An efficient waste of time...

Staring out for a train window is hardly my favourite activity, but it sure does help pass the time! My father always tells me that "an intelligent mind should never be bored"; I have taken this wonderful nugget of wisdom on board (its hard not to after hearing it so often) and I'm trying to fill my time efficiently.

My course is going fairly welll; for the first couple of weeks it felt quite steady and consistant, but now - in week 5 - I'm starting to realise that my life is about to get a whole more complicated! We have just been given a brief to complete over "reading week", we also have an illustrator based project due in at the end of the module, a critical studies photo essay, the instruction to continue with our blog, and do other general research! It feels like the end of reading week already seeing as I have already filled up most of my days with advance planning!

I'm off home on Tuesday, which I am really looking forward to now. I really want a bath. If I were at home with the opertunity of having a bath everyday, I know I wouldn't use it. But the complete lack of bath here in my halls makes me want one so much! I guess you don't know what you've got til you loose it! So I shall have to indulge a little whilst I'm at home!

The other days of my week off are to be filled with a day trip to France with my Dad, work and a visit from Chris when I get back to Leeds! So as you can see, I'm getting good at filling my time, I just can get around the efficient bit yet!

I think that the change of season doesn't help. The quick transition that has taken place from late summer to autum here has made me some what lazy. I love autum, and happily found a big pile of fallen leaves to jump around the other day on my way home. I'm a big fan of the chilly mornings and the way it gets dark so much earlier, but it is hardly conducive to doing work and being motivated! I really like those days when it is gloomy outside and you can justify wearing your pyjamas all day long and drinking ends cups of tea and cocoa. I much prefer autum and winter to summer. There is so weird sort of nostaglia feeling that goes along with autum. I really can't pin point what it is, but its definately a mixture of wearing nice warm coats and gloves, eating heavy food and the strong smell of car fumes on crisp clear mornings. It makes me feel all sort of happy for some reason, and usually puts me in a good mood for the day.

I like the way you can break events and certain times of year into small groups of smells and particular feelings. Like a skiing holiday; the smell and taste of vin chaud (mulled wine, but french), crackling fires in cosy resaurants, mountain sun screen and strong wind whistling in your ears. Or a car journey to see family; clean car smell, diet coke, minstrals and fresh shampoo hair smell. I love being able to instanly associtate things with feelings like this, I suppose that is where tradition orginates from, the things you remember, no matter how small or insignificant.

Thinking about tradition makes me wish christmas was sooner. Though I truly detest the sale of christmans related good before the 1st of Novemeber (some people think that it should be the first of December, but they are the disorganised people!) Who really needs to purchase christmas cards in August? But I do love christmas, or rather the run up to christmas.. but I suppose i should save this stuff for nearer the time...

Personal Professional Development...

Last week we were asked to bring in 6 pieces of work for a special sort of tutorial session (as mentioned on 10/10) . We were given a specific list of categories that the pieces had to derive from: a photograph, an illustration, a piece of packaging, a designer we liked, a piece of typography and our favourite piece of our own work.

For my own piece I chose the Visual Countdown ribbon numbers


An Illustraion: Liselotte Watkins

Packaging: Coco Mademoiselle, Chanel purfume box

A Photograph: The Untitled Film Stills, Cindy Sherman

A piece of Typography: Big Red chewing gum wrapper

A Designer: Harry Beck, The London Underground Map

Hugs...

Just a quick post before i head off to Birmingham for a wonderful night of Musical nonsense...
I was sent a lovely happy email from my boyfriend with links to this website. I love these little characters and I hope you do aswell!
















http://www.ponandzi.com/

Studio Development...

We have these wonderful days timetabled into our week known as "studio development". Basically these are *whisper* "days off" when we are meant to carry on with the work and briefs that we have at the time. I however am finding these days increasingly difficult to make productive due to their lazy nature. It is very tempting to remain in my pyjamas all day long and do nothing but drink tea for hours on end. Today however (Wednesday, therefore Studio development) I have managed to get and actually do some work. I am ignoring the fact that later I intend on spending some time in Topshop as it is 20% off for students this evening, and believing that this day is actually very productive.

**have just returned to the computer with a nice cup of tea - See i said tea was a distraction!**

And Jaffa Cakes. I wonder if evreyone likes Jaffa Cakes? I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't like them. There are those people who eat them in a weird way; by this I mean picking off all the chocolate first, then removing the orange center as one whole piece, eating the cakes part and then the orange part. I personally don't do this, I'm not really one for playing with my food. But I have seen it done before and can say that it looks no more satisfying than eating a Jaffa Cake in the conventional way i.e. biting it!

I would however like to find out just how many people in the UK don't like Jaffa Cakes, not really a survey I could pull off on my own, but maybe I could write to National Statistics office and ask them to do it for me....do they do that? Thinking about it I'm guessing not...never mind.

I suppose I should really get on with some work now...I have been trying to think of the 'Top 10 things I've learnt since starting the course" for ages now. I'm not saying I haven't learnt anything, there are just so many new things that it is hard to pin point things in particular. I've done my Personal, Professional Development preparation. We had to find 5 pieces of work by other designers: a piece I like, a photograph, an illustration, a piece of typography, and a piece of packaging. At this point I have no idea what we are meant to be doing with them...guess I'll find out later this week!

A Visual Countdown

Brief #2: A Visual Countdown
Stimulus word: Desirable



10 finished numbers based on the word Desirable. Made from ribbon, organza, embroidery beads, sewing thread and double sided tape.