CATTICUS RAT : DESIGN, CHATTY STUFF AND OTHER NONSENSE

The Artist & Cat has a whinge about cinemas

2012-01-25T09:45:00.006Z

I went to see The Artist a few nights ago with my fiancé, we went to a cinema called The Watershed in Bristol, which I had never been to before.

I typically really dislike going to the cinema. I talked to Owain about it on the ride home in the car. Your usual cinema, the likes of Vue, Cineworld and Showcase, are all really really terrible. They're just money pits that the general public keep voluntarily chucking their money into, for reasons I can't understand.

The cinema has always been a place that people go to as a treat. That, I'm on board with. I can see how going to the cinema is a treat, a luxury. Or, maybe I'm confusing it with the cinema of twenty, maybe thirty or forty years ago. A time when people actually treated themselves, because they had far less money than we do today. I can see how to someone with little money, the cinema is and has been a great way to spend your hard earned cash. But recently, in the last ten or so years (maybe longer) the cinema has been taking advantage of people's 'hard earned cash'. Have you noticed how there's new films out practically every single day? And have you noticed how they all seem to follow the same basic plots? They're churning out new cinematic bile all the time.

There's an unhealthy amount of crap films being shown these days. Films that claim to be "rom coms" but are about as romantic as a hernia and as funny as one too. They're actually using the same genre name as Bridget Jones. Now, you may not be a fan of Bridget Jones, but I for one am. Bridget Jones is actually funny, and has actual moments where it dabbles in the romantic. I can understand why you may not like it, but if you dislike Bridget Jones, then quite honestly, I don't think you'll like many 'rom coms', as it's arguably one of the best.

Side note: I watched Annie Hall the other day on DVD, supposedly the first 'rom com' ever made. It's a Woody Allen film, so I approached it with hesitation, I'm not a Woody Allen fan. It wasn't as good as Bridget Jones.

Anyway, my point is that the cinema see's a film do well, then copies it as many times as it can until people get bored. And that isn't entertainment, unless you're really really reeeaallly thick, or you have an unhealthy interest in rom coms, or, more likely, Hugh Grant. If that is the case, there's people you can talk to, you shouldn't go through that on your own.

It's the same with other genres. Action, Comedy, Action, Horror. They just seem to be mass producing vast amounts of crap for the public to be entertained by, and in turn, mass producing a crap load of money for themselves.

I've had a problem with main stream cinema for a while now. I discovered independent films, and I fell in love. Independent films are typically low budget films, starring people you haven't heard of, with fantastic sound tracks. Why are they so good? Well, think about it, if you've received funding somehow to shoot your own (and probably first) film, you are not going to mess it up. This may be the only chance you get to make a film, so you're going to be a perfectionist about every single aspect of it. And it shows, the independent films that I've seen are far better than the majority of absolute drivel that I see in the cinema. I say majority, because I'm a fan of Quentin Tarentino's, and his films get shown in main stream cinemas, and there's a few other's that I loved too, like Submarine by Richard Ayoade (2011). But you can see the love and attention that has gone into independent films, they're just well made and beautifully shot and interesting.

It's probably a personal thing. I'm sure there's people who can't stand independent films, and adore the copy-cat, loud, star studded, uninteresting stuff that you can pay obscene amounts of money to watch at mainstream cinemas. And that's fine.

BACK TO MY ORIGINAL POINT

I saw The Artist at The Watershed in Bristol. It was fantastic. I've never watched a silent film before, I was worried that it might be too silent (silly thing to think, I know). But there was a fantastic soundtrack playing, depicting tensions and emotions and hinting at actual noises corresponding to the scenes. I'd very much like to see more modern silent films.

I found this image off google, this is The Watershed.

It was funny, but not too funny. It was sophisticated. It was well shot. Some of the camera angles and shots were fantastic. Maybe you notice these things more when it's almost entirely a visual experience, or maybe they made a special effort to make it more visually engaging. Either way, I remember thinking to myself on several occasions when watching it "wow, that's a really great shot".

I also noticed afterwards how fast paced it was. When you can't rely on people talking, it's amazing how quickly you're able to get an entire conversation between two people out the way in a matter of seconds. You don't want two people miming at each other for minutes on end, do you? I hadn't thought about it when watching it, but walking back to the car and talking about it with Owain, we realised how much plot the film had covered. Loads of stuff happened. But it didn't seem rushed, and it wasn't. It was perfect.

It also has some absolutely fantastic typography from the era in lots of scenes, which I happily admired.

I really advise people to go see it. It wasn't showing at any mainstream cinemas around my area, I'm not sure why, but that's good because I got to go to the Watershed, which I discovered is an absolute gem of a cinema. Small, cosy, no ill-mannered people sitting at the back talking to their mates on their phones, and you're allowed to bring in your own sweets, because they don't sell any (fyi, eating sweets during The Artist became a bit of a game for me, I called it; "how quietly can I get the malteser out of the bag and then eat it?"). Brilliant! And it cost about the same as going to one of the big name cinemas, maybe slightly less, I can't really remember.

Cinemas and cats

2012-01-22T10:58:00.004Z

I'm going to see The Artist this evening at The Watershed in Bristol. I've never been to The Watershed before, but I like their logo, it's snazzy.

I don't like the cinema really, all films these days are pretty bad (plus I am extremely hard to please film-wise), and it's expensive to go. I like independent cinemas though, and independent films. The Watershed is an independent cinema.

And I drew this today. I'm going to try to draw as much as I can.

I am going to be more creative.

2012-01-21T14:31:00.008Z

I have reached a point in my life, where I really REALLY want to go out there and DO STUFF. After leaving university in May last year, I've been up and down, depressed at having no job, then happy because I come to terms with everything, then depressed again and worried that I've messed everything up - why else am I unemployed? I thought I was good at what I do. Then happy again... and so on, forever. I've now plateaued. I'm neutral. I'm not depressed because it's not my fault that I'm unemployed, I go to visit studios and they're not wanting to hire ANYONE, I did well at uni, I'm a nice person, so I can't do anything more than try to find work, which I am doing. And I'm not overly joyous, because I WANT to be working.

I want jobs, I want to work, I want to make people happy with my designs.

Two weeks ago I put a small amount of my Bigmouth Valentines Cards up for sale on etsy (click me). In those two weeks, I have had 541 viewings of my cards in my shop, and I have sold 11. Now, I know I'm not making waves and it's not especially ground breaking, but I'm really proud of myself, and I like being proud of myself, it's nice. As such, I have decided that I can make this shit work out for me. I can do ANYTHING I want.

I don't want to be one of those people at 40 who are depressed and miserable with their life because at 21 they rushed into any old job because they panicked about having no money, and 20 years later, they're still working in that office that they told themselves would only be for a year or two, until their "real career" worked out.

I'm not doing that. I refuse.

I want to design, make and sell things. I want to do graphic design for people, I want to do graphic design for myself, I want to be happy.

Earlier today, I decided to make an office. I moved into my fiancé's mum's house with him and his family after university, and they kindly allowed me to put all the stuff that wouldn't fit into Owain and my room into this room downstairs where Owain's drums are. I find it hard working in the bedroom, because I end up sitting on the bed and then being lazy.

I've sorted all my boxes and belongings out, organised it, and made enough room to have a small office in there. I'm going to use my little studio to do work.

This blog will now be used DAILY for me to show you, internet people, stuff that I find. I want to be more interested in the world, in design, in everything. I want to share things, see things, and design things for my shop. I am going to be more creative.

If anyone wants anything designing, I am here, I am ready, I am RARING TO GO, I am enthusiastic and I am awesome. I will charge fair, friendly rates, and I will make you happy.

I am going to start selling more fun stuff in my etsy shop, and I will keep you posted.

Much, much love, from Cat.

Buy my things

2012-01-11T13:23:00.004Z

Hello! I have some SUPER AWESOME NEWS which I know EVERYONE will care very much about.

My "Bigmouth Valentines Cards" are now on sale in my etsy shop! click here to be magically transported to my etsy shop

Please check them out, pass it on or buy them for your loved ones/friend's cat/neighbours/local wildlife. You can buy them just to pin on your walls, too, I don't mind, I'm not fussy.

Thanks loads you lovely bunch of online blog readers. x

Canon Pixma ix6550 review

2012-01-10T14:23:00.011Z

Hey there!

So, I thought I'd do a review of the Canon Pixma ix6550 printer, because I recently had to replace my old printer (which was a Canon Pixma ix4000) and I did the normal thing of looking online for reviews and making my mind up about which printer to replace it with, but there weren't too many reviews done by individuals, they were mostly done by reviewing companies, who know what they're on about, but they have to consider a lot of things for the general public when reviewing stuff, whereas individuals can review stuff based on what they want of it.

As I say, I had a ix4000, and it was great.

By the way, I'm a graphic designer. When I bought the ix4000, I was at university. The main reason I bought the ix4000 was because it was one of the printers we had at my university and I really liked it. Plus, our tech guy was really good, and he seemed to like the ix4000's, so they must have been alright (big up, Tim).

The ix4000 was really great. It printed photographs really well and to a high resolution, and they looked as good as ones you can get done at photograph developing places, and those places are really the benchmark, being the only real alternative, so I can honestly say that it printed some very good photographs.

It could also print on thick paper, I think the thickest I ever printed on was 270gsm, which it handled no problem. And it printed on it well, there was no noticeable difference between getting it to print something on 270gsm (thick paper) and normal office paper. The only differences were down to the paper being crap in the normal office paper case.

It was a big printer, very big in fact, I struggled to find somewhere for it to go in my university room where I could still connect it to my mac to use it. But I think it was a normal enough size for what it was. Most A3 printers are pretty big, by their very nature, having to print on A3 sized paper.

Anyway, my point is that the ix4000 was brilliant, I loved it, it got me through so many projects, it printed my 137 page book which I did as my Major Research Project as university, all on 260gsm paper, all in brilliant inkjet colour, and with some borderless pages. I liked the way it looked, too, it's a big old grey beast, it looks like it can do the job, it looks serious and almost industrial in style. The big semi circle buttons on the front (of which there are only two, facing back to back to make a circle) added to the simple, grey, totalitarian design, which I thought looked pretty damn good.

This is an ix4000

But my lovely ix4000 died the other day, and so I had to find a new printer to replace it with. The one I went for is actually the replacement for the ix4000, but that's not why I chose it.

I wanted a printer equally as good as my ix4000, if not, better. It had to be around £150. It had to have reasonably priced replacement ink cartridges. And I wanted it to look good. As I say, I'm a graphic designer and so I like things to be aesthetically pleasing to me, this makes me feel more comfortable with things, it's just the way I am.

I looked at a few Canons, a few Epsons, a HP or two. I looked at various reviewing websites, and a few blogs.

I kept coming back to the Canon Pixma ix6550. It was a confirmed excellent printer. Able to print super photos, to print on up to 300gsm paper (which was an important consideration for me), it was better than it's predecessor, the ix4000, the ink cartridges were reasonably priced, and so on.

But it looked wrong.

It looked flimsy, and shiny, and commercial. I wanted a hardcore, designer's printer, like my ix4000. A few reviews confirmed that the printer has a 'flimsy feel to it', and the shiny plastic got finger printy easily. This put me off, and I spent hours online trying to find an alternative.

This is my ix6550. Sorry about the hideous amounts of red boxes, I almost

published this blog with an amusing about of personal information on

display in the photos, and I couldn't be bothered to take more photos,

so I thought some bright red boxes would be nice.

Alas, I couldn't.

Canon, for some reason, have decided to make all (what I would call) their low and mid range printers, shiny. Black, sleek, shiny, almost Apple-esque. Why? I have no idea. Maybe so that not just designers would buy their ix4000's, maybe so that designers would want them for their quality and their abilities, and so that the general public would want them for their looks, fickle as the general public are with these kinds of thing.

