7/9 Bittersweet

We're leaving and its totally bittersweet. I'm ready to go home, but it's sad knowing that it's over. What brought me to University of Delaware and waited 3 years for, was over. I couldn't be happier though of how everything went. The trip is in so many ways such an experience. Not only were we visiting people that I am still trying to fathom how they gave us there time, we were sharing the experience in a different country, a different culture with our best friends.

On another note, Rosie and I were extremely nervous about our suitcases being over weight, but somehow we ended up being fine. Our problem ended up being our hand luggage where I ended up having to throw away my backpack, some tabloids my cousin was in, salt and vinegar crisps, and my umbrella. I also had to put on about 5 layers of clothing, but I wasn't about to throw any of that away. I spent the last of my money on candy, of course. And then it was time to board the plane! which I had a little scare because I had a boarding ticket, but without my ticket in it. So, the guy asked for it and I had not a clue where it would be because I thought the guy when I checked in was supposed to take care of it (but he didn't). So I emptied out my overstuffed bag on the floor and finally found it. I was so happy to be on the plane heading home, I couldn't wait to see my parents and JR waiting in the airport when I arrived in Philadelphia.

7/5-7/8 it's really coming to an end :(

The last couple days all kind of blurred together. Rosie and I went back to Portobello Market on a mission to find the things we regreted not getting the first time. Rosie, Kiley, Cara and I went to the Thai restaurant across the street from our flats for dinner. Martin, Joey, and I found an awesome Vietnamese restaurant in Hoxton, which we also discovered had the best night life. So, for the last couple nights we went to some of the bars around Hoxton Square. I asked the boys to burn a cd of all the music that we had been listening to during the trip that I learned to love. I finished up the last of my gift shopping, spent some time on my own, and had to start packing. The last night the boys and our flat went back to the Hoxton Square Bar for our last hoorah.

July 4th

Today we had a 7 course, farewell lunch at a Greek restaurant called Lemonia. Hummus, cheeses, olives, spinach phyllo, and then Jessie and I split Lamb Kabobs and the Sea Bass (with the head on!). The sea bass was SO freaking good, after eating fish that good it's hard to eat seafood that is anything less. This is the point where I started getting sad that this was actually coming to an end. After lunch, we walked up to the top of Primrose Hill and overlooked all of London. Then we went on a super awesome, super cold canal ride. The best part was seeing all the different colored painted boats and trying to spy into them to see what people's houseboats were like inside. Later that night we decided to have a "red, white, and blue slash 80's" party.

7/3 TOGA

enough said.

7/2 Studio Morag Myerscough

We met at Hoxton Square Park to regroup after our five day break and then visited Morag Myerscough's studio. I loved all the little touches around her studio... there was the plastic cups hanging from the ceiling catching the light coming through. There were also these crazy lamps that were made of medical tubing that was died in fluorescent colors that made up the lamp shade. They had tons of comps hanging up on the wall for the World Architecture Festival and also some 3D models they made. They also had done the outdoor tent design for "the great exhibition" for the RCA show that we went to. She also had the cutest puppy running around snuggling with everyone while she spoke with us.

