Must I Listen to Something Different…again?
It’s that time again. Almost a year ago to the day I was writing up my responses to our Listen to Something Different challenge. I’m trying to enable my […]
Object Obsessions: Sherlock Holmes and the Internet of Things
“Warning: Artificially increasing the subjective value of objects will most likely lead to unintended consequences.” Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn Over the last couple of months I have been […]
World Post Day – postcards from your inspiration
Yesterday, October 9th, was World Post Day and Curious Events Day – a combination not to be missed. So on a trip to London’s Somerset House, my colleague, Tim Bones, and I asked our University of Kent Graphic Design students to not only review the fantastic World Illustration Awards, but […]
Ladybird – measuring life
Above: Shopping with Mother, Harry Wingfield, © Ladybird Books Ltd, 1958 In the way that many cultures and religions track the passage of time via rituals at specific times, so I tracked my childhood life, and continue to do so today, from what I learned about the passage of time from […]
Eat Something Different
I was first set the creative challenge to Eat Something Different a few weeks ago. The aim is to eat something unusual or to eat it in a different way. Small regular problem-solving tasks that stretch the imagination are good for rehearsing your creativity. So as I only had about […]
Listen to Something Different
As part of our ongoing creative challenges I set the activity to listen to something different. Each person participating chooses two pieces of music under 5 minutes long. One piece should be fairly accessible and the other challenging, enigmatic or just plain weird. The purpose of the activity is to […]
Getting Ready for Season of Festivals
Now is a good time to start thinking about sending out cards and self-promotion items to would-be customers and clients. Whether you want to drum up design work for yourself of any other kind of business it would be a nice idea to make an eye-catching greetings card for Christmas, […]
Shoe Tower: Creative Problem Solving Activity
A fun hands-on problem solving activity that will help to get creative juices flowing is to build a shoe tower. This weekend at GDP headquarters, as part of a creativity-building activity session, we were prompted by Dr Jack Matson of CIC MOOC to have a go at building our own shoe tower to test […]
Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK
You can trust the British Library in London to put on a big, important exhibition, and Comics Unmasked was no exception. The already iconic poster by Jamie Hewlett is above. But I left with the thought that I don’t really like comics very much! I am interested in them, like […]
Pick Me Up 2014
Where might you find giant white cats, embroidered sailors, typographic woolly scarves, loads of skulls, skate boards, decorated wooden spoons, printing presses and over-priced “my toddler could do that” collage? Yes, of course, it is Somerset House’s yearly display of the graphic arts, Pick Me Up. As always this year was fun […]
the graphic design project 