Business Cards

Today my business cards arrived! Which is very exciting for me.

I just tried to look up 'business card' in my hefty Oxford dictionary. It isn't in there. But I found this funny:
Business. ORIGIN: Old English 'anxiety'

TRUE.

My first set of business cards.

It is so difficult to try to decide on the design! I chose to try to keep it simple for the first batch. I will probably do a different design every time I order...

The 'front' I guess (I don't quite understand business cards having a front or back really, it's just a picture side and an information side, right?)

The 'back' or 'picture' side. This is the gilded fly pendant, sterling silver with 18ct gold plated wings little black diamond eyes.

 But of course, within hours of the cards arriving, I flicked through some blogs and saw these:

 I can't seem to make the images into a hyperlink but I found them on the blog of Garance Doré here .

So now I feel like my cards are really boring! For a while I did consider calling the Beetle Collection 'Bug-ary' (like 'Aviary' but an enclosure for bugs... get it!?) But you never know who you are going to offend and I can't decide if I was being a chicken or sensible? Also it is a bit of a silly play on words.

So because I am a massive geek, when I started to design my business card (and logo generally as you will see) I did not just think "Hmm, what image represents me?" I started to look into the history of business cards.

I started with Victorian calling cards but really I should have started with 17th century France and 'visite biletes' where they apparently started out as playing cards! So I imagine the scene somewhat like this:

Marie Antoinette (2006)

Then there were trade cards:

1881

1885

There are loads of gorgeous trade cards on www.waddesdon.org.uk but they seem to have quite strict copyright rules so you can look for yourself. They are so detailed and have so much more writing on them I assume they must have been bigger than today's cards. I wonder whether people took more time to read trade cards or if it was all a waste of money? People would definitely not bother reading that much information these days!

Now 19th Century business cards:

"As an adoption from French court etiquette, visiting cards came to America and Europe. They included refined engraved ornaments and fantastic coat of arms. Visiting cards, or calling cards, were an essential accessory to any 19th century middle class lady or gentleman."
From this site.

I want to be able to put a coat of arms on my business cards! I think there is an Everley coat of arms so I will have to look into it.

I based my card largely on Victorian calling cards like this:

1840 Calligraphy Card

I spent hours scrolling through www.daysofelegance.com (where the above image is from). I LOVE all of this sort of thing. The amount of time and effort that went into making these cards is incredible. And in those days calling cards were appreciated, there was a complicated series of rules and rituals that surrounded them. I know that, realistically, a lot of the cards I hand out will be thrown away, dropped, screwed up and lost... but I still wanted to pay the extra for 100% recycled card.

Anyway, here are some more Victorian calling cards (all from www.daysofelegance.com)

So cheesey. So cute.

Shaped according to the hobby of the person (origami business cards are doing a modern twist on this)

Too Cool! It looks like a plain dull card... but if you hold it to the light...WOW!

This is hilarious. "May I see you home my dear?" For young gentlemen to give to potential young lady friends.

The etiquette is fantastic, here is a comparatively brief version from this site again:

• On making a first call you must have a card for each lady of the household.
• On making a call leave your card to the servant. You will be allowed to see the hostess only after she examines your card.
• On the hall table in every house, there should be a small silver, or other card tray, a pad and a pencil.
• When the door-bell rings, the servant on duty should have the card tray ready to present, on the palm of the left hand.
• A gentleman should carry them loose in a convenient pocket; but a lady may use a card case.
• If your card receives no acknowledgment, you must conclude that for some reasons they do not wish to extend their acquaintance.
• Do not examine the cards in the card-basket. You have no right to investigate as to who calls on a lady.
• A young lady can have a card of her own after having been in society a year.
• American gentleman should never fold the corner of his card, despite of the temporary fashion. Some European gentlemen, on the contrary, fold the upper right corner to indicate that they've delivered it themselves (the servant should never hand his master's card folded).
• Fold the card in the middle if you wish to indicate that the call is on several, or all of the members of the family.

I hope you enjoyed this little history lesson!

xxx

Please stop looting and Theresa May please stop talking

This is not a proper post, I just want to post a link to an article which sums up how I feel.