6/27-7/1 BAR"TH"ELONA

We had an early wake up call to catch a bus to catch another bus to catch our plane at Stansted. Ryanair is probably the ugliest airline ever, the whole plane was bright yellow and blue... the overhead compartments were a yellow gradient and they had advertising for themselves plastered all over them. With such a cheap flight we all started to wonder where they make the cuts in the cost. Anyways, we arrived safely in Girona and had to take another bus to Barcelona and then a metro to our hostel. We stayed at Gothic Point hostel which was a great experience, the staff was super friendly (and spoke english) and basically had everything to make your trip more enjoyable with things to do, places to see, and where to eat. The hostel atmosphere was very fun and playful, with graffiti all over the walls and bright colors. We got to our room where the 7 of us were staying in a 14 person room which had very funny accommodations. There were beds together on the ground with a curtain and wall separating you from someone next to you and then there were beds on platforms in the air with huge ladders to climb. Rosie and Alex slept upstairs with matresses that touched, hahaha. There was a girl Erin in our room that wanted to grab some lunch and invited us all along with her, Jeff who was also in our room joined us. Jeff was from Canada and Erin was from Texas. Erin basically turned into our tour guide/translator for the entire trip, she teaches bilingual kindergraten to spanish speaking kids and had already been in Barcelona for a couple days. We booked a table at a GREAT restaurant called Le Creme Canala, I found out later it was one of the top restaurants in our travel book. We learned that night that you have to pay for the bread they put on your table AND on top of paying for it, if you don't eat it they pass it onto the next table, gross. We got back to the hostel and everyone staying there hung out at the tables, playing games and drinking until it was time to go out... which was about 2am apparently. There was euro beer in our vending machine, pretty rad. A couple of us went out with these boys from Colorado to a club called Shoko. We were surprised it didn't cost anything to get in, but I guess they make up for it in the price of the drinks. It had really cool outdoor seating along the beach and inside in the middle of the dance floor there was free cotton candy, so bizarre. So, that was the end of the first night... a pretty detailed account.
To sum up the rest of the trip we relaxed and laid on the beach alllll day long, getting interrupted approx. every 15 seconds by people trying to sell anything, from massages (our personal favorite), to fresh coconut, cerveza, chips, sodas, jewelry, sarongs, tattoos... the list goes on. We decided that you could decide how good the asian woman was at massaging by the type of bag she held her oils in, the ones with the plastic bags were obviously just amatuers. For whatever reason we picked our spot on the beach next to the "bum tower" as I liked to call it. There was this statue thing on the beach where sketchy, dirty bums hung out, it definitely made me pretty nervous, I would use my purse as my pillow so it worked out perfectly. The highlight of the trip for me was our infamous catamaryan jazz cruise, that Rosie had raved about. Basically, the weather was gorgeous, it was early evening, there was a bar and a jazz player serenading us while we sat in the mesh of the catamaryan being entertained by a hysterical stag party. Jill and I went to Park Gruell (Gaudi Park) which was totally unreal. The hike uphill to get there was also unreal, but so worth it. We also did lots of shopping along Las Ramblas, where on the weekend they set up these booths for vendors where they sold all sorts of fun jewelry. They had the craziest street performers on Las Ramblas, the Michael Jackson impersonator and the break dancers were my favorite.
Getting home wasn't as smooth sailings. To make an incredibly long, horrible story short... Laurel got pick pocketed on the way to the airport and then on top of that Laurel and Alex weren't booked on our flight and got stranded in Girona for the night. Our plane was delayed and when we boarded they couldn't take off because "there was an extra passenger" on the plane that wasn't supposed to be there. Only mildly alarming after the terrorist attacks that began happening that week in London. And then when those of us that made the flight arrived in London the bus we had bought tickets for didn't run between 2am-6am and it was about 3am so we were screwed. We ended up waiting in line and buying other tickets for another bus. So basically we were travelling 12 hours, when the actual flight was only 2 hours.... But I still love Barcelona.

6/25-26 Letterpress Workshop and LCC Show

For the letterpress workshop we were split up into teams of 4 and given newspapers to search for headlines. We were to pick a headline we thought was interesting and use it as the copy for our poster. In my group was Alex, Marissa, and Jill and the headline we chose was "She's a Bingo Maniac." Alex Cooper, the guy helping us, was a letterpress guru. When it came to helping us line things up, he got it perfect first try all three times. We decided to replace some of the letters from our headline with numbers and set it up in a grid. First, we printed the back of a letter block in red to get a square of woodgrain texture and then printed an "O" in red also, on top of the red square. The rest of the headline we printed in black.

The LCC (London College of Communications) was having their show at the same time as we did the letterpress workshop. I really liked their illustrative stuff and their sound stuff was pretty cool too. They had this wall that you could tap anywhere and it played a different pitch, that was fun when everyone was going at the same time. One thing that everyone thought was hilarious was the two seats with the strip of mirror in the middle. You sit down opposite someone and reflected in the mirror is a body part of yours, for example your eyes, on the face of the person opposite of you. We definitely came up with some interesting combinations, especially when you mix a boy and a girl. There was also these fish bowls with fish in them that when they swam over the sensors made different sounds, so the outcome was left entirely to the fish.

