Cups of Tea 149 - 154

Shiiiitload of tea today <3!
Horray. Tea fuels design I guess, as I've been rather productive today :p it's all gravy!

I started the day very tired, then went in and did a little more on my spam brief (need to do the final sketches tomorrow so expect some work up by Tuesday night on it... although I really don't care for it much...)

Other than that, I've pretty much knocked out my Harvard referencing project as well! Its just a small project to see how we handle text but I thought I'd put a little shot of it up (I haven't done the cover / back of the booklet yet so I'll upload it all to my ILOVEDESIGN page when I'm finished with it).



Other than that, not alot to say! Saw Micheal Sheen talking about Port Talbot on Johnathan Ross and how wierd the town is. How many brilliant actors are from here. My job to break it and add a great designer to the list ;) Also Vin Disel plays WoW! Winnar haha!

Cups of Tea 134 - 148

Doesn't time fly when you're NOT having fun? By Jove, I didn't realize it'd been almost a whole week since I posted last. A lot to talk about, so sit down, brew up and meet me back here in five.

Sitting comfortably? Good. Tea pipping Hot? Well leave it to cool and have a listen. I FINALLY handed in the magazine today! YES! It took bloody long enough... So for your viewing pleasure, the pages you HAVEN'T seen (And I deem worthy of posting...) are below, enjoy the visual treats :)



Well what else is there to tell? Resident Evil 5 is bloody fantastic (you heard me Fraser...) and I've also become partially addicted to a US Drama Set in an Advertising agency called TRUST ME. It's pretty sweet to be honest, if you start watching it, please bare with it. The first two episodes are a little slow but it does get alot better! It also stars Thomas Cavanagh (a.k.a. JD's Brother Dan in Scrubs) So yes. Check it out!

Got a new brief today for A series of education books (it's all tiered, so the designs must relate through novice, moderate, advanced as well as with the accompanying CD) which should be fun, even though we've been given 9 weeks and I could probably do it in 3... should have given us more time on the magazine. But never mind, that's water under the bridge now.

Other than that, the weather's been gorgeous, the weather's been nice and I break up for Easter next week! Shweet as.

Cups of Tea 129 - 133

ALOT OF TEAAAAA. So much so I can't sleep.
fuck. I want to draw. I want commission work. I really want to design a flyer! ARGHHHH ROBOTS. I've got resident evil 5 and Wartech sitting next to me and I can't play them because everyones in bed / my surround sound is uber (i.e. it doesn't go bellow "loud" on volume xD)
nevermind, work tommorow. Need to design. Need to learn how to draw. ARGHHHHHHH. Arrp.

Cup of Tea 128

Okey I take it back... I was upset, I didn't mean it large bodies of text, I was just a little stressed out... do you forgive me?

Good day in terms of work, got 5 pages of the magazine done (3 left... EEEEEP!) and did a cool for cats flyer! Just went too Tesco to pick up Resident Evil 5 to reward myself so all is well! I REALLY don't want to goto work tomorrow but nevermind... And with that i'm off to bed. I'm not proud of 4 of the pages ive designed so I'm only going to upload the contents page... for I think it is genius.

Cup of tea 127

Brace yourself for this one kids, you might want to get your knives and pitchforks ready because this is a doosey.

I HATE working with large amounts of text. Yes I said it, a graphic designer who doesn't like pages and pages of text. Fuck that. Big money or not, with programs like quark that don't allow me to be the designer I am without a million complications, large text based projects like magazines, instruction manuals and such can take a big, running jump off a cliff into a shallow pool of jagged rocks. I fucking hate it ARGHHHH.

As you may have guessed, the magazine's not going well... infact I hate it. I really wish I'd done something with easier layouts like computer arts or NOM, nice, crisp clean design. None of this arty farty, grundge splatter brushes nonsense. Nevermind, its not like the marks count towards my degree...

And on that note kids, I leave you with this, the News section of my Mag... enjoy!

Cup of Tea 126

Veeeery slow day today, lots of work then did the silly thing of tidying my room while Gem was here when I should have been investing in kisses! Other than that, no done alot. I've got a year infect and it's pissing me OFFFFFFF. Going to have an early night and hope its gone in the morning...

Cups of Tea 121 - 125

I have no drive. No Zoom Zoom. No Va-Va-Voom.