The context to London's riots

Camden

Let's not be mistaken, the things that people are doing are absolutely awful actually inexcusable.
I think this man, interviewed by BBC, summed it up well:

"I have never seen such a disregard for human life. I hope they rot in hell"
Alan McCabe

He was not just exploding with rage, horror and frustration, he also helped a woman from his pub, through the rioters to the safety of the police. Only to then find himself trapped in a side street and separated from his staff and unable to go home to his terrified girlfriend and child. I am gripped by anxiety thinking about his family and all the others who have lost their homes and businesses and are struggling to get back to their families.

However, having spent the past six hours flicking between BBC and Sky news channels, I feel that a lot of the people being interviewed, particularly the MPs, are seeing the situation as far more clear-cut than it is. Meanwhile all of the community workers being interviewed are being given a tougher time by the journalists who seem to be trying to trip them up as they try to get the message across that this is not a completely random explosion of violence. This is the indirect result of all of the cuts and the frustration of the young people who don't see a future for themselves. Theresa May's speech just had me fuming. Lots of big thank yous to the police and lots of condemnation to the 'criminality' (I don't know how many more times I can bare to hear that word without punching a wall). Absolutely no consideration to the level of social unrest that has to build for such a widespread state of anarchy to take hold. Not even a mention of how things can be improved for the future.

We are in a society where young people are saturated with consumerism but cannot afford the items that they are told they need. The youth centers are being closed down. It is the summer holidays. There are serious problems with unemployment in many of the areas most heavily affected by the riots. I can empathize to some extent with the desire to just go mental, smash and grab.

I just wish they would stop burning things, putting so many people's lives at risk.

Woman in Croyden from the Mirror

I am not a journalist or an aspiring journalist, I do not pay any more attention to politics than the average 21 year old, so it is quite possible that what I am saying is rubbish. But I am tired, I am meant to go to work in Oxford Circus tomorrow and there are rioters less than a mile from my house. So this is just how I feel right now.

xxx

Human Cloning

Humans are so obsessed with recreating themselves. I guess its to do with our instinctive urges to get us to procreate but often it just comes out as creepy obsessions. It happened in this sort of order:

Acheulean Figure
232,000 - 800,000 years old

Willendorf Woman
24,000 BCE - 22,000 BCE

Mask of 'Agamemnon'
1550–1500 BCE

Kleobis and Biton
580 BCE

Augustus as Pontius Maximus
after 12 BCE

Mosaic Woman, Pomeii
before 79 AD

Skipping ahead a bit...

'Harold' Bayeux Tapestry
1070s? AD

Portrait of a Lady
Rogier van der Weyden
1460

Jacques-Louise David (self-portrait)
1794

Victor Emil Janssen (self-portrait)
1828

Three Girls
Gustav Oehme
1843

Wrestlers
Eadweard Muybridge
1887

La Poupee
Hans Bellmer
1935

As you can see things are starting to get creepy...

But it gets so much creepier...

Earlier I found this blog.

Oh. my. god.

Clone Factory Inc.

I almost want one. Just because it is SO weird. Seriously click on the link above to see how they make these bizarre things!

What next!?

The Roxxxy 'sex robot'

Uh oh.......


xxx

P.S. Rowan says that this isn't very clear. I can't type in between the pictures for some reason so here:

Basically the first two are two of the earliest found representations of the human form, basically humans trying to replicate themselves (or at least the general concept of an aspect of themselves - fertility). Then the 'death mask' is an early example of trying to create an exact likeness of a real person. Moving away from abstract and closer to a literal representation. Kleobis and Biton are simultaneously likenesses and ideals; supposedly based on real brothers but put up as an example of the ideal son and young man.

I would say that Augustus' top skill was maintaining his image. So this is an example of a person portraying themselves as they wish to be seen, in this case an example of piety. The mosaic was probably a commissioned portrait so another example of people propagating an image they wish to last beyond their own lives. (I just liked it because she looks a bit like Frida Kahlo.) The 'tapestry' (actually embroidered cloth, sorry to be a pedant) is interesting because it is a sort of portrait by people who have never seen the subject. The van der Weyden painting is showing how the artist's skills are moving further towards realism. The two self-portraits are again about the persona people want 'the public' to have of them, always interesting because it is not just how they paint their own faces etc. that describe who they want to be but every detail of the image, also less photo-realism and more capturing the essence.