6/24 The Sunday Pub Crawl with the Hotel Bar

Alex, Rosie, Eric, Martin, and I went out to grab something to eat and get some drinks and ended up at a Greek restaurant with really small portions. We were still hungry and decided to go to a real pub, for some real pub food. Our next stop was O'neils where Eric and Martin provided some comic relief, telling disturbing jokes the whole time. Which then led us next to the hotel bar with the 9 pound drinks. It was a really nice hotel we always passed and thought it would be funny to go to the bar, there were like two grannys in there having some champagne and then us. They had really nice bathrooms and it was awkwardly quiet and the bartender didn't really speak english, but it was definitely an experience. Our last stop was All Bar One (or something like that) and we sat at a table that looked like it was from the last supper. It was a nice, spontaneous night.

"There are no strangers here only friends that you have not yet met..."

6/? Antony Gormley at The Hayward

Antony Gormley's Blind Light at The Hayward was one of my favorite exhibits that I went to. It was very unique and interactive. Of course my favorite was the Blind Light, where you walk in and can't see ANYTHING more than a foot in front of you, if that. I was definitely that obnoxious person screaming and laughing out of fear of getting lost or running into an unexpected visitor, but I couldn't help it. I'm pretty sure I held onto Alex the whole time and Eric scared the crap out of me and snuck up out of no where. I really liked the suspended human figures made out of wire, that at first I couldn't tell they were humans in the core of all the wire. Part of the exhibit was also the casted statues of himself placed around the city on top of buildings, very creepy at first. I was kind of surprised that it was actually allowed, just with everything going on in London with terrorism and the fact that it looked like someone might be about to jump off the edge of the building.

6/23 My first taste of Portobello Market

What a great day!
Jessie, Alicia and I slept in and went to Portobello Market for a fabulous day of shopping and eating. We made sure we got all the essentials and spent all our money. I got a purse, sunglasses, and olives (three of my most favorite things). We also sat on the curb eating a banana and chocolate crepe, which may have been one of the best moments of my life. I love markets. The atmosphere, the shopping, the people, the food, the bargains... its all great.

6/22 Stonecarver

Today we had the chance to meet Richard Kindersley, a very nice and friendly stonecarver. They did a range of work with stone, standing stones, to signs, to memorials. I really liked the way they played with ligatures, they made the stones much more lively and playful. One thing about stonecarving that terrifies me is that you cant mess up! The marks you make are "set in stone" there's no turning back (yikes). We watched his apprentice carving while he talked to us, she said she got about a line a day done. He took us up the spiral staircase to show us a little bit more how things worked and showed us his library. He had tons of books and gave us a bit of advice that was to buy a book a month to start building our own libraries. I had asked him if he had any books donated to him because there were so many, but he assured me they were all his.

6/21 John Brown Publishing and WICKED!

This morning we learned a couple things about publishing. When establishing a target audience for magazines, you have to aim higher, lower, or sideways. For example, a 16 year old will want to read the magazines that are aimed for 18-20 year olds, like how I started reading the magazine "Seventeen" when I was 14. They created a magazine called "Food Illustrated" for an upscale grocery store called Waitrose and even though it includes recipes, kitchen interiors, etc. it is promoting Waitrose grocery stores. They had a childs like encyclopedia called "Pick Me Up" for 10-12 year olds that each spread was a different design and the pages weren't sequential, they would lead to different places and show how things linked together. I really liked the airline magazine they did for the first class passengers, its appeared very handmade and had a nice unexpected quality for an airline.

Later that night we had BIG plans! It was the night we all decided we were going to see Wicked. We went out for a nice dinner at ASK with all the girls. Our tickets were unbelievable, we were a couple rows back and we only paid 30 pounds for the 60 pound tickets because we got a group rate. More and more im realizing that I'm most inspired by fashion. The costume design was grogeous, the outfits were so intricate, innovative, spunky, and fun! Doing costume design for a theater production like Wicked must be such a cool job (and stressful, but cool). The singing of both the witches gave me chills throughout the whole play and we probably, without exaggeration, listened to the soundtrack 50 times after we saw the play.

6/20 Wendy and Sehmi

We met Wendy in the park for a talk. I wasn't entirely sure what it was exactly that Wendy does, but she spoke alot about radio. She was kinda all over the place, but I loved her for that... she was like crazy, fun, quirky Wendy and I loved the wrap skirt she was wearing. When working in radio, you have no visual so you have to think and create it in your head. You have to create a thread that leads you through the story until the end and also lets the audience still have their own opinion. Wendy said to pick one word with image. She also mentioned how important music and word association was, the music choice gives time, feeling, atmosphere... all important components in creating a visual.

