BUST Craftacular

This morning I am going to London to buy a Heat magazine for my first market in the capital; BUST Craftacular at York Hall, Bethnal Green. To celebrate I've been busy making some little rosettes this week especially for customers to wear on their lapel, bag, hat, horse... wherever they fancy, frankly. These little creations turned out to be simple in their construction, made from paper, glue, stickers and brooch bars. It has been really refreshing to make something more physically by folding, holding, cutting and sticking rather than staring at a 2D page and trying to make something happen, with the repetition of doing the same processes becoming quite a mind calmer.

Looking forward to meeting the other crafters and comparing paper cuts, as well as accessorising the inevitably lovely Craftacular crowds with some country fair / political party chic. Now y'all just have to pick your favourite.

Pencils And Pixels

I took it upon myself to design some new branding for the things that I make and sell - such as prints, zines and cards - desiring to trade these under the name Byng Inc. through an online shop and at craft markets. Finding it difficult to take this area of my fledgling business seriously, I thought it would help to establish a visual identity for the 'shop' element separately to me as an individual creative. This meant that it needed to be distinctive to customers in a way that my project-based arc doesn't, and also shout a little louder about its bad self.

Here are some of the things I thought about when creating it:

+ Hand-finished        + Bold                  - Messy                - Busy

+ Professional           + Structure          - Corporate          - Forgettable

+ Colossal                 + Line                  - Shy                   - Pre-existing

+ Contrasting            + Scalable            - Illegible            - Jumbled

Scenes Of A Political Nature

In the run up to tonight's general election I have spent many an evening watching the leader's debates and scribbling away at my desk, enchanted by the array of weird and not-so-wonderful candidates presented before me. Exploring their malleable faces has been very fun (seen here looking like the beginning of a political Guess Who? game) but also turned out to be a good way of prompting discussion with my followers and friends about what we want the future of this country to look like.

Now, as the votes come in, slowly, two things are for sure: 1) The landscape of British politics is shifting, with the rise of interest in smaller parties showing that people are looking for something different. 2) The new prime minster is in this post somewhere. Let's pray it's not the guy who looks like a thumb.

Exploring Form: Pick Me Up 2015

Yesterday I travelled to The Big Smoke to visit theme park of the illustration world Pick Me Up at Somerset House. Attending the festival each year since graduating in 2012, I find it a good excuse to get creative chums together to talk about the discipline over coffee from the comfort of a cardboard tee-pee. I remember turning up in 2013 armed with my job seekers letter to get a concession ticket and, whilst a lot has changed sine then, it still feels relevant to my own practice to pay attention to PMU's selections and showcases, as well as indulging my appetite for eye candy.

Here are 5 words that go some way to summarising my experience of this year's festival: