What Katie Does

Tokyo blogging

2009-10-25T13:59:00.000Z

A reminder if you're interested in what I'm getting up to in Tokyo, to check out my photolog of the trip at katiedoesjapan.tumblr.com. I'm having SUCH an amazing time, tokyo is as incredible as I thought it would be. Taking tons of photos and writing up a massive diary which I'll share when I get back.

Go east...

2009-10-20T09:51:00.000+01:00

Photo: Rache555

It's finally here, we're off to Japan tomorrow! I have my geektastic Google map ready and stuffed full of amazing-sounding things to see and do (probably much too much to fit in), I've loaded my cameras with film and charged up the E-P1, and got my guidebooks and rail-passes packed.

I'm going to try and upload some bits and pieces while we're there (at least in Tokyo where we get free internet, not sure about Kyoto). I've set up a Tumblr at katiedoesjapan.tumblr.com should you wish to follow.

See you in 2 and a half weeks..!

Fantastic Mr Fox

2009-10-19T16:53:00.001+01:00

I saw Fantastic Mr Fox at the weekend, a special gala as part of the BFI Film Festival. I'm not usually a big fan of 'kids' films but being directed by my favourite, Wes Anderson, I thought it was worth seeing.

It most definitely is; it's full of Wes's charm, humour and idiosyncratic design (love the 'chapter' headings) and dialogue. It's full of little details that Wes fans will appreciate, like the Team Zissou-esque bandit masks and the ubiquitous loser-athlete character (Foxy's son Ash, voiced by Jason Schwartzman). I wonder how the actual kids in the audience found it as it's packed with adult jokes and references (the chararcters even swear in code: 'cluster-cuss', 'cuss with his head', etc), but I guess the rowdy action fun appealed to them as well as me. It's perfectly cast and the stop-motion characters and their world are totally charming. Go and see it!

Love the design of these posters, too - sharp and colourful.

Images: Rotten Tomatoes

Olympus OM-10

2009-10-08T09:35:00.005+01:00

Since I got my Olympus E-P1, I've been trying to actually learn how to use it properly, and I thought a good way to learn would be to get an old SLR and learn everything the old-skool way. To that end I bought an 1980s Olympus OM10 (only £10 on eBay), and have been steadily amassing a small collection of lenses to play with. The bonus is all the lenses can also be used on my E-P1 with an adapter so it's a pretty cost-effective way of trying some new things out.

Here are some snaps from my first two rolls with the OM10:

These are from the Maker Difference Pop-up Letterpress Studio in Carnaby. They have a real old-skool letterpress setup going on, and were also running workshops (sadly they filled up before I could book).

My local cinema - I love how retro it looks, and it's lovely and plush inside, too.

Some snaps from the always-photogenic Borough Market

Clissold Park up in my old neck of the woods, Stoke Newington. Definitely turning to autumn by the look of the leaves.

Sofa outside a junk shop on Brick Lane

Finally here are a couple of pics from the E-P1 with an old Olympus 50mm f1.8 lens. I like this lens so much it's become my default. I like how it makes the digital photos look more filmic, and it's very good for indoors low-light shots.

Daily Drop Cap

2009-10-06T10:47:00.004+01:00

LOVE this project by type designer extraordinaire Jessica Hische (who I've written about before). She's designing a gorgeous decorative drop-cap for every alphabet letter and releasing one a day. They're under a Creative Commons licence for free use on blogs, which is a genius idea for getting her work to go viral! Check out all the ones she's done so far here.

via made-in-england

Hello Kitty's 35th birthday

2009-10-05T10:54:00.006+01:00

Aww, everyone's favourite cute little white no-mouthed cat turns 35 this year! Check out this sweet animated video of her evolution (she hasn't changed much, apart from the outfits). I'm still trying to convince Josh it'd be a great idea to visit her theme park Sanrio Puroland while we're in Tokyo, although I guess a visit to Kiddyland to stock up on plush goodies might suffice.

Sanrio Plushies by Bento Business

via designrelated

Ryantoon

2009-10-04T17:03:00.004+01:00

Rob Ryan's lovely shop on Columbia Road has been temporarily replaced by Ryantoon - everything's black and white, presumably in tribute to Newcastle Utd football team? Anyway, it's visually lovely and I adore the new products. If you can't get to the store, you can buy from his Etsy shop.