Next we went to Satwinder Sehmi's calligraphy studio. A lot of the stuff was a repeat from his visit to Delaware last year, but he still does beautiful work. He showed us how the different angles of the nib makes different strokes. He has amazing accuracy, like when he has a list of people for invitations or name cards. Seeing some of his bigger pieces was interesting because then you really got to seem him play with the letterforms and use the page. And lastly, he put a big "A" on Alicia's arm and put gold leaf on it.

6/19 Kerry William Purcell and Whitehouse

Kerry William Purcell writes for baseline. He gave us a little synopsis bio of Alexey Brodovitch from the biography that he did on him. He spoke about how a photographer's best tool is cropping and showed us some interesting examples of the integration of text and image in a magazine layout. He also talked to us about Joseph Muller-Brockman, pioneer of Swiss design, how "the gird" came about, how he wrote the rules that underlie design, laying out the page. He showed us a really cool video remix that set his posters in motion and put them to music (which I tried to find again on the internet, but can't find it anywhere). Kerry is putting together a design classics book and pointed out in his search for the pieces to be included, that the most interesting bits of design are right under your nose. For example, maps, brail, flowcharts, time tables, etc.

Later that day, some of us went to visit John Smith, film editor at Whitehouse. He mainly edits TV commercials, but has also done a couple movies, one being Leaving Las Vegas. His job is to tell the story properly, he isn't responsible for the look of it. I learned a little bit about film and film editing that I never knew, like what they film everyday are called "dailys" and in Britain they call them "rushes." John said when working he has to get the shape of it first and then he can go back and finesse and embellish it. It was really cool to see how it works, but also know that it would never be the job for me. John is obviously so good at what he does, having to go through so many takes of practically the same thing and know the difference of what works and what doesn't. Having to chose between wide angle or close up and then decipher the differences in languages... I give the guy a lot of credit for what he does.

6/18 Royal College of Art Show

The RCA show was really big and really cool. I was also very impressed and very inspired by this show. I don't even know where to start because there was so much. I fell in love with these wine glasses that had the goblet or glass part suspended by these different tree branch forms that wrapped around. I liked all the ceramics, glass, patterns, fashion, furniture, jewelry, design products, architectural design, and animation... to name a few. It was really cool to see a design problem carried out to the finished stages, having a finished physical product that was the solution to the problem. The range of ideas was limitless. It was also nice to see how each person chose to display their work, something I have been thinking about with our senior year coming up.

Johanna Jansson, the lady who did the wine glasses I loved.

6/15-17 My wonderful family in Scotland

I took the train to Scotland to visit my family for the weekend. I was staying with my aunt, uncle and two cousins (Emma, Gary, Eve, and Haydn) and would also be seeing my grandmother and my aunt Louise. Luckily, I had reserved a seat on the train because it was verrry full and somehow I was lucky enough to have the seat next to me free after the first stop. It was really nice to be travelling by myself. The scenary along the way was beautiful, that's what really makes me feel like I am in Britain. When I arrived at Leuchars station my aunt and cousins were waiting on the platform for me! Eve had made me a card in school that was super cute, it had been 3 years since I had seen them. We stopped by Nan's on the way home and she had made chocolate sticky, which is my favorite!! Emma and Gary had just redone their house and it was gorgeous with heated floors, which is now a must in any house I own because it was so amazing (esp in Scotland because its freezing). I was pretty tired from travelling and ended up going to bed fairly early.
The next day, we went shopping in Dundee. Emma and Gary had asked me what I wanted to do and I told them I wanted fish and chips and that was about it... haha. So we went to Libo's, my favorite place to get fish and chips in Cupar. We went over to Nan's to eat the fish and chips and hang out. Nan was taking us all out for dinner that night to Harvey Mcguires, which was delicious. I had fried brie, steak pie, and banoffe pie. We went home for some drinks and called it a night.
The next day, Gary made a Sunday lunch for everyone before I had to leave for my train. Nan, Louise, and Emma came with me to drop me off for the train... it was really hard to say goodbye, it always is. I was very grateful for being able to see my family, but of course I wish it could have been for longer.

