Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Alrighty, so fourth day at The Clink 78. Waking up was really hard this morning, mostly because this was the day we had to leave the earliest and we stayed up way to late last night trying to out dance the Danish travelers. I think we won the battle. At breakfast Will read us the blog from yesterday and it was really good, a little too good to compete with so don't get too excited about this one. 

After breakfast we finally got to take a group picture in front of the Clink 78 sign!

Once we headed out it was time for Whitney and Jeremy to lead us to our first stop of the day, and our first design firm TOMATO (say it with a British accent). Since we arrived early we took a group picture in front of Tomato.

Here's a picture of Jessica and her new pigeon friend. :)

At Tomato designers, Simon, Dylan, and Michael gave an informative talk about Tomato as a whole and the work they do there. For many who are unaware Tomato is a collaborative art and design studio who work with mixed media. A lot of the work they shared with us was commercial art and animations, including a pretty cool music video. They offered some great advice to us, saying no sketch is a bad sketch if the intent is well thought out. The studio itself was really laid back and had a comfortable atmosphere.

After Tomato we split up for a little bit to have some lunch before heading over to our next stop at the Royal College of Arts. We had Noodlebar, sweet and sour chicken with rice and noodles :) Yum, it may not look it but it was delicious. 

After lunch we made a brief stop at South Kensington Private Bookstore where Eden picked up a design book and I grabbed myself another copy of my favorite Peter Pan. We then continued on to the Royal College of the Arts where we met with Richard who informed us on their visual communication graduate program, and gave us a quick tour of the studio space. 

They had their own print room downstairs smaller than St. Brides, but still really awesome. ...Porn is..?

So one piece of culture difference I have never acknowledged at Saint Rose was this water fountain I came across was this water fountain at The Royal College of the Arts. A versatile water fountain where you can not only drink from but as well as refill your water bottles from a separate spout, pretty nifty! -Whit

We took a group photo after the tour in front of the college, and realized we were being graced with DJ's angelic presence. :) After we all split up once again, some of us going to the Museum of Natural History, some to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Whitney and a few others went to the Museum of Natural History where they saw a few interesting things like these below. 

We don't say Rubbish in the States! Another culture difference as most people already know is their dialect. This is a sign I encounter when walking over to The Royal College of Arts, in other words this sign is a warning the audience that there is a surveillance camera in the premisis so there shouldn't be any funny business going on! -Whit

I took this picture because I love the colored doors around London! -Whit

Entrance to the Natural History Museum.

LOL SLOTHS.

Dolphins are life<3

He says hi.

After The Royal College of the Arts I went with Greg, Ann, and Jessica to Kensington Gardens in search of the statue dedicated to J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan. It was sunny and beautiful, we even saw some interesting ducks in the water. -Jori

After leaving the park we separated once again, but found Bridget, Sarah, and Emily and decided to travel to Oxford Street to do a little shopping. On our travels I found an interesting piece of design for a clothing store sign. It may look like the letters in the sign are dimensional letters sticking off the wood, but it actually is only the smaller white pieces that you see on the sign itself. Your eye finishes the rest of the letter, clever clever design. -Jori

One of my favorite design pieces from today was actually one of the projects from the Tomato design studio. This was a commercial art project for whiskey and although the ending result are beautiful I was also just as impressed hearing about their process. These talented designers aren't always working from their computers, they actually took some time painting brush strokes until they finally found a composition they were confident with. Definitely a piece that stuck out to me especially with the expressive brush stroke in this dynamic piece. 

-Whit

Dinnah time! Jeremy and I have been craving french food since Parisian food does not compare to any food(no offense London) and we just happened to find a Creperie by the Natural History Museum so we came by afterwards with a group and enjoyed scrumptious crepes! Phenomenal!!!!

DJ trying his first crepe ever....Idk how he's been living until now.

After we had crepes for dinner, we ordered crepes for dessert! They were just that fantastic :D

and almost finish all of their ice cream....jk but it was also just as good.

pre-food coma, only Josh Terry.

After a full day we are all pretty tired, but maybe we'll head downstairs for one beer and a few laughs. See ya tomorrow London lovers :) - Whitney & Jori

Today was a day. You could say, that today was the best day of all time. If you said that, you'd probably expect this to be the best blog post of all time. You'd be right.
First we woke up, as any day must begin. You could say it was the best wake-up of all time. That was followed by the best toast of all time, and some decent coffee. Jeremy had cereal. It was not the best, but it was pretty good. Following that, we strolled to the British Museum, accompanied by a German lad on his way back home from a cheese factory, who may have been named Martin, Carl, or Mountain. On the way there, Jeremy (who may or may not be writing parts of this) noticed a street sign that read, "TOILET." Along with being quite funny and odd, the sign was more visible to pedestrians than the signs with the streets names. He thought it was an interesting design decision because in London, street signs tend to be on the sides of buildings, rather than on posts next to the roads. Based on the placement of this signage, it is clear that the powers that be have a strong concern with the comfort and safety of the public, and this signage was no exception to the rule.