DIY Fringed Sweater & What I Wore

2009-09-27T19:00:00.009+01:00

All the London Fashion Week chatter must have seeped into my brain a bit this week. First off, inspired by all the gothy textured looks seen on the catwalk and on the high street, I made this fringed top for autumn. As you can plainly see, it's just made from a basic top from H&M, some loop fringing from ebay and about half an hour of hand-sewing. Simple, cheap and effective.

Secondly, I've taken tentative baby steps into drawing again by doing some What I Wore Today contributions for Gemma's Flickr group. I'm going to aim to do one at least every other day; hopefully I will improve with the practice and find a nice drawing style of my own.

Frugal food

2009-09-20T21:26:00.007+01:00

After spending so much on Japan (and trying to save some spending money), we're trying to be a bit more frugal at home. Inspired by the great show Economy Gastronomy that's just finished on BBC2, we've been trying to buy and cook food more cleverly to save money. It's working pretty well and we're actually eating more interesting and tasty things, too. Here are some recent meals.

A pie made with leftover bean stew. I made the stew last week and froze what we didn't eat (a top EG tip) - it's just made with tinned cannelini beans, tinned tomatoes and feta and olive antipasti, all bubbled together for half an hour or so. Simple addition of frozen ready-to-roll puff pastry turned it into a tasty pie. I'll definitely make similar dishes again as the 'leftovers pie' was easy to put together and super delicious.

This is a really lazy dinner but super fast and cheap! A pack of mixed stir-fry veg (this lot even came with the chilli), fresh egg noodles, quorn and peas from the freezer, stir-fried with soy, sweet chilli, ginger (also frozen) and lemon juice.

Mexican is probably my all-time favourite cuisine. We usually just do fajitas with onions and peppers but for a change these are queasdillas, stuffed with black beans (just heated up from the tin) and strong cheddar cheese. The whole tortilla is then fried in a pan with a bit of oil and some Mexican seasoning, served with lots of sour cream.

Dauphinoise potatoes - pure food porn! I could eat this lot of garlicky creamy spuds all on its own (last time I served it with baked stuffed Portabello mushrooms, though).

I've been flicking through my Leith's bible for ideas for this week - on the menu will be jambalaya, Cajan veg pilaf, sweet potato falafel, aubergine & lentil moussaka and cauliflower and lentil dhal.

Cloudy Collection

2009-09-18T14:21:00.004+01:00

Loving these letterpress postcard-sized print collections from The Cloudy Collection. The curator must have good taste as I spy some of my favourite artists Marian Bantjes and Ray Fenwick in the mix. I think they'd look really cute all framed up together.

via i love typography

Happy Friday - Dominic Wilcox

2009-09-11T16:31:00.003+01:00

Thanks for all your comments on my Japan post - I have lots of great suggestions of places to visit!

Just a quick Friday post of joyfulness care of Dominic Wilcox's delightful blog Variations on Normal. I envy people who can think up silly/wonderful stuff like this.

Make rainy days a bit more cheery with a waterfall brolly.

If only nature was so efficient as to make square-bottomed eggs. They just need a perforated line around the top too for handy slicing.

I'm pretty obsessed with my Google Analytics stats - this is the real-world version.

via @byr0nic

Japan - booked!

2009-09-03T15:31:00.003+01:00

Photo: Eric Testroete

I'm sooo excited. We just booked a two-week trip to Japan! We'll have 9 days in Tokyo, then 6 in Kyoto, with a day trip to Osaka hopefully. In Tokyo, we're staying in a great-looking serviced apartment in Shinjuku, and we're going traditional in Kyoto and staying in a ryokan guesthouse. Sooooo excited as I've wanted to go to Japan for ages, so I've started gathering resources and must-see places together.

I bought the cute little zine and travel guide above from Asking for Trouble a little while ago, and I'm making my traditional holiday Google map - feel free to add your suggestions! I'm also excitedly watching this video over & over - might even try to make my own version over there.

What I Wore Today drawings

2009-09-02T09:31:00.003+01:00

Check out this new Flickr group, the brainwave of the ever-lovely Gemma Correll - What I Wore Today drawings. There's only a few so far but I hope a lot of illustrators draw and contribute.

Kate aka Little Doodles

Katey Jean Harvey

Gemma Correll.

Check out Gemma's sweet 'daily diary' drawings too - they inspire me to get drawing again and try something similar.

Papercraft Keyboard Cat

2009-08-27T10:23:00.005+01:00

Since you're on the internet right now, I presume you're familar with Keyboard Cat. The musical little fella seems to have spawned something of a renaissance amongst the crafty community. From t-shirts to embroidery, the cult of the cat knows no bounds.