Canon's higher end printers, the likes of their Canon PIXMA Pro 9500 Mark II and their ix7000, are not shiny. Presumably, this is due to the fact that no matter how fickle people can get about having a shiny thing, no one other than hardcore designers, artists, businesses, printing enthusiasts etc, are going to pay £330 - £600 for a printer, therefore, they remain dignified in their style.

I was not in a position to spend £330 - £600 to spite Canon and leap frog over to the admittedly more covetable higher end printers. So, I put my aesthetically minded mind away, and concluded that the ix6550 was a very good printer, it would do all the things my ix4000 could do, and more, and better, if only slightly, which was what I wanted.

So I bought the shiny but able printer, from Amazon for £162, slightly over budget, but there we go.

This is my ix6550 with the opening bits open. See how shiny? Not too finger printy, though.

This is it with all trays fully extended, it's rather large, but no larger than

my ix4000. You don't have to have these out this much, either

I was worried that it was going to be rubbish. That on paper, it could all the cool things and sound fantastic, and that maybe all the reviewers were idiots and didn't know what they were talking about. I worried that MY understanding of the gsm paper system, was different to everyone else's, and it wouldn't be able to print on anything but boring office paper. I was worried the shiny surface was a distraction from the underlying fact that it was a terrible, useless printer. I get crazy when I'm spending lots of money, it's a well known fact.

I can confirm for you now, that I was worrying for nothing. It is a very good printer, it is easily slightly better than the ix4000, not a lot better, but noticeably better. It is slightly flimsy, but not as flimsy as I thought. It doesn't feel like it will break under the strain of it's own printing, which is good. It's also smaller than the ix4000, which is nice. I've printed on 230gsm paper, which turned out very well. And I've printed on 270gsm photo paper, and the photos I've printed so far are amazing, the colours are fantastic and the quality is great.

The ix6550 uses 5 ink cartridges, C, M, Y and 2 blacks. As I understand it, the additional black cartridge is for photo printing, which from the looks of my photos, works well.

So there you have it, a review from someone who had an ix4000, and now has an ix6550. And can conclude for you, that the ix6550 is a very good replacement for the ix4000, if a little shiny.

I'd also like to address some points from other reviews, which I disagree with:

1. It doesn't come with a usb cable.
Whilst I agree that it's a bit of a pain for them not to state this is BIG BOLD LETTERS in the item description on all the various websites where it's sold, you shouldn't really assume it comes with one. My ix4000 didn't come with one. I think a lot of printers don't come with one. Also, a tip: get a 3 meter one, they're fun, I got one, and I can print from ANYWHERE (within 3 meters of my printer).

2. It isn't wireless.
This isn't a problem unless you're scared of wires, or you work in a large office/similar where wireless printing is important, in which case, you can probably afford a more expensive wireless printer anyway. I happen to quite like plugging my printer into my mac, it adds to the printing experience, it's like "printer cable engaged! Printing initiating!"

3. It isn't multifunctional.
That's a good thing. I hate multifunctional printers. If one thing dies on it, you have to send the whole thing off to get fixed. Not cool.

That's about it.

I thought I'd do a pro's and con's list, because those are handy and cool.

PRO'S:
- Super print quality (both photos and standard printing)
- Reasonable price for an A3 printer (£163 Amazon + free p+p)
- Reasonably priced replacement ink cartridges
- Smaller than other A3 printers
- Easy to set up (if you follow the instructions, which I know some people have an irrational fear of doing)

CON'S:
- SHINY SHINY SHINY
- A bit flimsy, but not as much as I thought by looking at it online

MY DAY ON A HARINEZUMI

2011-11-18T23:19:00.005Z

My day recorded on a harinezumi camera. I might do more of these because they're fun.

note: click the picture, then when it opens in the silly black window, click and drag the picture into the URL bar, it should open properly so that you can click on it to zoom in.

The Sims 3 Pets

2011-10-23T15:04:00.005+01:00

I like the sims. I also like kittens and horsies. And by "like", I obviously mean "really really super love". As such, Owain got me The Sims 3 Pets (because I nagged him to until he did, then I was all like ":o THANK YOU THIS IS SUCH A SURPRISE YOU'RE SO LOVELY TO ME") and now I can't stop playing it. Here's a little doodle I did of my sim-time so far.

I'm meant to be an adult. And I have work to do. And other important tasks. Oh dear.

UPDATE : Google has decided to mess around with blogger and makes the pictures turn up in a silly black screen when you click them, so it's still too small to read. If you click and drag the image into the URL bar at the top, it will open up PROPERLY and then you should be able to zoom in on it. Sorry about that.

Freelance & Breaking Bad

2011-10-16T11:44:00.004+01:00

HEY THERE!

So, I haven't blogged in a while. The reason for this is that I have been busy. I have a freelance job on! OH MY WOW. And it's a little scary, because it's real, not a fakey fakey brief like at university. But it's fun and I'm learning all the time, so it's good. Me and Sam (friend from uni) are working on it together. When it's finished, I might show you it... if you're good.

Been reading up on theories and predictions for Breaking Bad Series 5. If you don't know of Breaking Bad, you ought to. It's an amazing tv show, brilliantly written, brilliantly shot and very very addictive. It stars Bryan Cranston (who previously, I only knew as Hal from Malcolm In The Middle), seriously, you should go watch it, all four series, then report back here with your theories for series 5, k? ... By the way, if you DO actually go and watch them all, HOW FREAKING AWESOME IS THE SERIES 4 FINALE? I get giddy when I think of Breaking Bad, because it's SUPER COOL. Try not to look at too many google images if you google "Breaking Bad" though, you want to not know anything if you're going to watch it all from the beginning. I'm just thinking of you.

Byeeeee x

Day 30 - Draw a Congrats Banner For Finishing The Challenge

2011-09-30T18:23:00.004+01:00

LAST DAY!!

I liked this one, I felt like I was really congratulating myself like I had achieved something remarkable. The child inside me felt very chuffed at the adult inside me drawing this. The adult bit was pretty smug about the whole thing too.

WELL DONE ME!!

Day 29 - A Place You Want To Go

2011-09-29T22:14:00.004+01:00

I don't want to draw that, because it's kind of boring. I want to go to New York and Berlin the most at the moment. THERE, NOW YOU KNOW.

Instead, what I want to share with you is a lovely drawing I did this morning of Owain whilst we ate breakfast. He looks like a cross between Santa and Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips (which is actually a pretty cool combination of people to be so yay!).

This is him wearing his West Ham Utd dressing gown and his dashing square patterned pyjama bottoms.

The other doodles was us trying to work out the likelihood of any children we have having blue or brown eyes. I have blue, Owain has brown but his Dad has blue eyes, so he's a carrier. I don't understand any of it because my brain doesn't like that kind of stuff and refuses to cooperate when it comes up, but Owain assures me it's around 50/50. We then moved onto playing naughts and crosses because we're adults.

Day 28 - Draw Anything You Want

2011-09-27T13:34:00.004+01:00

I presumed this meant "draw anything" as apposed to "draw something you want", because we've had that one before.

I've been thinking and I've decided that I'm going to try and get some freelance work going on whilst I look for a job. So, I made myself a logo.

So, need some graphic design work doing? Get in touch so that I can stop drawing pictures of kittens.

Day 27 - Draw Someone You Love

2011-09-26T17:51:00.001+01:00

Owain, obviously.

Day 26 - Draw Something You Don't Like

2011-09-26T12:18:00.002+01:00

Dogs. I don't like them. They smell bad, they're clingy and they always try to lick your face with the same tongue they've cleaned themselves with.

I'm a cat person. Cats are cuter, they make an effort to bury their 'business', they don't need constant attention but know when you're feeling down and come to cuddle you (I suppose dogs do that too, but they smell, so that would make me feel worse), and they don't smell horrendous.

In summary. Cats > Dogs.

Day 25 - Draw Some Scenery

2011-09-24T17:04:00.005+01:00

My scenery is Owain and my bedroom because we can't really afford to go out anywhere at the moment, and also, we downloaded the new content for Fallout New Vegas this morning, so I've been glued to the xbox shootin' up stuff.

Also, drawing trees and grass is majorly dull.

So this is a small section of our bedroom. There's way more junk than I drew here, but I couldn't fit it all in without it looking stupid.

Day 24 - Draw A Couple

2011-09-23T15:29:00.002+01:00

I was going to draw me and Owain AGAIN, but that would have been a bit dull and to be honest, I'm bored of drawing us.

So, instead, I drew a cat wedding. Because why not.

There aren't nearly enough cat weddings if you ask me.

The Interwebz Died

2011-09-23T11:08:00.002+01:00

Hi!

My internet has been down for a bit, so I haven't been able to upload any of my drawings. Sorry about that. We were up to day 24 I think, which I will upload shortly.

The thing is though, because I didn't have the internet and life without the internet is HARD (we were soooo bored), I decided to just spend 2 solid days playing on The Sims 3. So, I haven't actually done any drawings.

So what we're going to do is pretend nothing happened and I'll upload day 24 soon, and then it's all back to normal and day 25 will happen tomorrow! It's like being in a time warp, how fun!

Day 23 - Draw Something You Need

2011-09-19T22:22:00.007+01:00

It would also help towards getting a flat to live in and food so that I can stay alive in said flat. Also, the aforementioned kitten (see 2 blogs back)...

...But mostly the telling the job centre to do one bit.

Not that I'm not extremely grateful for the free money, but I'm yet to actually receive any, and if they make one more mistake and blame me, I might cry.

That is basically a general summary of a graduate's (and probably the rest of the people dealing with it) relationship with job seekers, I believe. Enjoy.

Day 22 - Draw Something You Miss

2011-09-18T22:47:00.003+01:00

All of a sudden I'm poor, my NUS card has expired and I miss my university friends and tutors. I'm such a dweeb but I miss it all.

Day 21 - Draw Something You Want

2011-09-17T20:44:00.003+01:00

I WANT A KITTEN!!!

But first I need to address the boring adulty things like getting a job and a suitable flat to live in etc. But the most important bit will be the bit where the kitten is obtained and then loved and played with constantly forever and ever.

Ideally, Frankenstein would be black, because black cats are ARRRRRR-DORABLE.

Day 20 - Draw Something Orange

2011-09-17T12:26:00.003+01:00

Sorry again for the lateness. I struggled with this one, because "draw something orange" is a bit of a crap challenge, isn't it? I couldn't think of anything except oranges and oompa loompas.

So, what I decided to do eventually was to draw an orange pattern. Patterns are fun and easy to do and they can look pretty snazzy.

I like patterns with sharp lines in them, those patterns are the best kind.

Day 19 - Draw Something New

2011-09-15T22:44:00.004+01:00

Whilst we were in York, we met up with my friend Kirsty and tootled on down to Paperchase. Paperchase sometimes has some really crappy stuff in it, but sometimes when they refresh their stock with new designs, it can be awesome. This time was an awesome time. They have some really funky 80's styled patterns in at the moment on all sorts of stationary which I was loving a lot. I ended up buying a cute little blank paper book (which I've been drawing in a lot for these drawing challenges), a fat pencil and a pen.

The pen is important, because it's a very special pen which I ALWAYS have bother finding. It's a uni-ball eye pen, but it's a micro version. The micro version is finer than the uni-ball eye fine pen. They're only subtly different, and if you were using them to write with, I don't think you'd care which one you used. But I really struggle to draw with the fine version, because, ironically, it's too thick. The micro version is where it's at.

I drew my pen with my pen. Giggle.

I don't care how boring I am, pens are important! YAY FOR PENS!

