Day 4 - The British Library, British Museum, and Saint Bride Institute

Day four, friends! We start out our day as alway with caffeine (provided by Starbucks). We then head out to our first stop: the British Library.

There we experienced a more intimate side of history as we viewed their collection of illustrated manuscripts and historical documents, including letters from Anne Boleyn begging Henry VIII for her life, and the Magna Carta.  The Gutenberg Bible was another very significant work that we we able to view. We also saw another exhibit there about magic and theatre, which included books, pamphlets and posters. Much of it centered around the popularity of Hypnotism and Séances.

Our next stop was the British Museum. There we looked at various ancient artifacts including the Rosetta Stone. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone made it so that the once undecipherable hieroglyph language could now be translated! We also saw a mechanical lathe which makes the guilloche for currency.

As many of us have noticed, the street signs in London are actually on the buildings themselves as opposed to being on street corners, which can make it more difficult to navigate sometimes.  This is a cultural difference that might take some getting used to!

On our walk over to The Saint Bride Institute we saw an interesting restaurant logo and as we walked by, the logo changed from the first window to the second creating an interaction for people passing by.  It is simple and very readable making it a very successful design piece.  It is also great that the first letter of the name of the restaurant (M) can also be seen in the pattern on the sandwich.

 

We stopped by the St. Bride Church which was extremely peaceful and it was also interesting to see the crypt below. No british ghosts though :(

The floors of the church were very unusual in the space but were also a very interesting design aspect. 

We then headed over the The Saint Bride Institute and were shown original type specimens and learned some interesting typography history.  We were able to see original drawings of popular typefaces such as Times New Roman and Gill Sans! All of us design majors were quite happy to see the hand drawn lettering and interesting ornate letter forms.  We were also able to explore downstairs in the printing studio where we saw many different printing presses, some of which are still being used today but may not be available in the future.

After Saint Bride, many of us checked out local pubs for a bite to eat and drink.

Regina saw this bar logo and liked the colour and illustrated "m" itself although she feels the "bar" being in script font is a bit too much. She also noticed a weird cultural difference on a food item hitch s that British neutrino boxes have calories listed as energy (kj) or kilojoules measurement.

We can't wait to explore more of the city of London over the next few days, stay tunned!