Wednesday, March 4th 2015

Today was another early day here in the UK. We were up and out of the hostel by 9:15 and took the tube to Bibliothèque. Once we arrived we gathered at the conference table where we talked with Tim Beard, founding partner of Bibliothèque. He went through 10 points on their principles and how they were applied to 10 different projects. Some of these projects ranged from museum exhibitions to luxury watch magazines, all of which were brilliant!

After our great lecture from Bibliothèque we came across an older graveyard, Bunhill Fields burial ground, which held over 130,000 dead, including William Blake and Daniel DeFoe. Once we left the graveyard we all grabbed lunch at the Pret A Manger eating fast, healthy, and yummy food. Eating gave us time to gain our strength as we set off to our next destination..... SPIN and UNIT EDITION!

From Pret A Manger we headed to the Tube to the only design firm across the Thames. Before making it to the firm we walked through a Kennington Park. Along our way we saw a very very very old fountain where we decided we would do witch craft. Finishing our walk throughout the park we came across another church which had two rows of large headstones lining the back fence which were all starting to erode.

Then we made our way to Spin and Unit Edition where we were met by Sam Stevenson and Collin. The conference room was filled with books published by their company, Unit Edition. Once we were all settled Collin described the project of rebranding The University for the Creative Arts. They changed it to a more flexible design which could be varied many ways. Spin created a branding system that reflected the college's goals of being unique and creative. Collin also told us about their project Sim-Smith which is a company which represents several artists who participate in different art fairs or moving galleries. They created three different personal identities that were based on movement which showed that the organization wasn't just in one spot and that they were moving around from place to place.

Unit Edition is Spin's book publishing company which designs and prints monographs on famous designers including Herb Lubalin and FHK Henrion. Also, look out for the book about Spin itself in April!!!

We made our way to Trafalgar Square where we had high tea in the Crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields which was delicious. We were quite curious if the design studios stop work at 4:00 pm and enjoy a nice pot of tea with a scone and clotted cream, a tradition that dates back to Cornwall.

After tea the majority of the group went to The Courtauld Gallery for the Goya exhibition where we unfortunately could not take any photos. In the gallery were works that we have studied in Art History such as "Bar at the Folies Bergères" by Edouard Manet and Vincent Van Gogh's "Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear." The Gallery closed at 6 and the group then split into two. Some went shopping and others continued their journey on to Big Ben and the London Eye from the top of a double decker bus!

One cultural fact that we noticed besides the love of scones and clotted cream was that there is a huge difference in the way people act on the tube compared to the subway in New York City. People riding the Tube are more concerned in making sure that people have the ability to sit down and ask constantly to make sure that they have the opportunity.

Designwise, London has a vast variety of graphic design beauty. One example of design that we enjoyed was a poster for a debut album for ibeyi which had linear typography.

At Spin we spotted some old bottle caps that they had collected from the 1972 olympics which reminded us of the Graphic Design 1 project where we designed a set of symbols.

Signing off from London,

Gina and Emily!

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