my notes with me and i also think we missed one of the lectures because our tutor was absent. Right then, on week eight we had a lecture by a lovely girl called Shayna Begum which recently graduated from our university. She was lovely and had some amazing artwork that she had done in her final collection. She also spoke about how it has been since she graduated which was great because she is so relevant to us.
If i haven't said it already, as a whole i have really enjoyed this module and have learnt allot from it which i think will be very useful for future reference. Now i just need to finish doing my business cards and pro forma . This has helped, writing it down on here, don't know why but yay! it did.

Second Post

So now im getting a bit more used to this, its becoming more natural and i don't feel so silly.
Right then, today i am going to post my mood board and some thoughts on where im going with my project since our interim review on Friday  As you may or may not remember on my last post I was talking about how i had now decided to go about it digitally and how my theme is haberdashery, don't worry its still the same, would be foolish to change it 7 weeks in anyway. I'm liking my theme the more i look into it as ive always had an obsession with collecting buttons and my mum has literally a room filled with everything you could ever dream of that is haberdashery related.

 Anyhow on your left is a photo of my mood board which has changed dramatically since week 1 but that's ok because my other theme just wasnt working for me and i would have hated myself by the end of it and the work would probably reflect that.\
Its very obvious what images im focused on, my colour palette which is isnt on there is going to be bright colours because for gift wrap it needs to have 'shelf appeal' as you dont get a second chance to impress.

On the right is the design i put up last week but if you look closely you'll notice that the bottom image looks slightly different as it has been printed onto tracing paper which has made a difference in the colours and the feel of it as a design giving it a different look.

This image is a little experimentation i was doing with layouts, colours and how the photos would look on a block colour background. As a result i need higher pix-elated photos and more buttons! But as a whole i quite like it, at one point i was thinking about printing this onto brown wrapping paper but then remembered that the module outline says luxury giftwrap so i might just test it out but not use it as a final.

I must admit since Friday i haven't done much as i was ill and working but i have loads of time to catch up on everything over the Easter holidays which i am looking forward to.
Im going down to Bath to stay at my aunts for Easter and she is very much into sewing, knitting and jewelry making so i might get some inspiration from there as well.
So that's it for today, might post sooner as i need to catch up with this and i am actually quite enjoying it as i can write down all my thoughts about my designs and then go back to them later on.

First design blog

Im going to be honest right now, ive been staring at a blank page for the past 15 mins thinking what do i write? As this is a module related blog i dont quite know how to go about it. I have other blogs but they are personal so i blabber on about random thoughts that no one cares about. So in this one i will talk about my design development, my inspiration, techniques and the moments where i want to rip all the pages out of my sketch book because i hate the theme ive chosen.
So here it goes.
For this module i started off with a completely different mood board to what i have now as it had animals and inky paintings on it. I then started drawing animals and didn't like the idea in the end, i also took into consideration that our module is called 'luxury gift wrap  and my animals were looking more urban outfitters than Harrods. So the following day i found an image of a kitten which i started sketching, i then noticed it had a bow around its neck so i started drawing that more and developing it. I liked the idea so i thought where can you buy bows? a haberdashery of course!  I then rummaged around my room and found some pins, a tape measure, buttons and started drawing things, i decided i like the idea and carried on.
After sketching i decided to take pictures of the buttons i already had and to develop them in photoshop to create a layout and to see clearer where my design is going and what media i am going to use.
I am currently at the stage of choosing colours and layouts as im pretty confident with the imagery.
The image on the left is one of the first experiments ive done on photoshop to see what i think. I like it but i need to change the colours as i think theyre too bright and the buttons need to be more even as the negative space is not equal everywhere. I think my mistake in this one is that the buttons were all one image, instead of each button being a different image/layer. So in the next one ill take each button individually and place them on the background so i have more control of the negative space and layout.
Im quite happy with where im at as i now have a clearer outlook on what im doing.
So right now im going to go and draw loads of buttons from the photos ive taken and photoshop some more!