G.F. Smith: Colour in Context

Last month, G. F. Smith visited Manchester with their evening of Colour in Context at the Museum of Science and Industry. We had the opportunity to listen to talks from creatives and how they use colour (we also all received a wonderful goody bag and free pizza- always a plus in my book).

I heavily recommend you check out the below speakers; each are very inspiring in their different fields.

Luke Stephenson gave an insightful talk on photographing birds and the strange habits of pigeon fanciers.

Set designer Gemma Tickle wowed with her amazing ideas, including creating giant flumps.

 Fashion designer Kit Neale examined how, as a nation, us Brits are very orthodox when it comes to office/formal wear. We need to take note from other cultures and bring in some colour!

Pick Me Up London

Last month I was fortunate enough to visit the Pick Me Up exhibition at Somerset House in London. It was like an illustration and design nirvana!

Brothers of the Stripe	Dan Hilliar
Telegramme (Bobby Evans)	The Handsome Frank Emporium!

Tom Edwards	Malark
Malika Favre	William Goldsmith

Blab Talks

BLAB is a series of talks in Manchester, organised by Matt Booth, which feature speakers from all across the creative spectrum. From designers to illustrators, photographers to UI developers. No matter what your job in the creative industry (arguably any industry) or background, BLAB offers a look into the lives and inspirations of some exciting, accomplished people.

The most inspirational of which I believe is Gavin Strange, senior designer at Aardman. His talk was so motivating and heartfelt, and his can-do attitude left everyone glowing with positivity afterwards. 

Luckily, all the talks are recorded and uploaded to Vimeo, so I strongly recommend making a pot of tea and settling down to watch it for yourself (you can hear me woop at the mention of Adventure Time at 43:25, sorry..)

Some of my other favourite BLAB speakers include:

Mr Bingo - Illustrator

Kevin Meredith (LomoKev) - Photographer

Peter Crawley - Multichannel Designer/Illustrator

Nik Roope - Industrial and Digital Media Designer/Entrepreneur

If you're interested in attending a future BLAB talk you can do so through their Meetup page. 

Follow their Twitter for updates on upcoming events. 

You can also watch videos of past talks on their Vimeo page.

Draw North West

Since moving down to Manchester at the beginning of last year I discovered a bi-monthly meet-up group in the city centre which goes by the name of Draw North West.

Through which I have met so many lovely illustrators and artists, and learned about creative events and exhibitions around the city.
The creative community of Manchester is something I find incredibly heartening, and makes me proud to be a part of such an accommodating community.
Attendees range from students from the local university to well experienced freelancers. Everyone is eager to talk about their latest ideas, recommend inspiration and just have a laugh and a doodle.

Tonight is the 10th DNW meetup- a little bit of a milestone. Here's to many more!

This meetup's poster was drawn by the uber talented Emma Reynolds. I think it perfectly captures the spirit of DNW.

If you fancy rubbing shoulders with other arty types, head down to Common Bar tonight on Edge Street in the Northern Quarter of Manchester.

Draw North West
@drawnorthwest

Western Spaghetti and Fresh Guacamole

Director PES transforms familiar objects into food.
There's something that my OCD side finds deeply satisfying about these videos.
My favourite bit has to be when the 'chilli' is deseeded and chopped into Monopoly houses.

ING Direct Adverts

I'm in love with the new adverts from ING Direct. They were produced by BMB and feature different animals in metaphorical financial situations similar to that of Aesop's Fables.
It's refreshing to see people are still keeping traditional puppetry alive, rather than taking the seemingly more common route of using digital software to create mock traditional animation.

The Secret of Kells

I recently watched Secret of Kells, an animation released in 2009 that's been repeatedly recommended to me. The animation is breath taking, I keep having to re-watch sections of it. In distant 'shots', figures stand in uniform to make and appear like an ancient tapestry, or an illustration from the Book of Kells itself (I initially mistook the style as a product of Disney; that it was made by the same studio as Kim Possible!). The use of painted texture and level of detail is beautiful, even the snowflakes are celtic patterns.

Here are some of my favourite stills from the film.

Handmade Signs Are Alive And Well!

Found this gem the other day. Love the fact they included a little illustration of the lost moggy. Hope they find them soon!

Adventure Time with Finn and Jake

I want to dedicate this post to an awesome new cartoon, the wonderfully weird and fabulously fun (and sometimes scary!). Wikipedia very effectively sums up the general storyline:

"12-year-old human Finn, who was found in the woods as a baby by a dog family, and his best friend and adopted brother Jake, a 28-year-old dog with stretching powers, are adventurers living in the Land of Ooo, a setting full of surreal characters, with fantasy and post-apocalyptic elements. The duo's typical adventures involve saving princesses, fighting evil monsters, exploring dungeons, helping people in need and stopping crooks. Along the way, they frequently meet strange and interesting characters."


Fred Siebert (creator of Adventure Time, Fairly Odd Parents) has an awesome collection of character sheets, title cards and backgrounds on his Flickr account. I love all the hundreds of different unique characters they come up with.

 

It also has awesomely wacky and painfully addictive songs, below is one of my favourites.

Edinburgh- White Stuff store

This weekend I went to Edinburgh and stayed on George Street. I visited the White Stuff shop (the biggest in the country) and was delighted by what I found.

I loved the work in their new catalogue; they gave it the bulky appearance of a leather bound story book and each section inside represented a different fairytale with a different model and their illustrated animals friends.

They used the animal illustrations throughout the store and in the front window.

Other detaills included a 8 metre fiberglass tree growing through the atrium. A rotating merry-go-round and vintage kiddies rides. Rapunzel's hair cascaded down from a model on the first floor, and there was a giant sweet counter complete with bulky vintage tills. You were also greeted by a sharply dressed concierge at the entrance, which was a rather nice feature if I do say so.

One of the greatest features was the changing rooms. A corridor of wardrobes you had to walk through to find a secret room through the back. Basically you tried on clothes in Narnia, how awesome is that?! Apparantly there were different kinds of secret rooms (a boy's bedroom, a beach hut, and even E.T's closet!) I only went in the Enchanted forest one, might have been kicked out if I tried to get in all the others.

Retro Design

Flickr user Grickily was kind enough to upload all their retro packaging they own to be viewed by everyone online. There's sets full of old labels, packaging and adverts as well as a massive one full of children's retro food packaging!