The 'three girls' is one of the very early photographic portraits, which for a short while people believed could really capture the 'truth' of a person. Muybridge went on a mission to get to truth through photography (like the galloping horse series) so this is a representation of two men wrestling shown from many angles which the brain can stitch together for an almost 3D understanding of what we can see.

Bellmer was a bit nuts and creepy in a way that I love, this is his view of what his ideal (sort of I am not striving for complete accuracy here) female is. (I read about this ages ago... he had an obsession with a girl - it got creepy.) The two girls with their dolls? Modern obsession with beauty leading to self obsession. Starting with little girls. I remember making my mum buy me a doll that looked like me because they don't really make dolls with brown hair and brown eyes that often.

And Finally! These 'clone' dolls. Suggested to commemorate a special day that you want to capture forever. Don't just freeze the happiest day of your life in photographs - do it in 3D with disturbing dolls! Do I really need to explain why this creeps me out? (But equally fascinates me.) Just google 'Freud and the uncanny'. I think he would love it.

I do not need to talk about Roxxxy. Search her on YouTube.

Bottoms

I am not really doing the most thought-provoking posts at the moment but I am trying to put all my energy into revising for my August exams (mitigating circumstances in January.)

So basically I am watching 'The Prince and the Showgirl' (Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe) and I noticed something:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozoJaW3OimM

Look familar?

http://www.mtv.co.uk/files/imagecache/300x225/2011/05/12/pippa-middleton-butt-300x215.jpg

I wonder if Pippa Middleton knew she was having a bit of a Marilyn moment... And I wonder if big, round healthy bums will continue to grow (in popularity) and become an acceptable body shape?

I have found that I am starting to like Marilyn Monroe more and more. People always seem to pit her and Audrey Hepburn against each other when choosing an 'icon' but they are hardly comparable. I think that seeing all the 'off-duty' shots of Monroe, lifting weights or bored and waiting, made me like her a lot more as a person.

Also you've got to love some of the jewellery in this film:

http://s11.allstarpics.net/images/orig/9/f/9f84kwgxbp8rk4g9.jpg

 It must be so fun to be on commission for extravagant royal families/a costume jewellery maker in Hollywood!

xxx

Small Kitten Wearing A Small Hat

Yeah sorry I am one of those people who watches cat videos online.

Small Kitten

Wearing A

Small Hat

Heavily influenced by the advert of Lake Street Creamery:

Actually, there are quite a few really good ice-cream adverts on tv... this is another favourite of mine:

I'm sure there are loads more...
xxx

Shooting Insects

Yesterday we started doing the photography for my website (I have a website now - still under construction but here). So far we have been taking the product shots and I am planning on doing a model shoot sometime this summer. My boyfriend, Rowan, and our friend Jack were the photographers and we were using the studio in Jack's house. It was a really nice sunny day, fairly chilled out. I really enjoy being able to work with friends as much as possible, none of this aggressive business attitude. I just want to collaborate with people I like!

In the studio

Trying out different materials for the background

I don't think 'tough' is my look...

Rowan and Jack in the Dung Beetle ring

Test shot for the 'Frames' designs

More soon!
xxx

P.S. Just a reminder that these designs and images are my property etc.

Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2011

I really wish I had taken notes when I was in Glasgow so I could write a really good, in depth post about the degree show but, to be honest, I was just so hungover and a bit ill. I was far from the only one, the street party is notorious and this was the last one for a few years because they are knocking down a bunch of buildings and changing things. But most of the GSA students had not also been to Manchester's Pangaea until some-time-that-morning and then taken a 9am train to Glasgow Central, emerging from the train twitching from sleep deprivation and then been expected to go for it again that evening. 

Glasgow School of Art
http://www.scotcities.com/mackintosh/

So my friend who has just finished third year bought tickets for me and Rowan to go to the opening evening of the show. We went for a couple of hours before the street party and then again the next day. The two trips have merged in my memory. I was basically shuffling about with a bottle of water trying to not appear as bad as I felt. However, I was definitely struck by the flawless design of the Macintosh Building.

The staircase with arches
https://picasaweb.google.com/gsashopandtours

I would really like to visit that again when it is less full of people. Every space is beautiful, the colours are quite dull and muted but sort of friendly. I am not sure how to explain. A bit like going into a very old school or university building (the kind where the lockers are still made of wood with painted numbers and there are inkwells in the desk) but with less of an institutional feel. At one point we were in a library and met a girl who gives tours around the building. She explained how the library is supposed to resemble a forest clearing with its' columns rising from the floor and tapering to the top. All of the walls are covered with books and the reading area is in the central space surrounded by a higher level terrace.

