Hand Drawn designs

I'm having another go at a Tigerprint competition, hopefully I will be a winner this time, if not...at least I've had fun having a go.

This month the competition is 'Hand Drawn' with the emphasis on typography. Hand made design and drawing things is what I enjoy doing most so I have tried out all kinds of things, a lot has not worked!

I've decided this time I will try to create a set of card designs so that it shows they could work together, my designs are colourful and all created by hand-drawn imagery and typography. The background is ink mixed together rainbow style. I am pleased with these so far, but may change my mind before the deadline in May

Fossil -What vintage are you?

I have to share my beautiful Fossil tins (and beautiful watch of course) with you, I am in love with them.



I will just explained what happened. The first thing I did when I got to LA was to visit the Fossil shop next to the hotel to look at the tins, it was 2 o'clock in the morning UK time so I was pretty tired. I drooled over the tins and spoke to the shop assistant about whether I could buy one without getting a watch, they told me to pick one and gave it me for free!...I thought I was dreaming.






Not bad for a freebie!

After owning my free fossil tin for 4 days, I went onto purchase a fossil watch in San francisco and got another tin (I did actually want a watch).








I am addicted now and want more tins. I may go on ebay to buy some.

My dream job would be to design tins for fossil.

SAN FRANCISCO

Definately my favourite place out of the those that I have visited in USA (on a par with Las Vegas!) I was only in San Francisco for three days/nights but I managed to get lots done, including shopping at Levi's, Fossil, Anthropology, Abercrombie and Gap. I will share my Fossil puchases shortly...

Places I visited whilst in Frisco = Golden Gate Bridge, Fishermans Wharf, Pier 49, Alcatraz and AT & T Park for the Giants baseball game. I got a travel pass and went on the cable cars and lovely old trams:




This is from the side of an old boat near fishermans wharf, I love the colours and marks, will probably use this in some design work as a background.





My hotel had old telephones dotted about the place, classy!



Here is a picture of me in front of Golden Gate bridge. The boat ride was pretty choppy at this point so I was clinging onto my boyfriend hoping that the kind person taking the photo of us didn't drop my camera over the side.







Anthropology is one of my favourite shops, I have looked on the website before seeking inspiration for design work. The front of the shop was pretty amazing.




In Gap, I took photos of the pictures of the wall for the typography "DO ONE THING PERFECTLY".




The last day I managed to get a quick visit into Alcatraz in the morning, a short boat ride away. I would have bought the mugs in the shop if I had any space left in my suitcase!





Thats it for holidays for a very short while, off for a weekend in Spain and then Paris very soon.

SAN DIEGO

In San Diego, I visited Balbao park and inside is the Spanish Art Village which was just stunning, even on a cloudy day as my pics show, like some sort of magical land.







Brightly coloured floor tiles and individual shops selling all kinds of art & design. I could have spent a day here easily.




Loads of squirrals running around, one even posed for me!



Back in the hotel, lots of beer on draft. I have a thing about buses so the trolley bus one stood out for me. Very tasty too...

HOLLYWOOD

In LA recently I stayed in Hollywood for a few days, so a good place to start is with the famous sign up in the hills, right next to my hotel. Somehow, I don't think this would quite work in Nottingham.

Here is a picture I took through a telescope in the shopping centre:



The sign 'Villa Bonita' was the view from my window, a little research tells me these are residential apartments built in 1929 by architect Frank Webster, I love the sign:






The road signs and hotel signs are all different and reflect different era's. I went on a sightseeing bus and love the numbers on the gate we passed. I took the picture at just the right time:

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

I've not posted for a little while, my excuse is that I have been away travelling for the last month. I went to Egypt for a week of sun and then USA to LA, San Diego and San Francisco. Had an amazing time in USA and found inspiration absolutely everywhere. I now aim to use some of this in my design work.

I took over 700 photographs and will share just a few of them on my blog, don't want to bore you with a slideshow.

For starters, I went to a Giants game in Frisco, fantastic tiling outside on the floor with the teams logo.