Will (another hypothetical author of this post) spotted another example of this focus on informing the pedestrian population. At nearly every crossroads, printed in big letters on the street you can find instructions and arrows pointing to which way you ought to look should you be concerned with oncoming traffic. Will discovered this to be extremely helpful, because as you may know, Londoners drive on the left side of the road, and given his forgetful nature, he is especially prone to walking into traffic.

Upon arrival at our destination, we checked our bags at the cloakroom for a pound-fifty and set off to find the fabled Rosetta Stone. It was pretty neat. Also, we saw some mummies. They were pretty dry. Jeremy was as nauseous as he was strangely enthralled.

We also were able to view the Japanese art as well as Greek sculpture which gave us an opportunity to do a bit of sketching. Having seen a picture on the handout Jessica gave us, and armed with his brand new multi-colored British Museum pencil, Will finally got a chance to draw some Samurai armor. You can see his sketch below, as well as Jeremy's rendition of a broken piece of sculpture from the Parthenon exterior.

We also had lunch. Much like the museums we visit in NYC, there was a hotdog stand outside. Fortunately, this one also had bratwurst, and was staffed by a good guy. He was missing a bratwurst so he gave Josh Terry 2 hotdogs instead...in one bun! Also like NYC, the pigeons were as plentiful as they were fearless. We mostly relied on verbal threats to scare them away, but one of the local children preferred drop-kicking any that got too close.

After lunch, we drew some more.

very nice

Following our British Museum adventure, we made our way to St. Brides. The church contains relics of structural foundations dating back as far as the Roman Era. Also very nice. The neighboring building, the St. Brides Foundation, focuses on antique printing methods and has an incredible library of typography and samples of rare printed material. Some might say these were very nice. They would be right. They had a printed book by Geoffrey Chaucer, a first edition dictionary by Samuel Johnson (Sammy J to his friends), who defined a giraffe a Cameleopard, and a lexographer (his job) as "a well-meaning grouch." We also got to see samples of Eric Gill's work, who had an awesome signature that doubled as a monogram. Despite his greatness, he may have been an extreme pervert.

Downstairs, there were a variety of old fashioned printing presses that the Foundation uses in workshops. We didn't actually get to use any, but Prince Charles had been there less than a week before us. We understood that we weren't important enough. It was still pretty cool. One might even say very nice, the nicest in fact. It was a real pleasure seeing the movable metal type blocks on which some of our favorite typefaces are based.

In the bathroom, Jeremy noticed he hadn't seen a single paper towel since his arrival in the country. He thought our devoted readers should know how devoted the British are to reducing waste and conserving energy. We should try that. After our visit to the workshop we grabbed a pint of APPLE JUICE at a pub recommended to us by our host at the St. Brides Foundation.

 The Old Bell as it was called served a variety of meat pies, which Will had been craving since setting foot in London. He discovered that even though the food was restaurant quality, all ordering took place at the bar. He and Jeremy both ended up having lamb shank pie, which was, in fact, very nice.

very very nice indeed #nofilter #justcameraraw

We finished the day by writing this blog post. Some might say it turned out very nice. Some might not.

"this is turning out very nice" -Jeremy and Will in unison

Now we're going to defeat some Germans in a dance-off. Sehr schön! (very nice!)

Hello from London (and these cheeseballs!)

Sunday, March 1st 2015

You know that scene at the beginning of Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince? The one where that bridge is attacked and collapses? Well, we were there today, and we can assure you that this time around it did not get attacked nor did it collapse. The reason we make this comparison is that we are writing this blog post while chilling in the movie room at our hostel, and guess what movie is playing? (Hint: Read the first sentence again) 

Not this. This is bad. 

This. Much better.

Also, a fun little tidbit about this bridge. It seems someone has taken it upon themselves to make those nasty bits of gum a bit more pretty. So there are adorable little illustrations all over the walkway. Like these for instance.

Anyway, let’s get down to business and tell you about our day! 

First, we overslept. As in we were going to get up, but then we didn’t. We woke up and were left with 6(ish) minutes to eat breakfast. If you know us, you know that’s a problem. Sleepy and hungry...and rushed? Not really that super. But that’s okay! We survived, and got food! At breakfast there is only toast and cereal, so most people have a balance of the two, while Matt and I (Dani) make towers of bread on our plates that could last us until lunch. Today’s score: Matt: 4 slices, Dani: 5.

