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Tuesday, December 27

Logo Design

Through a design project at university I got in touch with the people from the computer science department, helping them out with design work and creating some illustrations. It's been fun working on more web based projects as I haven't had a chance to work in that area before. To start with i've been making some web illustrations and a logo design for this great website on html 5. You can visit the website and see the design work live at http://www.html5tuts.co.uk/

As well as logo design i'm also working on some web banners for a similar project, it's been a challenge to visualise SEO and web analysis for users that may not understand these terms. It's a really useful and creative project to be involved with and I hope to work with the department further.

Vintage Craft Fair

Just before Christmas I attended a vintage craft fair in Chester. I hadn't ever been to something like this and was interested in the public obsession with vintage and handmade that has drifted into public consciousness over the years with the influence of celebrities and high street stores such as Topshop. I think that the idea of a "one off" piece of clothing or jewellery fascinates because it gives the wearer a sense of individuality and personality that cannot be attained by others.

In my design work I am interested in the juxtaposition between hand rendered and computer generated and the new trend for arts and craft that is acting as a back lash to modern technology. Do hand crafted items such as clothes or bespoke design work hold a higher value than those produced on the computer? This vintage fair certainly proved that home made was still increasing in popularity.

The fair itself was really eclectic and filled with great items with a quirky edge. I was really inspired by the creative packaging of some of the earrings; they had been stuck into playing cards which made them really visually attention grabbing amongst the rest of the items. It is quite a simple, yet effective idea. Another great example of recycling was found vintage wallpapers used notebook covers, shown in a photo below. I have a real interest in texture and print, the fair defiantly inspired me to start searching and scanning old textures to recycle them in a similar way to create a vintage effect.

Saturday, December 24

Christmas Cards

A few months ago I was given "Cutting Edges" by Gestalten which is a really great book about digital collage. I have had an affinity with digital collage since coming across the amazing work of Ciara Phelan a little over a year ago. The book explores a range of collage styles and designers and the methods they use, it is quite humorous with unusual composition of subject matter in some pieces. I love the surrealist nature of collage and the nostalgic influences that runs through the book, which influenced a series of  my own Christmas cards.

Christmas cards can be quite cliched and banal as the subject matter tends to reference snow or festive plants, so I wanted to create something that would be a bit more creative yet still retain a winter feel. Using the "Cutting Edges" book as a source, I made some christmas cards.


Friday, December 23

Up The Wall Exhibition

I take my camera with me most places I go to capture things I can use in my work later. Consequently I end up with a lot of photos that have no real relevance to my work but deserve to be shown. This being the case, I have decided to post them on a blog to keep a record of things I have done or seen. These photos are from an exhibition I went to in November called "Up The Wall" - an exhibition of light and sounds. It was completely different to other exhibitions I had visited and Chester Castle was a great backdrop in the composition of modern instillations and historic architecture.

Thursday, December 22

Starting A Design Blog

During the summer I started to make myself a website, it's a great way to showcase a portfolio or things of interest, and web design is a useful skill to have. Although I had no idea how to even start the process it slowly came together in-between university projects. It's quite simple and there is definitely room for improvement but you can now visit me at alicevaughan.co.uk to check out some of my work.