Today has been a day of lackluster work it must be said. I got up, drew doodles of Rabbit's in my Seminar and then came home with Gem and had a cool, couple chatty day which was nice :) I then went to the Gym, came back and attempted some work to no avail... I managed a mind map for my next project (just a simple piece on referencing, i'll be able to do it Wednesday I think!) and then I gave up... quee making of Jacket potatoes, almost falling asleep and contributing to The GAMES YOU SHOULD BUY PODCAST. It was pretty fun... though I pretty much lowered the tone all the way through it... My bad xD

Nevermind, I was going to go out for a pint but I'm sitting here, drinking a cuppa and starting Eternal Sonata, it's pretty decent so far and I like the combat system. VERY NICE. Full day of uni tomorrow, which means I'll hopefully have some work to upload... if not there'll defiantly be alot of magazine stuff going up before I house party it up on Wednesday :D

Cups of Tea 116 - 120

The Most un-sunny Sunday I can remember.

I went to work, it pissed down. I came home, it was still pissing down. Wet, Wet, Wet. Typical British weather... and it annoyed me. Nevermind, I finally got the main tool I need for my street art mwhaha, soon poppits, soon...

Not alot done today to be honest, dragged out the old Xbox when I got in and played some "Beyond Good and Evil" in preparation for the Sequel in May! Other than that just imported some old and new music into Itunes (The Chemical Brothers "Surrender" and "Dig Your Own Hole", The Beta Band "The Three E.P.'s" and The Asteroid's Galaxy Tour "Fruit".) then chilled out with a cup of tea.

I have also decided the best way to find inspiration. Buy two small energy drinks. Knock both Back. Play Electronica (Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers). Run Bath. Get in bath. Lie with your ears in the water and think. Through this bizarre, mind altering method of relaxation / sedation / pulse racing mediation, I've finally decided what I want to do with my Spam Ad's. A kind of Marmite feel, of the desperation of eating Spam, it should be fun!

I also had great fun last night after posting this blog looking at old '70s TV ads, trying to coax the inspiration locked between relaxation and the need for sleep out to run in the big, green park of University Coursework. It didn't really work but I saw some cooool things, like the Unigate Humphry Ads and The Cadbury's Smash Martians. Gawd, they're both so Iconic... I love the Red/white straw creaping in at the corner... Gotta come up with something Similar!

Cups of Tea 113 - 115

Seriously... this magazine is starting to get old :(
It's kinda depressing how something that could be fun turns out to be such a pain in the arse >.< Style Sheets? Who the hell needs style sheets... I'd prefer to tweak everything by hand! Consistency? Nooooo. We'll just have a size 37.934 font right about theeeere. Okey so I jest, but God, redesigning a magazine must be such a pain in the arse! God, I wish I could just work on Music related posters... or theater posters, that'd be fun too!

Other than that, a pretty decent day all things considered. Working in the morning is so much better for me than working at night... I can actually get some work done and chill out... it's kinda nice having a Saturday again :) I also get a bit of a lie in on a Sunday now (not in until 10! w00t!), therefore the world rawks!

Other than those two points, not much to say. Started getting added by alot of random people from all over the world to do with design (or just general uni students) on myspace which is kinda odd... especially as I'm hardly on the thing! Some German girl taught me how to Swear in German which was pretty cool xD

Also I'm going to start a street art project tomorrow, the planning / preparation steps and get my blender hehe... should be fun :) I'll post some ideas up soon! For now however kids, here's some Cover-art from my magazine... its one of the boys with an accordion haha!

Cups of Tea 111 - 112

Who watches The Watchmen? Graphic designers. I saw it today, and it was GOOOOD. It was hardly "The Dark Knight" but it was never going to be (if you've read the comic you'll understand) but luckily it says true to the graphic novel so it's all good! I won't bore you with it, as almost EVER blog i've read today is either "OMG I WANT TO SEE IT" or "OMG ITS AWSOME".

Other than this, all I did was goto uni, read Grafik and do some simple page layouts for my magazine. Sorry about the awfully small blog but I am le tired...

Cups of tea 107 - 110

AND I STILL WANT MORE TEA.

Okey, so today didn't start out to great, I was tired and I lost my bankcard (I now have to wait 4 - 7 business days for a new one) but it doesn't matter. I'm really starting to enjoy design again. I've been working on my SPAM brief for a few hours and I'm liking the direction I'm heading in. It's starting to become fun again. I'm happy with life, the balance has been restored.

I got a chance to FINALLY play Killzone 2 as well. I traded in Resistance 2 and got it with the points on my Game Loyalty card (fundamentally getting a free game as I got Resistance 2 with the PS3 at no extra charge). I like it. At first I was a bit skeptical of it all, but after afew hours (3 or 4) I started to enjoy it. Don't get me wrong, it's not AMAZING. It won't change the face of FPS games, but it's not as bad as I was half expecting it to be.

And with that in mind, I retire for the night. I just finished watching "Bolt' (yes, the disney film... it's pretty good :) ) and now I'm going to read "Space Raoul" by Jamie Smart in bed. Fun times. For those who know not of the genious that is Smart, I leave you with an image and these wise words:- "Find and Read 'Bear'. Best thing EVER."