When we made it out the door it was cold again. Even when you’re coming from -10 degree weather, we can assure you that 46 degrees in London is not as warm as you’d think. And that wind is something fierce. Case in point, Eden’s hair (and her face). 

We made our way onto the Circle Line, which is the yellow line on the Tube, to find the Tate Modern. Breaking news though, our train terminated one stop prior to Mansion Hill due to construction. IMPROV TIME! We walked up to the nearest green line station, while taking a pit stop to see the Tower of London and the Gherkin. If you don’t know, these are a big deal – a former place of torture and imprisonment, and a building shaped like a pickle, respectively of course. 

Some interesting things about the Underground (commonly referred to as the Tube by londoners) include the fact that unlike the boring subways in NY, the trains in the Tube are color coded to correspond to the line you are on. At least so far they have been. So the Circle line (the yellow one) had yellow handles and railings. Also, “Mind the Gap” is a thing, and you really do need to be wary of the space between the platform and the train. Keep those feet safe!

Next stop, Tate Modern! But first, a group photo-op!

The Tate is somewhat similar to MoMA in NYC, but its architecture is way cooler. We saw some work by Alexander Calder, Richard Serra, Louise Bourgeois and many more. There were some really cool things to look at. Our main goal was an exhibit on Russian Constructivist Posters, most of which were propaganda posters for Lenin and Stalin. Attached to this show was a small show of Alexander Brodsky’s and Ilya Utkin’s illustrations. These were dreamscapes, worlds created to exist as if from a dream. The detail in them was amazing! 

Another somewhat scary piece was a dark room with screens on which images of people quickly flashed by. There was some nice poetry outside of the room (example below), but the room itself was rather unnerving. (Thanks for holding my (Eden) hand Josh! I know it was mostly because of the complete darkness so we wouldn’t lose each other, but yeah, it was freaky in there, so thanks)

  

There was also a sculpture in the corner of one room that Dani was very pleased to see. So pleased that she failed to yield to the cord on the floor keeping her at a respectful distance, and tripped and knocked over the priceless work…needless to say, this and the subsequent arrest were the most exciting moments of the day.

Eden’s just kidding guys, I’m not in jail and the work is fine. But I really did trip over that cord.

Finally, a very interesting piece was a video installation of a documentary by Artur Żmijewski from 2010 called Blindly. This showed a group of blind people creating works of art. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a clip to share with you. But if you ever do come across it, watch it!

Of course, our ventures in the Tate ended in the gift shop where it took an awful lot of willpower to not buy every single design book they had. However, some of us spent way too much money on books and may not eat much for the rest of the trip. Sometimes as designers, we must make sacrifices. On top of the books, they also had an excellent selection of very nicely designed magazines (again, the willpower had to be strong, and it was, but damn, it would have been nice to have weak willpower and the money to support it.) Here are just a few of the beautiful finds. 

Ugh. Just look at them. And look at all these design books. So. Hard. To. Walk. Away.

Anyway...

After the Tate we went in search of food. It was of the utmost necessity. We were all pretty hangry come 2:45 so we went off our separate ways. Eden, Whitney, JFink, Josh, Will, Gina, Matt P and I (Dani) stumbled upon fish and chips at a pub right outside St. Paul’s Cathedral for the great rate of 6.50 pounds (and it was take away - what we refer to as To Go, so we got to eat outside!) I (Dani) don’t even like fish but oh man, I can’t wait to get it again. 
(Can you believe it Mom and Dad?! I actually tried fish and LIKED it!)

St. Paul’s Cathedral was next on our agenda to see the boys choir in their Evensong Performance. The singing was beautiful, and the architecture and painted ceiling frescos were breathtaking. We were asked to not take pictures or video, but here's one we found online to give you an idea.

After this we went our separate ways. Initially the group met up at Starbucks, where Josh and DJ received new and improved names. 

We then made out way over to the Globe (of Shakespeare fame) We only peeked at it from the outside before moving on to a pub for a pint (and to escape the rain). 

So, as any good Brit would end their day, Eden, JFink, Will, Gina, Whitney and I (Dani) had a pint while watching a soccer game to finish our day of adventures.

On that note, we shall leave you. Go out and enjoy a pint and think of us.

Also, here’s some artsy humor for your enjoyment.

Cheers!

Check back tomorrow!

With love,

Eden + Dani

P.S. The true end to our day was dancing the night away with Ann and Jessica in the bar in the basement of our hostel. Right up until someone in the club farted and cleared the whole room. It was an eventful ending to an awesome day. Goodnight everyone!