Trend Boutique: The Future Laboratory

This lecture, held in Nottingham, gave me an insight into what factors will affect future trends. What I found most interesting was how much of an impact ecological, economical and political issues have upon fashion trends, and how these companies interpret trends from these external aspects and relate them to the masses.

Although I don't produce work relating directly to the fashion world, some of what was said was relevant to me. For instance the way people are returning to home cooking and growing there own food was especially relevant to my cookbook project.

Good Vibrations

Whilst researching for poster designs I came across a set of videos depicting sound waves using salt and a speaker. The shapes created by the vibrating salt make really interesting visuals.

Puma Advertising... you can walk all over it!!

Whilst walking past the aquatics centre this caught my eye.

Graffiti-esque guerilla advertising techniques have been used to advertise a music event sponsored by the famous sports brand, puma.

Simply Read... Nathan Carter

This piece of art is part of the Attitude display at the Manchester Art Gallery. The artist uses a montage of distressed billboard posters that are layered up and couple with political propaganda, all related to culture in Manchester. The deconstructed feel of this piece gave me ideas for my RNCM posters.

Emory Douglas: The Art of A Revolution

I visited this exhibition in November 2008 after one of my tutors, Mack, recommended it as a must see, and I even dragged my family along for the ride!

The inspirational visuals created by Emory Douglas gave 1970's black Americans hope for the future, and are still having an affect on today's society. His graphic styles created heroes out of ordinary people, political design is often overlooked but in the case of Emory Douglas is not only effective as a means of communication, but also as timeless pieces of art that still have the power to shock and unsettle in today's society.

This exhibition was especially poignant considering the political climate in America with the elections prominent in everyones minds., the comments left at the exit were rife with the mentions of Barack Obama

The floor to ceiling graphics were fantastic, depicting the development of Emory's work for the Black Panthers, from photomontage to typographic elements. A lot of the exhibition was interactive, giving people the chance to have a go at creating their own responses to the work of Emory Douglas, my 11 year old sister loved this bit!

It was really interesting to see my parents reactions to the exhibition as it was all occuring when they were in their early teens, and although not directly affected by the movement, they did understand more about it.

In a nutshell this exhibition was informative and inspirational, I would definately visit it again if I had the chance, as would my 11 year old sister, or so I've been told!!

Take two...

Two examples of images taken on my second visit to Whites for the development of a cookbook. I was really pleased with the images I took and combining them with the first lots means I now have some really good stuff to work with.

It is going well so far and I am looking forward to developing the typographical elements of the book next.