Day 18 - Draw A Doodle

2011-09-15T22:36:00.005+01:00

This is late by A WHOLE DAY. I'm sorry, I know you probably waited up just hoping I'd upload it last night, just refreshing constantly in anticipation.

The reason it's late is because today, me and Owain drove from York back to Bristol, so yesterday we were busy packing and going out for a meal etc and I actually forgot/didn't find time to draw my doodle yesterday, so I drew it today instead, in the car, hence it's wobbly crappiness.

We were listening to Billy Joel in the car. This is a line from the song "Don't Ask Me Why" and it made me want to draw this.

DOODLE DONE!

Day 17 - Draw Your Favourite Plant

2011-09-13T23:17:00.001+01:00

My favourite flowers are Gerberas, but those are boring to draw because they're just big daisies. So, instead, I drew another good flower, the CHRYSANTHEMUM. It's even got a cool name.

Day 16 - Draw An Inspiration

2011-09-12T17:25:00.001+01:00

DONE.

Day 15 - Draw A Family

2011-09-11T21:23:00.003+01:00

Half way!

I couldn't be bothered to draw my WHOLE family, so I decided to draw just my Mum and Dad, because I love them and I don't draw them at all, so it was a bit of a challenge.

Mum and Dad, please don't be offended by my stupid cartoony versions of you. Not that there's anything to be offended about, because my drawings are obviously super awesome.

YAY FOR MAMMA AND PAPPA!

Day 14 - Draw Your Favourite Fairytale

2011-09-10T23:35:00.003+01:00

My favourite fairytale is Little Red Riding Hood, because it's the one I remember best from my childhood and it has a wolf in it who dresses as an old lady, which I think it's pretty cool. It also has the whole "all the better to hear you with" routine, which everyone loves about that fairytale.

So, here is my illustration of Little Red Riding Hood. Her knees are cute and chubby ^___^

Yay for Little Red Riding Hood!

Day 13 - Draw A Comic

2011-09-09T21:18:00.005+01:00

Day thirteen. Unlucky thirteen. After deciding on what to draw for my comic, I certainly felt unlucky, having to remember as much as I could, heck, even just having to think about it.

My comic is my version of the film 2001 Space Odyssey, based on what I could remember from it. Now, if you've read my other blog entry which discusses my feelings about this film, you'll know that I think it's probably one of the worst films ever made, maybe even one of the worst things ever made. It's unbearably slow and tedious and has minimal plot development, character development or any kind of development. I read somewhere that Stanley Kubrick was trying to make a realistic representation of how boring life in space would be, and he certainly succeeded. I was so bored when I watched it that I had to allow myself an interval at what I thought was half way through (it was more like a quarter, because it's an inexcusably long film) so that I could recover and prepare myself mentally to watch the rest of it.

Now, whilst I know for absolute certain that I hate this film with every fibre of my being, I can't remember an awful lot of it. This is may be because not a lot happens in the film, or perhaps it's my bodily survival instinct swooping in to try and block out what was undoubtably a horrendous experience. Either way, this is my comic version of the film, with the main bits that I remember.

click the picture, then click it again to biggify it

Admittedly, this isn't ALL I remember from the film, but frankly, I'm doing you a favour by not drawing all of the stuff I remember.

Day 12 - Draw A Recent Accomplishment

2011-09-08T21:58:00.003+01:00

So today, me and Owain had half a pizza each for lunch. It was BBQ chicken, but I wanted sweet chilli chicken. Dilemma. So what I did was, I got the sweet chilli dipping sauce out of the fridge and I poured it all over the BBQ chicken pizza, turning it into a sweet chilli chicken pizza instead. POW, take that pizza.

It's not an earth shattering or life changing accomplishment, but it's the most recent one I could think of.

Here is an illustrative representation of what I did. Pizzas are hard to draw. It looks like a plate of sick.

PIZZA FLAVOUR ALTERING ACCOMPLISHMENT COMPLETE.

Day 11 - Draw A Turning Point In Your Life

2011-09-07T20:09:00.002+01:00

I don't really know what a "turning point" would be. I guess it's something that had a huge impact on your life and maybe even changed the direction that your life took. I didn't really have to think for long, because without a doubt, Owain was the best thing to have happened to me.

Me and Owain had met a few times through friends. He's from Bristol, and I'm from York (if your geography is rubbish, those places are roughly 220 miles apart), so we hadn't actually met that often, and when we did, I barely noticed him. One day in 2005, I went down to Bristol with my friends, one of whom was going to see her boyfriend who lived there, and who was/is friends with Owain. A few more people turned up and we ended up having a sleepover at my friend's boyfriend's house where we played games and chatted and had a good time. As it turned out later after we'd gone home to York, Owain had decided he liked me a lot and he was definitely going to spend his whole life with me and nothing was going to stop him. I was unaware and not remotely interested anyway. Poor old Owain.

He told my friend how he felt, and had subtly started talking to me more and more on msn (remember msn?). Me and my friend met in York one day for a day of doing nothing and wandering around and she decided to tell me how Owain felt. I wasn't interested. At all. In fact, my friend spent a good part of that day trying desperately to convince me to go out with him. I would say things like "Hmm, 40% convinced... um, okay, 45% convinced..." etc. Eventually, through some valid arguments and probably a hefty dose of me being bored, I agreed to give him a chance. Within 5 minutes, he'd been given the go ahead and had texted me "hi, it's Owain. I was wondering if you'd like to go out with me? x", to which I replied simply "yeah, alright x". Romantic stuff.

This was good enough for Owain and he was delighted. He also completed Mario 64 that day, making it a very good day in general.

So there you go, we spent the next 3 years going back and forth from York to Bristol/Bristol to York, and then the next 3 years after that going back and forth from our universities in Cheltenham and Reading. I am overwhelmingly glad I said "yeah, alright". He's so wonderful and I'm so lucky.

The end.

(Thanks Lydia for convincing me)

New Olay Logo

2011-09-06T20:57:00.008+01:00

I know this isn't exactly a current topic, but Olay changed their logo last month.

This is the old logo.

I'm not sure if I like it or not. I started off just flat out hating it, thinking it was awkward and trying too hard to look contemporary. But slowly, each time I look at it, I find myself more confused by it.

This is the new logo.

I suppose it's not that bad, I guess I like the way they've curved the ends on the letters, giving half a smooth, gliding line which leads to a sharp sudden point, giving the type an interesting combination of smooth and sharp. The difference in line thickness doesn't bother me, it gives an almost calligraphic feel to the new logo. But the L, that annoys me, it just IS awkward, it's so very awkward in all sorts of ways. For a start, it juts into the A with such force that there is hardly any gap between the two, unlike the even spaces between the other letters, giving the whole logo a cumbersome feel. It's also too tall, it would have been easier on the eye if it were the same or similar height to the other letters. And the elegant flow between smooth and sharp which I mentioned before seems to have been forgotten in the lower half of the L, it has an incredibly uncomfortable point which doesn't tie in with the overall style of the lettering at all.

I don't know, as I say, each time I look at it, I seem to like it more. Maybe I'm just becoming used to it. That L will forever haunt me though, I just don't like it, it's uncomfortable to look at.

Day 10 - Draw Your Favourite Candy

2011-09-06T20:47:00.003+01:00

In England, we say sweets or confectionary. Just sayin'.

My favourite confectionary is Caramac bars. I know most people think they're gross and overly sweet and wrong, but I like them.

I drew this in Illustrator.

God they're yummy.

Day 9 - Draw Your Favourite TV Show

2011-09-05T17:22:00.003+01:00

My favourite TV show is Black Books, because it's hilarious and stupid and had a grumpy Irish man in it.

Don't you DARE use the word "party" as a verb in this shop.

Day 8 - Draw Your Favourite Animated Character

2011-09-05T00:01:00.003+01:00

For a long time, Bambi was my favourite ever film, and maybe it still is, it's hard to say. And while Bambi himself is a super adorable and amazing character (let us not forget he is a deer, and deers are my favourite animals, and therefore, they are awesome), my favourite character from Bambi has always been Flower.

He can call me Flower, if he wants to.

Day 7 - Draw Your Favourite Word

2011-09-03T13:03:00.003+01:00

I wasn't sure what my favourite word was. I'm still not certain, but I've always been fond of the word "cup". Say it over and over, it sounds funny.

Now then, the word "cup" is quite dull and short, so I tried to make it as EXCITING as possible. Sorry if you get a headache.

YAY FOR CUP!

Day 6 - Draw Your Favourite Book Character (Can't Be From A Movie)

2011-09-02T21:57:00.004+01:00

Comics are books, right? GOOD. Because Calvin and Hobbes is probably my favourite selection of books EVER. And my favourite character from those books is Spaceman Spiff. How adorable is he?!

Me and Owain compare ourselves to Calvin & Hobbes. I'm like Calvin; childish, impatient, imaginative and annoying. Owain is like Hobbes; patient, calm, able to deal with Calvin. YAY!

Car Journey

2011-09-02T11:08:00.002+01:00

Today, Owain and I are driving to Bath for a job seeker thing, then we are driving all the way to York to go see my family and friends. As such, I will be drawing day 6 in the car and this may result in day 6's drawing being very, very bad. I may also not get round to uploading until tomorrow, because of all the happy family greetingness. I'm sure you understand.

I'm about to purchase The Horror's new album to listen to on said car journey. I will let you know what I think later.

Day 5 - Draw Your Best Friend

2011-09-01T22:48:00.003+01:00

My best friend is Owainface. He looks better than my drawing.

He looks kind of goofy in my drawing. He's not that goofy really. More lovely.

Day 4 - Your Favourite Place

2011-09-01T15:09:00.002+01:00

This is soppy and vomit inducing, but I don't care, because it's MY blog, so hah.

My favourite place is snuggling up to Owain. Because he's super snuggly.

Snuggle snuggle snuggle.

No drawings today

2011-08-31T12:36:00.004+01:00

Hello!

I won't be doing any drawings today because I'm going to London to see Pulp this evening, and this obviously takes priority, because it's Pulp.

I'll draw day four AND five tomorrow and upload them both so that you get a double whammy awesome blog day.

Here's a photo I took of Jarvis when I saw him at Glasto in 2009.

I'm off to dance with the common people.

Day 3 - Draw Your Favourite Food

2011-08-30T14:31:00.001+01:00

My favourite food is lasagne, but that turned out to be crazy hard to draw. So instead I drew a blueberry muffin, because those are yummy.

Day 2 - Draw Your Favourite Animal

2011-08-29T16:13:00.003+01:00

My favourite animals are deers. It's Disney's fault for making Bambi so adorable.

I drew it in Illustrator, then moved it into Photoshop and coloured it in.

Day 1 - Draw Yourself

2011-08-28T23:42:00.004+01:00

In order to stop myself being too lazy and to make myself be creative everyday, instead of...well, lazy... I am going to complete the "30 Day Drawing Challenge".

That means that you lovely people get to see my drawing abilities EVERY DAY FOR 30 DAYS. Wow, you lucked out.

Even though it is 23:45 right now, leaving me with 15 minutes of the day left, I decided that today is day one.

Today's challenge was to 'draw yourself'. I found this tricky, because I have stupid hair. Anyone who knows me will know that I have deliberately stupid big hair. It's hard to draw. I drew loads of different pictures and decided they were all rubbish, so here are the two least crap ones that I did. I was just going to upload the stupid one on the right, but Owain liked the left hand one, so you get to see them both. Luckyyyy.

I was going to tell you what I get to draw tomorrow, but I decided to keep it a secret. Just don't google it, because you'll only ruin it for yourself. We both know you're excited.

