I was asked by Kid ID (pronounced ‘iid’ not ‘eye dee’, they don’t like it when people pronounce their name wrong… right guys?) to take some publicity photos for them. With nothing really in mind we begun trekking one Friday evening around Kings Cross and  we found a really cool door with some cool graffiti art work (According to the writing in the grafiti it was something to do with ‘Satirical Contemporary Art’)  and took some photos in-front of it, lots of fun, although the guys were freezing standing in-front of the camera. The lighting made for some fun-surreal almost alien obduction kind of shots which worked out really well.

They are a really cool, fun band and defiantly should be checked out! If your in the UK try and get to one of their gigs, they are constantly playing in and around London and Leeds. You will not be disapointed, very fun, lively and happy band. Listen to their stuff on myspace here.

To see other photos of Kid ID in action check out my photography section here.

 

I was asked to create a header to go onto an email invite for an event titled ‘Champagne Recession’. The invite was for a fundraising party and networking evening for people in the Real Estate industry. I thought it was quite a fun title for an event and a way to look at the times as they are and accept it for what it is.

I wanted to reflect that look of elegance contradicting the current predicament, keeping with the tongue in cheek style of the evening. A bit of fun in times which can seem otherwise. If you can’t look at things with a smile on your face then your in trouble!

I just completed a new logo and flyer  for a children’s book reseller in Israel, ‘Bright Sparks’. This was a fun little project to do, a welcome change from some of the corporate stuff I have been doing lately!

The poster and logo can be found in the ‘Design Archive’

Another year and another Valentines day has come and gone. Every year I seem to say ‘next year it will be different’, it never really is… except this year. I didn’t spend the time alone, pondering, telling myself it’s just another day, telling myself that there is no point going out amongst all of the people brandishing roses and gifts for their loved ones. This year I decided to just, well, treat it as another day.

It was after-all another weekend and should be treated as just that, a time to just do normal weekend stuff. I spent the day with a friend (read that correctly Mum, ‘friend’… although female not ‘girl-friend,’ so no questions please) throughly enjoying myself at Borough Markets, pushing through throngs of people, smelling amazing smells, seeing beautiful colours, tasting tasty things. This was followed by the enjoyment of wondering through National Portrait gallery, a brief walk through China Town and then cooking and eating a fine meal and having wondrous discussions about everything and anything.  

After such a nice day I decided to spend the morning in bed on the Sunday following pondering the day before and what it all means in the grand scheme of things. I decided that in the spirit of my highly positive and fun start to 2009 I would come up with a bit of a thought for the day, a mantra I guess one could call it, a way to live and think, I decided upon the following: ‘There’s A Place For Love’. 

Keeping with this mantra and ideal I decided that the day would be spent doing things that I, quite simply, love to do. I decided a good way of going about this would be to combine two things I do love: Chocolate and cooking (well baking if your being picky), problem solved.

Thus I give you my results of my thinking and doings of Valentines day (and the sunday after) 2009: a recipe for amazingly good ‘Place For Love Double Chocolate Cookies’. They are nice and chewy inside and crunchy out side, just like they should be, mmm. (I kind of made this up as I went along so quantities may need to be adjusted ever so slightly to achieve optimal results… maybe I was just lucky because they tasted ace!)

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups of self-raising flour
2/3 cup Cocoa (Green and Blacks Organic is by far my favorite)
pinch of salt
3/4 cup of butter
1/2 cup Caster Sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
Splash of milk if it needs a little more liquid
Small to medium block of white chocolate, bashed with a rolling pin to make large-ish chunks.

Mix it all up!

Cream the butter and sugar until silky. Mix in the egg and all of the remaining dry ingredients. I don’t bother sifting the flour and the cocoa, mainly because we don’t have a sift but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt.

Mix well until it forms a bit of a thick, pasty, smooth texture. I had to use a couple of drops of milk to achieve this as it was a little dry to begin with. Mix in the crushed white chocolate chunks. I don’t bother using a wooden spoon at this point and prefer to get my hands all gooey, get dirty, its more fun!

Take a piece of mixture and roll it into a golf-ball sized ball and place onto a sheet of baking paper on an oven tray. Flatten with the palm of your hand until the ‘cookie’ is about 15mm thick. Fill up the baking tray and pop into the oven at 180°c for about 10 minutes. At 10 minutes remove from the oven and gently flatten a little more with a fork until cracks appear at the edge of the cookie. Place back into the oven for a further 5 minutes.

lick the bowl, lick your fingers and Enjoy!

 

And on  the 08th of February 2009 there shall be printing – The printing of a stereotypical brain hungry Zombie from the haunted house on the hill.

With my desk cleaned of all of the usual clutter that accumulates thanks to the previous days room-cleaning marathon I finally decided to do some good ol printing. It’s been a while since I had printed any lino blocks and I was curious how it would go, and wether or not I could actually find all of my equipment! After a bit of reconnoissance and much checking of the various boxes around my room I finally found everything I needed and got under way.

I was printing a block that I had carved some time ago. It had been sitting hidden in my book case waiting for just the right time to be printed. A fun little piece, yet one of the more detailed pieces I have done in terms of fine little lines and subtle cuts. I was a little nervous about printing it and was worried if I would be able to accurately pick up all of the fine detail. Much to my amazment everything went smoothly right from the very first print, it went so well infact I decided to keep going. At the end of the mamouth session I had managed to ink up and print 20 different prints in 5 different colours, something I have never done before in one session… and my arms really hurt! 

Despite the pain and lack of muscle power in my upper arms I am so happy with the way these turned out. The purple was a little tricky as the ink had become very watery and almost un-usable but with some perseverance, trial and error I managed to make it work and think it compliments the set nicely. Now I just have to wait for them to dry and stick them up on my wall! I will upload some more pictures of the coloured prints once they are dry enough to scan.