Wow. Really WOW. Some really inspirational speakers - brilliant minds and awesome work travelling the spectrum from beautiful design of practical every day objects (books, stamps etc) to more conceptual graphic design exploring text and playing with it in a very physical sense.
Three favourite people of the day:
Graham Rawle - www.grahamrawle.com
Just AMAZING. Works in Collage focussing on the 50s and 60s (women's magazines and bubble gum cards) Many of you will have seen his Lost Consonants series in the Guardian (ran for 15 years!)
For my husband and his friends -
who love their twee (d) Tuesdays...
(c) Graham Rawle
His 'Woman's World ' is so much more than a book - though it does constitue the stipulated length for a novel ... A story worked from actual quotes from Woman's Mag's of the mid 20th Century - carefully piece together to create a full and rationale narrative it is soon to become a film. I can't begin to really describe the genius of this man - or his dedication to his work. A great speaker too!
who's book cover designs for Penguin 100 great ideas many of you will have seen in the bookshops. Slick, simple, elegant, clever and beautiful too - I want to own any and all of these books (no matter how relevant or irrelevant they may be to my life and work!) His work is full of texture and depth and in an age where so much graphic design is computer generated, it was really refreshing to find an artist who works with rubber stamps, block printing and letter press. Since leaving Penguin he has started up his own company and now you can own a cloth bound edition of some of your favourite classics wrapped - truly desirable objects just to look at, and smell, and touch (I hope I am not the only person who loves these things about books....?!) all for under £20 if you want to find out more find them here...White's Books I have an obsession with Jane Eyre - and that edition is SO going on my Christmas list (come to think of it our first anniversary is approaching - I believe it is traditionally celebrated by a paper gift? nudge nudge wink wink Mr Creative in Cornwall... :-p)
and
Lizzie Ridout - www.lizzieridout.com
An amazing brain inspired by the things that also motivate me to work - the way objects out live us, what they say about us, what sorties can we tell from them.
Over the past couple of years I have wondered if perhaps I haven't missed a vocation as a graphic designer (weddings, theatre and heritage clearly not being enough to keep me occupied!)
Anyway - that's all by the by - and part of much wider thinking about how we only have one life, and how as you get older all the avenues of infinite possibility which lay before me at the age of 15 become ever more finite with every decision taken - a slightly melancholy thought perhaps, brought about by an impending school reunion type affair - though it does not in any way mean I regret where I am or wish I was somewhere else! Just an observation - and one I will ponder on my 'walkabout' this summer (more on that another day...)
Bestest to you all x
