I Am Afraid of Nothing

These words still blaze down from my bedroom mirror in my family home, and I used to consider them every morning as I psyched myself up to leave the house. Torn from the front cover of an old UWE prospectus, the phrase I Am Afraid of Nothing has always been almost amusing to me in how far it is from the truth, but it's also been something I try and live by despite being a very naturally anxious person with a busy, rarely peaceful brain.

孤独 (Solitude): A Zine

Following on from my previous post about making time for making, I'm excited to share the spoils of my Riso Residency at Rabbits Road Press: a 20pp A5 zine by the name of 孤独 (Solitude). Solitude -- reader, reader -- solitude. Whilst intending to make a zine about my journey to the Japanese islands of Naoshima and Teshima, as I began to go through all the tickets and maps and photographs and notes from my time there I realised that making sense of all of that information was only part of this story, and the themes I drew out became much more about adventure, memories and spending time alone, focusing in on personal feelings and anecdotes.

We Need To Talk About Byng Inc.

Hey folks, and welcome back to the Byng blogsphere.

It's been a while.

4 months in fact.

I can tell you this with confidence because the only thing I seem to design these days happens to be calendars, although you'd never know it from the sporadic nature of my posts throughout any given year. I can see a 'time to get a watch' type joke in there somewhere, to sit merrily alongside the other kinds of fun I'm lovingly poking at myself at the moment, in pursuit of recovering from my act of, seemingly, going creatively missing.

Let's investigate.

#PMTBrum 2018: Learning To ROAR

This month has seen some things swirling together building on last year's super fun yet intentional PMT initiative, headed up by Alison Baskerville. On Saturday 10th March, we once again put the Intersectional Womxn's Day fueled event on at Impact Hub Birmingham, welcoming people to the space to celebrate the magic of womxn and non-binary people in the city and beyond. From weaving to boxing via a zine library and lots of cake, PMT once again told a story through a series of interventions around the themes of art, body, work and love.

ICONOGRAPHY: March

It's hard to believe we've almost rattled through the third month of the ICONOGRAPHY series already, but nevertheless these old geezers are coming to the end of their reign, as it were. Here's a bit about this month's icon - our perfectly sculpted Queen Liz - unveiled in 1967 and rolling through the postal service ever since.

Pocket Film Festival II

After working on Pocket Film Festival's visual identity last year, I'm delighted to see it back for a second round! Unseen Cinema and Flatpack: Assemble united once more to bring one-off screenings, exhibitions and events to Stafford. Continuing with the original pocket-sized matchbook film kit design, the organisers simply wanted a refresh of the colour palette to show it was a new programme for this year, but also drawing on the fact that the design had become recognisable in the community from its first outing back in 2017.

Val/gal/pal-entine's Day

Before jumping on a plane to Tokyo (erm, as you do) I just about dropped some V-day inspired designs onto the Byng Inc. online shop! They celebrate the wide range of love(s) we can experience in our lives to build up a more multi-dimensional picture beyond the heteronormative hallmark romance often found blowing sickly kisses at us around this time of year. 

Building on the back of lots of fun temporary tattoo pop-up parlours, these first official #byngink sets are inspired by 4 of the Greek words for different types of love.

LUDUS: playful love
EROS: sexual passion
PRAGMA: longstanding love
PHILIA: deep friendship

ICONOGRAPHY: February

Well, it won't come as much surprise to your lads to know that my desktop background still features our Che. Not to worry, you'll have a snazzy new design to play with soon, just in time for Easter. First up though, here's a bit about why J-Lo features in the ICONOGRAPHY series, as well as the February desktop artwork for y'all to use.

Wellbeing & Work: The Work-Life Paradox

"Shake the Inverse's hand and the exact opposite of your life will flash before your eyes. When the Inverse shook Businessman's hand, Businessman saw himself as having a work and going to life. The experience was so intense that he retired the next day." - Taken from All My Friends Are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman.

In our pursuit for some answers when it comes to how to be well in the modern world, a lot of us have been known to use the phrase work-life balance; the elusive point at which the different intersections of our lives seem to make sense together; a point at which we have it down. It shines like a formula of grand design that means we get enough time to ourselves and our loved ones, but also work hard and fulfil our dreams, in seemingly equal measure. Across various conversations and attempts of my own to reach this kind of equilibrium, the question of whether a work-life balance can exist at all (beyond the instagram accounts of yoga instructors and food bloggers, perhaps) has begun to puzzle me. Like, a golden snitch of our day-to-day existence dancing just out of reach.

ICONOGRAPHY: January

Until today my desktop background had my 2016 October artwork adorning it. It feels ironic that someone as tested by time as me (think: running for trains / already behind on their - first ever - proper comms plan for 2018) to create such a timely project as a calendar each year, but I'm also someone who thrives on changing things up regularly and throwing myself into time-specific challenges. Sorta like trying to get the golden monkey on Jungle Run. What can I say, I'm a thrill seeker. A thrill seeker wielding desktop backgrounds who isn't afraid to use them.