It’s been a while since I left University, a lot has changed and a lot of realisations have come to pass. A lot of them have been bitter to taste, and made me question my career and where I’m going with my life. All of this in one of the worst economic climates ever, with record youth unemployment. It is certainly not a happy time to graduate for the youth of today, especially if you are planning to work in the creative sectors.
Posted in News
So I havn’t been posting much, mostly because I’ve been working hard trying to find employment. Here’s what I’ve been up to this summer.
- Placement with Seismik
- Placement with Hellicar and Lewis
- Placement with Studio Output (Nottingham)
More recently I have taken on a more professional role working with:
- Threshold Studios as a web developer for their upcoming website for Lincoln’s festival of Digital Culture: Frequency.
- A new local design company based in Nottingham called ‘Studio Overture’ set up by Matthew J Millner. I will hopefully be working as their ad-hoc web designer. Their website is on the way soon which will have more information about the set up.
Not to mention applying anywhere and everywhere to try and get myself into the design industry somehow in the East Midlands. So that’s what I’ve been up to, trying very very hard to find my place!
I recently spent a week on a work placement with Hellicar and Lewis, an exciting interaction design duo based in East London who visited us earlier this year to give us a workshop in Interaction Design and inspire us with their amazing work! I was lucky enough be invited to complete a week long placement with them, I found the experience a warm and welcoming one, with Joel and Pete allowing me to get stuck in and get an insight into their work process. Whilst I was there, I edited together several videos for them which you can view below. (more…)
Found a very cool site through Just us, called the burning house where people submit photographs of what they would take with them if their house was burning down.
“It’s a philosophical conflict between what’s practical, valuable and sentimental. You’re forced to prioritize and boil down a life of accrued possessions into what you can carry out with you. What you would bring reflects your interests, background and priorities. People’s stage in life also dictates their selection. A father of five in his forties would grab very different things than he would have as a bachelor in his twenties. Think of it as a full interview condensed into one question.”
I decided to have a go myself.. so here we go:
1. Macbook
2. Mobile Phone and Wallet
3. Ipod
4. Portable hard drive containing all of my work.
5. ‘God Save the Queens English’ and ‘Fake’ projects from University to remind me how hard I can work when I put my mind to it.
6. Doc Marten Brogues, my favourite shoes.
7. Meat is Murder on Vinyl, for the songs that saved my life.
8. Bowler Hat, my most treasured hat with great memories.
9. Vaseline
10. A paper mache pea that my best friend made me.
11. Personal cards and photographs.
Myself and Louise were featured on the Just Us blog yesterday, thanks to them for including us on their great site, check it out now if you havn’t before: www.justusdesigncollective.co.uk
Blog post: http://www.justusdesigncollective.com/blog/?p=2722
I have revamped my site up a little, adding separate sections so that is more equipped for being able to add more work without it becoming confusing. Let me know what you think.
Last friday saw the opening of our final major degree show, entitled _Volume. The show consisted of the main piece _Volume, which is an interactive installation designed by Steve Carton and Megan James which seeks to visualize sound through use of a speaker system. Each speaker has a different frequency sensitivity and is filled with liquid, this liquid moves when sounds are made through a microphone. There are also a number of macs set up consisting of an interface and vimeo channels that contains everybody’s work. I worked in conjunction with Louise Lawlor to create the interface.
You can see a web based version here: http://wwww.interactivedesign2011.co.uk
Here are some photo’s from the opening night, courtesy of Megan James: (more…)
Last tuesday I handed in all of my uni backup work, took forever to do everything as I did a book for each project going through the idea, research and development. All other supporting materials, results and disks with PDF’S on… then all branded and presented nicely in a box. All in all I’m fairly chuffed with it though, hopefully it’s made the right impression on the tutors too!
I recently had the pleasure of going to the opening night of the DA3 shop in Nottingham, the shop was opened by the Decorative Arts students of Trent University and more specifically headed by my friend from college, Lesley Elliot. It was an amazing night with some truely stunning work from the DA3 Students and around the East Midlands, showing just how creative we can be!
A photo of some of my prints in the shop, you can buy a large charcoal print, my zines or some posters in there for the next six weeks if you’re interested, as well as everyone elses goodies ofcourse!
If you are interested in visiting the shop and supporting the local creative talent of the East Midlands, then please pop by in the next six weeks between curries and KFC outside of the Victoria Centre (Lower Parliament Street) in Nottingham.
Massive digital arts update again! We managed to fix our problem by painting a piece of glass in a stained glass pattern that then sets infront of our kaleidoscope, something like so:
The user then interacts by being in front of the stained glass, and moving.
Which creates an effect like this:
Which is projected onto a wall like so: (hopefully in better light conditions and with a brighter projector or screen)
So now we’ve just got to make a wooden box to house everything in and do our drawings for how it would sit in the cathedral. It’s all coming together, slowly but surely!