AP "No Surprises" Video

2011-08-26T22:11:00.005+01:00

I was just being forced to watch Led Zeppelin on youtube by my fiancé because I can't stand them, and he wishes to convert me. He failed. This blog isn't about 'The Zep', but as I am sure some of you will be gawping in shock and horror at the monitor now in response to my philastine-like behaviour, I will quickly explain myself. I wasn't brought up listening to them like some other people were, and I'm not old enough to have listened to them in their hay day. I understand that they are/were very important in the formation of modern music and bands that I DO enjoy, and for that I am grateful, but I am glad they were the starting point for new genres, and not the finished thing. I just listened to three of their better known songs, and I actually felt a headache coming on. In my opinion, they sound mostly out of time, Robert Plant has an awful voice and keeps making noises not dissimilar from monkey mating calls in the jungle, and they are responsible for my least favourite song ever, brace yourselves, Stairway To Heaven, which I can only assume everyone in the whole wide world ever adores so much because they know something that I don't.

In summary, and in the words of Billy Connolly, "I don't get it". Mr Connolly's words of wisdom opened a door in my head when he shared them on Shrink Rap - "It's taken all my life for these things to dawn on me, just like getting it and not getting it. 'Cause with the getting it and not getting it is so good 'cause you can then put something aside: "I don't get it. Whoosh. Next!" instead of saying "Why don't I get it? Why don't I understand that?" There is no why! There only is an is and an isn't. You know what I mean?"

Thought I'd share that. I appreciated it having shared with me.

ANYWAY

The entire point of this blog was about youtube, wasn't it? I got distracted and went blabbing on about other stuff.

After having my ears raped, I decided to make myself feel better by looking for an Amanda Palmer song on youtube. I didn't have one in mind, but I fancied listening to her. I then stumbled across this video, it's AP doing a cover of Radiohead's "No Surprises" on her ukulele.

I really really like it and I also think the music video itself is beautiful. I adore the style and feel of the animation, it's perfect and is by an artist/animator called Marcos Sanchez, I believe this is his website, go check him out http://www.marcossanchezd.com/

I rambled a bit in this blog post. My bad.

Amanda Palmer's Evelyn Evelyn Graphic Novel

2011-08-25T15:58:00.004+01:00

Amanda Palmer is an awesome lady of whom I have blogged about before. She's a musician who started her musical career as part of the Dresden Dolls (go check them out). She then moved onto her own solo stuff, which is fantastic in every single way.

One of her side projects with her friend Jason Webley is "Evelyn Evelyn", a conjoined twin music act formed by two girl twins called "Eva" and "Lyn". Amanda and Jason 'found' these twins on myspace back in the days when myspace was still relevant and they've been gathering more and more fans ever since.

Now then, if you're a fan of Amanda Palmer and of Evelyn Evelyn, and you also like arty-booky things, then you'll like this news I have for you...

Amanda Palmer is creating a graphic novel about Eva and Lyn's life.

I think this is exciting because I love graphic novels, I love Evelyn Evelyn, and the artist doing the illustrations is a lady called Cynthia von Buhler, who I hadn't heard of, but having googled her, her style is very in keeping with the Evelyn Evelyn style, which is very important. Check her out http://www.cynthiavonbuhler.com/home.html

The Twitter

2011-08-22T14:09:00.003+01:00

I've had Twitter for ages, 3 years in fact, but I've never used it because I didn't get it, but now I'm trying my hand at it. And it's quite fun.

It's like facebook but without the commitment of having to log on every few hours/days to keep 'in the loop'. And it's like tumblr, but less messy. I like how with twitter, you're restricted to 140 characters, which is much shorter than you think. It forces you to get to the point and then send your compact and lovely thoughts out into the world for everyone to read and if you're lucky, retweet. How exciting.

So if you too are a twitterer, and you fancy following someone else, here's my twitter account http://twitter.com/#catticusrat

Warning: may twitter about pointless and strange things.

Flower Jars

2011-08-19T20:30:00.003+01:00

Continuing on the theme of weddings, because I can, I have decided I want to hand make the centrepieces (which, in less fancy terms, are table decorations).

I have collected twelve Douwe Egberts jars over the last 2 years and although at first I didn't know what I was going to do with them, I now do!

I ordered some cheap material off of the ebaywebz, cut it a bit and glued it a bit and carefully picked some pretty flowers.

FANCY.

I only knocked it together quickly, but I think it looks pretty swish. When I spend more time/have more options to pick flowers etc, they'll look even better.

Wedding Fun

2011-08-17T13:40:00.005+01:00

Hi all.

As you may or may not know, I am engaged. And engagements tend to result in marriage. As such, me and Owain are planning one.

I was never one of the little girls who was obsessed with getting married. I'm still not into the whole white wedding with colour coordinated bridesmaids and flowers. No, that stuff is not for me, or for Owain as it happens. We've been looking into it and have decided we love handmade weddings. We've scoured the interwebz, stalked many couples and their online blogs and looked at many, many etsy stores.

We've unofficially booked ourselves our wedding date in a lovely old converted barn in Bath (we're yet to gather enough monnies to secure it, but it's so far in the future that we're sure it's fine).

A few people have been asking me about it all, which is lovely and I really rather enjoy telling people about our plans. But I thought I'd do a blog about it all so that everyone can know what's going down.

The 'marriageday' isn't until 2015, so plans will inevitably change, ideas will pop up and fade away and I will no doubt do more blogs about it all as the marriageday gets closer and closer. I will, however, try and keep a few details and plans secret so that it's still an exciting and fun day for everyone and you all don't already know everything. That would be no good.

This is our wedding planner and wedding scrapbook. They make everything more exciting.

The scrapbook is for shoving as many cool things in as we can, then picking things from it out and using them for our marriageday. The planner is for making sure I write everything down that I need to have written down so that it's all GOOD.

I thought it might be nice to show you all some pictures that are in the scrapbook/will be in the scrapbook at some point, so that you can get a feel for how it's all going to be.

I was going to upload more than just four pictures, but my computer is having a slow day.

Also, I'd like to make a few things nice and clear now, so there's no confusion or worries. We are not having bridesmaids, a bestman or a maid of honour. Everyone is important to us, and we don't want to have to choose people to appear to be more important. Also, we don't see the point of them anyway.

We basically just want the whole day to be chilled out, fun and enjoyable. Sort of smart-casual with pretty things everywhere and handmade stuff for everyone to enjoy.

If anyone knows of or finds any cool, quirky, interesting handmadey wedding blogs, feel free to link me up!

x

Shepard Fairey

2011-08-02T21:15:00.021+01:00

For a long time, I have been fascinated and captivated by the work of Shepard Fairey. Fairey is an American artist and graphic designer who is most famous for his André The Giant posters and graffiti stickers as well as his Obama "Hope" posters.

Being that he is a massive influence and inspiration to me, I thought I would write a blog about him.

As I said, I've been a fan of his for a long time, but last year I studied his work during my Major Research Project at university. I discovered that not only is he incredibly talented but he's also one of the most influential street artists of our time.

I'm all for graffiti, I think it's great. I'm not talking about silly 'tags' and various ill-conceived visual filth. I'm talking about the real stuff, the ones that make you stop and stare because they're so impressive and so wonderful. Even if you don't necessarily like the style, or the colours, you still can't help but admire them, because it's art and art is good.

What I really like about Fairey is that he takes his work seriously. The messages he puts up are serious ones, ones he really cares about, ones he wants to share with you and me. You might not agree with him on something, but that doesn't matter, because you can admire his commitment and beautifully presented point of views.

His work is also very clever, making use of cult/pop culture references as well as including his strap line of "OBEY" in many works, giving them a more political and engaging twist. Combining this with the influence he has taken from the constructivist art movement in his work makes for some very interesting and beautiful pieces. (I am particularly fond of constructivist styled work, something about it appeals to me greatly).

His work is so beautiful that he sells his designs as limited edition prints from his website - http://obeygiant.com/ - they really are very wonderful.

Shepard Fairey also does work for bands, such as The Flaming Lips, Queens Of The Stoneage and Death Cab For Cutie.

This is a music video that he did for Death Cab, I think it's really interesting and a great combination. Death Cab's elegantly produced melancholy and emotional music fits perfectly with Fairey's considered designs within their gritty urban settings.

Alex Winston

2011-08-01T18:07:00.004+01:00

I started listening to a lady called Alex Winston a few weeks ago. She's an American singer/songwriter. I think she might be mental. I like that about her.

Not only is her music brilliant and crazy, but I also love the album/CD artworks for these two CDs. I think they're great.

Check her out.

I told you I thought she was mental. The best bit is when the cat starts projectile vomiting blood.... Yes really... I'm serious.

Owain's Noggin

2011-07-29T00:46:00.001+01:00

I said before I'd upload a picture of Owain's brain once he got a copy of the pictures after his MRI scan. So here it is. Isn't he sexy?

Mmmmbrains.

Christine Berrie

2011-07-28T21:22:00.002+01:00

I've just discovered the work of illustrator Christine Berrie and wanted to share, I like her work a lot.

http://www.christineberrie.com/index.htm

Whybird

2011-07-20T15:35:00.007+01:00

I've been having a lot of time to be able to do not a lot recently. What with finishing university and yet to land a job etc. As such, I've done what I believe is normal, and become rather lazy. However, I've decided that enough is enough and instead of watching Airline and Outnumbered all day on the TV, I will DO STUFF. Ideally, in this new enthusiasm, I will come up with a great new advertising campaign for Coca Cola or rebrand some pet food so that it becomes an overnight success and get a D&AD award for best design EVER. However, I'm realistic, and I know these achievements will take some time. So, instead, I aim to at least draw some stuff every now and then to keep my arty/designy brain fit and healthy so that when I eventually get a job, I'm not going to struggle to remember what a "photoshop" or a "typeface" is.

Now then, I'm currently visiting my family in Yorkshire, and when I go back to Bristol, I will be travelling by car. My car. Yes siree. I'm making the commitment of being adult enough to take my car with me to Bristol, becoming responsible for insuring it, taxing it, making sure there is air in the tyres, washer fluid in the washer fluid bit and oil in the oil bit, and so on.

I decided to draw my car for you to see in my stupid childish style. She's a rover (yes, I know, shut up), she's purple (I love that about her), she's got "214 si" on her bottom (whatever that means) and she's called Whybird (after Whybird from Playdays, I loved Whybird).

We've had our ups and downs, but I love her a lot, she's so lovely. I'm sorry for reversing you into a wall yesterday, Whybird, I didn't mean to, it was an accident. It won't happen again.

New Puppy

2011-07-20T14:28:00.004+01:00

This is my mum's new puppy. Her name is Bella and she seems to be the only dog I've ever sort of liked. Her favourite activities include biting socks and the bottom of trousers, jumping around like a lamb and drowning her toys in her water bowl.

I drew a picture of me and Owain

2011-07-19T16:53:00.005+01:00

I got bored and drew a picture of me and Owain.

Owain actually has curly wurly hair, but it turns out that I can't draw that. I did my best. His beard is actually ginger as well, but it looked weird with brown hair, so it's brown now. I don't even care. I think it looks like him so there, HA.

I love him rather a lot.

Owain's brain

2011-07-19T13:15:00.004+01:00

Today, Owain is getting his brain scanned. I am currently waiting for him. It's very exciting. I've seen my friend's brain (she's the one who needs Owain to have his brain scanned for her studies) and it looked a bit like a frog :D

I shall update later. Maybe even with a picture of Owain's brain!

MY REVIEW OF GLASTONBURY 2011

2011-07-18T19:49:00.007+01:00

MY REVIEW OF GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL 2011

Allow me to first say that I have been to Glastonbury Festival five times now and I have always loved the pants off of it.

Those fields are a place to eat whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want. Burger for breakfast? Sure, why the bloody hell not? It's a place to see some friggin' awesome bands and discover new ones. It's a place to chill out and feel safe and comfortable because everyone there turns into an awesome chilled out peaceful dude as soon as they have that wristband slipped over their hand and then clamped on with those mega strong stabby machines.

