top knot knit

as part of an interview i was recently asked the following question: 'have you ever identified a gap in the market? if so, what is it and how would you fill it?' i did not say "no, the market is an impenetrable, watertight and succinct entity, which needs no future modifications to its already sleek and perfect structure" this was, after all, a question posed by the head of an advertising course. however, had i been the budding entrepreneur i wouldn't be applying to do a masters, i'd be off making my millions so i told them about the top knot knit.

it occurred to me recently with the colder weather setting in and the current style for girls to gather their hair into a bun on the top of their heads that the two do not go well together. it’s hard to find a hat to fit over the varying sizes of buns and is not a strong look even if you do. my solution is the top knot knit; a bobble hat with an adjustable hole where the bobble should be, therefore turning the top knot into the bobble.

this is of course a cunning bit of photoshoppery but i will happily make a real one if anyone's interested...

anyway, the happy ending is that i've been offered a place on the masters; clearly my other answers weren't so shit.

shoes news

look at how much fun these christian louboutin alex pumps (pumps?) are! they remind me of these westwood (vivienne, not tim) toe shoes, which are miles too wide for my carrot feet. that didn't stop me from shoe swapping my aldo sale wedges with a very patient lady at a party the other week. one day i will buy fun extravagant shoes, in the meantime you can find me rummaging in the pile at primark and filling them out with innersoles, it's how cinderella rolled, don't judge. 

paris me manque

not a frech artist but seu jorge's plinkyplinky strum fun (technical music term) reminds me of the paris good times. i'm a die hard wes anderson fan and seu came to my attention with his brazilian david bowie covers in the life aquatic.
"oh that's how he got willem dafoe and bill murray in his low-budget music video" i hear you cry.

may the force be with you, and you and you and ba ba ba!

for anyone who was in any doubt, i am an out and out geek. i'm in a star wars state of mind this week. kicking things off with my own work; a knitted hat set for mum, dad and baby.

princess leia wig

r2d2 beanie

felted baby yoda hat

and what's a star wars family without an at-at dog?

bones mello, the at-at dog

and to finish things off in a tidy orderly fashion, i came across this beautifully designed star wars font from the curious brain.

your eyes lie

Flying Paper Pendant

Flamethrower Ring

Beehive Ring

in the frenchman's case it was his mouth that lied, he also scratched the back of his head at the same time, it's a wonder he played poker so well. i came across this wonderfully original jewellery by your eyes lie. these are my personal highlights. the lighter ring is something i've never seen before, i think it's a really clever idea. imagine if it worked, that would save the handbag rummage/pocket pat-down, it would also burn your finger. oh well, no pain no gain.

creative cleverness

this was found at the bottom of my inspiration folder. not sure where it came from so haven't been able to credit it but if you're reading this, which, let's be fair, is unlikely; well done, good job, back pat.

excitable fish

a little film of some sucky fish that i met at the london zoo aquarium. script welcome.

sophistipuss

this kitty remains terribly austere in his cat beret. to make your very own cat beret you can find the pattern here.

home is where the heart is

my friends are on the move. i designed and made these cut stitched map cards to welcome them to their new homes.

soft-wear crown

for the software king. i made this for my friend simon who was a massive help with getting the insides of my computer all shiny and new.

"i ain't no CGI teddy yo!"

the new weetabix ad:

and as importantly, the making of:

2 hamsters a £

so i was thinking; if twenty pound notes looked more like this then the bus lady who "didn't have change for a fiver" and wouldn't take me the three stops i needed to go in order to top up my oyster card needn't have been such a douche. what ever happened to those little books of tokens for the bus anyway? were they just a pre-oyster thing? oh why can't we all just go back to trading in livestock?

