Creative Christmas times!

Now I have returned from a lovely 16 day trip around Costa Rica, refreshed and ready to do THINGS!!

The Task: to create a limited edition set of christmas cards to entertain the eyes of my friends and family.

I chose to use a mapping nib fountain pen with permanent black ink to outline a sprig of holly.

Next I used watercolours with hardly any pigment to fill in the ink drawing with a splash of colour.

To finish I signed the card backs and used pre-cut 'Happy Christmas' foil stickers to customise the inside.

Just have to write them now :)

Paper Sculpture

It's the simple things that please me most. Organic forms created with sympathy to the medium. Reading a book about naive art today, I came across the work of Jen Stark. Her work is not only simply beautiful but shows an expert understanding of colour.

Check out more of her work on her website

Feeling vintage

Vintage things feel special, they have been used, wanted and loved. They wear their usage on their being. I found out today that this has a name, it's called "patina" and you can read about it on Berg's blog.

Packaging Innovation

You may not be able to re-invent the box but ebay's plans to rejuvenate it are excellent. Can't wait to receive my next ebay purchase now!

Read the full story here.

Hell-vetica!

Enraged by helvetica? Bruno Maag is your guy. He says that Helvetica is a very badly designed font if you look closely.

I wonder how many truly well designed fonts there actually are present in the industry? Fonts that you could use for any word and they would still look and feel beautiful.

BUG Norwich #04

Can't wait for Thursday! Roll on more videos to please my eye spaces!

Happiness in Print

Its great when something makes you smile :) Form and function!

rachaeldesign.com

Frequent visitors will note my website is beginning to take shape now. It is good to do design work for myself, no second guessing what the client wants, I already know!

Feel free to get in touch if you have any feedback/ comments you'd like to share.

Messing with your head

A great interpretation :)



a gem from bug norwich #3

BUG Norwich #03

Last week saw the return of Adam Buxton's BUG to Norwich. An exceedingly welcome return too! It was another armchair journey through the minds of our fellow creatives. I'll periodically post some of the gems to my blog and it may take a while as i'm very likely to start watching them again and again and, well maybe just once more.

To start you off here's one that is a brilliant celebration of what can be done on an SLR these days. enjoy.

Jaron's rickety plan for tomorrow

Sometimes things just have to be illustrated,

Where did I put that map?

At a meeting today, I was reminded that "journey" is going to be a bit of an overused word this year too. Everyone has a journey. No-one does things anymore or has just done stuff... they have to have had and will be having a journey.

now where did i put that map?

Buzz Words 2010

I've noticed that 2010 has already begun gathering momentum with some buzz words beginning to emerge. Everyone is into things being "toasty" most likely inspired by the weather. I think the word "snow" must have been used more in this year so far than in the whole of the last decade!

Animation fights back:

To start the new year with a chuckle have a look at this short animation. Any Adobe Flash users will be especially amused!