Until recently...

I don't know if it's just me (I'm just saying that, I know it's not just me because I have conversed with other humans on the matter) but Glastonbury is changing. Instead of waffling on, I've decided to write a list of the things that now suck about Glastonbury.

1. The bands suck. Seriously. This year, I made a list of the bands I wanted to see and I had about four bands per day, and most of those were "hmm, I GUESS I could go see these... nothing else is on, so yeah, okay...".

I know some people will say "Hey, stop being such a loser. Don't DECIDE what you want to see, what the hell is wrong with you? Just wander around and see what you see. GOD." - Yeah, okay fine, to a certain extent, I don't mind doing that. I've done that every year I've been to some degree, but I haven't paid £200 to wander around some fields with no certainty of seeing anything decent. Especially since there are literally about four bands that I want to see, I think I should plan to see those four bands and then try my luck wandering around.

Oh no wait, I've just seen the timetable and I know most of the bands, and they all suck ass.

I went home on Saturday evening this year because I couldn't face another day there and there were absolutely no bands that I wanted to see anyway. Guess what happened when I got home? I found out that Emily Eavis had hidden Pulp and Radiohead as "special guests" on the timetable. I've got to tell you, I was mad. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you trying to upset me? Do you want me to explode in a fit of mad rage and upset? YOU HID THEM? Plan bloody B you tell me about. Beyonce is headlining for some reason. And you HIDE Pulp and Radiohead as "special guests"? I mean, I don't even know how best to explain how stupid that is.

You know, if you manage to get PULP (I'm sorry, do we need to stop a second and have a think about that? You managed to get Pulp. As in, we've just gotten back together after about ten years apart and we are one of the biggest Britpop bands EVER and you've actually managed to book us.) then you TELL EVERYONE. You know those Glasto tshirts you sell? The ones with the names of the main bands on the back? Are you seriously telling me that you put "Plan B", "Biffy Clyro" and "Jesse J" on the back of those shirts, and you thought your little funsie game of hiding bands could continue and you didn't put "Pulp" and "Radiohead" on the back of the shirts?

I can only assume that the people who run Glastonbury think that it's a massive fun game. "I KNOW! WE GOT PULP AND RADIOHEAD DIDN'T WE? WOULDN'T IT BE FUN TO NOT TELL ANYONE?! WE'LL PUT THEM DOWN AS SPECIAL GUESTS AND PEOPLE CAN TURN UP IF THEY WANT TO KNOW WHO IT IS!!" No. That's a shit idea. I paid £200 and I want to see those fucking bands. So tell me that they're on and when. You insane power mad swines.

2. The people who went this year are mostly wankers. Guess what I did? I fell over in the mud. It got in my hair and all up my front and a little on my face. I slipped just as I left the barriers after receiving my wristband. There's literally about 60-100 people stood around waiting for friends or just resting. No one helped me up. Have you ever tried to stand up in slippery mud when you're covered in it and you're carrying vast quantities of camping gear? It's not easy. Worry not, a policeman came over and helped me up eventually. But no one else felt the need. This set the tone for the whole weekend. There seemed to be a lot of these Jack Wills wearing self centred narcissistic childish trendy motherfuckers wandering around having, like, suuuch a fantastic time, oh my gosh, like, is that a silent disco?

I drew a picture of these type of people for you in case you didn't know what I was on about.

I digress.

3. They seem to be catering solely for the stoned and drunk people at the moment. There's an awful lot of areas of the site dedicated to freaking these people out. Whilst I don't mind freaking drunk and stoned people out, I do mind it taking over the entire festival. There's The Unfairground, Shangri La, The Common, Block9, Arcadia, etc. Each has it's own equally strange theme and basically serves to provide people who are not sober the chance to get confused, amused and entertained.

Maybe I'm just dull. I don't drink and I don't do drugs. Maybe I'm a minority. But this seems excessive. How about an area of calm and quiet at nighttime for people to hang out without being harassed by wasted people? Maybe that's not AWESOME enough.

Anyway, I've cut all of my glastonbury wristbands off in a paddy and I'm seriously considering not going again.

That's enough of my whinging now. Sorry about that.

I have done a lot of stuff and haven't blogged in ages

2011-07-18T11:14:00.011+01:00

Hi all. So, I've been mega quiet recently. I'm sorry about that. I've been finishing being a student at university and stuff which takes a lot of effort and is super weird. I've moved out of my university house (which was so much effort it's unbelievable), I've moved into Owain's mum's house, which is lovely, I've received my final university classification (I got a 1st class honours degree, bitches), and I've attempted to sign onto job seekers allowance only to be told that I'm now allowed because I has planned a visit to see my family in York (which is where I am now), how dare I have plans! It's okay though, because I got my deposit back from my uni house, so I won't die anytime soon.

Here are some random photographs with captions so that you can see what I've been up to.

Me and Owain put some shelves up.

we also got a new bed and put that up. FYI, Ikea stuff is a bitch.

we made some stupid cupcakes.

I had my degree show at university, this is my section.

me and few people from uni went to the D&AD new blood exhibition to exhibit our work. This is our stand which we made from foam board to look like a living room. And my Bigmouth Valentines Cards work.

So there you go. That's all I can be bothered to write for now.

Oh, also, my mum's dog died recently and she got a new one (I prefer the new one), so I'll upload a photo of the dog soon.

Also also, I have a new online portfolio, it's still in the "work" page, but with a new link. K?

Bye!

New Page

2011-05-09T23:59:00.006+01:00

Hello!

I have added an extra page to this here blog. If you move you eyes slightly upwards, you should be able to see a clickable tab called "My Work". Click it and you will be transported to a new page, where I couldn't quite work out how to do anything, so instead made another blog with my work on, which you will be directed to in the "My Work" page. I made that sound a lot more complicated than it is. You'll figure it out, you're smart people.

Peace out x

Zumi Photos

2011-05-01T17:40:00.006+01:00

Zumi photos

I thought I'd take some photos on my harinezumi to see how they look and try out the different settings. I think they're great. They're grainy as hell, but I love grainy photos. And you have to remember that this camera isn't designed to outclass other cameras in the quality of the photos, it's designed to replicate super 8 film and have a charming old fashioned feel to the photos/videos.

I think they're great. I think this camera would be great on holiday to take memorable photos and videos with. I think sometimes with other, better cameras, we all tend to photograph EVERYTHING too much and we end up trawling through hundreds of photos afterwards because we want to make the most of our cameras. But this camera makes photographing and videoing fun, so it really makes it easy for you to make the most of it in just one exciting shot. Awesome.

Zumi : Monochrome Hard

2011-04-30T22:55:00.005+01:00

MONOCHROME HARD

I was messing around with my Harinezumi (Zumi) today on our way to Waitrose in the car. I tried out several of the settings on our journey, and I thought I'd upload one of them for you to see. I thought monochrome hard was the best of the bunch, so here it is. I might try and do a few more videos with different camera settings and doing different things and blog them here for you to see. I don't know if anyone cares, but just in case anyone out there is thinking of getting one, it might be nice to have a few samples of the different settings, or I think so anyway.

I am convinced I do not sound like I do on the video in real life.

Peace out x

P.S. PLEASE bear in mind that the internet has reduced the quality of the video and as such, it's a bit distorted and pixelated. However, it looks SO much better on my computer in quicktime.

My Harinezumi

2011-04-29T22:31:00.005+01:00

So I got my harinezumi working now that I have the appropriate batteries and mini sd card, yay!

Here's two videos I've taken today, the first is using the "Vivid 1" setting which just means saturated, but not as saturated as "Vivid 2". The second video is using "Monochrome Soft", which is just black and white, but softer than "Monochrome Hard"... good.

Look!

I AM SO HAPPY WITH IT!

I need to figure out the settings a bit more, as you can see, the second video is daaark. But yaaaay!

Zines

2011-04-26T17:02:00.004+01:00

So before Easter, I did some zines as a project. They're about my life at uni.

I'm giving these zines away at my final exhibition - to come and have a browse and grab some.

Clever Type

2011-04-25T15:18:00.004+01:00

As a graphic designer, I love a bit of clever type. When I see some good typography, it's like waking up suddenly, panicking about the time and then realising that it's Saturday. A feeling of comfort and excitement washes over me.

Here's some type I've found that is clever.

Please send me links to more clever type :)

My 21st Birthday

2011-04-24T14:00:00.004+01:00

It was my birthday on the 16th April, and as it so happens, it was my 21st birthday. I don't understand the big two-one, everyone makes such a huge fuss, which I'm not complaining about, but it is rather silly. It's the day you usually got given the key to the house, or so I understand. But I was given a key to my house when I was about 9 and I had to walk me and my little sister back from primary school which was only a 5 minute walk away. I remember I lost the house key once, it was in my pocket in my school summer dress (the blue and white check print one) and I lost it on the field, the grass had been mown and there were huge clumps of slightly yellowing grass piled up here and there. I assumed it had fallen out of my pocket during an epic playtime and probably got itself buried inside one of the large clumps of grass. I don't remember if I got it back, I think a dinnerlady might have found it, but maybe not.

Anyway... yeah, so, 21 is a big deal for some reason. I had a fantastic day! Everyone was happy and we all ate cake - my cake was awesome, here's a photo of me holding it :

See? AWESOME.

I should point out that in that photo, I am wearing a cat costume that Owain got for me, it's so cool, it even has a tail.

In fact, here, another photo :

I know, I know. I'm cool.

Moving on...

I basically felt like boasting about my gifts on here, which is a little narcissistic of me, but a little narcissism never did anyone any harm... except Narcissus, he died. I got lots of gifts (and lots of money!), and I'm massively grateful for all of them, but I couldn't show ALL of them, so here's a few of them.

My mum got me this great necklace

it's a silver envelope which actually opens up, and inside is a small silver tablet which she's had engraved to say "Happy 21st" on one side and "love from Mum" on the other. It's great!

My sister got me a hot pink Dualit 4 slice toaster! Unfortunately, I haven't got it yet because the shop she bought it from messed up, but I'm sooooo happy with it, here's a google image of it

Owain got me a few things, the cat costume above being one of them. He also got me this adorable deer from 1940's Germany, it's a little falling apart and beaten, but I love it so much, I wanted it for ages and he got me it!

He also got me this

It's a Rob Ryan 'paper-cut' - I was in so much shock when I unwrapped it! I am in love with Rob Ryan's work, he's so fantastic and now I actually have a real Rob Ryan cut! I was over the moon! He got me this one saying "I Miss Being A Small Girl" because every time my birthday was coming up when I was little, I'd cry and sob "I don't want to grow up!", birthdays were always a little traumatic for me. I mean, who wants to grow up??

That's it really, I'm so giddy about a lot of them still. Thank you everyone for everything! I haven't talked about a lot of my gifts, but they're all so so so awesome. Peace out x

Harinezumi 2+++

2011-04-23T17:11:00.011+01:00

I was watching The Boat That Rocked the other day with Owain. I love that film. I love the music, the style, the actors, the plot, the humour, everything. It got me thinking about the super saturated style of the videos from the 60s, I really really adore the style of home videos form the 60s, the colours are crazy and saturated and it's also grainy. I loooove grainy film, I know most people don't, but I do.

Anyway, so I did some research into getting myself a video camera from the 60s, so that I could play around with recording some video in super high saturated loveliness. I discovered that these cameras use super 8 film, which is both costly to purchase, costly to develop and can only record about 5 minutes per spool (or so I think I read...), so this seemed a bit silly and I felt myself going off the idea. I decided that someone, somewhere HAD to have come up with a digital alternative to replicate super 8 film. I searched and searched and searched. And do you know what? Someone HAD. A company called SuperHeadz from Japan had come up with a fantastic little digital video camera called the Harinezumi. I fell in love. I looked on youtube for some examples of what a Harinezumi can do and I decided I needed one.

