Robin Hood Princess of Boots…

Knock it off Topshop. Seriously, too much. I can’t own every pair of shoes you release*. Do you think a pair of tights would be too ‘men in tights’ ?

* Currently under negotiation…with myself…

Andrea suede lace tie boots from Topshop

The tale of Ugur Derinogullu & modern nature…

There is something very warm about these modern black and white (well ‘white-ish) illustrations from Ugur Derinogullu. They seem to qualify for posting under my unofficial obsession with collage that I have lately, but I believe that they are actually ink…I think? Very graceful, full of movement and polished despite being on a slightly textured newsprint background. I love the simple coloured circles and typography. No word on what they are for or what they do, but I’ll have them if no one else does!

Thanks to graphic exchange for the introduction!

The Queen E…

Visit to Tuvalu 1982

The engagement photo

Visit to Tuvalu 1982

Love the blouse!

Queen Elizabeth and family on her Father’s Coronation day

Cecil Beaton Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II
_

Like every good dual nationality British Citizen, I made my oath to the queen* and subsequently began a mild fascination with her, most especially the young Princess/Queen Elizabeth. I guess having grown up with the icon of an ‘elder’ royal family I’m easily amazed to think that once, long ago, the royal family actually consisted of a young family. In actual fact, the Queen (or Queenie as I affectionately refer to her) was only 25 when she took to the throne and already had a child (Prince Charles).

Yesterday, Buckingham Palace launched a collection of photos on flickr, covering over a hundred years of Royal family photographs, including the life and times of Ms. Windsor. My favorites are from the 30′s-70′s as you get such incredible picture of the fashions and insight into the royal family (or their photo ops at least). Of course all children swing on playground equipment, but somehow the family in question makes it all the more interesting. As Prince William and Ms. Middleton seem to be taking their good old time at getting around to some Royal Wedding action, the story from yesteryear will have to do. I mean seriously, the photos from the Prince and Queen’s visit to Tuvalu are hard to beat! Full calico frock, hat and gloves, taking photos of an overheated Prince Philip. Classic.

All photos from The British Monarchy’s collection.

* Yes, you REALLY do have to pledge your oath to the Queen. Sadly she wasn’t there to witness it…

Still after some more…yah, I couldn’t stop there, there’s still more of my favorites, just

Spare roll(s) of film…

Spare a thought for Adrian Brannan next time you lose an image due to overfilled photo folders on your computer. These fantastic photo collages are as beautiful as they probably are sanity checking, as each image is created from as little as 50 to one thousand individual 35 mm photographs…and they aren’t even digital! In fact, most of the photos are developed in Adrian’s own darkroom! Adrian seems to get quite the kick out of variety, as not only are the images made up from a variety of shots, but the shots themselves are taken from multiple locations with different films, processing techniques and at different times and days. Whew. Plus it seems to me that depending on how large you view them, they take on different qualities – beautiful painterly like quality when in a thumbnail format, fabulous textures when blown up a bit and a crazy patchwork of drastically different colours and tones when blown up a bit bigger (see two images directly above to see Piccadilly circus changes -the colours of the pavement vary from mustard to tan to green!)

I’m so impressed that I might even go take the camera out and shoot a few shots. The countdown begins…

Adrian’s work was spotted in the Completely London magazine from Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, by August Media. Thanks!

Still want more? Check out some more photographic genius with a ‘look into the past‘

A trip to another world…

Whilst my brother and his wife were visiting us from the States, we thought we’d flee London for the weekend. I went on a mad dash to find a place available at short notice that we could reach easily, had something charming and English…and would take the doggie. We ended up booking two nights at the Lamb Inn at Hindon, which managed to tick all the boxes. We nearly got stranded at the train station four miles away when we showed up and there were only two taxis in the entire area, one fully booked, and one who wouldn’t take the dog. We were told we were walking into our death trying to get there on our own as the road was a twisty windy dark country lane. I could only stand their with my mouth hanging open. How can you only go an hour and a half outside of London and be sooooo out there! Thankfully we managed to get to Hindon, which was adorable, all 100 yards of it. If there was any doubt of its charm and quaint-ness we found the town shop for milk and other goods was manned by volunteers and open a few hours a day. I’ll pause while you get your head around that…did I mention that we travelled back in time as well. Oh I love the English countryside!

P.S. We made this trip thinking we were revisiting the Cotswolds. In the car to the Inn, David mentioned how much we loved the Cotswolds area. The driver replied ‘oh so when are you going there?’ Ughm…now? Aren’t we there? Apparently not.

thanks to risycle for the photo as we forgot our camera!

Oh good.

Oh, it’s been so long! I wasn’t really expecting to be incapacitated by work and family for quite so long..and it probably isn’t over yet, but I see some light at the end of the tunnel (but it could just be a flashlight). I was just on a mission to find something for a work project I am currently plodding through, when I stumbled upon this doodle project from Good.  I have a real love for diary doodles (my favorite series being Gemma Correll and her Mister Pickles! ) and I definitely want to participate, if I could just find a few spare minutes! Good are assigning a theme to each month, which you can interpret through the art of well…art and submit by email. The winner receives a GOOD T-shirt and free subscription (or gift subscription) based on ‘overall quality of illustration, relevance to the topic, and clarity and flow’. Above, is a runner up from last month’s project with the theme of ‘solitude in the city‘. This month’s doodle deadline is August 2nd with the theme of ” A day without technology”. Hmmm, how ironic.