The Library from the upper terrace
http://www.scotcities.com/mackintosh/

I was obviously going to love it since I am quite interested in Art Noveau jewellery (Lalique etc.) and it felt very strange to have a gorgeous Art Nouveau building in the middle of the (no offence Glaswegians) rather bleak city of Glasgow. I also know of Mackintosh from family holidays to Walberswick in Suffolk, again a rather bleak place but it is the seaside village where Mackintosh is supposed to have done many of his botanical drawings. I wish I had taken pictures of the inside of the building, I am struggling to find any nice ones online!

GSA front
http://www.scotcities.com/mackintosh/gsa.htm

I know I should probably talk about the Fine Art Degree Show but I am just going to mention what I think was my favourite piece, at least the most memorable (apart from a certain video which I personally thought was pure shock tactics and didn't say much, unless I just failed to appreciate it, or if the subject was actually the viewers, which I did find much more interesting when I sat with my back to the screen.) I do not know the name of the girl who made this but I shall try to find out. 

Basically she had a corner of a room where there were perhaps fifteen bright yellow plastic cassette players with headphones hanging on nails in the wall. If you went near, you would be passed one of these and instructed to put it on. What followed was somewhat similar to a yoga class or a self-help tape only you were asked to fully appreciate everything for five minutes. Her voice guided you around the building and towards other student's work, not in a particular order but just whatever you happened to be looking at when you are asked to walk forwards. I think that anyone who treated the five minutes too pretentiously or chickened-out of following the commands fully would not have got much out of it. If you were prepared to just absorb it, almost like when you suspend your disbelief during a play or a film, then it was fantastic. You are made to get so close to a piece of work that you are basically sniffing it. You must lay flat on the floor. You must lean on one leg with a hand on your hip and scratch your chin whilst observing a work. You are made to believe that Someone is Watching You (not that you don't feel selfconscious already!). And finally you must go to an empty patch of wall and lean your forehead into it. You are now another piece of art. "White looks great against you." I thought it was great. Especially walking through the exhibition the next day seeing other people with yellow cassette players looking awkward as they hesitantly crouch to the floor and being able to share a knowing look like Fight Club or something. Also it made me look at things in that room really hard that earlier I had just dismissed because I thought it was a bit rubbish. Not that it necessarily changed my mind but at least I gave it the time of day.

And onto the Jewellery Graduates! Each student had a little plastic tray of cards under their display cases so here I have tried to show all of the ones I took the cards of because those were my favorites, obviously. Now I really wish I had brought my camera with my for this because some designers I chose because of a particular piece I found really interesting and that may not be what is shown here but nevermind!

In no particular order:

Hazel Mairs

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowschoolart/5791140635/in/set-72157626871203260/

Bekki Churcher

One of my top three.

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/gallery/159-gsa-jewellery-graduates

"Bekki’s work is a response to the shapes and textures found at St Peter’s Seminary in Cardross, an abandoned building that is slowly being reclaimed by nature." The Skinny

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowschoolart/5791703976/in/set-72157626871203260/

Daniela Corda

Top three.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowschoolart/5791698346/in/set-72157626871203260/

Theresa McCafferty

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/gallery/159-gsa-jewellery-graduates

"Theresa uses the class divisions of 19th century Britain and Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist as a starting point. She uses traditional precious materials such as silver alongside those perceived to be grotesque, including human hair and dog faeces!

www.theresamccafferty.com" The Skinny

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/gallery/159-gsa-jewellery-graduates

Emily Knight

Top three.

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/gallery/159-gsa-jewellery-graduates

"Influenced by India’s vibrant, bright culture and inspired by the differences between the east and the west, Emily creates pieces with a variety of patterns, colours and hand cut details." The Skinny

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowschoolart/5791705274/in/set-72157626871203260/

Samera Afzal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowschoolart/5791702784/in/set-72157626871203260/

Patrick Davison

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgowschoolart/5791143807/in/set-72157626871203260/

Ok that is all for now! This evening I went to see the Classicist Mary Beard give a talk in Primrose Hill so I shall try to post on that asap!

xxx