Equality not Quantity

On Monday in our Professional Studies module we were lucky enough to get Christina Rebel, a guest speaker to come and talk about the Asia Floor Wage organisation. I already know quite a lot about impoverished people in the fashion industry, as I make a point of learning as much as I can, and refuse to be ignorant about world issues. However, there were many interesting things I was unaware of, and her passion for the subject really inspired me.
I am planning to write an article for next months issue of Dusted (the student magazine) about the fashion industry and the need for equality. I'm toying with the headline Equality not Quantity, but we'll see what happens! I've exchanged e-mail addresses with her, and just hope that it will get published!!

In other news, my year tutor, Ann, e-mailed about a prospective short-term job in the summer, working backstage at Graduate Fashion Week in London. I am desperate to secure the place! I sent my C.V. yesterday to Ann for her to hopefully forward, and all I can do now is wait and see.

Oh, and I want to go and see this...

Budding Journalist

I have just heard back from Thomas Phillips, the editor of Dusted, Derby University's monthly magazine. I e-mailed him asking how I could get involved, whether they had meetings and so on, and was told to contribute anything I felt was interesting/useful to the students of Derby.

I'm currently thinking about articles I could put together, and any subsequent illustrations or photographs to accompany the writing. Anything I decide to submit, or, in fact anything I write(!) will of course be put on here...

Mother's Day, sunshine and other sweet things...

I really wanted to send my mother some flowers for today, but unfortunately my budget just couldn't stretch to the ridiculous prices online-flower-delivery shops were charging. She had to make do with a home-made card and a bar of Bailey's truffle chocolate.
It's a beautiful sunny day today and makes me think of other sweet things, like some postcards I found in Paperchase from Mandy Sutcliffe at Belle & Boo. I just love the style of illustration, along side the colours and even the use of textured paper the illustrations are printed on.

The free-ness of the clothes is perfect inspiration for the Topshop collaboration project we are doing in Professional Practice. The project is to create six t-shirt designs for Topshop, with the brief being Fashion Targets Breast Cancer.
I already have so many ideas, nearly all of which include my own illustrations. The innocent Mandy Sutcliffe illustrations are a direction I am looking to explore further.

Magazine Cover Photo Shoot

Yesterday we received the photographs back from the photo shoot last Wednesday. I am really pleased with mine! I have already started playing around with the photographs (cropping, touching up etc.) and am excited to start using InDesign to create the cover.

'A Woman's Touch, in a Man's World'

I've been recurring-ly ill, the latest being a throat infection, but have been researching into anything that catches my interest to take my mind off feeling awful!

Most recently (on an ill staple - day time television), I heard about a really interesting pair of ladies, cousins, who travelled the world and built the most wonderful house. Here's a short article.

On Wednesday I dragged myself out of my flat to attend a photo-shoot - I was both model for a friend, and stylist on my own shoot. I have to admit that I much preferred the latter! We had 15 minutes with a photographer to create a front cover look for our own magazine cover. My theme is 'Sci-Fi Safari' and I wanted to create an edgy look like you might find on cover of Dazed & Confused, i-D or V magazine. Thankfully finding a suitable model was easy - my friend Gemma had the perfect elven features I was looking for to create a striking head and shoulders shot. I want the cover to be more about the idea of the trend, rather than about specific clothes, which is why I chose not to do a full body shot. I used eye pigments to create a reptilian look on the eyes, and bronze pigment on the forehead and shoulders to add that science fiction feel. We get the photos on Monday, so I will be posting a few then, along with the finished cover hopefully!