On Sunday, I wrote a post regarding the 3D-printed letterpress font that Dan and I saw at the V&A for The London Design Festival (if you missed it, read it here) I told you that I will be updating my blog when Adrian Harrison’s film is released. Alas, it has been uploaded. Originally uploaded and announced by Creative Review, you can see Adrian’s short film here on his vimeo and you can also see the other cool projects that he’s been working on, such as the Joby Carter signwriter I mentioned in my previous post.

Go and check him out.

The London Design Festival 13-21 September 2014

Today found Dan and I at The London Design Festival at the V&A.

Yesterday whilst checking Design Taxi, I noticed a really cool article about 3D printed type. Instantly interested, I had a read and showed this to my colleague Ben, who has just built a 3D printer, see his tweets here. He also printed me a letter R which you can see on my Instagram here. He's looking for new little projects and cool things to print whilst he's prototyping and learning to built design in CAD.

After a little research into this cool little project, I realised it was The London Design Festival 13-21 September 2014. We looked online and I instantly knew that we should be attending this short film held at the V&A.

Before that though, whilst checking out this really cool 3D typeface project, I was led onto a Vimeo page of Adrian Harrison. I was watching a film he made on 'Learn to Sign Write' with Joby Carter who is a traditional signwriter and sign restorer. His work is truly inspiring. I remember for my birthday a couple of years ago, asking for a couple of sign writing books to pick up this fantastic art form after watching David Adrian Smith create something similar with glass. I found him after researching who did John Mayer's intricate album cover for his 'Born and Raised' album. I was blown away by this incredible skill. I still have yet to get round to digging out my signwriting books and making a start but I hope to soon as I've been so inspired.


So, back to today. Dan and I headed our way to the room in the V&A and noticed the guys were giving an extra screening of the film at 1pm - perfect timing! They had the 3D printed typeface on the desk and Beatrice from the New North Press was creating some prints in front of us. It was a pleasure just watching it. Shortly after sitting down, the film was played, introduced by Adrian Harrison. I was thinking "Where do I know that name? I know that name!" before realising is was the film-maker who created the short film for Joby Carter the day previous. Awesome sauce. The film was fantastic and Richard Ardagh talked through his idea about bringing the old letterpress with the new 3D printing technology which is now taking off and being used reasonably wildly. Richard went through the initial idea to the prototyping, with the font designed by A2-Type and 3D-printed by Chalk Studios and through to final testing and adding it to the thousands of typefaces they store at New North Press as an actual working font. This film, this work reminded me of why I got into design. Why I was excited. I found it exciting. It reminded me of the work experience at Newton Press Ltd a couple of years ago when I was still studying. I was learning about the old letterpress machinery, from the heidelberg's to the new Presstek 34DI digital offset printing press.

After the short film, Dan and I got chatting to Adrian and I told him I'd seen his previous films. We were chatting about his current work and some exciting projects he's got coming up. I'll be posting his short film about the A23D, a 3D-printed letterpress font when it's published on his Vimeo.

After having a good old chinwag with these very talented people, I even got the chance to letterpress my own initial with their 3D printed typeface. Absolutely so chuffed.

I cannot get over how creative and refreshing this idea is. I'm throughly impressed and it's great there are so many talented individuals in this project. Check out the New North Press's website for more info.

Thanks to all those there today who inspired me.

Memory Palace - Sky Arts Ignition - Hari Kunzru - V&A

Sky Arts Ignition: Memory Palace brings together a new work of fiction by the author Hari Kunzru with 20 original commissions from leading graphic designers, illustrators and typographers to create a multidimensional story.

The way we read books is changing. Memory Palace explores how a story might be imagined in a different format – as a walk-in book.

The Story

Hari Kunzru's story is set in a future London, hundreds of years after the world’s information infrastructure was wiped out by an immense magnetic storm. Technology and knowledge have been lost, and a dark age prevails. Nature has taken over the ruins of the old city and power has been seized by a group who enforce a life of extreme simplicity on all citizens. Recording, writing, collecting and art are outlawed.

