Cups of Tea 0206 - 0216

Lots and Lots of Tea Today. Crap, I did the capital lots thing again...

Productive and counterproductive can sometimes be the same side of the coin.

I got up at 11, designed two flyers (which I'll upload tomorrow once they've been signed off), pitched for and won another night to do a new monthly flyer for and read 50 pages about html.

While doing this, I watched house season 4, drank tea and then read "Are you Dave Gorman?" (which i'm still reading while writing this, I love it!) Got 3 other flyer ideas while watching house and reading (purely because I wasn't thinking about them...) and I scribbled a few notes down for the comic me and gem are planning to do.

On that note i'm shutting the laptop down. My rents house is boiling and having this on my lap isn't helping me feeling of warmth... Back to reading about Gorman and feeling totally relaxed. I love Breaks!

M x

Cups of Tea 0173 - 0205

Lots of Tea... Lots and Lots of Tea. Why lots requires a capital letter, I don't know. But the Tea, that is surely self explanatory ;)

I'm bored of not blogging, I've been meaning to just relaunch this on teasigner.com but I've started reading HTML, XHTML and CSS for Dummies... and will hopefully finish it this week, meaning that next week I'll start designing it. And since I can just import this archive into there, there's really not a reason NOT to blog.

Quite alot of things happened. A few logo designs, re-pitched an idea for the club fandango flyer and got offered an over all re-brand of the entire firm because of it. Good times. My brother got married (Congrats again to Mart and Anna if either of them reads this...) and I got quite ill as a result. Whether it was mixed drinks or rich food, the result wasn't pretty.

Anyways, need to sleep.

M x

Cups of Tea 0171 - 0173

Not alot to post, but the essay is done hazaa! It's taken a long time but it's done...

Started running again yesterday too. The weather was nice and I ran 7km... did it at a nice pace too considering that its the first outdoor run I've done after in over 6 months... ran it at 6.08mins per Km... not my best pace by any means (best recorded time is 4.5mins per km... I could probably run faster but that's over a 10km distance... not sprinting...). Did 50 press ups and 150 crunches after then run too... which was nice!

Also stripped my diet down to healthy stuffs. Fruit, fruit juice and salad... yay! My body is seriously pinning for sugar atm though, the detox effect really isn't the bet. The lack of sugar / caffine in my blood is killing me... But gosh, it shows how much I consume!

Anyways bed time,

Nos Dar Plant!
M x

Cups of Tea 0164 - 0170

Not a long post today, going to keep this bite sized before the interesting developments creep up!

Here's what the site's looking like (as you should have seen yesterday...)


8 pages prep'd and sliced. Admittedly tables are a little old skool but I wanted to get the basics of this web design crack down! Other than that, I've got a bee-related logo. It's a surprise, though I'm sure you're going to see it soon enough ;)

M x

Cups of Tea 0157 - 0163

Long day of work today!

Work in Work (lol) until 2, came home, watched Wales fail at Rugby (which was hard work) and then go to work on my Ulterior site, which was ok I guess. Hell, even a fun way to spend the afternoon once I'd got the hang of it. So much so that I've finally got some web hosting! Hazza!

Unfortunately this could mean the end of this blog in it's current format but we'll see, at least if I do make the switch to a self hosted Wordpress blog, it'll let me import this archive in for those who never got a chance to read it (if anyone cares... I'm still not convinced anyone reads this other than Gemma...). Hell, if you are reading this, drop a comment... even if it's anonymous I guess... even if it's become more of a visual diary for me as of late.

So I promised some work and I can't really show much, I'll give those who haven't seen it a sneaky peak at my Ulterior website (although I'm going to rip it apart in my evaluation, I want to design more than frames!) and I'll post the commission pieces later in the week.

EDIT - this image isn't finished so I took it down. The hard drive's downstairs and im simply to comfy to get it.

But screw the work! My most important find of the day was surely THIS website.

What is this image if not an act of genious?


Credit: Amir Weinstock - Source

M x

Cups of Tea 0149 - 0156

A lot of tea because it's just been one of those days!
While I was going to post some work today, I've decided to leave it until tomorrow when hopefully my latest commission will be approved and I can post that too... Instead, I'm going to tell the tale of a book I found in a charity shop...

As part of my latest commission, I've been charity shopping like a madman this week looking for frames (you'll see why tomorrow) and in the hunt, ended up getting bored and looking for something to read. While in Oxfarm, I found a Pelican Book (i.e. the older / education division of penguin) and as a rule, old skool penguin books have a wicked design, so I pulled it off the shelf.



The cover wasn't the best, but as i'd enjoyed Naomi Klien's No Logo so much and it was on a similar subject (and i'm pretty damned sure it's on the reading list at the back of said book) I decided to buy it. After all, it was only 50p.

So I got it home, and flicked it open and as with most books you find in charity shops, the previous owner's names were written on the inside cover, while the first leaf of the book was ripped out. Judging by the state of the book, I'd say deliberately. Possibly because the previous owner's address was there?