One of my favourites is this adorable knitted puppet by natashafatele on Craftster. You can see it in action here.

And when I saw this papercraft version, I had to give it a go. I knocked him up in my lunch hour yesterday.

I used a pencil instead of the paper handle because it wouldn't hold -- but yes, his little paws really do bash the keyboard! Get the pattern to build your own here.

Edit to add: here's a video of it in action.

My weekend

2009-08-24T09:55:00.010+01:00

It was a gorgeously sunny weekend here in London and I fully made the most of it. Saturday was the Bust Craftacular in Bethnal Green. I went over with some girls from my knitting group; it was an excellent event, probably the best craft fair I've been to. A lovely space, a brill pop-up tea shop and loads of lovely crafty stalls, of course.

Tatty Devine were building the world's biggest charm bracelet with help from fair attendees.. you could sit down and add a charm, and also build your own little bracelet to take home.

Mini Patisserie jewellery; their dollhouse-sized doughnut charm necklaces are so cute.

The pop-up tea shoppe provided by Lady Luck Rules OK was out first port of call. Each table had a theme from a different era, from 70s bright Formica to our elegant Thirties table.

Gorgeous jewellery by Never. Each unique piece is made using found objects, from teaspoons to broken watches.

Claire Platt's embroideries of anatomical drawings. I love the sequins and pastel tones! Check out her blog and Flickr.

I had the pelaseure of finally meeting my long-term Twitter friend Kate, a.k.a Little Doodles. She'd worked very hard getting all these lovely items made for her stall and it all looked gorgeous. I bought a teacup and some see-through decals.

After the fete, we popped into the very nearby Museum of Childhood, which is currently hosting an exhibition of Quentin Blake drawings for Roald Dahl's books. It also has an amazing collection of antique dolls' houses and lots of vintage board games which brought back memories.

Lots more photos on my Flickr. In case you couldn't tell, I'm still really loving my E-P1!

New from Lomography - Diana Mini

2009-08-19T17:23:00.007+01:00

Lomography has just released their latest plasticy camera of joy, the Diana Mini. I think I need one.

First of all, just look at how dinky and tiny and cuuute it is! Second, it's a more practical choice than its big sister the Diana+ because it takes regular 35mm film rather than the awkward 120 format, and you can take both square format photos and half-frame - which gives you twice as many shots per roll.

I already have both a half-frame (the equally cute Golden Half) and a Diana+ but I don't think I can resist getting one of these too. Onto the Christmas list it goes...

Travelling Moleskine

2009-08-14T15:49:00.010+01:00

I was recently asked by The Culture Vulture (a rather excellent website promoting cultual goings-on in Yorkshire) to take part in their Travelling Moleskine project. The concept is pretty simple: they send out dozens of Moleskine sketchbooks each with a theme, which the recipient then has to fill a page in, and pass on to another doodler. Then at the end they all get returned and there's a big exhibition of all the finished books in October. Lovely idea which I was very happy to be involved with. I received the 'Crafty' themed book rather appropriately, and here's what I did on my page.

As you can see, I decided to try out some paper embroidery. As I'd never done it before, it could easily have messed up the whole book right from the start but luckily it turned out pretty well.

I found the quotation (if you can't read it, it says 'The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne') online somewhere, it's attributed to Chaucer but I found it appropriate to me too - so many crafts, so little time to learn and practice. It appeals to my graphic designer side as well; the typography style is influenced by my hero, Herb Lubalin.

Some bits came out a little squiffy but overall I'm happy with how my page turned out. It feels lovely and tactile from the raised stitches.

Now to find someone to pass the book onto...!

More photos including work in progress on my Flickr.

Weekend in Amsterdam

2009-08-10T10:39:00.007+01:00

We spent last weekend taking little trip over to Amsterdam. It's the perfect place for a weekend break - a super-quick 40 minute flight from our nearby City Airport, a quick train into town the other side and a stroll to the hotel from there. It's a great city for exploring by foot (or more traditional bike or boat, of course), and every corner you turn presents a picturesque view of bike-filled bridges over the canals. It's also full of flowers, be it carefully grown around peoples' front doors or windowsills, or wildflowers growing through the pavement cracks.

It's great for shopping too, if little boutiques are your thing. The Negen Straatjes ( '9 Little Streets') area to the west of the centre contains most of the coolest little shops and it's great for a wander round.

