Sweet Success

Last week Kirsty & I were offered the chance to help art directors Emma Rios & Cecilia Carey with something they were involved with at London Fashion Week. Of course we were happy to help, but this also gave us the opportunity to have peek at the studio of Bompas & Parr who were also involved with the project.

The task was to create an actual real life, real size sugar cave. Inside the cave, the work of designers such as Tour da Force, House of Flora, Sveda Mutlu and Aase was pedestaled by the sugar formations and the sugar coated floor. Sponsered by Silver Spoon, the cave is a vision of how the surroundings would appear were you to be shrunk to the size of a single grain of standard table sugar (0.3-0.5mm).

Although we didn't get to do much of the creative stuff, it was great to see how Bompas & Parr approach their work, and gave us a real insight into their creative industry. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to install the sugar coated scene, but luckily Emma sent us these photos, which gives a good idea of the impact the installation had. All in all, a grand day out!

Visual Editions Challenge

So I took up a bit of a challenge last week, as i felt like I was on a bit of a role after installing the window display at Oxygen. I was contacted by Anna Gerber from 'Visual Editions' who are book publishers and ambassadors for beautifully crafted books. Take a look at their lovely books here http://www.visual-editions.com/ 

They needed 20 15-page books printed and bound in 2 days. The books were to be sent to all the major glossy magazines to showcase the work they have published and future projects planned. The books had already been designed, all I needed to do was print them out, cut them out, then bind them. Which sounded much easier than it was! Luckily, I did manage to finish them all in time, even though it did involve hand-stitching all the pages ALL the way through the night. I think they look pretty nice though.

KITES & LEAVES

So last month myself and Kirsty were rather excited to be invited back by boutique shop "Oxygen" to redesign their shop window, ready for their Autumn/Winter range. After endless brainstorming of Autumnal icons and designs and then redesigns (no umbrellas allowed due to superstition), we finally all agreed that a whirlwind of leaves and kites would fit beautifully in the window.

We were working to a pretty tight schedule this time, as the window needed to be installed for a shopping event being held at the store, but nevertheless, we managed to ink and paint our way to the finish line!

We were really pleased with the outcome, and may even prefer it to our previous design, although we can't quite decide! The main criteria from the shop owner was that it needed to be Autumnal, but not dreary or gloomy. I think we have definately achieved this, and equally as pleased with all the great feedback from customers and passers-by. Success!

Now to start thinking about what to do for the Christmas display...

meat feast

Responding to the brief titled "Animalism". I decided to explore the notion of the sexualisation of meat, and the erotic connotations associated with meat. I was intrigued by the idea of meat as metaphor. When women are compared to meat, it is "a piece of meat", something to be consumed, whereas a meaty man implies strength and power, something a 'real' man should have. The final piece  became a series of oil pastel drawings, which highlighted the similarities between body building men and cuts of meat, which I presented on meat hooks from the local butcher.