"a single to tottenham court road please."
"that'll be a guinea-pig please."
"here's a rabbit."
"and here's your hamster change, good day."

white nights

because some peoples' dreams are more beautiful than others. this is oh land's white nights made by canada and found via yourmusictoday (credit where credit's due). i think the singer looks like january jones and vanessa paradis' love child i.e. v.perdy. let it also be known that i'm a sucker for a nordic accent. nuffaher, artistically i particularly like the lady leg animals. right, inspired, going to put on something floaty and dance like kate bush on hampstead heath. enjoy!

locust love

this little guy was in my dream last night. we fell a little bit in love, his leg got better but i wouldn't let him back through the window. the cast represents cocaine.

self love

this one goes out to eadaoin via ifeelunmotivated.com

mapp app

"mummy mummy, why doesn't your iPhone look as special as the one in the picture?"
"hush your noise small child, that clearly has nothing to do with the content of the idea!"

i sometimes find myself going on a little wander or getting a bit lost on my bike. i eventually find myself back on track thanks to my astounding sense of direction (which went for a cup of tea and a biscuit when i needed it in the first place) but i always think it would be interesting to look back over where i took myself. this led me to an idea for an app.

i think the idea of using the constraints of a map to draw with your movement would make for a massive etch a sketch. what fun! sharing of the shapes you create and routes you take would of course be an important part of the enjoyment of the app. the bigger the journey the more intricate and smooth a shape you would create. it could be used walking, running, in the car, on a bus/bike/train, anywhere you can get GPS signal. you could of course just run around in a massive field for something a little more avant garde. let me know what you think/if it already exists...

translatee

my idea for an LED display t-shirt with voice recognition and a translate function. will someone with the technical know how mock one up for me? ta

an hour in the life of me

i have recently been cooking in a kitchen that is not my own. this of course takes much more brain power than cooking in your own kitchen where it's badaboombadabing, finished! this is not a metaphor. it can often involve minor compromises - they have a plastic spatula, you're used to using a wooden one - that can throw you BUT CONCENTRATE!

hypothetical situation: "i have laid out my ingredients, now where can i find a potato peeler?"

exhibit A

you know it's in there but you won't be able to start the rudimentary preparations for your dinner until you have sorted through the egg slicer, coffee frother, pineapple ringer, potato scrubbing brush, potato scrubbing gloves and not one but two melon ballers of equal size. why? who's that ambidextrous or in that much of a rush that melon-balling becomes a two-man job?

it'd be ocd and quite rude to tidy up a mess that is not your own in a house that is not your own.

"there. isn't that better?! see how i have conveniently arranged and categorized each item using the dewey system. i've even taken the effort of capturing this beautiful moment on film and uploading it to thingsorganizedneatly to share it with the world. aren't you glad you invited me to house-sit?"

this is not a true story but the fact it could be and the time it's taken to think and write about it has led me to evaluate the priorities of my saturday night, blog and life. yay (pity me)!

nail art ad

combining three of my passions; advertising, stop frame animation and nail art. you heard me, nail art.

some em nail art for nay saying non-believers:

must dash you know

this new heineken ad has reminded me of how much time i have for handlebar mustaches or les moustaches, which makes them sound sexier.

it got me thinking about the mustache parties we had at uni and of a couple of pieces of tash related design that make me smile:

'mustachio' by sneaky raccoon

'mustachio nut' by lindsey clark-ryan

wednesday driver

 

a great idea, beautifully made. i drove to a cemetery near oxford today and this captures the essence even without the colour (or the mercedes convertible).

thank moo

yesterday i received my 50 printed business cards from moo.com who were offering a great promotion where all you pay is the £2.50 postage. bargain. of course they wanted to write their name on them as well as mine.

i currently have a lot of time on my hands for mundane tasks and procrastinating so when my cards arrived i took straight to my cutting mat with my straight edge and scalpel and took the thin band off the bottom of each card (having forseen their game and planned my layout accordingly). i then made a collage with these strips in the shape of their logo, wrote the note "thank moo but i didn't need these bits, yours et cetera, em" and sent it back to them, with a thinner than your average business card of course.

 

unfortunately the scan looks better than the finished item as the little neil buchanan that lives on my right-hand shoulder told me to douse it in pva glue to cover up the little gluey bits. bugger.

dog person

what tolerant pooches. i can't wait to be in a position where i can have a dog, it just wouldn't be fair at the moment. my pet naming policy has always been to give them real names but names that you wouldn't call your children. i had monty and boris the hamsters and bertie and graham the guinea pigs. they were my boys.

can i be your friend?

well done english national opera. lol'd at 1:28.

come on wally!

now don't say i never give you anything. getting into the spirit of english summertime i've made you a 'wimbledon where's wally' or an 'où est charlie de wimbledon' for french followers. the rules are the same; find wally/cherche charlie. if you don't find him in under 5 seconds i would recommend specsavers.