My favourite one we stumbled on is The Otherist. Styled up like a curiosity cabinet, it sells trinkets and goodies by indie designers, as well as yummy Manos yarns. You can buy online on their website too, hurrah. I also liked vintage store Episode which contains a nice selection of original accessories as well as restyled and reconstructed skirts and tops. The fabulously pink Kitsch Kitchen is a little trove of kitschy kitchen and homeware. I picked up some melamine spoons and some toys for the cat.

There's a fair bit of food and drink on offer too. We went to the Noordmarkt in the north of town which hosts an organic food market on Saturdays (and had the most packed cafe I'd ever seen next door, with everyone eating specialty Dutch apple cake with whipped cream). We were hoping to stock up on beers at the Cracked Kettle too, but realised we wouldn't be able to take it back on the flight with us.

We did enjoy a few beers out at the Brouweri 't IJ though - a windmill-turned-working-brewery which serves yummy wheat and white beers all made on the premises. They do tours but only on Fridays so we missed out.

My favourite thing though was definitely (and perhaps unsurprisingly) the Katten Kabinet, a whole house turned museum in honour of cats! Housed in a typical canal-side building, it's been restored to 18th-19th century grandeur and contains all feline-related ephemera imaginable, from advertising posters to sculptures to a pinball table made of Chinese 'lucky cats'. Best of all, there are 3 real-life furry exhibits who didn't mind being cuddled and fussed over at the end. So sweeeet!

Amsterdam is full of cats, actually. I saw 14 over the course of the weekend, lazing on windowsills, sitting by the canal and even one chilling with its owners outside a bar. I can definitely get on board with a city that loves its cats!

If you're planning a trip there yourself, you can see all the places we visited on my Google map.

Constellation embroidery

2009-08-05T09:52:00.003+01:00

Oh gosh, I'm in love with these constellation embroideries by Jessica Marquez, aka Miniature Rhino on etsy. I've long been an extremely amateur astronomer (in that when I leave the smog of the city, I like to point out Orion and the Plough to anyone who'll listen) and although I'm new to embroidery after my Make Lounge class, I've got really hooked on it, so this is a dreamy combination.

And here's yet another love of mine, typography, in embroidered sampler form.

And what a cute idea - custom embroidery of a child's drawings. Precious!

Oh so inspiring. Visit Miniature Rhino's etsy shop and Flickr to see and purchase all her lovely work.

via KitsuneNoir

Schoolblock typeface

2009-08-03T15:12:00.002+01:00

Schoolblock® is a new typeface in development by Aaron Byrd of Armchair Media. The evolution of the letterforms is documented on a Flickr stream, and if you add it as a contact, you might see your name used as a test piece. It's shaping up to be a lovely blocky face with several unusual curvy letterforms. I especially love the K, V and reversible Es. The font will evenutally be made available as an eps download for designers to play with - I'm looking forward to it.

Follow the typeface's development on Flickr.

Europe by designers

2009-07-31T11:35:00.003+01:00

This Europe by Designers project is kinda interesting. Several designers were asked to create images based on the idea of what Europe means to them. The results range from personal to political.

Mr Mr explored the funny relationship between our own little island and the mainland. He says they're shaking hands here but it looks a bit like a thumb war to me!

Patrick Savile took amusing quotations from travel brochures to fill a colourful letter E.

Andy Lohner used photographs he's taken along with snippets of text to tell an idyllic story.

See all the entries here.

Bombo paper art

2009-07-30T15:59:00.002+01:00

I found Bombo's delightful portfolio ages ago but he's added lots of great new work. Lovely colours and shapes!

He also has an etsy shop where you can buy mini papercraft treats, like a love note or pocket guru - bombo.etsy.com

V&A fete - Poke Quick Draw

2009-07-27T14:01:00.004+01:00

Happy to report that our Quick Draw Saloon stall at the V&A fete was a roaring success. We had a steady stream of punters and onlookers guessing the clues and - if I say so myself - our stall was the best looking there!

I designed all the signage (and the loser brand!) and had fun fake-aging all the posters with tea and coffee.

More photos on my Flickr.

My handwriting font, care of yourfonts.com

2009-07-23T18:32:00.001+01:00

Obey x knitting

2009-07-23T15:27:00.003+01:00

I love this new mixed-media piece by Shepard Fairey, which is being auctioned in aid of Art for Life, a New York-based charity which promotes creativity amongst youth. Good cause, lovely artwork.

Says Shepard:

"I chose to illustrate this image of two girls knitting ... because I think it really captures the idea that learning art in schools is about more than crayon drawings - it's about creativity, something that transcends all class and race boundaries. I think the joy of making something is universal, and it's an opportunity that every kid should have."

Got $25k to spare? Bid here.