Here's a youtube video showing some of the different colour settings (please turn your speakers off, they've added a really annoying noise to the video for some reason)

My Harinezumi arrived today! It's so pretty and tiny! Unfortunately, it doesn't come with batteries or a micro sd card, so I won't be able to use it until I get back to Cheltenham where I've had these delivered to. But I'll no doubt do another blog shortly with video I've taken on. Here's some photos of my zumi. (I got the 2+++ version, which is just the newest one)

it's literally about 10cm long and 4cm tall! Awww...

I got mine from Fototo click here for Fototo

Roses Awards

2011-04-23T16:35:00.019+01:00

Sorry, I haven't blogged for ages. I've been both busy and lazy recently. I will do a few separate blogs today for you.

I managed to win a design award! It's from the MPA Roses Student Awards. There were 12 briefs in total, mine was called "Coalition: Create and promote an unlikely coalition - after all opposites attract!", I designed a set of valentines cards with lyrics by The Smiths on them. I just wanted to do something silly and fun, and it gave me the excuse of listening to lots of The Smiths as work, which was awesome. So I won the 'Coalition' project and I also got nominated to compete for one of the top 3 places out of the 12 winners, which is rather cool. Here's the work I submitted and also my work in The Drum magazine (who are one of the sponsors of the awards, they did an article out the winning entries) :

So, that's pretty exciting. I got a work placement offer from the company who set the Coalition brief, Viv-id (www.viv-id.co.uk) in Manchester, who I've arranged to do a 2 week placement with in July.

Also, a few other people in my class at uni got commendations for the Roses awards which is totally ace, we had a good year!

Owain's blog

2011-03-07T15:40:00.004Z

I forgot to say before, my fiancé/boyfriend/awesome dude has a new blog. He never had an old blog. But he has a new one.

He says he's going to write about technology, philosophy and photography mostly, as those are his main interests :)

Check him out, he's lovely : *click here*

Peace out x

The End Is In Sight & Star Wars & Nuclear War

2011-03-06T22:40:00.008Z

I've been putting off doing a new blog entry until my Major Research Project is finished. It isn't finished yet, but today, I finalised my book outcome digitally, ready to be printed tomorrow. I'm feeling fantastic about it. This MRP has been the bane of my life for about nine months now, if we're including some of the summer, which I am... Actually, that's perhaps a bit harsh. It hasn't been until about three months ago that it really started becoming a nuisance to my every day life. I know it's called a MAJOR Research Project, but seriously, this thing is really really major. Anyway, the end is in sight and I'm thrilled to bits. I must say though, despite my negativity about it, I have actually enjoyed it on the most part, it's been really quite fantastic to do such a massive project on a topic I find thoroughly interesting, and to produce a 135 page book on it feels great.

Enough about that though.

I wanted to share some things I've found which I enjoyed...

Whilst I'm not the biggest fan of Star Wars, I am a fan and I enjoy the films and the bleepy swooshy pew-pew noises. I came across this piece of work on 'Stumble!', and I think it's great. I love the simplicity of the idea mixed with the rather complex imagery involved which is used so cleverly to encapsulate the iconic characters and scenes from the films. It's clever, it's simple, it's beautifully done and I wish I'd done it.

These Star Wars posters were designed by Olly Moss (of whom I am a massive fan), check him out *here*, he's brilliant.

Keeping with the theme of Star Wars, me and Owain found this lovely collection of photographs a while ago...

They're by a guy called Stéfan, here's the link to his flickr page: click me and here's a link to a whole gallery of "part two" of the collection: click me

I think they're really nicely shot photographs and I love the content, makes me smile every time. And there's so many of them to look at, which makes it even more entertaining. I love them :)

Moving away from Star Wars themed awesomeness now... and onto a quick film review by yours truly.

"Dr Strangelove: How I Learnt To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" by Stanley Kubric. Now then... I've perviously watched two other Stanley Kubric films, "Clockwork Orange" and "2001 Space Odyssey". Even whilst typing out the latter's name, I felt an overwhelming sense of dread, similar to that felt at school when you realise you have swimming class next, but somehow worse. 2001 Space Odyssey was not a film for me. The long monotonous panning shots of space ships which go on and on and on forever and never seem to be close to ending. The long silent shots of men walking around rotating rooms inside the space ships (which was cool at first, but wore off after the first what felt like five whole minutes of a yet another panning shot) and a whole lot of not a whole lot happening. I digress, this was not meant to be about that film. Whilst I'm at it though, I did enjoy parts of Clockwork Orange, not all of it, but parts. Tonight, Owain and I watched Dr Strangelove, fully expecting it to be the usual unbearable overhyped Kubric nonsense complete with inexplicably long panning shots of whatever Mr Kubric fancied. However, we were pleasantly surprised that (once we were past the opening credits which I felt went on slightly too long but enjoyed the hand rendered lettering) Dr Strangelove is actually a rather good film. It's funny, it's stupid, it's dark humoured (best kind of humour) and it goes rather over the top to point out the stupidity of nuclear war. The characters were delightful and helped maintain the silliness which ran throughout the film. I'm notoriously hard to please when it comes to films anyway, however, all in all, I'd say this is a Stanley Kubric film worth the time and effort of watching.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts about anything I've mentioned today, hit me up in the comment box. Peace out x

work and cool stuff

2011-02-23T17:06:00.013Z

I haven't done a blog update in eight days, how shit am I?

Lots to discuss, lots to say, lots to talk about. Now then.. Um.. Ah yes, my MRP... It's going beautifully, I've been having random meet ups with my tutors about it, and we're all confident that a) I'll get it done in time and b) it'll be a lovely book. Hoorah!

Moving on. I've been entered into two design awards; "MPA Roses Student Awards" and "D&AD". This makes me happy. I am, however, a little worried that if I miraculously end up winning or whatever, I'll have to go to a ceremony, which may or may not involve me looking smart. I don't do smart. I don't. I'm worried.

For the Roses, my valentines cards are being entered, which you can browse to your heart's content in my previous blog entries, or if you'd rather, you can browse them to your heart's content and consider purchasing one/many: here

And for the D&AD awards, I'm being entered for a project I did for Oxfam, which unfortunately, I can't show online, it's the rules. Sorry. I promise once the awards hoo-ha is over, I'll upload them.

What else what else what else? Hmm.. I'm currently having a nice cup of tea and a slice of lemon cake, I really love lemon cake.

I was browsing etsy earlier, and I found many awesome things that I want. I have compiled a list for you to look at, because I know you want to see, I just know.

here are the links respectively:

the chair

the deer

the giraffe

the ipod case

the cat shirt

the cat book

That's all for now. I must work. Peace out x

Life life life :)

2011-02-15T10:27:00.003Z

Just a quick blog.

I'm currently working on my Major Research Project, I'm feeling positive about it, it seems to be going well and everything is (hopefully) under control. I'm making it into a book, which requires a lot more thought and planning than I realised, but I'm handling it.

I'm going to see The Penguin Cafe Orchestra tonight in Bristol, I can't wait, they're fantastic. If you've not heard of them, give them a google and a youtubing. In fact, here you go...

Hope you like it. Peace out x

I'm selling things

2011-02-08T18:53:00.005Z

I have had an etsy shop for ages, but it's been empty and lonely ever since I got it. But not anymore! I have Valentines Cards for sale!

**CLICK HERE FOR MY AWESOME ETSY SHOP**

Go on, buy one, we both know you want to.

I had to put them up for sale in dollars because I got confused by the options to change it to pound sterling... but basically, it's $4 per card and $3 postage unless you buy two cards, then it's only $1 postage. Allow me to translate those costs for you.

$4 is roughly £2.50.
$3 is roughly £2.
$1 is roughly 60p.

Therefore, it's £4.50 for one card or £5.60 for two (roughly). Go on, support me through my student education in the name of your loved one.

Peace out x

The Smiths Valentines Cards

2011-02-06T14:31:00.007Z

I've finished those Smiths Valentines Cards now, they're due in tomorrow, so I've been up since 8am printing, cutting, sticking, drawing and writing to get it all done.

Thought I'd upload the cards here for you to look at. I'm thinking of selling them in my (currently empty) etsy shop.

Let me know what you think :) I even put them in little cellophane bags and they come with an envelope.

Lipton is done as well, might upload that at some point soon. But for now, I have a presentation to be getting on with!

Peace out x

Luxe City Guides

2011-01-29T16:20:00.005Z

Recently, me and Owain (my fiancé) have been talking about going to Amsterdam and Berlin. Ideally, we'd like to go to Amsterdam after university for a week or two and just hang out by the canals, visit all the various museums and find small interesting shops selling small interesting things. We're not quite so excited to visit the Red Light District, but may well do if we felt brave. We'd like to go to Berlin for our honeymoon because quite frankly, we'd both be bored to death and in a constant state of annoyance from the heat if we went to the usual sorts of places you go on honeymoon. We don't intend to 'tie the knot' for at least five or six years yet, but Berlin is our honeymoon choice.

Now then, there is a point to my ramblings. We went to Paris last March and in preparation, I bought a guide. Not just any guide though. I bought a Luxe City Guide. They're brilliant. They're little guides written by people who have been to the places, but talk about places and things that other guides don't. My Paris one had a list of various restaurants which told you what kind of food they do, how they'd expect you to dress, the opening times and which metro stop to get off at. It also had the locations of lots of brilliant little shops hidden away in the back streets of Paris which you might otherwise not even notice or go to. Basically, these guides provide really really useful information, the sort of information you want, we can all just about figure out how to buy metro tickets and find out what days museums close on by googling the hell out of it, but we can't really find out about brilliant little cafés and shops in the less popular areas of Paris, until you read these guides.

I'd also like to point out that they're so so so pretty. Every single guide has a different wonderful cover. They're folded into a concertina so they are quite small but contain a lot of information due to the amount of pages.

They've also started to do iPhone apps of the guides, making it even more convenient and still have the lovely cover artwork.

**click here for the Luxe website**

I'll happily state that I don't think the Luxe City Guides contain as much information as say, a Lonely Planet Guide for the price, but for sheer style and for the joy of carrying around something so pretty and fun to look at, I personally would go for the Luxe. Plus the fact that, personally, I'd prefer to be told about quirky small interesting places than about more mainstream popular places. And even if you don't get as much information as other travel guides, I coped just fine in Paris and loved every second.

Have a look and tell me what you think :)

Amanda Palmer

2011-01-27T19:02:00.008Z

One of my favourite ever ever ever musicians has released a new album. Her name is Amanda Palmer and her new album is called "Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under". She's American, she's from a band called The Dresden Dolls and she loves Robert Smith and The Cure as much as I do. I don't do girl-crushes, but if I did, I'd definitely have one on her.

She's got creativity coming out of her eyeballs. She's also married to the writer Neil Gaiman.

Anyway, I love her to bits and I wanted to share her awesomeness with the world, or at the very least, the people bored enough to be reading my blog.

You will not regret listening to her, I promise, she's brilliant. Her voice cracks sometimes (which I love), she laughs through her own songs, she tends not to shave her underarms, she draws her own eyebrows on, she doesn't take herself seriously, she's hilarious and she's fucking fantastic.

Here's some songs for you to listen to...

You can buy her album **here** and she's made it cheap so you pay what you think it's worth after you listen to the songs (she's nice like that). If you'll allow me, I'd like to recommend the song "Vegemite", it pretty much sums her up and why I love her so much. :)

I hope you love her as much as I do, let me know what you think. Peace out x

I need a small favour...

