Shape my Language

Shape my Language at the Design Museum. This a free exhibit in the atrium of the Design Museum and visitors can interact with it by tweeting to @shapemylanguage and the words of selected tweets appear projected onto one of the walls. Below are a selection of photographs I took of the letters hanging in the atrium.

From the Design Museum Website:
"Located in the Design Museum cafe and atrium, the Shape My Language installation combines a display by renowned type designer Bruno Maag, from the typeface and logo design agency Dalton Maag, with images from his work on the Ubuntu font project, part of the re-brand of open-source computer operating system Ubuntu.
Shape My Language, by Bruno Maag, was first shown in March 2010 at the Walking-Chair Gallery in Vienna and was comprised of a large collection of glyphs from the world’s many script systems. Recreated for 2011, and suspended within the Design Museum’s stairwell, the piece includes recognisable characters alongside more unusual forms from a range of languages.
As an extension to this display, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, is offering visitors an opportunity to get involved with the Ubuntu user community. Large abstract letterforms will be displayed alongside a projection of visitors' tweets. Add @shapemylanguage to your posts on twitter to be part of the projection. These tweets will be displayed in the Ubuntu font. Top tweets will be selected to share with Design Museum visitors and Twitter users around the world.
“There are dozens of different script systems in use in the world today, giving shape to thousands of spoken languages. A typeface designer’s task is not only to visualise the emotion with which a message is spoken but also to ensure that the reader can absorb the message with a minimum of distraction.”
Bruno Maag, Managing Director, Dalton Maag.
Dalton Maag has been designing fonts and logos since 1991. It works with design agencies to provide logo designs and font solutions for clients."

Design Museum- Brit Insurance Designs of the Year 2011

I went to the Design Museum today- never a great idea on a Sunday as its always very busy- I had to que outside the door. But as I work during the week I have no choice.
I always enjoy this exhibit, it has a nice mix of types of design, from fashion, to interaction to furniture. The exhibition only opened this week and it showcases all the nominees. The winners will be announced later this month with the awards ceremony on 15th March.
The photographs below are taken by myself and are a few of my favourites for the exhibition. I didn't spend very long in the museum- as I'm a member its free entry so I prefer to visit several times but for shorter lengths of time.

From the Design Museum website
"The Brit Insurance Designs Awards, "the Oscars of the design world," showcase the most innovative and forward thinking designs from around the world, spanning seven categories: architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product and transport. Last year's winner, was the Folding Plug by Min-Kyu Choi that revolutionises a humble, but essential, piece of everyday equipment."

Chinese New Year

This Sunday I went to Trafalgar Square to watch the Chinese New Year celebrations.
They had a variety of different events with dancing and singing. They had a stage in Shaftsbury avenue and speakers throughout the streets of Chinatown broadcasting what was on the stage. Was a really nice atmosphere, but so many people and at some points it was almost like festival crushing. Below are a selection of photographs from the day, including a dragon and a wishing tree. I threw my wish back on, but sadly it didn't catch.

Snowboarding

I havn't updated my blog in a while- I blame Christmas and being over fed too much by my parents!
I went away for a week snowboarding to Corcheval in France and it was amazing- best break in the world.
It's so beautiful, even if you can't ski or snowboard it's such an amazing place to visit.
So I will share with you a few photographs I took while I was away.

Super Christmas Market

 Held at Somerset House every year in the lead up to Christmas, a collection of UK based designers come together to give us the Super Christmas Market.

I’ve been to this event for several years now, but this year was by far my favourite. In the past I have come away feeling I had been robbed of my £4 entry fee. This year I didn’t. 

They had a room of designer products, not just the usual tat, but items from well-known designers such as Carl Klerkin and. In the other rooms we had interaction design; ski Somerset where you created your own skiing character out of plastercine and card, and then launched off a ski jump into a sand pit. 

They also had reindeer balloon races- you had to rise up and down on a pump to inflate the balloon in the reindeer’s mouth, and the first to pop the balloon wins. I raced against my mother and I came a close first- she claimed her stirrups were too short! Clearly a sore looser. 

They had a polygraph machine so that the elves could decided who to put on the naughty or nice list, and Turkey Still Standing; you had to try and take the tablecloth off without disturbing the Christmas dinner on top. If you managed this you got points depending on how little the objects moved. Daddy made it up onto the leader board, so my little brother tried to beat him, but sadly could not. Clearly he was just too tall. Apparently there is no height advantage.

Finally they had the pound store. Every item was a pound- items ranging from Christmas cards, posters, badges to silly novelty items, napkin holders to name a few. Like all pound shops it was crammed with people fighting to find the best bargain, and to get their hands on a designer item. Some of the items were worth their £1, some not, so not too dissimilar to a regular pound shop! I bought a couple of items as I’ve failed miserably this year with my Christmas shopping,

Generally it was a very nice atmosphere, my family and I enjoyed ourselves, however if you hate design or craft fairs and fun, this is not for you.

The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei

This weekend I visited the Tate Modern with a particular interest in seeing the installation in the turbine hall by Ai Weiwei.
I had hoped that it would have been more interactive, but unfortunatley you are not allowed to touch the seeds. There is an accompanying video in which Ai Weiwei shows the process and techniques used to produce these seeds. This makes the whole exhibit seem a lot more impressive. On their own, if glanced at quickly you could mistake it for gravel.

"Sunflower Seeds is made up of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but actually unique. However realistic they may seem, these life-sized sunflower seed husks are in fact intricately hand-crafted in porcelain.
Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Far from being industrially produced, they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Hall’s vast industrial space, the 100 million seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape.
Porcelain is almost synonymous with China and, to make this work, Ai Weiwei has manipulated traditional methods of crafting what has historically been one of China’s most prized exports. Sunflower Seeds invites us to look more closely at the ‘Made in China’ phenomenon and the geo-politics of cultural and economic exchange today."
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/unileverseries2010/default.shtm

Germany

Last weekend I went for a long weekend trip to visit my good friend Nina.
Sadly the weather was a little grey and very cold, but still had a great time.
Here are a selection of the photos that I took, from a mixture of Breman and Hamburg.

V&A

I went to the V&A yesterday to see the Shadow Catchers: Camera-less photography exhibition.

Was really interesting, its a concept that is quite new to me, and I'm not sure that I've quite got my head around all the details of the different techniques, but still a really enjoyable exhibition.

There were 5 different artists: Floris Neususs, Pierre Cordier, Garry Fabian Miller, Susan Derges and Adam Fuss, all with quite different and unique styles.

I think my favourite of the whole exhibition was Susan Derges' Autum series:

These were 'C' Prints using water to create the background and sky, and then layering up the flowers and foliage on top. This one is my favourite due to the amazing blue colours.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Tonight was my second attempt at making this particular recipe.

It didn't fall apart as much as the first time- and still tasted amazing.

Presentation still not great, but getting better I think.

Cooking

Blue Cheese scones, and Carrot and Corriander soup.