little known fact about me: finding wally happens to be an innate skill of mine that ruined the game for many other children and has not found it's use in my adult life as of yet. that's a lie, it has occasionally been used to impress boys... easily impressed boys... the best kind of boys.

food baby on board!

london underground give out badges to pregnant women with 'Baby on board!' written on them to draw your attention to the fact that they are pregnant and may want to sit down. now i'm all for pregnancy but i've come up with some alternatives for more trivial reasons people might want to sit down. i too have made full use of the 'exclamation mark of urgency' utilised by tfl.

i'm selling them as badges and/or stickers, get in touch if you're interested.

chip & pin

air hair lair

it's been a while and for this i am truly sorry. i have moved internationally, back to laaandaaan taaaaaan and i'm in a mode of adjustment. more details to come on other blog. to keep you occupied in the meantime, my favourite ad from the last year. it really captures the zeitgeist. hate me all you want for using the word zeitgeist. i love.

other words beginning with z that i love; zeppelin, zip, zeal and zigzag.

french comparison site

so french in every way!... but it's funny! (take that mcvities "it's english but it's good"). so PC as well, why shouldn't she have two kens when pondering the question of the one? i wonder what you compare on a french comparison site. stinkiest cheese? poutiest parisien? stripiest jumper?

window licker

€☆

my friend eadaoin got dressed up in exchange for a haircut so that i could illustrate my ad idea for eurostar. chuffed with the union jack slippers i found for 3€. strong look.

Paris has never been closer

Carla Brownie

the current french gourmet dessert of choice seems to be cheesecake. i don't get it. these stodgy american desserts (not to mention coo-keys, smoo-sees and braw-nies) seem to be taking over the delicately prepared little cakes and melt in the mouth profiteroles. well, if that's what they want;
let them eat brownies.... carla brownies.

i may try and make and market them.

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

i'm sick of seeing wall street institute school of english ads on the métro with someone with a union jack or an american flag on their tongue. they're crap. if i wanted to learn english i wouldn't have come to paris!!! that being said, and the fact that i'm clearly not their target audience, it's still refreshing to see a different take on foreign language learning advertising.

hubba hubba

mmm... moleskine bags. contemplating that line between need and want. great bit of stop-frame also.

iPhone card

an iPhone birthday card i designed. it was hand drawn and then scanned in and photoshopped although i maybe went a little far with the photoshoppery as it's lost some of its hand-made feel (which comes across better in print). the card had a flap on the inside where we put the donations towards jean-yves' iPhone birthday present and was cropped finely to avoid a chunky white border. applications, as well as the classics, include poker and birthday cake.

happy easter!

buy a one off egg for a good cause: www.eastern-eggs.com

like a laser cutter but an egg painter. what's not to love about CAM? the video of it being done appeals to my
"how things are made" fascination.

Bacardi: "Manifesto"

great mix of aesthetics, i particularly like "fighting the little white headphones" which i'm guessing apple got huffy about because it's changed to just "headphones" in the youtube copy of the ad.

locks and socks

hi-i made a turban

i made a turban, i will be sporting it in public. 

facebook ad space

i was thinking, with a bit of photo resizing and self-tagging, why not use the images at the top of my profile as a personal ad space.

plaque board

a rough idea for an oral b electric toothbrush ad. obviously font, plaque colour, photoshoppery etc. (everything) would need work. i want the text not to be too legible and for the brush to be cleaning from behind the plaque but to stand out clearer. as i say, it's just illustrating an idea.

i'm a fan of ads without taglines and logos. i think the brush speaks for itself but incase it doesn't i stuck another logo on.

oral b ad detail

take 'em off

nothing more pretentious than sunglasses on the tube. the only exception (apart from blindness) is a horrible horrible hangover, the kind where flourescent lighting makes your head feel it has been squeezed into a pea. that's allowed.

sidaction

a beautifully animated ad for Sidaction to show how our money goes towards helping the fight against AIDS

a strong look

the french football team have a new away kit. in true french style it's being taken very seriously and has been photographed by karl lagerfeld. what next? a leetle beret? it's actually quite endearing to see the team running onto the pitch in their marinières. i suggest they get the rugby team into them next to create a new jean-paul gaultier ad.

what time is it?

an illustration of an idea i had a while back when i went to the grande mosquée's turkish baths.