Cups of Tea 103 - 106

Dammit. Damn it. Damn it, buggering damn it. Yes, I said buggering... I can't remember if blogger has a filter or not, I'm pretty sure that this will be marked 18 plus if I do so bugger off.

I only got 3 pages done today of this cursed magazine. In all fairness, I've got the materials I need now to make the next 7, but it's not the point. What is the point is how much work I SHOULD have done on this project and haven't. Bugger.

Not that i'm not happy that I've got myself into a position when I only have to knock up another 4 pages. I just feel myself slipping and it's really getting on my nerves. There's only 3 weeks left though. Once this brief's out of the way, I can concentrate on the Spam one and the one we got given yesterday on making a booklet for theory referencing (which I know what I'm doing).

After a good 6 or 7 hours of work, I went to watch "The International". I wouldn't bother. When I felt a slight sense of disappointment at "Push" last week, this film makes "Push" look like "The Godfather". Nothing happens for two hours. A story that could have made a brilliant action flick was turned into a boring, albeit thought provoking attack at conglomerates and corporations. Everyone in the Cinema looked very disappointed with it. Shows you should never judge a film by its trailer.

Nevermind, here's a little tantalizer of the magazine... Hurray for Skitch, it makes life so much easier... I think I'll have to buy it :o

Cups of Tea 101 - 102

Not a Dalmatian in sight.

Not alot done today but I wanted it that way. Today was the last day of procrastination, as of tomorrow I will being AT LEAST 3 hours of work a day, even if I have no briefs. If I don't I'll just draw or something, but my days will be broken up into 5 slots.
1.) Go to Uni / Work (2.) Seeing Gemma (3.) DESIGN (4.) Gym (5.) Sleep. Of course i'll have breaks / watch a film while doing these things (I can't work without background noise), but it's taken me 100 cups of lukewarm Tea to realize I really want this. I've wanted this for as long as I can remember and I'm falling behind. I won't let it happen. I am going to be THE best at this.

So as a result, today was chilled! Went to Uni, spent time with Gem, Went Back to Uni, Came home, Got Food (PIZZAAAAA) and then watched the new Heroes / Defiance. Please. If you haven't seen Defiance, you owe it too yourself to watch it. The film is amazing. I can't help but feel like i;ve been hit in the stomach any time I see anything to do with WWII / The Persecution of the Jews by the Nazi Regime. To think home much pointless bullshit we stress over everyday when we compare our lives to these people.

Cups of Tea 99 - 100

OMFG! Tea-Triple Figures... If each cup of tea i've consumed in a regular 170ml mug has 14 calories with semi-skimmed milk (i'll crank that to 24 with the sugar), that means over the past 61 days, i've consumed 1,468 calories... that's almost a days callorie intake JUST from tea... ANYWAYS.

The day has seemed endlessly long with the exception of the 4 hours I spent with Gem, which flew in pure wall-cleaning action xD... after such events I have been DRAINED. I did an hour's work on my "Bring back Spam" Brief and then went to the gym for two hours... by the time I got back, it was 7, by the time i'd cooked it was 8, then I wanted to sleep. Cue and 2 hour argument about wether or not I should go out, to which obviously I didn't. I'm so tired my eyes are starting to sting...

Nevermind, tommorow is a tuesday, therefore I can look forward to a day of pure work... hopefully it'll help me get into the idea of a fixed timeline for working (other than WORK ALL DAY WEDNESDAYS) Gotta have at least 8 pages of the magazine done by Thursday imho...

Cups of tea 96 - 98

May I start by wishing you a HAPPY SAINT DAVIDS DAY! Y'know, Patron Saint of Wales? Nobody? No? Alright then... moving on.

Not alot done today really, drank tea, went to work, did work, came home. Realised I had no lead ANYWHERE in the house so work was out of the question, instead I began reading "Thinking Course" by Edward De Bono. I have to admit it's pretty helpful for knocking out some good ideas. It gives you a basic incite to how creative peoples minds work and how you can exploit it. I'm going to use the "Random Word" Tool for my Spam project. I got the dictionary, told my mum to pick a random number then a number of the word on the page... it was 50 and word 9. "Bedbugs"... from this I derived Monsters, things that go bump in the night! And from this, I got the idea of a Spam Monster! hehe, should be fun!

Also found a great new Application while searching for Comic Life. It's by the same people and called "Skitch". It's pretty much an interactive, editiable screen grab software for Mac, but it also allows you to upload / edit images at the touch of a button. You can even edit file types! I'll have to have a play with it later, but to check out what it can do, click here. It'll sure make blogging easier :D

Other than that, not alot to say. Other than if you really, really love me... you'll buy me some Mechtorians when they're released. I WANT STEPHEN LEPODD!