6/14 Abbey Road and Graham Fink

We went to Abbey Road this morning and were huge tourists...which im okay with. I hadn't been that excited to go, but it ended up being pretty cool to actually see Abbey Road, stop traffic, and tag the wall.

Later in the day we had a talk with Graham Fink, when we got there I really liked all the wall paper, different colors and doodles all over the offices (and also the lobby that was graffitied by the daydream network). Graham Fink talked to us mainly about where ideas come from, as well as creativity and originality. As the story goes, when you're trying to think of an idea you cant, and when you're not you do. I personally get most of my ideas from the sleep fairy, either right as Im falling asleep or when I wake up. He talked about nothing being original, but it is in forming relationships between two things in a specific context that gives new meaning. I really liked the VW commercial they showed us with the guy singing in the rain. Afterwards a bunch of us went to get a drink at the pub with Graham Fink and his assistant and happened to run into the people from the Daydream Network, the ones that did the lobby which was very cool.

"Only those with short memories claim originality"

6/13 Barbican and Faulkners

At the Barbican they had an exhibit called Panic Attack, art in the punk years. A lot of the work was pretty obscene, which is expected I guess from a punk art exhibit. There was a series of 12 black and white photographs that caught my eye. I thought the building was pretty ugly, not really my taste, and it was pretty hard to navigate out of.
The guys from Faulkners talked to us at the Art Workers Guild about books. Robert Sheppard told us the story about the most expensive book the Great Omar. It didn't sell so they sold it to an American for half, but the book was on the Titanic (that sucks). Robert told us that the craft of bookbinding has hardly changed in the past 400-500 years.

6/12 Michael Johnson, The Pepper Tree, and Eye Magazine

Michael Johnson of JohnsonBanks spoke to us first about transforming aging brands. They redid the BFI (British Film Institute) logo into a lensflare that was flexible and could be used at different angles, definitely something to think about when creating any logo. They also helped Save the Children with a new identity and had kids create typefaces and color in the logo to give it an authentic look. Who better to ask then the kids themselves? I really liked their Royal Mail stamps that were fruits and veggies with stickers to put faces on them, the ones that got sent back to them were pretty funny. They also had a project called "send a letter", which were postcards in the shape of a letter of the alphabet. Michael Johnson was kind enough to play the guitar for us, which was very enjoyable. He said that he had to pick either music or design.

The Pepper Tree lunch was the best meal I've had yet, by far (finally full for once). We had chicken satay and wontons, chicken pad thai, and white chocolate ice cream.... mmmm.

When we got settled in at Eye Magazine the fire alarm went off in the whole office building, so we evacuated and started our talk in a nearby park. John Walters was interested in hearing what we had to say, more than him talking to us. He was curious about what we thought the realm of design was moving towards and also if magazines still fit into peoples lives. With everything and everyone on the web all the time, do people still invest in magazines and take the time to read them. I personally enjoy buying a nice magazine and being able to add it to the collection and use it as reference. I also cant ever be bothered to read anything on the screen, if it is of length I have to print it out to be able to hold it and read it. There definitely is something nice about the experience of holding a magazine and reading it opposed to staring at a computer screen. I think Jillian also brought up a good point that it depends on where the content of the magazine is moving, if things are movining towards web it most likely best suited on the web and if something is print it is best displayed in print.

6/11 British Library and Peter Saville

Cathrine Dixon from Central St. Martins showed us around the British Library. I saw the famous beatle lyrics written on napkins that I had heard so much about. We also went to an exhibit called Sacred, with many religious texts. In many religious texts, when they get to the end of a line they will fill the rest of the space with a decorative block. Also, in the Hebrew Bible they were limited to the amount of illustrations they scould use, so they made images out of text which is called micography(?). Another thing I thought was cool were these really small Qurans that were in their own cases, that were meant to be carried with you. They werent necessarily meant to be read, it was more about having the power of the words with you.

