different >> but all linked

It has been a long funny kind of day, long in the sense that I have been awake for a long time, funny (I don't mean full of jokes) but I had to see a few people to discuss stuff as well as contact people who are making decisions that could effect my future.
oh yes and teach!

just a normal day you think for most of you I would expect. but I also spent some time talking to students and their parents who are currently making decisions that will at least make a difference to the next 2 years of their lives (probably more), if not the whole of their lives.

amongst all this I was sending and receiving emails and even twittering a little.
I received a very interested email, fully work related and I will hopefully attend some of the events that were documented in the email. it had a list of interesting links with it I thought of adding all the links but to put them all on one post would have been too much information would be too much so I have added just 4.

I am posting them out of context but I don't think that really matters have a look you might well find some interesting I did.

kurator
pirate university
signwave
andy pink

going a bit botanical >> sunlight

it was nice to come home to find amongst the bank statements and my orange mobile bill a brown envelope containing a copy of 'digital diversity' a catalogue published for the exhibition of 'digital botanical illustrations' by niki simpson in collaboration with peter barnes at the botanishches museum berlin-dahlem, berlin.

it was sent to me by davidthedesigner, of celsuis (thanks david) as I was one of 5 winners of his great friday givaway competition last week. david mentioned when I contacted him earlier in the week that my interest in flowers was blossoming! (I think he must be correct) a coincidence perhaps? but before I went into my house to collect the post this afternoon, I spent a good 40 minutes taking the photos that accompany this blog.

I was scrambling around in the front garden because the sun was shining across the plants. I spent most of the time lying on the wet muddy grass desperately trying to get the right amount of sunlight to shine through to show the greenness of the different plants (it was good fun!).
as I mentioned before I have never really been that interested in flowers and never referenced them in any design work previously but I can't seem to get enough of them at the moment, well as far as images and photos anyway.
I must be getting in touch with my flowery / green / botanical side!

3 things from the kichen >>

I have been trying perhaps too hard to be inventive, informative and or complex in the last week or so in this blog.

but after a very interesting conversation this afternoon which ranged from barcelona to goudi, creativity to starbucks, ICT and the performing arts, I realised that sometimes you can try just too hard.

in the so called creative/design world things/images are so often not that good, it's more the explanation or intellectualisation of them that convinces you that it is good.

so I thought i would go it my kitchen a photograph 3 things that I liked for no other reason other than I liked them for some reason. Some cake, left over from carols birthday, a waitrose espresso tin (I just liked the red), and some chilli plants that we are growing as I like chilli's.
as I was thinking in 3's I have included in no particular order and for no particular reason 3 blogs that I looked at and enjoyed today that I wanted to pass on art design by, urban fonts and idealist, none of them new to you all I'm sure, but never the less still worth a look.

oh yes I ordered the (what if) 'sticky wisdom', book as well a good day all in all.

just having a look round >>

it is strange that it is so easy to become stuck in your own blog world and look at the really good blogs/websites that you usually look at. I had some time this afternoon an exam was going on in my teaching room so I had an hour of complete silence to browse around looking at as many different sites as I wanted.
I am normally either too tired or too busy to have this opportunity and the themes for each days blog just come to me while I am teaching or driving or talking.
I very rarely get time to just look. here are just a few blogs amongst many that I found interesting enough to want to share.

notes by cati vaucelle
yasmine abbas
the landscape blog
design observer
society of illustrators of los angeles



these are just five to have a look at whether they are to your taste or not I like them, I have also been looking at some french blogs. it seems that there is some great design and text driven stuff.

looking up >>

in addition to the post below we went to see our nearest and favourite professional rugby team play on saturday and it was really good as they won and are through to the semi finals, great weather, great atmosphere. but I do sometimes think people might consider me a little odd as I try and look up at the skyline as much as possible even at a sporting event looking for shapes and colours. I have a whole load of these kind of pictures taken over the last 25 years .


when I say skylines it is perhaps more where the sky meets the buildings I was doing this on the very short walk from the car park to the rugby ground as well as in the stadium. when I noticed this to my mind beautiful building in amongst newer occupied flats. I have walked the areas before and never seen it doing this you really do see the most amazing things each time something new.


I love walking round places slowly and looking up. in the last two years I have spent time in Nimes in southern France and that really is a place to look up in. having said that I keep finding new parts of my city that inspire me and show me that you don't always have to go far to see, moreover it's about how you look. some of the architecture and ornamentation across our local city is so beautiful is just largely unseen.

sunny saturday >> pics >> lunar eclipse

had a good day (Saturday) much of the evening was spent running in and out of the house watching the moon. the day was sunny and bright I'm still only using the camera on my phone so I didn't manage to get any lunar eclipse pictures. no worries check this link partial lunar eclipse for a really good picture taken from trinidad by caribbeanfreephoto's and while your there have a good look round as there are some beautiful pictures to see.

I am just posting a couple of pictures from Saturday the light was great and I played about a bit with some colour and flowers. we are so lucky in cornwall as the flowers peak earlier than east and north of us, but as you can see the daffodils in these pictures are past their best. I now really like flowers when I was at art school (as anyone who knows me will remember) I refused to include them in my I work in any form, strange how we evolve / mellow over the years!

photography >> surfing

I am going to make this a short post returning to a passion that I have. I must have taken hundreds and hundreds of pictures of the ocean and surfing and the beach. I never can quite capture the
way it was.

rob machado

joe curren

as with most things there are people who provide inspiration perhaps aspiration but whatever the reason I just like their work for no other than because I do.

paul kennedy

it is not the just technical quality of the photos/imagery but the feeling they project. some day I will be able to capture it but until then I will (as is so often said) 'just keep looking'.

a bit strange >> design ?

it has been one of the days/weeks really the best way I can describe it is in the pictures I have posted today. this roundabout I love the colours and enjoy the use of colour even enjoy watching it wizz around. the trouble is that is like so much design, teaching and every day talk the ideas can be poor but people think by wrapping it up a bit you have a good product but you don't.

when style not design becomes the substance of a product it doesn't work so any amount of random colour (or non-colour) can sometimes create pleasing effects but rarely gets noticed in a positive light, strange that me a one time textile designer famous for getting a degree in colouring in would believe this! (though I have since added to my studies and become a teacher of ICT/enterprise and business studies). I have always had strong feeling for colour and perhaps more the correct use and interpretation of it. even to the extreme of thinking the apple design teams cool use of colour annoying with its smugness at times. however Jonathan Ive as an inspiration beyond compare.

I am in no way presenting a tin german-made children's toy (that has a warning on it not suitable for children to play with!) as a design classic rather that it shows that all the colour in the spectrum will not save this piece from being anything but 'nice'.

Oh dear that got a bit heavy perhaps I should write about surfing next time, or perhaps I should explore this a bit more?