Creative Cafe

On  Friday 5th August I got up earlier than usual. On this day I needed to be in Birmingham for 8.20am; no mean feat for a creative who stays up all night and lives in Halesowen, and, having sustained a pokémon GO injury earlier that week, this was my first foray out the house since Monday morning, when regrettably a hunt for much-needed pokeballs had gone sour. Like bambi stepping out onto the ice me and my bandaged up foot took a leap of faith, towards the fiat 500 of my dear friend Kat Tromans. Today we were giving a talk at Badego's Creative Cafe event, and there was no time to lose. We sped towards Urban Coffee Company, comparing notes as we went.

Lydia & Matt 4eva

Here are Lydia & Matt. They are very much in love, so much so that they decided to get married. Hurray for them! Whilst we were on the subject of strange requests, I was asked to turn this blushing bride and glorious groom into a temporary back tattoo by one of their bridesmaids to wear on the happy day. 'Of course', I said. "Let's do it!"

Pokémon GO Home

Honestly, I get a lot of strange requests. But when my friend Tim asked me to recreate EU referendum propaganda using pokémon I thought jet lag was playing tricks on me. However, he was completely serious, and what resulted was a series of reward prints for a kickstarter campaign to crowdfund for Pokémon GO Home, a free day-long event using Pokémon GO lures to support community cohesion in Birmingham; a bandage for post-Brexit Brum.

#VoteRemain

Not much has changed during my blogging hiatus this summer, except for, y'know, the UK leaving the European Union, the prime minister resigning, and Boris Johnson ricocheting around like a political ping pong ball covered in fluff. As voting day drew near on this massive country-wide decision, I got the deepest sense of fear at the possibility of an impending reality without the kinship of our fellow Europeans, a relationship that I both see as a big positive personally, but more broadly representing the idea that we cannot be an island [at least proverbially], so I decided to get to work.

TEDxBoom

If there is one blog post to explain where I disappeared to for a few months, then this is it. I was part of the team for TEDxBrum this year, the biggest independently-organised TED event the city had ever seen. My main role was creating illustrations of the line-up, resulting in 24 drawings of the world-class speakers and performers that took to the stage on Saturday 11th June to an audience of over 750 people in Birmingham's historic Town Hall.

Snapshots of Vienna

I've been lucky enough to do some travelling this year with my new role at Impact Hub Birmingham, descending on Vienna in a sleepy heap earlier this summer to participate in their #1001hackathon to explore how storytelling can create social impact. Exploring the city on foot between sessions at the beautiful Impact Hub Vienna, I was delighted by how much creativity was felt in the city, alongside impressive sites of tradition and new growth.

Choose Your Changemaker

My love affair with temporary tattoos has continued to grow this summer, providing illustrated changemaker tattoos for Beatfreeks' Social Exchange event at mac birmingham. This mostly involves a lot of printing and cutting out, but the act of creating bespoke designs for one-off events suits my desire to continually make something new and fresh, inspired by the projects themselves, rather than rolling out the same designs until they lose meaning.

UNREMARKABLE: The Missing Months

It's good to have a bit of mystery in our lives every now and then. Do other people see the same colours I see? Why is love so hard to explain in words? Where is the unremarkable desktop backgrounds for this month? (said no-one ever.) However, I'm not one for leaving things unresolved. Here are the missing months of May, June and July in both wide and full screen. My maroon period, as I call it. Should probably reconsider the connotations of that...

Making For Change

Earlier this year I worked on Making For Change, a social acition training programme for 16 - 25 year olds run by Craftspace in Birmingham. Using presentations, exhibition visits, discussions and lots of making, participants leant how to tackle social justice issues culminating in making-based social action campaigns led by the group. It was my job to interpret the different campaigns and produce illustrated postcards to promote and support their ideas.

UNREMARKABLE: August

I'm back, baby! There tends to be a lot of gaps on my blog, if I'm straight about it. I forget I have a blog sometimes and hurry back, trying to fill in the documentation gaps, but where do we, as creatives, go during that time? Well, sometimes we go into our own heads, but more often than not we get busy. We go into production mode, we're making money, we're doing it rather than recording it. What I love about blogging is a chance to reflect and take stock, which I'm happy to say I'm able to take some time to do now, after a fairly nuts summer so far.