So it belonged to who I'm guessing were Robert and Linda Pope. I thought nothing of it until I flicked further into the book and saw this on the title page.



What the hell! Someone's put social commentary on a book published in the 80s? During the height of Thatcher Britain, when job prospects were minimum and hope was all but lost, the state of our economy in tatters and the goverment's words leaving a bitter taste in our mouth. So I read on, and while most of these comments seem to go for the throat of those "accountable to nobody", it's also riddle with statistics and references. It also has notes of revisions at the front.

I'm so curious to know the story behind this book! Was Robert or Linda a victim of the recession? Were they a bank worker, a shop owner or tradespeople? Was one of them a business professor or book proof reader (the latter seems very unlikely, this books a reprint)? Or were they simply on a mission to spread this tool of social rebellion to the masses. Writing all they knew on the pages of this tome of anti-corporate propaganda and dropping it on a park bench or train in the hopes someone would read it?

A Google search didn't really return anything. I found a Rob Price working as a bookey somewhere in Swansea and a Linda Price who is manager of a Christian break center in Gower... So I'm currently at a loss as to where to go from here. Surely there's an online yellow pages where I can type in their initials and go all terminator and Google the list down until I find the original owner?

If you think I'm being strange, I guess I am. But I tend to get enthusiastic about silly things (as you know by now if you follow this blog) and want to pursue it. I also came across this blog and found I'm not alone in this strange bond of second-hand book ownership.

I'll let you know if I find anything. In the mean time, if anyone knows anyone with the surname Pope, ask them how Rob and Linda are...

M x

The worlds most counter productive day...

So when I woke up this morning I was very, very tired... So tired I couldn't really string together a coherent sentence or think that much, all I wanted to do was sleep... So tired that I played FF until 5 ( I got in around 3:30...) and then decided to have a nap...

This nap turned into 10 hours sleep... Dammit... What a wasted day >.
There was Alot of things to do, alot of cool things to blog about but now I just CBA... Sleep, it's over...

M x

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cup of Tea 148

Hi there, How're you?

Writing on this mac book again feels odd. While the bottom grill is certainly the same, it's the only thing... two new logic boards (first one died...), a new optical drive, new hard drive, new ram, new screen... shit, it's like that film Freaky Friday, where the young chick's mind gets put into that of the menopausal old mother...

Anyways, if you hadn't guessed. I'm back. And in all sincerity, I'm abit of a changed man.

I've been somewhat jaded since Christmas. I've felt like a bit of a shadow of myself. I stopped caring about design and everything seemed to be going to shit. Then the pen-ultimate steps to me stepping back lied in the vigorous poisoning of myself with alcohol and the death of this machine. I instantly began to freak out about my life choices and in doing so, I learned a lot about myself.

I learned that I've put a lot of pressure on myself over the past 5 years since I first began treading the dusty trail of graphic design. I've also put up alot of walls as to what I wanted to with my life, and in all honesty, it was kinda crushing me from the inside. I began to be a dick to people I cared about and just couldn't focus on anything other than stressing over design. It lost all sense of fun and I felt abandoned. The only way I can really describe it is it felt like I'd lost all belief.

Which, for those around me (and hopefully they will agree) is about as Anti-me as yo can possibly get. I always try to stay positive, even if I do whine lots about the most trivial decisions. Well, that's kinda changed. I've been itching to write a manifesto of sorts what I believe for a while and hell, I might do it this weekend. I need a good, long systematic rant about how I feel about myself and my roll within design.

But to keep this simple, I'm going to try to evolve past myself. I'm going to try to be less arrogant. I want to be more forward focused, thinking about what's ahead but while keeping my head in the now. I want to complain less, sleep more and generally enjoy life. The timetable is getting typed up after these deadlines and it's going to be set in stone... going to buy a few items to make sure I stick to this new fangled work ethic (On air sign for the door so people know not to disturb ((trust me,notes don't work)) and an old clock in machine for the desk so I can punch my time) and all shall be good.

Incidentally, for my bee keeping project, those who know me from further afield than people I grew up with / uni (Fraser, Kyle, Gav... I'm looking at you if you've still got this on RSS...) send me a message on facebook... I need some help and there'll be some cool shit in it for you!

And before I nerd out, I'd like to thank Gemma. Hun you will never know how much of an inspiration you can be sometimes. Even if you are the most indecisive procrastinator i've ever met =) <3

To end on a cool thing, ordered one of these badboys. No word of a lie, I nearly cried with joy when I saw it in Juxtapoz earlier....


http://www.incubot.com/usbs.html

Tomorrow - Work of the past 3 weeks...

M x

Cups of Tea 0116 - 147

Stressful, tea filled times without a macbook.
Nevermind, it's back now and it looks brand new!

I'll update this tomorrow, FFXIII has robbed me of all senses of motivation...

M x