Comic Sans biscuits are going to RSA

They’re keeping my business cards company. Food bribes are kind of my thing.

Business cards and portfolios

I’ve gone Dutch

I’m so thrilled that the What a Way to Make a Livin’ poster was featured in the Podium section of Dutch advertising magazine Adformatie (19 Jan). Massive thanks to Jennette at Dolly Rogers for this!

Tweeting through the Blackout

This is one of those ideas that is so brilliantly simple that I’m annoyed I didn’t think of it first.

What if Twitter  was around in 1943? Network43 is a project that aims to show a human side to WWII by creating four Twitter feeds based on real people, sharing their stories for three weeks in real-time and based on real events, complete with archive stills and footage.

I was never great at history and my knowledge of WWII is frankly appalling so I’m really enjoying following all of these people and getting a sense of what life was like for them. It’s such a simple idea but it’s been executed really well and I can see something like this being a great way of getting kids more interested in history (I know I’d have loved it). Twitter lends itself so well to something like this because a 140 character limit gives you no space to be boring.

Sadly the project finishes on 11th November but I’d love to see it continue as a series of short historical snapshots – tweeting through the plague anyone?

http://network43.com/

 

 

 

Tea & cake

Today was my last day at Tilt. Me being me (obsessed with cakes), this seemed like the perfect opportunity for some Tilt branded cupcakes as a thank you.

Throughout my time at Tilt tea seemed to be a running theme – who’s turn it was to make the tea, whether you put the milk in first, whether the colour of the tea looked weird today… those guys are NUTS for tea, which as a non-tea drinker amused me constantly. So it seemed only fitting that the cakes should be chai tea flavour, and they went down really well.

Continuing the tea theme, look what they gave me!

A mug with everyone at Tilt on it, done in the style of their recent Facebook campaign for Real Gap (if you haven’t already seen this then have a look – the song from the video will stay in your head for WEEKS). I can’t say I’ll be drinking tea out of it any time soon but I’ll definitely be enjoying copious amounts of deadline coffee from it.

Thanks to Chris, Dan, Jon and Sas for making my time there really enjoyable, I’m quite sad to leave because it means having to face the looming and terrifying prospect of third year!

Animation is my Harry Potter*

I started working as an intern for Tilt at the beginning of this month. I’m enjoying it immensely and I’ve learned a great deal in the past three weeks.

One of the things I’ve been working on is character design for a kid’s app – something I’ve never done before.

Aww look, here’s a panda.

My favourite bit about this project is getting to see my characters (who I’ve become rather fond of) turned into actual 3D animations. Having been part of the original generation of kids to grow up with things like Toy Story and Shrek, coupled with knowing absolutely nothing about 3D animation, made this pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve seen all year. I think I actually let my mouth hang open for a while there. I don’t think I’ll ever really understand how that sort of animation is made so watching my little drawings come to life before my eyes was probably the closest I’ll ever get to seeing actual Harry Potter style magic.

So yeah, pretty rad. Here’s a jellyfish.

 

*I know Harry Potter isn’t really relavent to this post. However I’ve recently learned that including the words “Harry Potter” in a post gets your blog a lot of hits. I’m pretty sneaky like that.

Website is live!

After feeling totally out of my depth with this whole thing, I’ve finally managed to make an actual functioning website *proud*.

www.chrissystylesdesign.co.uk 

Website!

I’m sort of horrified at how long it’s been since I’ve updated this blog. At some point soon I will upload a big job lot of all the work I’ve done this year that I haven’t already, just to get it out of the way and put the second year behind me.

In more exciting news, I’ve decided that it’s probably about time that I got my act together and worked out how to make a proper website for myself, which is what I’ve been doing for the past week or so. Here’s a glimpse of what it’s currently looking like…

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate designing purely on-screen so this has been driving me a bit really nuts, and that’s the reason a lot of the titles and things are hand-drawn – it’s a bit more me. It’ll probably change a lot in the time that it takes me to finish it because I’m so indesicive… I think this version is probably the third I’ve tried.

Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

That’s right… biscuit typography!! I’ve been thinking for ages about doing something like this – annoyingly Anna Garforth got there first and has done a better job than I ever could have. It’s beautiful though. I wonder if there’s a job out there that just requires someone to make typography out of foodstuffs? If there is, I want it.

More incredible stuff like this on her website.

Exhibitions! #1 – CUTS

I’m in London at the moment so I’m taking the opportunity to walk around some rooms looking at pictures!

First off is an exhibition communicating opinions on the recent financial cuts from 16 Westminster illustration students including the ever-brilliant Suzie Patrick. Some really nice stuff, here’s a few of my favourites (I apologize for the shitty quality of the iPhone camera):

Ben Jennings

Josie Shenoy

Charlie Railings

Holly Monger

Nick Martin

Suzie Patrick

Nina Jorgensen

Lloyd Stratton

Sean Willmott

These photos really don’t do the work justice, so if you’re in the area I’d highly recommend having a look!

Studio 54 Architecture

54 Rivington Street

London

EC2A 3QN