Peter Saville talked to us at the Art Directors Guild. It was really bizarre because literally the night before a bunch of us had had a discussion that related to a significant part of what Peter Saville was talking about. Larry started wondering/worrying about the professions we were leading into and if it was selfish and insignificant, like what if we should be doing something that really helps people or gives back (for example medicine, teaching, etc.). So then we have Peter Saville talking about design and how we need to make sure that we have the sense of doing something good in what we do. I believe that as designers we have the power to make the world a little bit better, with the creativity and the ability to communicate to certain audiences you can help a cause (we all just have to make sure we dont do advertising for cigarettes). He also said that trying to do something great for something you dont care about will be crap (very good point). Peter Saville mentioned that he was surprised that our generation isnt making a bigger deal about war, and that we should. I would say that Peter Saville's talk was a nice change of pace, not hearing a super positive talk felt real and couldn't have come at a better time.

"The solution's in the problem"

6/10 dead.

I died today.
We went to the Ministry of Sound last night, which was amazing... but on top of a rediculously long busy week (with hardly any sleep because of jetlag and 2am wake up calls for stonehenge) I knew I was gonna be sick today. Luckily, it was our first day off and I laid in bed all day and rested and literally did not get up. Not to mention my entire flat is sick or is getting sick.

6/9 Luigi Colani, Borough Market, and the Tate

Note: Design Museum is not easy to find.

We arrived kinda late to the design museum, only to find a very happy Bill Deering (not what we expected). He explained how he had found Luigi Colani himself sitting in the cafe and was willing to walk us around his exhibit. WOW. I had no idea who he was, but Luigi Colani just looked cool, definitely someone you wanna walk around with. He designs machines for water and on land, including trains, planes, cars, underwater crude oil carriers. He also designed a Cannon camera, chair, tea set to name a few. Alot of his machines were taken from nature, there was a plane designed like a how a swan lands, or a shark airplane, this is because these animals are natural streamliners. He also has gold business cards and was sitting outside on a seafoam green deck chair smoking a box of cigars talking about how he would be helicoptered to UD to talk to us. What a life.

Borough Market was heaven. One, they give out samples. Two, Bill gave us 5 pounds for lunch. It was so hard to decide what to have to eat. I sampled some cheese, olives, wheat beer, greek dips and ended up splitting fish and chips with Jill and bought a punnet of strawberries. They also had this brilliant stand of chocolate covered EVERYTHING, like bananas, honeycomb, and nuts.

Exhausted at this point...we then went to the Tate to see the Dali and Film exhibit and Helio Oiticica exhibit. I enjoyed the Dali exhibit more than Helio Oiticica's Body of Colour. It was cool seeing Dali's sketches and watercolors and seeing his paintings in real life. I love the way Dali does his surrealistic/abstract shadows usually of people. His paintings have so much fine detail that could be easily overlooked, like little groups of buildings burrowed into a rock in the painting.

6/8 Stonehenge

We were picked up by the bus at 2am to drive to stonehenge. The weather was looking pretty ominous on the way there, it was raining but with Britain you never know... the rain could pass or the weather could be beautiful 30 minutes up the road. Unfortunately, the weather was not the best and their was no official sunrise but regardless WE WERE IN STONEHENGE, like with the rocks. They had changed it since the last time I had been there and the paths let you get much closer, but I still felt ultra privileged to be allowed inside. It was such an amazing feeling to stand in the middle looking out on stonehenge, rather than at it. We became one with the rocks and had some pretty stellar photo shoots, hahaha. The boys also took some pretty good band pictures with the rocks. And then it was time to get to sketching before our hour was up.

6/7 Greyworld Amazingness

Andrew Shoben from Greyworld had all 32 of us in his little studio. He had a desk lamp that was enlarged like 20x in his living room as a real lamp, very cool.
What they do:
Greyworld does sound based urban installations that are quick and easy to understand. There are about 4 of them that work together. They have a carpeted bridge that as you walk over it, it plays different sounds. They tuned pipes to play a certain song when you ran a stick along it, like a child does running past a park fence. They designed a tail and walked around town filming different things that Andrew did, they also believe that everyone will want a tail or should have a tail. In bus stops they have a lady that speaks to you that is obsessed with color. They did the design for the London Stock Exchange with balls that moved up and down on string to spell out different things, they got alot of business for building atriums, but they wanted to do stuff in the urban setting that could be seen publicly. Had an idea to to use the idea of a magic trick to have flowers pop out as you walked along a wall, errupting and disappearing. There is a world bench network where there is half a bench with the other half projected where you can talk to someone else in the world sitting on the otherside of the bench. They are creating a statue for outside the V&A that is standing in a position and then mimics other people as they walk by.