2011-01-25T17:40:00.006Z

Hello! I changed my mind about one of my projects. I have little time to explain. Rush rush rush. Instead of creating a campaign to sell the importance of design, I am now rebranding and repackaging Lipton Ice Tea :)

As you can see, Lipton Ice Tea looks terrible. The logo is awful, the packaging is boring and outdated and, well, the whole thing is shit. I'm going to attempt to fix it.

What I need from you lovely lot is for you to tell me by any means (email, facebook, in this blog's comment box, carrier pigeon etc etc) if you like ice tea? Any brand of ice tea. Or, if you know of anyone who does like it, let me know that as well. I need to know how old you are and one/a few reason(s) why you like it. Also, if you fancy it, you could let me know why you don't like it as well (if you don't like it).

I only have 12 days because of my fannying around. I'll let you know how it's going! Thanks in advance!

Peace out x

Bigmouth

2011-01-24T22:05:00.007Z

I don't want to sound dramatic, but I very nearly let the blogging slip there. Four days and no blogging.

Anyway, I thought I'd just keep this updated with my work. As you know (since I've talked about it to death), I'm designing Valentine cards with lyrics by The Smiths on them. They're going to be called "Bigmouth Valentines Cards" (little in-joke for Smiths fans there...) - the reasoning for this name is two fold. Firstly, "Bigmouth Strikes Again" is the name of a song by The Smiths, and secondly, the valentines cards I have designed are deliberately morbid/rude/violent so as to contrast the themes of valentines day, as such, the lyrics I have chosen could conceivably have escaped from the lips of someone with a "bigmouth".

I have come up with a logo! It's not necessarily finished. Please don't steal it (I don't know why you would...) It's copywrited (© Cat Collins 2011) see? :)

So, it's just my handwriting but a bit embellished. The mouth is also a heart. Clever.

I might sell these once they're done. Ponder ponder. Hit me up if you might want one for the funsies/for a loved one.

I need to get on with work now. Peace out x

Illustrations for your eyes

2011-01-19T19:27:00.008Z

Yesterday, I learnt how to paint using photoshop, it's actually incredibly easy and I have no idea why I never bothered to experiment with it before. Alas, it's now been added to my list of abilities.

I've been experimenting with different kinds of illustrations for my Valentine cards project. These are two of my newest illustrations (I've added captions underneath each picture, these are what the cards will say along side the illustrations in some gloriously funky hand drawn type).

"Nothing's changed, I still love you, oh I still love you... Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to, my love."

"And if a double decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die."

I'm not sure if I'm going to use these illustrations for the cards, I'm still experimenting and deciding.

Let me know what you think :)

x

© Cat Collins 2011

Greetings Cards

2011-01-18T19:49:00.007Z

I've been trying to find as many interesting/funny/quirky greetings cards as I can. It's research for my Valentine cards project. I found some really good ones and thought I'd share them on here :)

There are a few in this selection from this shop (which is totally awesomely fantastically cool): **click this**

Anyone know of any other fantastically odd/funny/strange/quirky greeting cards I should know about?

Peace out x

Back To University & Happy

2011-01-17T15:51:00.004Z

Today was my first day back at university after the Christmas holidays. It was a good day, I'm really enjoying uni at the moment, and I feel really excited to do all the work I have on my plate.

These are the projects I currently have on:

1. Design Awards (I've done two awards & I'm doing another two at the moment)
First of the design award is one called "Coalition" where you think of two things which don't usually go together, then you come up with a way for them to be combined into one outcome. I'm designing Valentine's cards with romantic/unromantic lyrics on them by The Smiths. It's so much fun.

The second of the design awards I'm doing at the moment is one called "Design design" where you create a campaign that shows how important design is to the world. I'm loving this brief as well.

2. Self Initiated Project
This is where we get to create our own briefs and do something that we want to do. I'm currently working on rebranding and repackaging Whittard's products, because I think they look bad at the moment, they're not uniformed and it's a bit all over the place. So I'm fixing it.

3. Major Research Project
Stickers! Researching stickers. Designing stickers. Lots of fun!

4. My fiancé's brother, Tom, has asked me to design him a logo
He's going to start selling his photographs and he wanted an identity for himself, so I'm doing that for him. I'm excited about this one because I don't get marked on it because it's not for uni, so I feel like I can just do whatever I want and not have to worry about building up a body of research and development work. I want to do a really good job for him.

Really enjoying it all at the moment, I'm dead happy.

On another note, my landlady is popping over in a bit for rent and to show potential new house dwellers around the house I'm currently living in, but will be vacating at the end of my tenancy in June. So I best go.

Peace out x

Robert Clarke

2011-01-16T15:37:00.010Z

Me again!

I found something/someone to share with you. His name is Robert Clarke.

***click this, you'll like it***

He draws and paints things, mostly birds. I have fallen in love with his work and I wanted to share it. I love how charming his work is, it's so crude and honest and sweet.

I showed his work to my fiancé (I hate that word, don't you? Fiancé. I'd prefer to say "my-long-term-boyfriend-who-I-am-going-to-marry-one-day", but it's a bit longwinded), he also fell in love with Robert Clarke's work. So we bought one.

We had to search a bit to find somewhere that sold his work and wasn't completely sold out, and we stumbled across this blog called Elphick's, which was also a nice find as they have a nice blog going on there. In their online shop was some of Robert Clarke's work (*this is a link to said shop*) we bought "Wood Duck" for our 6 year anniversary in March (bit far away, I know, but we loved it and thought it would make a nice joint present).

Anyway, I wanted to share Robert Clarke with people, and now I have. I hope you enjoy him :)

Feel like telling me your inner thoughts?

2011-01-14T16:05:00.006Z

For my final year at University, I'm doing my Major Research Project, which is sort of the equivalent of a dissertation only with less words and more design work, on sticker graffiti.

Here are some examples of sticker graffiti for you so we're on the same wave length...

(If you click the pictures, they grow)

Now then, my questions to you are; 1. Do you think sticker graffiti is a good thing? 2. Do you think opinions expressed through sticker graffiti are more or less effective than opinions expressed through advertising on billboards/posters/etc. 3. Do you even notice sticker graffiti is there or do you mostly walk by without realising it's there?

If you'd like to tell me your thoughts on these questions or have any other thoughts about sticker graffiti, hit me up in the comment box.

Thanks in advance, and peace out x

DEERS ARE AWESOME

2010-12-21T22:14:00.007Z

Helloooo

Merry almost Christmas & all that festive cheeriness!

I hope everyone is having a super winter, even those of you stuck in your various dwellings due to the snow. I'm back home in York, and there is no snow and I'm rather upset about it.

Today, my Dad, my sister, my fiancé and myself all went to a lovely place 20 minutes from my village near York, this place was Lotherton Hall - it's very nice, there's an old crumbly house with massive rooms and rugs for you to look at in awe/faux interest (depending on your personal take on old crumbly houses with massive rooms and rugs), there's a bird garden, which contains birds and I believe there are some gardens to shuffle through and admire the dashing flowers and other organic lovelies. But, the bit of Lotherton Hall worth paying the £3.60 parking free for (in my opinion..) is the deer park. I ADORE DEERS. I love them more than any other animal, and I should point out that I am VERY keen on cats/kittens. Deers are so graceful and beautiful yet so large and powerful. My favourite ever film to this very day from the age of about 4 years old, is Bambi. Bambi is the epitome of cuteness, fact. Whilst at this delightful deer haven, I took some photographs... Unfortunately, the deers were somewhat far away from the fence and made it rather difficult to take decent photographs, however, I persevered. These are some edited photographs that I took...

Owain took his rather silly looking Minolta camera with it's biiiig lens, so he got some close up photos of the deers on film, when they're developed, I'll scan them up and post them.

I found this the other day and I liked it...

x

Dignitas

2010-11-11T18:21:00.011Z

I'm currently doing some design awards at university, and I thought I'd put them on here as & when I do them. I pretty much finished one of them today, so here it is for your enjoyment..

MPA ROSES AWARD - "Dignitas, the Swiss euthanasia clinic, has decided to open a Manchester branch. Create the launch campaign."

I decided that this brief would be best done in a humorous, tongue in cheek way. They're not actually opening a euthanasia clinic in Manchester, so there's no need to be serious and sensitive about it. Rather, I wanted to have fun with the topics of Manchester and death.

I started by coming up with some statements which could be used for the campaign. I wanted them to be relevant to Manchester, to be funny and to get across the idea that it's about death. Nice and up-beat...

1. Should also be fairly easy to understand... Manchester is up north. When you deteriorate from a terminal illness, you head south.
2. Should be fairly easy to understand..
3. The atom was first split in Manchester.
4. George Osbourne is a tool.
5. Morrissey/The Smiths is/are from Manchester. One of The Smiths' songs is "First Of The Gang To Die"

I then needed to come up with a way to get these "advertising slogans" across to the general public. The natural route was business cards...

...in the shape of pills, in inappropriately bright colours, which open up to reveal the statements. Naturally.

I then needed to redesign the "Dignitas" logo, on the grounds that the existing one is awful.. I can't find a decent sized example online, so here is the website http://www.dignitas.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=1 it's the ugly thing it the top left corner.

This is my new and improved Dignitas logo:

I used the font Helvetica, because it's Swiss (like Dignitas) and I made it flesh pink, because it's oddly unsettling in pink, and I wanted everything to do with this project, as I said before, to be humorous. The "+" is there, because of the cross on the Swiss flag, and it has connotations of medicine, being a medical symbol.

I then made two facebook adverts using my pill designs, and a billboard advert, so as to spread the word of Manchester's new euthanasia clinic both virally and in reality.

The facebook ones

The billboard

So, there we have it. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed the whirlwind tour of my 1st design award outcome.

And by the way, you click on the images, and they get bigger.

From Cat x

Glastonbury Rebrand Project

2010-10-09T20:14:00.008+01:00

I've started my 3rd and final year at University now, it's getting tougher, it's getting better, it's getting more interesting. I'm loving it.

For one of my modules, I come up with 4 projects that I want to do. One of these 4 project ideas I came up with was to redesign the Glastonbury Festival logo, simply due to the fact that I think the current one is rubbish;

I had 2 weeks to redesign this logo for, arguably, the most famous festival in the world. Here is my logo;

I wanted the new logo to feel fresh and exciting, with connotations of environmental friendliness and being free spirited. The pyramid in the middle represents The Pyramid Stage and the sixteen points represent the Stone Circle at the festival. I also wanted the logo to feel a little bit nostalgic and almost 80's feeling. I researched into 80's logos and took inspiration from those for this logo. The type is hand drawn by me and digitalised in Illustrator, I think this type gives the logo an organic feel and ties in well with the overall spirit of the festival.

I'd love to hear what people think, feel free to leave me a message/comment :)

This was my favourite moment of last year's Glastonbury -

It was fantastic

The Rebrand Of BP

2010-08-02T23:11:00.006+01:00

In response to the oil crisis off the Gulf Coast caused by BP oil, Greenpeace launched a competition to rebrand the company BP with a new logo. Unfortunately, I didn't read about this until they'd stopped taking logo entries, however, here is winning design, as chosen by Greenpeace supporters.

I'm not quite sure if I like it, I mean, it does the job and it's simple. But I think it's a bit obvious. Maybe I'm being too harsh. There were some designs I preferred.

You can find out more here http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/autofrontpage

Also, I found this, it amused me

Glastonbury Looms

2010-06-11T10:41:00.006+01:00

Hello there!

Glastonbury is looming, the line up has been announced and the excitement is building! As such, I wanted to post some photos I took at last years festival on my Diana F+ Snowcat. Sidenote: if you haven't heard of Lomography, go google it now, their cameras are fantastic.