Bit of this…bits of that…

I have a lot of respect for collage designers. I think the computer has ruined a bit of that particular design instinct within me. I can’t seem to let go and just plop and glue something down without the option of moving it. Perhaps if I placed cut items with the design prowess of Clemens Habict, then leaving things where they are wouldnt’ be a problem. I absolutely love the stripe topped waves and bits of maps!

Thanks to my new deskmate Vanessa for the heads up!

These shoes are made for walking…

I’ve been a bit absent lately…not for lack of effort, in fact quite the opposite. I’ve been getting down and dirty with life and design, taking a few days off to attempt to complete a project or two (can I just sadly note, that they did not get completed BUT are further along than before. small victories). I’ve also taken a bit of walk in my professional life going from here to here. It’s a very exciting change, even if I am sad to leave some good friends* behind, but will hopefully make even more new ones. My brain is taking in a ginormous amount of information at the moment, so please bear with me whilst I juggle this transition and all the new exciting things going on in life right now. But in the meantime, with all this moving going on, thought I’d share my new sandals carrying me through our mini heatwave, courtesy of the summer sales..along with these old blue lovelies.

Macbeth from Kurt Geiger

*You too Finn (poolparty)

Jumping Wales…

Rock climbing. Sun. Water. Whales….err or Wales…Oh the adventures we had! Last week we headed off to Wales on a group holiday of fresh air and vowel-less words (playing scrabble with a welsh version is uber tricky) and most excitingly. a foray into Coasteering. Coasteering is basically scrambling, climbing, swimming and cliff jumping your way around the rocky Pembrokeshire coastline. The area around St. David’s and St. Non’s was probably the most stunning coast I’ve ever encountered…or maybe it was the adrenaline talking. The weather was fantastic and I couldn’t get over how many colours there were…the grass at the top of the cliffs was bright green with it’s grass covering, giving way to the rock cliffs–a stunning assortment of black, orange, purple and tan…and the water. LAGOON blue! In the UK!! As I’m sure you can imagine, it wasn’t exactly the setting for camera equipment, so I’ve had to rely on the ol’ flickr (what would I do without this international pool of talent!)

So how did it work…well in short. we got suited up in our kit (wetsuit, helmet, flotation vest and old sneakers) and walked about twenty minutes from the town down to the coast. We followed along the coastal path for a bit before we literally scrambled down the side of the cliffs on an old fisherman’s path. When we ran out of rocks we jumped in..simple as that. That’s when we all thought that we were going to lose our appendages. Welsh water is freezing, summer or otherwise. But alas, we had jumped into the ‘toilet’ and were soon distracted. The toilet is this inlet in the rocks that due to something horribly scientific that I didn’t catch, well the water flushes in and out–so you are floating around wondering if you’ll still be able to take the dog for a walk if you lose half your toes, when the water level drops six feet. Just as you get over that, the water suddenly rises back again just as fast. It was fantastic! After that we climbed over some rocks, jumped in off a natural diving board of sorts…yada yada yada….took a spin in the ‘washer’. another aptly named natural feature. This time the current ran around a cropping of rocks just off of land. If you huddled close to the edge, you’d get flung one direction, only to be reveresed after about five seconds and flung the other way. Now, if I wasn’t in the appropriate gear or expecting it, yah, I would have been in hysterics being tossed around the ocean, but under watchful eyes of our guides and wearing a life vest it was such good fun! Plus, our friend Hugh sacrified his hands for the greater fun of the team by hanging onto the baracle covered rock, acting as a swing for the rest of us to hold onto and be whiplashed around the bend. Thanks Hugh!

The rest of the morning was spent rock climbing and when we ran out of rock, or found an area too difficult to cross, back into the water we went. Eventually we made our way around to a large stepped face that acted as a multi level jumping board, with us each jumping a few times from different heights. I think the max was 7 metres, but I wussed out at 6.5 due to a precarious footing and fear of heights. Another .5 metre wasn’t going to make it any better for me. Several beautiful jelly fish sightings (and avoiding as one was a ‘stinger’) later and we were climbing up the side of the cliffs again …what could top such a morning off after all that. A 6.5 hour drive back to London…ouch.

A big thanks to archidave for the stormy weather cliffs photo, zenith9 for the flowered cliffs snaps &  rolandbutter for the coasteering shot

Oh crop.

England’s summer has sprung…it’s actually hot outside right now! But I’m realistic and I know that it will soon find itself on its way and then I can indulge in my longstanding obsession with cropped trousers (and brogues). Cole Haan & The Selby had me drooling again this morning… Darn you skinny mole trousers and blue boat shoes….you’ll be the death of me this week, I can’t find you anywhere!

Thanks to Black Eiffel for the heads up on the Inspired Life campaign

If you like this…you might like more on brogues here and here or more from Cole Haan and The Selby.