It was really cool to hear Andrew talk about his projects and ideas so endlessly. Hes just constantly thinking of cool ideas and will actually figure out a way to do them. He has gotten to a point that he can think of an idea and then propose it if they want or someone can come to them and he can do whatever he wants. The entire time we were there he was spitting out ideas that were coming into his head. I think some of the best advice we have gotten yet was when he said that editting an idea before it comes out of your mouth is the saddest thing ever. There are always so many fantastic ideas lost because of your own censorship. How ever many ideas you have just let them keep coming and dont say good or bad. Andrew had the best energy, moving about when he talks, being totally enthusiastic about what he does... he seems like such a great person to work with or even just have conversation or a good time.

It's really funny cause this was probably my favorite visit and it was definitely one of those days when I was dreading the second visit of the day because I was so tired, didn't expect much at all, and it proved to be such a great experience (which is what always happens when you feel that way).

"Anything written in Latin sounds clever"

6/6 Pentagram and Saatchi & Saatchi

Pentagram- Debbie Taffler
Partner led, each partner has about 3 or 4 designers working for them, you are hired by the partner in which you will work for.
Why do they exist? making you think a certain way because of the way something looks.
known for identity, mainly graphic design- citi bank, saks fifth avenue (one of my favorites) a combination of classic and contemporary
package design reputation is increasing- Espa (making your own brand makes more money), Tiffany & Co, Calloway
product desig (3D visual language)- Dell, Nike, Krug Champagne (not doing better branding on ice bucket, but branding a new ice bucket)
Signage- toilet signs (making them 3D, backlighting them), airport signage (simplistic but needs to communicate/work)
Architecture and Interiors- muzak a company that does music for the workplace (sent a truck with a big "m" on it up and down the street to spark interest), EAT. (went shopping with clients of what kind of things you would find, contrasting Pret)
words of wisdom-
how do you judge if its any good?
-design awards are just other designers, its the people who invest their money
- did i answer the clients brief?
more comps show a lack of confidence, in a pile of 20 there are 2 you like the best.
remember that often the client is not the target audience of the product
getting hired: want to know how you think, dont do too much, say what your objective was and what you trashed to get there, can you porblem solve?, figure out where you fit.

Saatchi & Saatchi- Kate Sanders
a woman in advertising that is an executive creative director, had an advertising father. Some of their clients are Carlsberg, Toyota, NSCPP, Lexus, Guiness, Dr. Martens. Had an interesting Carlsberg viral, dropping 20 pound notes on the street with a speak bubble coming out of the queen. Dr. Martens website called Freedom, created a whole forum for people to post artwork, more than just about their shoes but more of a life style.

6/5 "Bunnies will be everywhere"

Happy Birthday Dad!

Trend Union- trend forcasting methodologies
-Li Edelkoort, the fashion predicting guru
-the trends they talk about are predicted 2 years in advance
-they give out color cards, for that seasons colors, which can then be altered by bigger companies
-trends cover all aspects including: food, paper, electronics, airlines, clothing, interiors, packaging, scent, make up, music, cars
-Scandinvia has the most interesting interior design
-"Survival of Craft" as textiles and production move to China, then countries such as Italy and France lose knowledge for future generations because the skill or trade wont be passed down. (interesting because my dad works in textiles and he keeps talking about everything moving to China because it is so much cheaper and mills are constantly shutting down, there isnt much demand anymore)

Overall the talk was pretty "brainwashing" to say the least. It would be better if they claimed that they make trends and set them for people to follow, but instead they have this lady that "just knows" and somehow it always just happens, whatever it is that she predicts will be trendy.

BBH- Bartle Bogle Hagerty
talked with a creative team of a girl and a boy, who had worked together in college. Somewhat different from the US because typically you can get hired as an individual and you dont have to apply as an existing team already. Some of their clients are audi, levis, Robinsons, vodaphone, Johnie Walker, British Airways, Persil, Flora. Their approach to Flora (margarine) is to talk about the benefits and not the actual product itself. I also saw a Robinsons Juice ad I liked that was to do with Wimbeldon, they have a childlike illustrationy quality, and it was a flower sprouting and said something about having No.1 seeds. Alot of their work I recognized that was posted all over london, like billboards and in the underground.