I discovered this band the other day through a friend, they're amazing.

my favourite bits are when they all shout "Heathcliff". x

I begin my MRP

2010-05-14T19:55:00.012+01:00

Today, I officially finished my second year of university. I'm looking forward to my third year :) bring ittttttt.

I've started researching into my Major Research Project (my equivalent of a dissertation) - I'm not 100% what I'm actually doing it on yet, but I know it involves stickers. I love stickers sooo much! They're so fun, you can get ideas across through them, opinions, views, pictures etc. I see them in the street all the time and I think it's brilliant that someone can design something, print it off and stick it anywhere for people to see.

I saw one the other day at the end of the high street in Cheltenham, it said "never trust a tory", unfortunately I had no camera with me to take a photo, but it made me smile. I'll wander on back soon with a camera and see if it's still there. I don't trust tories, for the record.

Here's some stickers I found on the net that I liked

If anyone has any photos of stickers or know of any good ones in the Cheltenham/Bristol area, pass your knowledge onto me :)

I found this the other day, it made me smile. I hope all news readers do this, they do in my head now.

Peace out x

I have an etsy shop now

2010-05-03T16:46:00.004+01:00

I now have an online shop :)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/catticusratticus

check it out and pass it on! <3

Mine and Jodie's presentation

2010-04-29T23:24:00.012+01:00

Me and my friend, Jodie, have created a presentation about a design studio in Cheltenham. They're called Studio Weekend. We pestered them a few times to try and get an interview, but alas, they were busy.

No bother! We prevailed and came up with this.

The song is by The Penguin Café Orchestra, if you wanted to know. If not, unread this.

Someone linked me to this yesterday, in response to my previous blog, where I uploaded some of my newest work, which I have dubbed my 'stupid crap drawings'. http://www.kawaiinot.com it's great! You should go have a look.

I'm going to go to bed now.

A little bit of current news thrown in with swearing, for your enjoyment. x

My Stupid Drawings

2010-04-28T20:03:00.005+01:00

So I've started drawing stupid pictures. I may start putting them onto cards or something and sell them. Jodie said to.

Paris

2010-04-28T16:11:00.010+01:00

Long time eh? Sorry about that.

NEW BLOG!!

So, as noted in my previous blog, I went to Paris. It was terrific. I bought this at a flea market, it was 60 euros and I love eeet.

The Parisian who sold me it said it's "old" - he didn't speak much English, and I cannot do French, so that's all he could tell me. It's old. Someone must have spent hours and hours cutting these tiny letters out and sticking them into this album. I love it.

Peace ooout x

My Holiday In Paris

2010-04-01T11:31:00.011+01:00

Good morning everyone! Happy April Fools Day! I don't contribute to the annoyances on 1st April, I used to. One time, I put soap on my sister's toothbrush. Classic.

So, I have brilliant news! (and no, this isn't an April Fools joke.) Me and my boyfriend, Owain, went to Paris last week for our five year anniversary. It was amazing. We went up the eiffel tower, climbed up the horrendous amount of stairs to reach the top of the Arch Du Triomphe, saw the Moulin Rouge, walked for ever to see the mini statue of liberty, went to see Notre Dame, went to the Louvre, got lost on the Metro, etc etc. And on the last night (our anniversary) outside the Louvre when it was all lit up and the eiffel tower was glittering away in the distance, Owain and I got engaged! I am sooo happy.

So, ignoring the fact you probably have better things to do than look at my holiday photos, here are some of my holiday photos...

This was taken at a flea market, where Owain bought four film cameras. I liked the jiminy cricket sign a lot.

Me & Owain with the Eiffel Tower, it was waaay bigger than we'd expected..

This is one of my favourite photos. I cranked the shutter speed up to 30 seconds to see what would happen. This happened. I am pleased.

Yay yay yay yay! Try to ignore my podgy fingers yeah? :)

So, that is my Paris holiday in a nutshell. It was amazing!

On another note, I'm going to see this film about Banksy. Not heard of it? Yeeah. I'm not even sure what it's about. I'm assuming it's about Banksy. Apparently it's only showing at this one random venue in Bristol.

Anyway! I leave you with this. Unfortunately, for some reason or another, the video has been removed, but you can still listen. It's a Star Wars version of "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys.

I found it funny.

*Update : Okay, so I think this video has been blocked on youtube due to copyright reasons... here's the link to the orginal http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1931187 hope it works*

x

Whittington Press

2010-03-11T11:32:00.007Z

Morning!

I haven't updated this for a few days, sorry about that, I've been a bit busy and whatnot.

I said I'd upload images of the stuff I did at the Whittington Press (remember that?) so, here you go...

It's a poem by Robert Herrick and took me ages to put together, I also ran out of L's, as you can see, so I borrowed some from Gill Sans. I'm pleased with it.

This is where I put all my presswork up in my room. The brown paper one was given to me at the Whittington Press, it's a folder with information inside, like how the trays of letters are organised etc. And it has my group's names on for that day, which is nice. The one saying "Catticus Ratticus" I did at the Whittington and the one saying "The Cure" I did last year at University. I took the poem down to scan it, so you'll have to imagine it up there.

In other news, I went to Bath the other day with Jodie (housemate/graphics buddy) and Owain (boyfriend) and it was brilliant! I love Bath to bits. I'm going to live there, and that's that. We found this frames and mirrors shop, which we went into for Jodie to look at the mirrors, and I found this print, so I bought it, because I think it's wonderful

Jodie went to a carboot the other day and bought me a small statue of this white rabbit! He's wearing the exact same outfit and everything, so now I have a small white rabbit shine in my room.

Talking of the white rabbit, I went to see Alice In Wonderland and I'm sorry to say, I was disappointed. Tim, if you're reading this (yeah, right), don't work with Disney again, they suck and you don't. Anyone else think Disney is actually really really bad these days? I remember proper Disney, with hand drawn characters and backgrounds of watercolours and pastels and real stuff. I hate that they've suddenly become like Pixar (whom, I dislike, the only Pixars I like is Toy Story 1 and Monsters Inc.) I want old Disney back! Going into Disney stores is depressing now, it's all 3D computer generated rubbish, with a small shelf at the back with Mickey Mouse and Bambi sitting on, looking lost and confused. And don't even get me started on Hannah Montana, The Jonas Brothers and High School Musical, just don't. Bloody Disney. Mr. Burton, sir, they do not deserve you.
Anyway, the reason I didn't like Alice In Wonderland wasn't, actually, because of the computer generated stuff, it was because it wasn't weird enough! How did they manage to make Alice In Wonderland not weird? Fail. It wasn't funny enough, the Cheshire Cat wasn't awkward and unhelpful enough, The Mad March Hare was annoying and the 3D was dreadful. They also tried to cram far too much into the time they had, I felt like they were rushing through it all to get to the real story, then it ended.

Rant over.

I went to Mancheser yesterday to see the Alan Fletcher exhibition. He's brilliant! I'd seen a load of his work before, but being at the exhibition and seeing it all for real somehow made him ever better. I won't put photos up of it, because there's probably blogs elsewhere crammed full of that, so there's no need.

After the exhibition, me and Jodie went for a wander and visited a load of vintage shops, where I bought this

Deers are my favourite animal (closely followed by butterflies) and I thought this was beautiful, and the anatomy will help me out if I decide to draw a deer in the future.

I'm going to leave you with a video now, of one of my favourite musicians ever, Amanda Palmer (check her out) taking the piss out of Lady Gaga (whom I dislike intensely).

I love that she's wearing a chastity belt and has a full blown orchestra playing Poker Face. Makes me laugh every time.

x

My Name Is Khan

2010-03-02T15:52:00.005Z

Howdy all

So I went to see "My name is Khan" this weekend, in Reading. It's a film about a muslim from India who has asperger syndrome, who goes to live in America after his mother's death to make a happy life for himself. Then 9/11 happens, which changes people's views about muslims, causing violence and awful behaviour towards them. This leads Khan to seek out the president of the United States to tell him face to face "My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist" in the hope of making his life right again.

It's a brilliant film. I recommend you go see it. It's an Indian film, so there's an interval half way through, which was exciting!

Here's a link for a trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uNDm6YfN2k

The message of the film is self explanatory, and I think if enough people watch it and understand the message, then the world will be a nicer place.

I must go now, as I bought a rather large chocolate bunny earlier, which needs eating.

And the closing video for today?

I found it dead funny.

x

Quick Update About My Life

2010-02-27T12:05:00.006Z

Hello all

I'm currently in Reading, at my boyfriend's university house. It smells of damp. Yum.

Anyone else watch Jonathan Ross last night? Tim Burton & Johnny Depp were on - it was the height of awesomeness. Go watch it on the iplayer if you missed it, Tim Burton is a god, I don't think I've seen him interviewed before so that was interesting.

A friend showed me this the other day http://flowingdata.com/2010/01/29/save-pens-use-garamond-font/ I thought it was very interesting, and the hand rendered typefaces looked really good! Check it out.

I got my grade back for an animation I did not long ago for university, it was about unconditional love, you watch it on youtube, in fact, I'll post it as my closing video for you, if you're interested. I got a 73 for it, or was it 72? Anyway, I got a 1st, which is an A. So I'm dead happy about that! I don't like doing animation so that was a confidence boost.

And with that, I bid you farewell.

x

Tomorrow, I Press

2010-02-18T23:55:00.011Z

Greetings!

I'm going to this letter press workshop tomorrow, it's at a place called Whittington near Cheltenham. In fact, allow me to map you up...

View Larger Map

and here is the URL for their website : http://www.whittingtonpress.com/index.html

and for those of you who aren't savvy with what print/letter pressing is, it'll look like this when finished...

So, I shall let you know how that goes after it happens tomorrow. Bet you can't wait.

On another note, it's getting late. However, I found this the other day. It's quite simply brilliant. Stephen Fry speaking out against the Catholic Church at the Intelligence² debate. If you have a spare twenty minutes, I cannot implore you enough to listen to this brilliant human being.

(It's in two parts due to the runtime)

x

Bestiaries

2010-02-16T23:37:00.001Z

Right then...

As I'm fairly new to blogging, I'm sure that I'm going to overcompensate in the first few blogs, cramming them with stuff of great value, importance and influence. Then, slowly but surely, it'll whittle down to the odd blog consisting of what I had for tea or something. I will try to avoid this, I promise.

My current project at university, which is the university of Gloucestershire for anyone who is reading this but doesn't know me. It's in England. Anyway, my current project is entitled "Self Authorship", it's a research based project in which I produce an outcome of my choice, consisting of some part of my research (what I research is also my choice).
During my research, I stumbled upon mythical creatures. I LOVE mythical creatures. Unicorns, Pegasus, Centaurs, seriously, how cool are they? Through this, I found out there are books, were books, called "bestiaries". These are medieval books and are basically encyclopaedias of mythical beings. So, I looked into this and discovered there is a modern day bestiary, "The Book Of Imaginary Beings" by Jorge Luis Borges, and I bought it. It's great, it's interesting and has brilliant illustrations of the mythical animals. If you're interested in that sort of thing, I recommend finding it and having a look.

In other news, I'm going to a letter press studio on Friday, to... letter press. It's at a place called Whittington, near Cheltenham. I've never been before, but I'm looking forward to it. I like messy, inky, hand made sort of things.

Also, Happy Pancake Day!

I'll leave you with this,

It's possibly one of the sweetest things on the net.

x

first blog!

2010-02-16T20:29:00.002Z

First blog!

Soo, I just told Jodie I wasn't into blogging, but then I had a look around and found out that maybe I could become a blogger, if I put my mind to it.

Due to this being my first blog, and the fact that I'm actually meant to be having a phone call right now, this blog is going to be short. Like, this short.

I will definitely make it more interesting next time, which will be soon, because I'm putting my mind to it. x