the rocking-horse winner

ROCKING HORSE WINNER 1, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

I have been working on several ideas for the book cover project. This will, I think be the final version. The story is about a boy who lives in a whispering house and he is haunted by an obsession to get money for his mother. He does this by riding his rocking horse until he is told the winner of the next big horse race, with his uncle's help they then place bets, and win. Needless to say it costs him his life. I wanted to convey the whispering house and the idea of the boy being haunted by the horses.

cupcakes and photoshop

cupcake 3, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

My kids are having a cake sale at school today. They are raising money to buy sand for the new sand pit. And I have finally got my desktop up and running so I have photoshop again. So happy days all round!

mini empire

Mini Empire as seen by Anna G

When I grow up I want to be like Mini Empire. They have so many lovely things in their shop. I discovered them via La Maison d' Anna G, and she saw them at Formex (hope your Swedish is good if you check out their site) as part of the young designers. I was particularly impressed as despite there being several styles of work it is all down to one lady, Jenny von Döbeln. Pinterest is a great place to get a feel for her.

jugs

IMG_1799, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

From my afternoon of drawing.

pots

IMG_1792, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

I managed to have an afternoon of drawing at Brook Street Pottery on Saturday. I am working on roughs in different styles. Hopefully these will lead to some prints and perhaps even a show.

creepy house

IMG_1784, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

Does it say "creepy" to you? Or more accurately "1920s" and "a bit odd"? Does it say anything?

horse(ish)

IMG_1783, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

Trying to get whispering, smoklike, tendrils to say "horse" turns out to be harder than you would hope. Click on the picture to go to my flickr and see just how hard!!!!

cup of tea

IMG_1778, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

You can find more photos of the drawings if you click on the picture above and go to my Flickr account.

cup of tea

IMG_1772, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

cup of tea

IMG_1770, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

These are some of the experimental work for my tea packaging project.

the rocking-horse winner

IMG_1767, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

My obsession with trying to create the perfect book cover continues!

popsop, yin and yang, and speciality farm foods

I have found a really useful website - popsop. An online brand magazine containing lots of useful information and articles about design and branding.

Of particular interest was the above packaging designed for Speciality Farm Foods by Yin and Yang design agency (I am having trouble finding a link to them). According to packaging news "Yin & Yang was given a blank canvas to create the range. It has used calligraphy and a monochrome palette splashed with colour accents to distinguish the products. The agency has now assumed a strategic and creative overview role with the brand."

Given that the product was for Harrods, the Daylesford Organic chain and online, the customer/target audience will be similar to the one we are dealing with in our brief.

As reported in popsop Lisa Goodwin, co-founder of Yin and Yang says: “We have designed the brand identity and packaging to convey luxury and quality so that people understand at a glance what the range is all about.” Again this is what we are aiming for with our brief.

blend-it and trinidad chocolate

We have a great brief for college that I have been working on over the holidays. So I just wanted to post some of the designs I have been inspired by. First off, Trinidad Chocolate, the packaging for which was designed by an Israeli design team Blend-It. This packaging is appropriate to our brief which requires us to design tea packaging with a "modern meets traditional feel ..that fits with current trends".