Central Saint Martins – BA Graphic Design (Hons) Grad Show

A day after I arrived in London, my cousin showed me around the city, particularly the area of Central Saint Martin’s, the school I will be doing summer courses at. On this particular day the Honours students from various art and design disciplines were having their grad shows, but for some reason there was no sign of any Graphic Design grad show. Strangely enough, the next day my Aunt was showing me around an area along the Thames river called the Oxo Tower Wharf, and we stumbled upon the BA Graphic Design (Hons) grad show for Central Saint Martins! It was located behind the Oxo Tower Wharf in a place called the Bargehouse.

There was some excellent work at the show in the areas of design, advertising, illustration, audio, animation and video. One standout project that I’ll post here (since there’s too much to post and I’m trying to catch up!) is a typeface created for Hillary Clinton, based on a grid created off of the American flag. Brill!

Check it out. Designed by Hans J. Hansen.

Cuppa Pantone

Today I went with my Aunt to the shops and galleries along the Thames River*. One of the places we went into was Southbank Centre, a centre comprised of The Royal Festival Hall, The Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the Saison Poetry Library.

Now I’m sure I’ll be posting more on those places later, but for now I wanted to throw some fun design finds into the mix!

I’m sure my design buddies will dig this! Check it out, Pantone coffee cups! There’s even a set featuring a palette of coffee-like colours!

I know it’s not very educational, and some people (most) will think I’m a dork, but these are awesome and I just had to post them.

*BRITISH PRONUNCIATION LESSON – The Thames is not pronounced with the th like theory, it is pronounced tems. My British heritage obviously didn’t save me from mangling British words, so as I go on insulting Brits with my poor vernacular, I’ll post how to properly pronounce things here!

Day 3 – Learning the Underground and rocking out!

This post is actually a day late (just like the previous post), but I’m trying to catch up here so bare with me!

My cousin picked me up from my Aunt & Uncle’s place and we took the train to Waterloo Station, then took a bus up to South Hampton Row to check out Central Saint Martin’s, the school I’ll be studying at. It was more or less a dry run at getting to the school, since I’ll be travelling there by myself everyday.

After that we ate at this cool underground restaurant called Belgo’s, which is a belgian restaurant which had a HUGE selection of belgian beers. I ended up ordering fish and chips (or fish and frites, to be exact) and the batter for the haddock was made with Hoegaarden beer!

Once that was finished, we got onto the Tube (Nickname for the London Underground) and went to King’s Cross Station, where we walked to a place called Scala.

From there I grabbed a Red Stripe – In a tall can (I KNOW!)

And then checked out the fellow Canadian rock group Tokyo Police Club! Now I saw these guys in Vancouver at Plaza last year and the turnout was good, but here in the UK they must be a big thing because the place was packed! I ended up behind the sound technicians’ booth, hence the cage in the photo. Great show! It was the last show on their tour and they ripped it!

Please excuse the somewhat shite pictures. I’ve got a new camera and I’m still figuring out how to use it. That and trying to learn to blog at the same time Bare with me! -T.

Arrival

OK! Here’s the first post for this blog! A somewhat detailed account of how I arrived in London, England! Actually, its fairly brief LOL.

1. Hopped onto Vancouver Air Canada flight AC180 (Gate C50) to Toronto at 12:30pm

The flight had an enRoute touch screen media center. I watched Cloverfield which was cool, and then part of 10,000 BC which wasn’t so cool.

Flying over the Rockies towards Toronto

2. Hung out at Pearson Airport in Toronto – Had some Timmy Ho’s, then boarded Air Canada flight AC858 (International Gate 175) to London, England at 11:30pm.

3. Arrived in London, England just after noon on May 17th. I totally forgot to take pictures of Heathrow, but here’s a picture of my Aunt & Uncle’s place in New Malden!