6/4 V&A

Today we went to the V&A's Surreal Things exhibit and had a talk with Zoe Whitely and NB Studio.
The Surreal Things exhibit ranged from theatre to fashion to furniture. A lot of ideas and objects pulled from nature, like the Eileen Agar hat made from wood and shells or the table with bird legs. My favorite part of the exhibit though was the fashion, they had an elegant dress that displayed the bones of the body. Everything was pretty bizarre... the lobster telephone, which even more bizarre is the explanation of why it is a lobster telephone. I also liked the oh so very functional furniture, there was a piece that claimed to have 18 different functions, stool, chair, table, etc.
Zoe Whitely curated an exhibit at the V&A called "Uncomfortable Truths" and NB Studio did the identity. The had brought in boards that showed their very detailed process of creating the branding. How they came about doing ink splots and all the different versions they had. They showed us some of their other work and they stressed hand doing things, like actually building or creating the thing it is that you want (heard that somewhere before?)

6/3 we made it to our flats!

our building is gorgeous, not what i expected. It's actually an office building with conference rooms and things on the first 4 floors and then our flats on the 5th floor. After only ever seeing my aunts flat in london (for one person) I had imagined what uncomfortably small living conditions we would have, but they were so BIG! (now we know where our tuition goes). The maid was still cleaning when we arrived and informed us that our toilets weren't working... no big deal... yeah right. There were 3 bedrooms for the 6 of us and one room had BUNKBEDS (gew). So because everyone absolutely detested the bunkbeds, we paired up and picked numbers for the bedrooms to be fair. I knew if I picked I would get the bunkbeds just because I probably hated them the most. I have a loft bed at home and have not slept on it for at least 6 years, instead I sleep on a mattress on the floor. So Rosie and I got the bunkbeds, no surprise there. We immediately figured out how we could dismantle them because there was no way that for 5 weeks we would be able to surivive sleeping on top of each other. Even better the two biggest girls get the smallest room... hahaha im over it now, kinda.
We had these gorgeous balconies outside our windows that we all immediately went out on and were loving life and then had a meeting with the anglo-american guy and told us that we werent allowed on them and if we did they would seal our windows shut, whoops. Also, on top of the toilets not working one of our showers flood... but we still love our flat!!!
We went food shopping at Sainsbury, which luckily is right on the corner. While shopping I needed the toilet and realized that I couldnt go back to the flat to use ours and was in quite the pickle so I asked a lady working if I could use theirs (which of course in a city there are no public toilets). I explained my situation and she said that she would let me use them she just had to tell her managers first, on the way to find her managers she mentioned that she would have to tell them that I was pregnant. Pretty funny and I definitely didnt care at this point and I would also have to skip on buying that bottle of wine I had wanted. haha
We went exploring a little around the area and found a place for dinner and then hit up our first pub.

6/2 day of departure

I packed and repacked my bags 3 times and was ready to leave for the airport. Checked in and said goodbye to my parents and Jr before going through security. We were left with time to eat dinner and shop at duty free, where the guy gave us a discount because he wanted us to consider doing web design for him (seems that just saying you are able to do web design pays off without actually having to do it).
I love flying bristish airways. The flight attendants are the best, they are always so nice and friendly and will give you anything you ask for, not to mention ok plane food. And this was the beginning of the british accents which always excites me :) Flying is by far one of my favorite things to do, I used to want to be a flight attendant when i grew up or a pilot (but mostly a flight attendant). There was this one male flight attendant that was very "vivacious" and totally loved his job it seemed like, he was so happy singing "hate it.. or love it" as he walked down the aisles asking people for their rubbish. I slept about 30 min total and watched movies the rest of the time. Gotta love having individual tv screens and being able to start about 20 different movies and watch about 10 minutes before deciding you want to watch something else (my attention span on an airplane isnt too impressive).

my lovely flat mates

Jessie, Alex, Laurel, Rosie, Me, Alicia

3 DAYS!!

Alex called british airways today to double check the baggage limitations, 2 bags 70 lbs each... YIKES thats alot of shoes.