The narrator of the story is in prison. He is accused of being a member of a banned sect, who has revived the ancient ‘art of memory’. They try to remember as much of the past as they can in a future where forgetting has been official policy for generations. The narrator uses his prison cell as his ‘memory palace’, the location for the things he has remembered: corrupted fragments and misunderstood details of things we may recognise from our time. He clings to his belief that without memory, civilisation is doomed.

Yesterday Dan and I went to see this exhibition (since I've ben wanting to see it for a long time!) Dan kindly bought us a years membership at the V&A, so now we can go to all the exhibitions when we want (yay!) The main reason I wanted to go was because I knew that Sam Winston was a commissioned artworker for this particular exhibition. For those of you who do not know, I had the pleasure of working alongside Sam in March 2012. You can read about my time with him here. His work is absolutely fascinating.

The exhibition was really great. A few particular pieces I really enjoyed was that of Hansje van Halen, as well as Sam Winston's which you can see below and another piece that he did here. Sam goes into much more detail of the process behind his art which you can see on his website.

One thing which interested my attention was the work of Johnny Kelly. The exhibition mainly talked about memories which were mostly physical. It explored the landscape, the hospital, some form of religion and churches, civilisation etc. Whereas, the very last part of the exhibition was one that everyone could contribute to. 

'This is what we do for the dying. I am permitted to add one memory of my own to the store. The others will hold it, will cherish it as carefully as the words of a Lawlord'.

If you could keep on memory, what would it be? Just take a second to think about your memory. Out of everything you have done, achieved, not achieved, significant moments in your life.  That time you landed the best job? That time you bought your first car, the time you travelled and stood on top of mount everest? What would be be?

We could write one thing, one memory into this computer with an interactive pen. These were then printed out in A2 format on black paper with our white drawings/words/messages. 

I didn't see one single memory which mentioned anything physical or materialistic. 

It was about people. That person they met which showed great kindness, the moment the person fell in love, "grandpa's hand" , "Mark's smile and your continuous generosity. Love Pat x". The common theme was people, love, -a memory with someone special in their life. 

If you could remember only one thing, if you could have only one memory, what would it be?

Painting, frames, pictures.

Dan and I finally got our Hong Kong paintings (imported all the way from Hong Kong!) stretched in Camden.

We spend some time, sorting out our frames and rearranging the arrangement. And voila, the flat now looks as it should :)

We also spent some money on some penguin books postcards. We chose our favourites and framed them :)

Our final arrangement. Feels so great to see the walls filled now! 

London: Davie Bowie Exhibition at the V&A

This weekend saw my mum and I going to the V&A Museum to see David Bowie's exhibition. It was absolutely fantastic! I booked tickets in advance so we obviously got straight in (after accidentally cutting the queue without realising..oops!) It took us about two hours to go around and we saw all of his outfits and costumes. We each has headsets which played his music at certain points to correspond with what we were looking at. It was all incredible. Right at the end, we go into this large room which played his live videos and recordings in small intervals. Once the screen stopped, behind them you could see all of his most famous costumes. It was just fantastic. Plus, right at the end when I took my headset off, I managed to get it completely tangled in my curls which both my mum and the security woman had to help un-tangle. Smooth.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take many photos because people were stood around with hawk-eyes making sure you didn't take any. Such a shame!

We bought lots of things from the gift-shop including this plectrum :) 

After the exhibition, Dan met us for lunch at Nando's and we filled our bellies with chicken before heading to Harrods. I planned to take Mum to the chocolate cafe, Godvia -so we did just that. We accidentally got lost in harrods and ended up in the art section looking at moving sculptures for £83,000. Once we found our way and bounced our way through the ever so soft carpets, and having listened to an opera singer leaning over the escalator from a window much like the one of Romeo and Juliet, we found the cafe.

Oh how handsome. 

Mum and I ordered the chocolate fondu with yummy things to dip it. It was absolutely gorgeous. We couldn't finish it all though so we had to eventually admit defeat.

So good! 

After that we headed to Covent Garden and looked around before walking to Trafalgar Square to see the big blue cockerel. Once we stopped there to take a few photos and have a sit down, we headed past downing street and went to see Big Ben. After a few photos there we decided to head home since we were all pretty exhausted.

It was so nice to have my Mum down and spend time with her. She finally got to see mine and Dan's flat which she couldn't stop saying how lovely it was :) 

Thanks for coming down Momma :) X